INTRODUCTION.

...which is unfortunately lost. This teaching original: "dogma", which was derived mainly from the sixth book of the Republic and the Parmenides of Plato, and was adopted by all later Platonists, is extensively explained. Its truth is supported by reasoning filled with what Plato calls "geometrical necessities" Arguments so logical and precise that they are as certain as mathematics. by those two great philosophical luminaries, Proclus and Damascius^b. Proclus was the Coryphæus original: "Coryphæus," the leader or conductor of a Greek choir; used here to mean the head or most prominent member of the school. of the Platonists, and Damascius possessed a profoundly investigative mind.

Among the students of Porphyry, the most famous was Iamblichus, a man of uncommonly sharp intelligence. Because of the greatness of his ideas and his impressive mastery of theological learning, he—like his master Plato—was given the title "the divine." This extraordinary man, though deeply devoted to Platonic philosophy, also explored the wisdom of other schools, particularly the Pythagoreans, Egyptians, and Chaldeans. From their harmonious combination, he formed one beautiful system of hidden original: "recondite" knowledge^c.