On the Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians (De Mysteriis)
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~100,000 words · 486 passages
Cite this work
- APAIamblichus. (n.d.). On the Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians (De Mysteriis). SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/iamblichus/on-the-mysteries-of-the-egyptians-chaldeans-and-assyrians-de-mysteriis
- MLAIamblichus. "On the Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians (De Mysteriis)." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/iamblichus/on-the-mysteries-of-the-egyptians-chaldeans-and-assyrians-de-mysteriis.
- ChicagoIamblichus. On the Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians (De Mysteriis). SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/iamblichus/on-the-mysteries-of-the-egyptians-chaldeans-and-assyrians-de-mysteriis.
What it is about
Iamblichus's answer to a letter from Porphyry asking, sceptically, why a philosopher should perform rites: the fullest defence of theurgy that survives.
Context and history
Porphyry had raised reasonable objections: if the gods are impassible, how does a prayer move them? If they are good, how does a rite oblige them? Iamblichus replies that the trouble is the premise: theurgy does not work because the philosopher understands anything, but because the rites are signs set in place by the gods themselves, and they act even when the performer does not know why. With this he separates salvation from intelligence, and opens Neoplatonism to religious practice. It is the text that determined later Neoplatonism, Proclus included, and which Julian the Apostate used as the ground of his attempt to restore paganism. The title is a Renaissance editor's; Iamblichus did not give it.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
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