Iamblichus
He argued that philosophy alone cannot lift the soul to the divine. You also need to know the right rituals.
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.
Places
Ideas
Words
“It is not thought that links the theurgists to the gods — else what should hinder theoretical philosophers from union with them?”
“The power of unutterable symbols, understood by the gods alone, establishes theurgic union.”
Works
Life & Moments
Born in Roman Syria
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.
Studies under Porphyry
Studied with Porphyry, Plotinus' editor and heir: then broke with him over the question that defines his philosophy: whether contemplation alone can reach the gods, or whether rite must complete it.
The school at Apamea
Founded his own school at Apamea, teaching a Platonism ordered like a liturgy: mathematics, Aristotle, Plato, and above them the Chaldean Oracles. Students called him 'divine'; the emperor Julian later ranked him just after Plato.
Influence
Influenced by
- Porphyry
Iamblichus studied in Porphyry's circle and then answered him directly: where Porphyry held that philosophy alone lifts the soul, Iamblichus argued that ritual was needed, because the soul has descended fully into the body.
Influenced
- Proclus
Proclus inherited Iamblichus' conviction that ritual and metaphysics belong together, and built it into the elaborate hierarchy of the Elements of Theology.
