  The Athenian Neoplatonist Proclus (ca. 411–485), the teacher of Philoponus’ own teacher Ammonius, had written a defense of the widespread conviction among Greek philosophers that the world is eternal. His aim was to demonstrate the untenability of Christian creationism.  Proclus’ eighteen arguments took their point of departure from the myth of Plato’s Timaeus, which, according to Proclus, was best and most consistently interpreted according to an eternalist reading: the surface talk of a world being constructed by a divine ‘demiurge’ is part of the mythical and didactic framework, not an actual philosophical claim.