Iamblichus on the mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans,...

81. Agreeably to this, Porphyry says in his Αφορμαι προς τα νοητα, or Auxiliaries to Intelligibles, ψυχη καταδειται προς το σωμα, τῃ επιστροφη τῃ προς τα παθη τα απ’ αυτου.——And ψυχη εδησεν εαυτην εν τῳ σωματι. i. e. “The soul is bound to the body, by a conversion to the passions arising from her union with it.” And, “the soul binds herself in the body.” Philolaus also says, that the ancient theologists and prophets asserted, ως δια τινας τιμωριας α ψυχα τῳ σωματι συνεζευκται, και καθαπερ εν σαματι τουτῳ τεθαπται, “that the soul is conjoined to the body on account of certain punishments, and that it is buried in it as in a sepulchre.”

82. This assertion, that the nature which is perfectly exempt can never become one with that which departs from itself, is opposed by Gale, who says that man is composed of soul and body, and yet the latter is far inferior to, and less excellent than, the former. But in adducing this instance, he clearly shows that he does not understand what Iamblichus says. For the human soul being a medium between a certain impartible and partible essence, so far as it partakes of the partible essence, has a certain alliance with body, and is not perfectly exempt from it. But this is not the case with divine inspiration and our soul: for the former in a perfectly exempt manner transcends the latter. Let it, therefore, be granted him that, as Psellus says, “hypostatic union conducts different essences or natures to one hypostasis,” yet such a union can never take place between two things, one of which has no habitude, proximity, or alliance to the other. Gale was led into this mistake by not properly attending to the words perfectly exempt, το παντελως εξῃρημενον, which are here employed by Iamblichus. But such mistakes are usual with Gale, from his inaccurate and rambling manner of thinking. He likewise forgot, at the time he was writing notes on Iamblichus, that he was the master of a grammar school, and not a philosopher.

From what has been said, the absurdity, also, of their opinion is immediately obvious, who fancy that the divine essence can be mingled and united with the mortal nature. For if such a union were possible, it would benefit and exalt the latter, but injure and degrade the former. Just as in the union of the rational soul with the body (as Proclus beautifully observes in Tim. p. 339), “the former, by verging to a material life, kindles indeed a light in the body, but becomes herself situated in darkness; and by giving life to the body, destroys both herself and her own intellect [in as great a degree as these are capable of receiving destruction]. For thus the mortal nature participates of intellect, but the intellectual part of death, and the whole, as Plato observes in the Laws, becomes a prodigy composed of the mortal and the immortal, of the intellectual and that which is deprived of intellect. For this physical law which binds the soul to the body is the death of the immortal life, but vivifies the mortal body.”

83. Here again Gale, from not understanding, opposes Iamblichus. For he says, “sed nec hoc sequitur. S. Maximus, ubi hypostaticam unionem declarat; hæc inquit, cernuntur in corpore et anima. Una ex utroque confit hypostasis composita. Servat autem in se naturam perfectam utriusque sc. corporis et animæ, και την τουτων διαφοραν ασυμφυρτον και τα ιδιωματα ασυμφυρτα και ασυγχυτα.” i. e. “But neither does this follow. S. Maximus, where he unfolds hypostatic union, says these things are perceived in the soul and body. One composite hypostasis is produced from both. But this hypostasis preserves in itself the perfect nature of each, and likewise the difference of these unmingled, end the peculiarities unmingled and unconfused.” This hypostatic union, however; as we have before observed, cannot take place between divine inspiration and the soul, because the former is perfectly exempt from the latter.

Gale adds, “Quæro autem quid velit Iamblichus per αμφοιν? Opinor, ψυχην et την εξωθεν θειαν επιπνοιαν. Non facile evincet επιπνοιαν esse αιδιον τι, utpote quæ sit transiens dei actio.” i. e. “I ask what Iamblichus means by both. I think the soul and divine inspiration externally derived. But he will not easily prove that inspiration is something eternal, because it is a transient energy of God.” Gale is right in his conjecture, that Iamblichus by the word both in this place, means the soul and divine inspiration externally derived; for it can admit of no other meaning; but when he adds, that inspiration cannot be something eternal, because it is a transient energy of divinity, he shows himself to be as bad a theologist as he is a philosopher. For God being an eternal, or rather a supereternal nature, his energies have nothing to do with time and its transitive progressions, but are stably simultaneous; so that transition does not exist in his inspiring influence, but in the recipients of it, these being of a temporal and mutable nature. Hence it is just as absurd to call any energy of divinity transient, as it would be to say that the light of the sun is transient, because it shines through diaphanous, but not through opaque, substances.

84. Hippocrates was of opinion that physicians ought to be skilled in astronomy. And Galen derides those physicians who deny that astronomy is necessary to their art. See his treatise entitled Si quis sit Medicus eundem esse philosophum. And in lib. viii. cap. 20, of his treatise De Ingenio Sanitatis, he calls physicians that are ignorant of astronomy homicides. But by astronomy here, both Hippocrates and Galen intended to signify what is now called astrology. Roger Bacon also, in his Epistle to Pope Clement, says, “Opera quæ fiunt hic inferius, variantur secundum diversitatem cœlestium constellationum, ut opera medicinæ et alkimiæ.” i. e. “The works which are performed in these inferior realms are varied according to the diversity of the celestial constellations, as, for instance, the works of medicine and alchemy.” If, however, as Galen says, and doubtless with great truth, physicians that are ignorant of this are homicides, how numerous must the medical homicides be of the present age!

85. According to Proclus, in Alcibiad. Prior, there are three orders of dæmons, the first of which are more intellectual, the second are of a more rational nature, and the third, of which Iamblichus is now speaking, are various, more irrational, and more material.

86. Charonea is a country of Asia Minor, bordering on the river Meander; and in it there are spiracles which exhale a foul odour. According to Pliny, there are places of this kind in Italy, in the country of Puteoli, now Puzzulo. In Amsanctus, also, a place in the middle of Italy, in the country of the Samnites, there were sulphureous waters, the steams of which were so pestilential, that they killed all who came near them. Hence Cicero, in lib. i. De Divin. “Quid enim? Non videmus, quam sint varia terrarum genera? Ex quibus et mortifera quædam pars est, ut et Amsancti in Hirpinis, et in Asia Plutonia.”

87. And these irrational spirits, so far as they contribute to wholes, are more excellent than we are, though through being irrational they are inferior to us.

88. See the justice of providence in this respect most admirably defended by Plotinus, in the first of his treatises on Providence, which treatise forms one of the five books of Plotinus translated by me, in 8vo. 1794.

89. In the original, την ιδιαν της ψυχης αυτοπραγιαν, which Gale very inadequately translates proprium animæ officium.

90. See my translation of Proclus on the Subsistence of Evil, at the end of my translation of his six books on the Theology of Plato.

91. See cap. 40, 41, 42, of Eunead iv. lib. iv. of Plotinus, from which the doctrine of this chapter is derived.

92. Agreeably to this, Plotinus, also, in Eunead iv. lib. iv. cap. 32, says, παν τουτο το εν, και ως ζωον εν ζωον τε οντος, και εις εν τελουντος, ουδεν ουτω πορρω τοπου ως μη εγγυς ειναι τη του ενος ζωου προς το συμπαθειν ψυσει, i. e. “This universe is one, and is as one animal. But being an animal and completely effecting one thing, nothing in it is so distant in place as not to be near to the nature of the one animal, on account of its sympathy with the whole of itself.”

93. This art is no other than magic, of which the following account, from a very rare Greek manuscript of Psellus, On Dæmons according to the Dogmas of the Greeks, will, I doubt not, be acceptable to the reader, as it illustrates what is here said by Iamblichus, and shows that magic is not an empty name, but possesses a real power, though at present this art seems to be totally lost. Ficinus published some extracts from this manuscript in Latin; but Gale does not appear to have had it in his possession. Η γοητεια δε εστι τεχνη τις περι τους ενυλους και χθονιους δαιμονας φαντασιοσκοπουσα τοις εποπταις τα τουτων ειδωλα. και τους μεν ωσπερ εξ αδου αναγουσα, τους δε υψοθεν καταγουσα, και τουτους κακωτικους. και ειδωλα αττα υφιστησι φαντασματα τοις θεωροις των τουτων. και τοις μεν ρευματα τινα εκειθεν κυμαινοντα επαφιησι· τοις δε δεσμων ανεσεις και τρυφας, και χαριτας επαγγελλεται. επαγεται δε τας τοιαυτας δυναμεις, και ασμασι και επασμασιν. η δε μαγεια πολυδυναμον τι χρημα τοις Ελλησιν εδοξε. μεριδα γουν ειναι ταυτην φασιν εσχατην της ιερατικης επιστημης. ανιχνευουσα γαρ των υπο την σεληνην παντων την τε ουσαν και φυσιν, και δυναμιν και ποιοτητα. λεγω δε στοιχειων και των τουτων μεριδων, ζωων, παντοδαπων φυτων, και των εντευθεν καρπων, λιθων, βοτανων, και απλως ειπειν, παντος πραγματος, υποστασιν τε και δυναμιν. εντευθεν αρα τα εαυτης εργαζεται. αγαλματα τε υφιστησιν υγειας περιποιητικα, και σχηματα ποιειται παντοδαμα· και νοσοποια δεμιουργηματα ετερα. και αετοι μεν, και δρακοντες, βιωσιμοι αυτοις προς υγειαν υποθεσις´ αιλουροι δε και κυνες, και κορακες αγρυπνητικα συμβολα.

κηρος δε και πηλος εις τας των μοριων συμπλασεις παραλαμβανονται. φανταζει δε πολλακις, και πυρος ουρανιου εδοσεις, και διαμειδιωσι επι τουτων αγαλματα· πυρί δε αυτοματῳ λαμπαδες αναπτονται. i. e. “Goeteia, or witchcraft, is a certain art respecting material and terrestrial dæmons, whose images it causes to become visible to the spectators of this art. And some of these dæmons it leads up, as it were from Hades, but others it draws down from on high; and these, too, such as are of an evil species. This art, therefore, causes certain phantastic images to appear before the spectators. And before the eyes of some, indeed, it pours exuberant streams; but to others it promises freedom from bonds, delicacies, and favours. They draw down, too, powers of this kind by songs and incantations. But magic, according to the Greeks, is a thing of a very powerful nature. For they say that this forms the last part of the sacerdotal science. Magic, indeed, investigates the nature, power, and quality of every thing sublunary; viz. of the elements, and their parts, of animals, all-various plants and their fruits, of stones, and herbs: and in short, it explores the essence and power of every thing. From hence, therefore, it produces its effects. And it forms statues which procure health, makes all-various figures, and things which become the instruments of disease. It asserts, too, that eagles and dragons contribute to health; but that cats, dogs, and crows are symbols of vigilance, to which, therefore, they contribute. But for the fashioning of certain parts wax and clay are used.

Often, too, celestial fire is made to appear through magic; and then statues laugh, and lamps are spontaneously enkindled.”

This curious passage throws light on the following extract from the first book of the Metaphorsis of Apuleius: “Magico susurranime, amnes agiles reverti, mare pigrum colligari, ventos inanimes expirare, solem inhiberi, lunam despumari, stellas evelli, diem tolli, noctem teneri.” i. e. “By magical incantation rapid rivers may be made to run back to their fountains, the sea be congealed, winds become destitute of spirit, the sun be held back in his course, the moon be forced to scatter her foam, the stars be torn from their orbits, the day be taken away, and the night be detained.” For it may be inferred from Psellus, that witches formerly were able to cause the appearance of all this to take place. It must also be observed, that this MS. of Psellus On Dæmons forms no part of his treatise On the Energy of Dæmons, published by Gaulminus; for it never was published.

94. Hence Iamblichus (apud Stob. Eclog. Phys. p. 114), says, Ουχ η αυτη εστι πασων ψυχων κοινωνια προς τα σωματα. αλλ’ η μεν ολη ωσπερ Πλωτινῳ δοκει, προσιον εαυτῃ το σωμα εχει εν εαυτῃ, αλλ’ ουκ αυτη προσεισι τῳ σωματι, ουδε περιεχεται υπ’ αυτου. αι δε μερισται προσερχονται τοις σωμασι, και των σωματων γιγνονται.i. e. “There is not the same communion of all souls with bodies; but the soul which ranks as a whole (as it also appeared to Plotinus), approaching to itself, contains body in itself, but does not itself approach to body, nor is comprehended by it. Partible souls, however, accede to bodies, and give themselves up to them.”

Conformably to this Porphyry also, in his Αφορμαι προς τα νοητα, No. 30, says, “No whole and perfect essence is converted to its own progeny; but all perfect natures are led back to the causes by which they were generated, even as far as to the mundane body. For this body, being perfect, is elevated to the mundane soul which is intellectual, and through this is circularly moved. But the soul of this body is elevated to intellect, and intellect to that which is first. All things, therefore, extend themselves to this, beginning from that which is last, according to the peculiar ability of each. But the reduction to that which is first is either proximate or remote. Hence these are not only said to aspire after divinity, but also to enjoy him as far as they are able. But in partial natures, and which are able to verge to many things, a conversion to their progeny belongs. Hence in these guilt, in these disgraceful perfidy, is found. Matter, therefore, defiles these, because they decline to it, at the same time that they possess the power of converting themselves to a divine nature.”

95. Iamblichus here alludes to the excellent treatise of Porphyry, περι της των εμψυχων αποχης, On Abstinence from Animal Food, from which work the English reader will find several admirable extracts in one of the Introductory Dissertations prefixed to my translation of Proclus on Euclid.

96. A celestial body, as is beautifully shown by Proclus in Tim. lib. iii. contains the summits of all the elements, but is characterized by vivific unburning fire; so that, in short, it is vitalized extension.

97. The number sixty is no less manifest in the crocodile than in the sun. For according to Aristotle (in Hist. Anim. lib. v.) the crocodile brings forth sixty eggs of a white colour and sits on them for sixty days.

98. “Isis,” says Gale, “is the moon. And a dog attended Isis when she was diligently seeking her husband Osiris. But the moon perpetually seeks the sun, and therefore that sagacious animal, the dog, accords with Isis. In the solemnities, also, of Isis, dogs preceded the procession.” After this manner others besides Gale; who have not penetrated the depths of the philosophy and theology of Plato, would doubtless explain what is fabulously said of Isis. In reality, however, Isis is not the moon, but one of the divinities that revolve in the lunar sphere as an attendant on the moon, and who, in modern language, is one of the satellites of that planet. For, as I have shown from Proclus, in the Introduction to my translation of the Timæus of Plato, every planetary sphere is an ολοτης, or a part of the universe having a total subsistence, i. e. ranking as a whole, and is surrounded with a number of satellites analogous to the choir of the fixed stars. Of these satellites, likewise, the leaders of which are the planets, the first in order are Gods; after these, dæmons revolve in lucid orbicular bodies; and these are followed by partial souls, such as ours. See Proclus in Tim. p. 275 and p. 279· This theory, as I have elsewhere observed, is the grand key to the theology and mythology of the ancients, as it shows at one view why the same God is so often celebrated with the names of other Gods; which induced Macrobius to think that all the Gods were nothing more than different powers of the sun.

The English reader will find an abundant confirmation of what is here said in the fourth book of my translation of the above mentioned admirable work of Proclus.

99. “The Egyptians,” says Horapollo, lib. i. “wishing to signify the moon, paint a cynocephalus, because this animal is variously affected by the course of the moon.”

100. In the original μυγαλη. “This word,” says Gale, “is written variously, viz. as μυγάλη, μυγαλὴ, and μυγαλῆ. It is also variously translated, for it is either rattus, or mus araneus.” Plutarch, in the fourth book of his Symposiacs, Quest. 5, says, “that the Egyptians were of opinion that darkness was prior to light, and that the latter was produced from mice in the fifth generation, at the time of the new moon. And further still, they assert that the liver of the weasel diminishes in the wane of the moon.”

101. With the Egyptians many animals were sacred; for the worship of which the following admirable apology is made by Plutarch in his treatise of Isis and Osiris:

“It now remains that we should speak of the utility of these animals to man, and of their symbolical meaning; some of them partaking of one of these only, but many of them of both. It is evident, therefore, that the Egyptians worshiped the ox, the sheep, and the ichneumon, on account of their use and benefit, as the Lemnians did larks, for discovering the eggs of caterpillars and breaking them; and the Thessalians storks, because, as their land produced abundance of serpents, the storks destroyed all of them as soon as they appeared. Hence, also, they enacted a law, that whoever killed a stork should be banished. But the Egyptians honoured the asp, the weasel, and the beetle, in consequence of observing in them certain dark resemblances of the power of the Gods, like that of the sun in drops of water. For at present, many believe and assert that the weasel engenders by the ear, and brings forth by the mouth, being thus an image of the generation of reason [or the productive principle of things]. But the genus of beetles has no female; and all the males emit their sperm into a sphericle piece of earth, which they roll about, thrusting it backwards with their hind feet, while they themselves move forward; just as the sun appears to revolve in a direction contrary to that of the heavens, in consequence of moving from west to east. They also assimilated the asp to a star, as being exempt from old age, and performing its motions, unassisted by organs, with agility and ease.

Nor was the crocodile honoured by them without a probable cause; but is said to have been considered by them as a resemblance of divinity, as being the only animal that is without a tongue. For the divine reason is unindigent of voice, and proceeding through a silent path, and accompanied with[102] justice, conducts mortal affairs according to it. They also say it is the only animal living in water that has the sight of its eyes covered with a thin and transparent film, which descends from his forehead, so that he sees without being seen, which is likewise the case with the first God. But in whatever place the female crocodile may lay her eggs, this may with certainty be concluded to be the boundary of the increase of the Nile. For not being able to lay their eggs in the water, and fearing to lay them far from it, they have such an accurate presensation of futurity, that though they enjoy the benefit of the river in its access, during the time of their laying and hatching, yet they preserve their eggs dry and untouched by the water. They also lay sixty eggs, are the same number of days in hatching them, and those that are the longest lived among them live just so many years, which number is the first of the measures employed by those who are conversant with the heavenly bodies.

“Moreover, of those animals that were honoured for both reasons, we have before spoken of the dog. But the ibis, killing indeed all deadly reptiles, was the first that taught men the use of medical evacuation, in consequence of observing that she is after this manner washed and purified by herself. Those priests, also, that are most attentive to the laws of sacred rites, when they consecrate water for lustration, fetch it from that place where the ibis had been drinking; for she will neither drink nor come near unwholesome or infected water; but with the distance of her feet from each other and her bill she makes an equilateral triangle. Farther still, the variety and mixture of her black wings about the white represents the moon when she is gibbous.

“We ought not, however, to wonder if the Egyptians love such slender similitudes, since the Greeks also, both in their pictures and statues, employ many such like resemblances of the Gods. Thus in Crete there was a statue of Jupiter without ears. For it is fit that he who is the ruler and lord of all things should hear no one.[103] Phidias also placed a dragon by the statue of Minerva, and a snail by that of Venus at Elis, to show that virgins require a guard, and that keeping at home and silence become married women. But the trident of Neptune is a symbol of the third region of the world, which the sea possesses, having an arrangement after the heavens and the air. Hence, also, they thus denominated Amphitrite and the Tritons. The Pythagoreans, likewise, adorned numbers and figures with the appellations of the Gods. For they called the equilateral triangle, Minerva Coryphagenes, or begotten from the summit, and Tritogeneia because it is divided by three perpendiculars drawn from the three angles. But they called the one Apollo, being persuaded to this by the obvious meaning of the word Apollo [which signifies a privation of multitude] and by the simplicity of the monad[104]. The duad they denominated strife and audacity, and the triad justice. For since injuring and being injured are two extremes subsisting according to excess and defect, justice, through equality, has a situation in the middle. But what is called the tetractys, being the number 36, was, as is reported, their greatest oath, and was denominated the world.

For this number is formed from the composition of the four first even and the four first odd numbers, collected into one sum.[105] If, therefore, the most approved of the philosophers did not think it proper to neglect or despise any occult signification of a divine nature when they perceived it even in things which are inanimate and incorporeal, it appears to me that they, in a still greater degree, venerated those peculiarities depending on manners which they saw in such natures as had sense, and were endued with soul, with passion, and ethical habits. We must embrace, therefore, not those who honour these things, but those who reverence divinity through these, as through most clear mirrors, and which are produced by nature, in a becoming manner, conceiving them to be the instruments or the art of the God by whom all things are perpetually adorned. But we ought to think that no inanimate being can be more excellent than one that is animated, nor an insensible than a sensitive being, not even though some one should collect together all the gold and emeralds in the universe. For the divinity is not ingenerated either in colours, or figures, or smoothness; but such things as neither ever did, nor are naturally adapted to participate of life, have an allotment more ignoble than that of dead bodies.

But the nature which lives and sees, and has the principle of motion from itself, and a knowledge of things appropriate and foreign to its being, has certainly derived an efflux and portion of that wisdom which, as Heraclitus says, considers how both itself and the universe is governed. Hence the divinity is not worse represented in these animals than in the workmanships of copper and stone, which in a similar manner suffer corruption and decay, but are naturally deprived of all sense and consciousness. This then I consider as the best defence that can be given of the adoration of animals by the Egyptians.”

102. Instead of και δικης, I read και μετα δικης.

103. i. e. Should be perfectly impartial.

104. Instead of διπλοτατοις μοναδος as in the original, which is nonsense, it is necessary to read, as in the above translation, απλοτητι της μοναδος.

105. For 2 + 4 + 6 + 8 = 20; and 1 + 3 + 6 + 7 = 16; and 20 + 16 = 36.

106. The cock was sacred to Apollo, and therefore its heart was believed to be the instrument of divination in sacrifices. The chemic Olympiodorus says, “that the cock obscurely signifies the essence of the sun and moon.” See, in the additional notes, what is said by Proclus concerning the cock, in his treatise On Magic.

107. It is well observed by Ficinus, in lib. i. Eunead. ii. Plotin. “that the fire which is enkindled by us is more similar to the heavens than other terrestrial substances. Hence it participates of light, which is something incorporeal, is the most powerful of all things, is as it were vital, is perpetually moved, divides all things, without being itself divided, absorbs all things in itself, and avoids any foreign mixture: and lastly, when the fuel of it is consumed, it suddenly flies back again to the celestial fire, which is every where latent.”