Ocellus Lucanus, Firmicus Maternus, Select Theorems of Proclus (Thomas Taylor)

and the world is the whole and the all. Nor can it be corrupted by the things which it contains, for in this case it would be necessary that these things be greater and more powerful than the universe. This, however, is not true*, for all things are led and governed by the universe, and in conformity with this, they are preserved, co-adapted, and possess life and soul. But if the universe can be corrupted by neither anything external to it nor anything contained within it, the world must therefore be incorruptible and indestructible; for we consider the world to be the same as the universe†.

Further still, the whole of nature, when surveyed throughout its entirety, is found to derive continuity from the first and most honorable of bodies. It attenuates this continuity proportionally, introduces it to everything mortal, and receives the progression of its unique existence; for the first and most honorable bodies in the universe revolve according to the same law and in a similar manner. The progression, however, of the whole of nature, is not successive and continuous, nor is it local, but subsists according to mutation.

* That is, it is not true that the universe can contain anything greater and more powerful than itself.
† Philo Judæus, in his aforementioned treatise On the Incorruptibility of the World, has adopted the arguments of Ocellus in this paragraph, though not with the conciseness of the original.