Peter S. Adamson

“In fifth–sixth-century Athens, philosophy appears more and more as a systematic whole, its study guided by a canon of authoritative works, including both Aristotle and Plato. The peak of the philosophical curriculum is no longer metaphysics, but theology, i.e.,a philosophical discourse about the divine principles, whose sources lie first and foremost in the revelations of late paganism and then in Plato’s dialogues, allegorically interpreted as conveying his theological doctrine. […] Both the Platonic Theology and the Elements of Theology begin with the One, the First Principle. Departing from Plotinus, who was convinced that the suprasensible causes were but three – the One-Good, Intellect, and Soul – the two Proclean works expound the procession of multiplicity from the One as the derivation of a series of intermediate principles, first between the One and the intelligible being, then between the intelligible being and the divine Intellect (and intellects), and then between the divine Intellect and the divine Soul (and souls). For Proclus, an entire hierarchy of divine principles lies both outside the visible universe and within it, and the human soul, fallen into the world of coming-to-be and passing away, can return to the First Principle only through the “appropriate mediations.” [...] Philosophy, insofar as it celebrates the truly divine principles of the visible cosmos, is prayer.”
― Peter S. Adamson, The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy