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One of the benefits of attending the APA is the exhibitors' tables, at which one can score some impressive deals, especially on the last day. I managed to get the new translation of Proclus' commentary on the Republic (essays 1-6) for half price.
As it has been discussed here a bit on account of some remarks of the editors, I turned immediately to essay 4, which I haven't sat down to read in full since the time at which I was writing my dissertation, when I read the entire commentary in the French translation.
How pleasantly surprised I was at re-reading Proclus' words here, and how little surprised that the editors found the need to attempt to place a distorting screen upon them.
First, at 27.13ff, we have Proclus' explicit clarification that "Whenever he [Plato] says that *the* God is good, it is necessary to understand him to mean *every* God," with the following explanation of the function of the definite article.
Needless to say, a great deal of mischief has been done in popular presentations of ancient philosophy by people who—knowing better, inasmuch as they can presumably read ancient Greek—have allowed or actively promoted the notion that the definite article implies exclusivity.
Further, at 28.20, affirming that the Gods do not possess goodness as mere participants, Proclus states that "the God is good in respect of the very existence [hyparxis] in virtue of which it is a God… [cont'd]
[cont'd] "It [every God] is not something else which is then good, but is instead good-in-itself [autoagathos] just like the first Good itself."
How many times have I faced skepticism from those little acquainted with the texts, as well as from some who would know better, when I have claimed that Proclus accords this status, equivalent to the One/Good itself, to each and every God, simply qua God?
Each thing is one thing on account of the One Itself; this much is simply analytic. But all the actual causality on account of which things exist belongs ultimately to the Gods themselves, not to the reified One, which cannot itself be one.
Furthermore, at 33.26 we read that "Everything divine is maximally powerful [to de theion pan dynatôtaton]," a clear and unequivocal affirmation that each and every God is supreme in themselves, even if their expressed cosmic powers are disposed hierarchically.
The following passage at 34ff, which the editors understand poorly, in the first place is notable as an example of explicit argumentation against monotheism, which is relatively rare in Proclus, who prefers usually to state the positive case for polytheism instead.
The passage echoes quite closely Plat. Theol. II 7.50.20-2: "For if the Good is multiplied through weakness [astheneian], the whole of things will proceed through a diminution [hyphesin], rather than through a superabundance of goodness."
The point of both these passages is that the multitude of Gods does not represent a *decline* from the unity of the One. Rather, as Proclus expresses in the Republic commentary (34.2-4), each God "has its own intrinsic, unshakeable power" and is not "weaker" than the One.
Also unrecognized by the editors is that when Proclus associates "declension" (hyphesis) with being a substance [ousia] (34.10ff), we must remember that the Gods are only substances in their *activity* with respect to Being.
In their absolute existence (hyparxis), rather, each and every God is hyperousios, beyond substance or, as we sometimes say, beyond Being. Existentially, thus, the Gods in no way represent a "declension" (or decline) from the One.
