Biographical and Bibliographical Information

The name of the late antique Neoplatonist Proclus (rendered into Arabic mostly as Buruqlus, but also by variations like Ubruqlus, Ubruqlls, Furuqlls) was well known in the Arabic-Islamic world since the early days of the transmission of Greek philosophy into Arabic. However, while philosophical doctrines presented in his name, often in doxographical sources, are not always genuine, some ofhis original teaching was attributed to Aristotle. The question of the eternity of the world was frequently linked to Pro-clus, although he was not always pictured correctly as an eternalist whose arguments were refuted by Philoponus (e. g., in the most famous Arabic bio-bibliography of the tenth century composed by Ibn al-NadIm, the Fihrist, and in al-Qiftl’s History of Learned Men, al-'jAmirl’s On the Afterlife). Sometimes he was also said to have been opposed to the doctrine of the world’s eternity (in al-Kaskarl’s treatise On the Unity and Trinity of God), but purposefully misinterpreted by his adversaries (according to the doxography of the Ps.-Ammonius; see also al-ShahrastanI, who seems to have had access to Ps.-Ammonius when composing his Book ofReligions and Sects).

Arabic sources preserve hardly any information about Proclus’ life or his school. His birthplace and lifetime are given erroneously in the Fihrist and by al-QiftteI.

The Fihrist lists fourteen Proclean writings, which were translated into Arabic and/or Syriac (three of them are said to have been extant only in Syriac, two of them are unidentifiable, and different titles may actually refer to one and the same work). So far, none of these translations is known to have survived in its entirety.

The title Eighteen Issues which John the Grammarian Refuted refers to Proclus’ Proofs that the World is Eternal, lost in Greek, but translated into Arabic twice. None of these translations is known to have been preserved completely. The older one of them may go back to the very early days of translating Greek philosophical works into Arabic. It survives in at least two rather recent Turkish manuscripts that contain only the first eight arguments. However, this older translation in a more complete recension was most probably used by al-ShahrastaeneI, as he quoted proofs 1, 3-6, 8, 10, 13 with possible traces of 12 and 16 in his Book of Religions and Sects. The second and better translation was done by Isltaq b. Hunayn (presumably in the second half of the ninth century), but only the first nine arguments are known to be extant today.

One or the other of the translations of this work by Proclus and/or John Philoponus’ refutation of it (not known to be extant in Arabic) were known to and used by, for example, Abu Bakr al-RazI, Ibn Sina, al-BirunI, and al-(GazalI.

Another quite influential Proclean text in Arabic is the Elements of Theology. Up to now it is not clear whether a complete Arabic translation ever existed or whether only parts of the work, maybe in the form of some late antique reworking, were rendered into Arabic. The Fihrist lists two titles, which may refer to an Arabic version of the Elements of Theology, a ‘‘Theology’’ (which could also indicate a translation or partial translation of the Platonic Theology, although that does not seem to be highly probable) and a Book on the First Good. What has been preserved are, however, relatively short treatises containing each a number of Proclean propositions and thus providing in their entirety evidence for at least one third of the Greek text of the Elements of Theology in Arabic. The treatise that renders the Proclean propositions in Arabic most closely is an alleged excerpt by Alexander of Aphrodisias from Aristotle’s ‘‘Theology’’ (which also includes five genuine texts by Alexander). It must have been translated in the circle of translators and thinkers around the ninth century Arabic philosopher al-Kindl, most probably by Ibn al-BitrIq. In the same milieu, maybe by al-KindI himself the Exposition of the Pure Good was composed. Also based on the Elements of Theology, it is characterized by a more severe reworking of the Proclean material with regard to language as well as to doctrine and is often attributed to Aristotle. So far two recensions of the Exposition of the Pure Good, apparently independent of each other and containing not exactly the same propositions, have surfaced. There is also evidence for yet another recension or the common source for the other two recensions in al-‘jmirI’s paraphrase of some Proclean propositions, namely his Chapters on the Metaphysical Topics. One of these recensions was translated into Latin under the title Book on the Causes (Liber de causis) and had a deep impact on western philosophy in the Middle Ages. An Arabic text titled the Book on Motion and attributed to Aristotle also contains some propositions of the Elements of Theology reworked in a similar way as in the recensions of the Exposition of the Pure Good. However, in this Book on Motion the Proclean propositions are combined with Aristotelian materials and most interestingly with renderings of some propositions taken from Proclus’ Elements ofPhysics.

Thus, the Book on Motion is so far the main textual evidence for an Arabic translation of the Elements ofPhys-ics. One of the two titles listed in the Fihrist - namely Definitions of the Natural Principles and Book on the Indivisible Part - could refer to a translation of this particular Proclean work. Additionally, in his treatise On the Continuous Bodies Being Infinitely Divisible Yaljya b. ‘Adi presents the first five propositions of the Elements of Physics, for which he may, however, have relied on a Syriac translation.

In his answers to the philosophical questions addressed to him by a Mosul Jew, Yahtyai also quotes Pro-clus, this time by name, and most probably using the latter’s Ten Doubts Concerning Providence, whose Arabic translation seems to be mentioned in the Fihrist under the title Ten Problematic Questions.

In the Greek-Latin tradition, the Ten Doubts Concerning Providence are transmitted with two other treatises as the Tria opuscula. In the Arabic, there is some evidence for a possible translation of at least one of the remaining two treatises, namely the On the Existence of Evils. Miskawayh may refer to it in his Minor Triumph and ‘Abu l-Hasan al-TabarI seems to quote from it in his Hippocratic Treatmen ts.

Ibn al-NadIm also lists a Proclean work called Explanation of Plato’s Statement that the Soul is Immortal in Three Chapters, which is generally taken to be a translation of the lost Greek monograph of Proclus on Plato’s three proofs of immortality of the soul. Textual evidence of this writing is preserved in three short Arabic texts that are independent of each other, but seem all to derive ultimately from an Arabic version of this Proclean work. These three texts are Plato’s Proofs of the Soul’s Immortality, which is preserved at the end of Ibn SIna’s Commentary on the Theology of Aristotle, Delicate Result of Plato’s Syllogisms that the Soul Does Not Decay, which is preserved as marginal gloss to a pseudo-Platonic treatise, and the sixth chapter of the second part of Miskawayh’s Minor Triumph.

At the end of the summary of Hunayn’s translation of Galen’s On Dispositions an excerpt of Proclus’ Commentary on the Timaeus is attached. It covers a passage (89e-90c), which is dealt with in Galen’s treatise. However, it is not clear whether this Proclean excerpt was already part of a Greek text based on Galen, or whether it has been added to the Arabic translation taken either from an Arabic version of Proclus’ commentary or translated directly from the Greek by Hunayn. Some traces of the Proclean work may also be detected in al-BIrunI’s India. However, Ibn al-NadIm does not mention an Arabic translation of it.

What he lists in his Fihrist instead are the following three treatises ascribed to Proclus, for which no Greek correspondences could have been established so far: Firstly, the Minor Elements of which only an excerpt survives in the philosophical compilation preserved in the Oxford Manuscript, Marsh 539.

Secondly, Proclus’ Commentary on the Pythagorean Golden Verses the first part of which is preserved in a recension by Ibn al-Tayyib. The attribution to Proclus has not yet been confirmed, but there is also little ground to doubt it. The last part of the above mentioned excerpt from the Minor Elements is very close in content to a passage in Ibn al-Tayyib, which may suggest that the Minor Elements refer to the Proclean commentary on the Golden Verses as well.

Thirdly, Ten Questions on Physical Problems, of which only the first eight seem to have been preserved. The text is written in the tradition of the Problemata Physica and deals with topics such as the four elements, sleep, tickling, and hair. There is strong evidence that this text was used by Job of Edessa when composing his Syriac Book of Treasures. However, Job does not mention Proclus.