Iamblichus studied under Porphyry and then went his own way, founding a school in Syria. Where Plotinus had said the soul ascends to the One through intellect and contemplation, Iamblichus disagreed: the gap between the human and the divine is too great for unaided reason to cross. What bridges it is theurgy — ritual, prayer, symbol, sacred objects — which act not by compelling the gods but by aligning the practitioner with the divine order. He developed an elaborate metaphysical hierarchy: the One, then Henads, then Intellect, then Soul, each requiring its proper approach. His work gave late Platonic philosophy the shape it held until the fall of Constantinople: a synthesis of argument and devotion, logic and rite. Julian the Apostate was a devoted disciple. His influence on the tradition that ends with Proclus is immeasurable.
Born into a wealthy Syrian family said to descend from the priest-kings of Emesa — an ancestry he honored by keeping his Aramaic name when most philosophers Hellenized theirs.
Words
“It is not thought that links the theurgists to the gods — else what should hinder theoretical philosophers from union with them?”