The paradigm according to which the cosmos is ordered by the demiurge is characterized in the Timaeus as 'Animal Itself', while παράδειγµα in the vision of Er from the Republic denotes the patterns of lives chosen by individual humans and other animals. The essay seeks to grasp the animality of the paradigm, as well as the paradigmatic nature of animality, by means of the homology discernible between these usages. This inquiry affirms the value within a Platonic doctrine of principles of persons over reified forms, of modes of unity over substantial natures, and of agency over structure. This essay concerns animals, including humans qua animals, insofar as they may be considered the fundamental units of the Platonic cosmos. The animal as considered in this fashion, however, is prior to taxonomy, and as such expresses a metaphysical 'humanity' prior to the taxonomically human; so this essay also concerns the animal qua human. The critical concept Plato provides us for grasping his thought in this way is that of the παράδειγµα, 'paradigm' or 'pattern', as it is used on the one hand in the vision of Er that concludes the Republic, and on the other, in the account of the demiurgic organization of the cosmos in the Timaeus. We shall see that the term παράδειγµα is to

The Platonic Theology is the culminating work of Proclus' long career and one of the defining works of late antiquity, but it has had few modern philosophical admirers. The exception, and an important one, is Hegel, who clearly drew inspiration from the Platonic Theology for his Science of Logic, and who draws his admiring account of Proclus in his Lectures on the History of Philosophy largely from his reading of this work. Nevertheless, the Platonic Theology has received far less attention from philosophers than it might have. A key reason for this neglect, I suggest, has been the inability to perceive in the procession of the divine orders as presented in the Platonic Theology a unifying logic akin to that in the Science of Logic. Such is the judgment of Hegel himself, who, despite his overall high praise of Proclus in the Lectures, characterizes the dialectic of the Platonic Theology as "external".If the procession recounted in the Platonic Theology is, fundamentally, simply the multiplication of an hypostatized One, then Hegel would be correct, and Proclus' system lacks an inner logic. Moreover, on such an interpretation, causality in Proclus' system as a whole would be mystified, which would contribute to the perception of this grand edifice of Neoplatonic thought as little more than a highly developed form of irrationalism. The present essay, however, offers an interpretation of Proclus' system in which the procession of Being begins not from an hypostatized One, but in the manifold of individual, supra-essential henads, treating this procession not as a simple passage from unity to multiplicity, but as a transition from one mode of unity to another. In a previous essay, 1 I have discussed the difference between the modes of unity of the henads and of beings; the present essay argues that the Platonic Theology exhibits the emergence of the latter mode of unity from the former.The beginning of the procession of Being cannot be from "the One", because there is, in a most important sense, no such thing: the first principle is not, in itself, a cause. The beginning, rather, is from the henads. This is why the Platonic Theology is a theology. The Gods constitute Being, and do so simply by virtue of being-Gods. The Platonic Theology is not therefore about the creation of the Gods, but about their nature, and how this nature determines the nature of Being. The aspect of the Gods from which the procession of Being begins, and which drives it throughout its several stages, I argue, is their individuality. That is, the meaning I propose for the statement that the procession of Being begins 1 "Polytheism and Individuality in the Henadic Manifold," Dionysius 23 (2005), 83-104.

The comparison drawn by the Neoplatonist Olympiodorus between the Stoic doctrine of the reciprocal implication of the virtues and the Neoplatonic doctrine of the presence of all the gods in each helps to elucidate the latter. In particular, the idea of primary and secondary "perspectives" in each virtue, when applied to Neoplatonic theology, can clarify certain theoretical statements made by Proclus in his Cratylus commentary concerning specific patterns of inherence of deities in one another. More broadly, the "polycentric" nature of Neoplatonic theology provides a theoretical articulation for henotheistic practices within polytheism without invoking evolutionist notions of "monotheistic tendencies." The Neoplatonic distinction between the modes of unity exhibited by divine individuals ("henads") and ontic units ("monads"), which is integral to the polycentric theology, also provides a theoretical basis for the non-reductive crosscultural comparison between deities. The polycentric theology thus offers a promising foundation for a polytheistic philosophy of religion.Olympiodorus (fl. late sixth-century CE) was one of the last Pagan Platonists to teach at Alexandria, and all his extant works are apparently composed of notes taken from his lecture courses. His students were likely overwhelmingly Christian, and probably not studying to become philosophers, but to acquire a veneer of erudition for future careers as lawyers, imperial functionaries, or even clergymen. On both these accounts, then, it is surprising that at a certain point in his commentary on Plato's First Alcibiades, Olympiodorus elucidates a Stoic doctrine already sufficiently recondite for his students by referring to a doctrine not only even more recondite, but also somewhat scandalous to teach to Christians, namely the doctrine we may call polycentric polytheism. One can imagine this relieved their boredom. Frequently in his extant courses, we can see Olympiodorus trying to titillate his students with bits of Paganism. He was probably wiser than to risk proselytizing, which would have cost him his post. More likely, he hoped by giving in to their thirst for information about traditions rapidly acquiring a patina of the exotic and transgressive to entice his students to a broader interest

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This article seeks in the Platonic philosophers of late antiquity insights applicable to a new discipline, the philosophy of Pagan religion. An important element of any such discipline would be a method of mythological hermeneutics that could be applied cross-culturally. The article draws particular elements of this method from Sallust and Olympiodorus. Sallust’s five modes of the interpretation of myth (theological, physical, psychical, material and mixed) are discussed, with one of them, the theological, singled out for its applicability to all myths and because it interprets myth in reference exclusively to the nature of the Gods and their relationship to a model of the cosmos in its totality. The other modes of interpretation, while useful in particular contexts, are not uniformly applicable to all myths, interpret the myths as concerning things other than the Gods themselves, and interpret the myths with reference to particular sectors of the cosmos. Accordingly, it is from Sallust’s theological mode of interpretation that the new method draws its inspiration. From Olympiodorus the method derives strategies for interpreting basic narrative attributes that myths share with all stories. Thus temporal sequence is interpreted as an ascent, from our perspective, from less perfect to more perfect manifestations of the powers of the Gods. Passivity, conflict, and transitive relations in general between the Gods are interpreted as expressing attributes of the cosmos to the constitution of which the Gods dedicate their energies, rather than as placing constraint upon the Gods themselves. The article concludes with a series of broad principles meant to guide the new method.