Proclus, Theologia Platonica; Michael Psellos

...rising up under the guidance of the gods and deemed worthy of more divine leadership, having been allotted a noble nature—I mean Plotinus the Egyptian and those who received the contemplation from him, Amelius and Porphyry; and those after them, I think, whom I consider to be like a flock left to us, Iamblichus and Theodore; and if there be any others after these who, following in the fame of Plato’s chorus, recorded the cause of his thoughts and received into the folds of their souls, in an undefiled manner, the most genuine and purest light of truth.

And he who, after these, was our leader in all things beautiful and good, made us also participants in the same philosophy of Plato, and shared with us the secret things more venerable than these, and through the mystical truth itself concerning the gods, revealed us as fellow-members of the chorus. For these men, indeed, we cannot measure the appropriate gratitude, nor would all of time suffice for the benefits they bestowed upon us; but since he not only manifested the excellence of Platonic philosophy as it appeared from others, but also intended to leave behind for those who will come after memorials of the blessed visions which we ourselves claim both to have beheld and to have left behind as zealots—he directed our own guidance toward the infinity of contemplation, while we pray for a certain strength from the gods themselves to kindle the light of truth in our souls.

Such a light as that by which the superior beings teach and tend even our own intense intellect. And it is necessary to prepare for the complete, divine, and lofty end of Platonic contemplation; for everywhere, I think, he who participates even slightly in temperance makes his beginnings from the gods, and not least in the expositions concerning the gods. For it is not possible to understand anything of the gods otherwise than by being guided by the light from them, nor again can those who have discovered such things succeed except through them.