Elements of Theology, Proposition 21

 Every order, beginning from a monad, proceeds into a multi­tude co-ordinate to the monad, and the multitude of every order is referred to one monad.

For the monad, having the relation of a principle, generates a multitude allied to itself. Hence one causal chain and one whole order has a decrement into multitude from the monad. For there would no longer be an order, or a chain, if the monad remained of itself un-prolific. But multitude is again referred to the one common cause of all coordinate natures. For that in every multitude which is the same has not its progres­sion from one of those things of which the multitude consists. For that which subsists from one alone of the many is not common to all, but eminently possesses the peculiarity of that one alone. Hence, since in every order there is a certain communion, connection, and sameness, through which some things are said to be co­ordinate, but others of a different order, it is evident that sameness comes to every order from one principle. In each order, therefore there is one monad prior to the multitude, which imparts one ratio and connection to the natures arranged in it, both to each other and to the whole.

For let one thing be the cause of another, among things that are under the same causal chain or series; but that which ranks as the cause of the one series must necessarily be prior to all in that series, and all things must be generated by it as coordinate, not so that each will be a certain particular thing, but that each will be­long to this order.

Corollary.— From these things it is evident that both one and multitude are inherent in the nature of body; that nature has many natures co-dependent on it; and that many natures proceed from the one nature of the universe. Further, that the order of souls originates from one first soul, proceeds with diminution into the multitude of souls, and reduces multitude into one; that in the intellectual essence there is an intellectual monad, and a multitude of intellects proceeding from one intel­lect, and returning to it; that there is a multitude of unities in The One which is prior to all things; and that in these unities there is a striving for The One. Hence, after the Primal One there are unities; after the First Intellect there are intellects; after the First Soul there are souls; and after Total Nature there are natures.

COMMENTARY

Here again we have a relatively straightforward proposition. In the Platonic cosmos, everything existing proceeds from the One. This same order is reflected at every level of being. The first order which proceeds from the One are Ones-- or, rather, Unities (Henads), since in them there is both oneness and multiplicity. 

After the level of the Unities we have Intellect. Here again we have a unity, Intellect Itself, which proceeds into the multitude of particular Intellects. After Intellect we have Soul. We begin with the Universal Soul, and expand outward into individual souls. 

Finally we have Nature. It's worth taking a moment to consider how we use that word. In a very real sense, our own language is in fragments. We've inherited concepts from the Renaissance and medieval worlds, from the Classical world, from pagan antiquity. By the late Middle Ages, in our society, these concepts were gathered into a coherent world-picture. (It is worth noting that, in the West, that world-picture was the idea which underlay a civilization, which can be called Christendom.) Modernity in a real sense has been nothing but the shattering of that world-picture, and modern philosophy has been nothing more than a sustained attack on our inheritance. The result is that we speak and think with a jumble of fragmentary words whose original definitions lie half-understood in the context. "Are you feeling enthusiastic?" "He's in high spirits today." "What a great idea!" "I'm feeling somewhat melancholy." "Do you have the energy?" "She has got a lot of potential." "What inspired you?" "He's very intelligent." "That's just, like, your opinion, man!" All these sentences contain concepts of which the speaker often has only a vague awareness of their original meaning. 

So too with that word, "nature." We use this term in two different senses. If someone asks me why the cat won't stop laying on my keyboard while I'm trying to write, I might respond, "It's just his nature." If I feel like going for a walk in the woods, I might say, "I'd like to spend some time in nature." 

For the Neoplatonists, Nature refers to a level of being, proceeding from Soul. The meaning of the term is captured far better in the sentence "It's just his nature" than "I'd like to spend some time in Nature," though the latter is part of it. The cat has a nature, both as a cat and as this particular cat, just as you have a nature, as a human being, a man or woman, this particular man or woman. All of these proceed from Nature Itself, just as all individual souls proceed from Soul Itself, all Intellects from Intellect Itself, all unities from the One Itself. 

It's also worth noting that there are at least two ways to conceive of that first and final level of being, the level of Unity. For Proclus and his confederates, the unities who proceed from the One are the Gods who proceed from God. But Christian, Jewish, and Islamic thinkers have also worked with these ideas. For Dionysius, the unities are not conceived as separate gods, but as names of God, which are themselves expressions of divine activity. A similar concept is found in the Kaballah, in which every Sphere of the Tree of Life is governed by one of the names of God. The Names are not separate Gods, but neither are they arbitrary distinctions; Adonai Ha'Aretz is the Divine Name of Malkuth, the sphere of the physical world, while Shadai El Chai is the Name that governs Yesod, the sphere of the Moon. The Islamic world, too, took up these ideas on various occasions and worked with them. From the 10th through the 12th centuries, the powerful Fatimid Caliphate relied on a theology derived ultimately from Plotinus, Proclus's predecessor, that saw Allah as the Primal One, with the 99 Names of God as Proclus's henads. Though Proclus himself is a pagan, all of his students are not. The Great Tradition is not a religion but a philosophy, and gives us a way to approach any religious tradition.