PROCLUS ON THE TIMAEUS IV [Tim. 37 CD]

and since it teems not only with motion and life itself, but also imparts this to the whole bulk of the body, and because of this very thing, the work having been completed as an image of the intelligible gods, if not solely or primarily, the Creator, having marveled and rejoiced the more, brought it to a greater and more perfect likeness of the intelligible things by making it, as it were, everlasting. For that which is intelligible is everlasting in the primary and strict sense, while that which is extended along with the procession and unfolding of time is everlasting in the secondary sense; for "always" original: "ἀεί" is twofold: the one eternal, the other temporal.

Why, then, does he bestow this gift upon the whole world at nearly all points, having introduced it before the eighth of the Creator? Because it is the greatest and most perfect thing, and it brings the image into extreme likeness with the paradigm. And it is necessary for one who is once arranging the generation of all things in words to proceed from the less perfect to the more perfect. For in this very way, things that exist by themselves and things that come to be in others are opposed to one another, because it is necessary to say that those which are established in themselves and in no way come to be in others are the more venerable, according to which and through which and by which the things that follow appear; while in those things that are partaken of by others, the less perfect take precedence and become, as it were, the underlying subjects for the more perfect and those that are accustomed to follow later.

This, then, is the entire intent of the proposed statements. It follows that we must say for what causes, and what kind of thing time is, and of how many and how great goods it is the cause for the soul and the heaven, which the Creator of all things established together; and especially because many, even of Plato's friends, have supposed time to be some dim kind of thing and only the number of motions, not having considered that, since there are ten of all things which the Father gives to the world, each of the things that follow is entirely greater than that which precedes it. If, therefore, he has already ensouled the world and made it a blessed god...