Concept
henades
The henads are a distinctive contribution of later Neoplatonism, developed especially by Proclus (building on hints in Iamblichus and Syrianus). They are supreme, self-complete unities that stand just beneath the One: each is a 'one' that participates the One immediately and through which the One's power and goodness are mediated to everything below.
The problem they solve is how the utterly simple One can give rise to a structured, plural world without itself becoming many. The henads are the first determinations of unity — distinct yet wholly unified, each fully itself yet pervaded by all the others — and from each there descends a 'chain' or series of beings that share its particular character. So the whole of reality hangs from these first unities.
Proclus identifies the henads with the gods of traditional religion, giving philosophical place to the many deities of cult and myth while preserving the absolute primacy of the One above them all. The doctrine thus lets the tradition honor both unity and divine plurality at the summit, and it underwrites the practice of theurgy, which engages the gods through the symbols each has sown in the world.
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