HIEROCLES, a Neo-Platonic writer of the 5th century a.d., was apparently a native of Alexandria. He was born most probably about the beginning of the 5th century, studied under the celebrated Neo-Platonist Plutarch at Athens, and taught for some years in his native town. He seems to have been banished from Alexandria and to have taken up his abode in Constantinople, where he endured some persecution for his religious opinions. His death must be referred to the closing decade of the 5th century, probably about 490. The only complete work of his which has come down to us is the commentary on the great Pythagorean Carmen Aureum, but several other writings, specially one on Providence or Foreknowledge, are quoted or referred to by Photius and Stobaeus. The commentary contains several remarkable utterances, and is written with much elegance. Philosophy is there regarded in its practical aspect, as a discipline for purifying or elevating the mind by inculcating virtue and leading to truth. The most curious doctrines contained in the work are those bearing on providence and the human soul. The activity of the Divine Being, the supreme God, although eternal and allreaching, is viewed as extending specially or immediately only to spiritual existences, or rather to the genera of such existences. The individuals are not directly the objects of divine operation, but are left to natural chance or law. Iu more modern phraseology there is only, according to Hierocles, general, not particular, providence. As against divine foreknowledge, perfect freedom of individual will is maintained. All that is preordained is but the connexion between volitions and their natural consequents. As regards the human soul, the teaching of Hierocles in the main resembles Neo-Pythagoreanism. He states the doctrine of transmigration and pre-existence, holds that there is an ethereal body which is purified by trial along with the soul, and regards the world as the means by which judgment upon the past actions of the individual spirit is carried out.

The earliest edition of the commentary is the Latin translation by Aurispa in 1474; the Greek text was first given by Curterius in 1583. The fragments of the works on Providence and Fate weré published in 1593 by Morellus. Later editions of all that is preserved appeared in 1654-5, 1673, and 1709. The commentary alone has been edited by Ashton (1742), by Wolf (1710), by Gaisford in his edition of Stobaeus (1850), and finally by Mullach (1853). The jest-book entitled α<ττ∈7α (edited by Schier, 1768, and Eberhard, 1869), though frequently attributed to this author, is certainly the work of a later hand. The most complete information regarding Hierocles is to be found in Mullach’s edition, and in the relative portions of his Fragmenta Phil. Groecorum, 1860, i. 408 sq. Cf. Zeller, PhU. d. Griechen (2d ed,), iii. 2, pp. 681-7.