This book was incredibly long. I'm not sure that it added anything novel to what Proclus had detailed elsewhere. I may have simply missed it, but all essential points of his system seem to be laid out in his Platonic Theology and his Metaphysical/Theological Elements. He does go into a little more detail as to how he interprets the eternity of the cosmos. This is one aspect of Neo-Platonism that I have consistently rejected. Proclus uses words like "fabricate" and "cause" in reference to the Demiurge (he is usually portrayed as a fabricator by the Neo-Platonists), but these terms are complete misnomers. The cosmos always existed according to Proclus, so his fabricator never really fabricates anything; nor is he the "cause" of anything in the strictest sense of the word. A cause must be followed by an effect, but in Proclus' system, cause and effect can only be figurative terms because they cannot denote chronology or consecutive order. I cannot accept that Plato was this ambivalent with his use of terminology, e.g. "Demiurge." I remain unconvinced by Proclus' attempts to try to distinguish his version of a perpetual universe from Aristotle's version. He does attempt to distance himself from Aristotle and his followers when it comes to this subject, but to me, it's simply a semantical difference. I certainly am open to anyone who would like to show how there is a practical and/or substantive difference between the two approaches, I just don't see it.

The good points about this work should be noted. This is one of the oldest extant commentaries on this Platonic dialogue. Admittedly, Calcidius' commentary is older, however; and if one accepts Plutarch's works dedicated to this dialogue as commentary, his would have to be considered the oldest. The element that Proclus' commentary has that these previous ones lack, is a wealth of extracts (often in the form of quotations) from vanished works. Proclus quotes the Chaldean Oracles a plethora of times. He also quotes the Orphic literature about the same amount. It is also noteworthy that he refers to other Neo-Platonists regularly. References to other philosophers are often only to their positions and rarely does he provide something even approaching near quotes, but it still qualifies as solid evidence of what these philosophers actually believed and taught. One has to keep in mind that some references are polemical and are coming from a biased source. Proclus is undeniably an adherent of the Neo-Platonism of Iamblichus and Syrianus (Proclus' own teacher), and whether he is giving a fair appraisal of some of the philosophers he is opposing (e.g. Porphyry) is at least contestable, but I would wager his references are probably accurate. I find it interesting that in all of Proclus' works where he often quotes the Orphic and Chaldean literature, I can't remember a single reference to the Hermetica. Any conclusions about this would be an argument from silence; still, I find it somewhat inexplicable. It's possible that Proclus found the Hermetica to be as late and as philosophically irrelevant as the Gnostic literature.

One should keep in mind that for the late Neo-Platonic schools, the three dialogues of Plato that were considered to be only for advanced students, e.g. Philebus, Parmenides and the Timaeus, were also considered the zenith of Platonic theology and metaphysics. We are lucky enough to have commentaries for all three. Two from the pen of Proclus (him representing the school and systems of Iamblichus and Syrianus); and the other from the pen of Damascius, who was the last of the prominent late Neo-Platonists from the same school. Given how important these dialogues were to the Neo-Platonic schools, having commentaries for them is a benefit for those interested in Hellenistic Philosophy and this branch of it in particular.

For some of the above elements alone, Proclus' commentary is well worth reading. That is if one can actually wade through the whole of it without becoming exhausted by the Proclusian monotony. I'm sure this was meant to be broken into smaller volumes and probably was originally intended to be read as supplementary to lectures. I commend the editor/publisher for putting it out in a single volume, but it also makes it a cumbersome book to handle and read from cover to cover. The book is physically large and every page is dense with text, and when one includes Thomas Taylor's notes, this book is over 700 pages. It's worth the slog if one is up to it. There are some regularly typos and the Greek terms are transliterated when provided at all. ( )