Isidore of Alexandria

Isidore of Alexandria led the Neoplatonic school for a time after Marinus and was the master and inspiration of Damascius, who wrote his life in the work known as the Philosophical History — a chief source for the last generation of pagan philosophers.

Damascius portrays him as a man who trusted inspired intuition and theurgy above mere reasoning, holding that the highest truths are reached by a kind of divine illumination rather than by argument alone. He is said to have declined to commit much to writing, preferring the living word of teaching.

Standing between the successors of Proclus and the brilliant Damascius, Isidore is a crucial if shadowy link near the end of the chain.