human mediation in eriugena's periphyseon

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Human Mediation in Eriugena's Periphyseon

by

L. Michael Harrington

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts

at

Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova Scotia

August, 1997

© Copyright by L. Michael Harrington, 1997


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DALHOUSIE UNIVERSITY

DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS

The undersigned hereby certify that they have read and recommend to the Faculty

o f Graduate Studies for acceptance a thesis entitled "Human Mediation in Eriugena's

Periphyseon" by L. Michael Harrington, in partial fulfillment o f the requirements for the

degree o f Master o f Arts.

Supervisor:

Readers:

>ated: J 'J p H 'f / 7 1 7

) /tJ ty

ii


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DALHOUSIE UNIVERSITY

DATE: August 6, 1997

AUTHOR: L. Michael Harrington

TITLE: Human Mediation in Eriugena's Periphyseon

DEPARTMENT: Classics

DEGREE: M.A. CONVOCATION: Fall YEAR: 1997

Permission is herewith granted to Dalhousie University to circulate and to have copied for non-commercial purposes, at its discretion, the above title upon the request of individuals or institutions.

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in


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Table of Contents

Abstract v

Acknowledgements vi

I. Eriugena and the Iamblichan Tradition 1

II. Divine and Human Mediation 21

IE. A Matter o f Perspective 42

IV. The Human Trinity 54

V. Individuality and the Deliberate Act 73

Bibliography 92

iv


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Abstract

On the face of it, Eriugena's Periphyseon presents a daunting number o f paradoxical

lines of thought. Previous studies of the role of human nature in the Periphyseon have

described these in detail: human nature exists outside of time, yet is also intrinsically

joined to the temporal world; it has no comprehension o f the divine, yet it nonetheless

exemplifies the divine image; it is both inside and outside the universe. Without

denying the paradoxes which are clearly present in Eriugena's philosophy of the human,

I will attempt to approach his views from a point which is prior to the emergence of

many of these paradoxes. My approach to Eriugena will center on his place

in the philosophy of human mediation as developed by first the pagan, then Christian,

Neoplatonists of the Greek tradition initiated by Iamblichus. In this tradition, the

diverse elements of the universe are held together by mean terms, which reconcile

the contradictory elements o f their extremes. Once this Iamblichan system has been

reconstituted in Christian terms by the Pseudo-Dionysius, human nature emerges

in the role of universal mean, reconciling the extremes of the universe. In the

context of this tradition, Eriugena takes several further steps to cast human nature as a

kind of natural mediator of paradoxes.


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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Wayne Hankey, and my readers, Dr. Dennis House

and Dr. Colin Starnes.

vi


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I. Eriugena and the Iamblichan Tradition

When Iamblichus set his own philosophy of the soul's nature and salvation in explicit

opposition to Plotinus, he changed the focus of Greek Neoplatonism. Whatever the actual

difference between the philosophies of Iamblichus and Plotinus (there is now thought to be

little difference between them),1 the emphasis placed by the Iamblichan Neoplatonists on

the immanence of the soul in the world of process shaped their understanding of that soul's

salvation. The introspection advised by Plotinus is now accompanied by a turning

outward to seek help from the world; the intuitive understanding of the divine in Plotinus

is now supplemented by a concern for rational method — that is, systematic theology. This

concern survives entire when the Iamblichan Neoplatonic tradition is absorbed into

Christianity, manifesting itself in the analysis of Christian rituals by Pseudo-Dionysius, and

extending into Eriugena's Periphyseon.

It will not be my intention to find a place for Eriugena in the Iamblichan tradition

at the expense of his ties to Augustine and the Plotinian strain of Christian Neoplatonism.

The influence of Augustine on Eriugena has been demonstrated too clearly to claim that he

simply manipulates Augustine to serve his Eastern ends.2 However, his understanding of

the outwardly-directed human soul and its need of systematic theology treats questions

more familiar to Maximus the Confessor and Dionysius than to Augustine. As Iamblichus

1 See C. Steel, The Changing Self: A Study on the Soul in Later Neoplatonism (Brussels, 1978), 23-33.2 See the bibliography in G. Madec, "L'Augustinisme de Jean Scot dans le T)e Praedestinatione,'" in Jean Scot Erigene et Thistoire de la philosophie, ed. Rene Roques (Paris, 1977), 183, n.l.

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is the earliest available exponent o f this variety of Neoplatonism, we will look primarily to

him as the foundation on which, however indirectly, Eriugena's study o f the soul is built.

The Division o f Nature

The opening lines o f the Periphyseon contain, in embryo, the entire Eriugenian project

relative to the Greek Christian tradition:

Often when I am thinking and earnestly inquiring, so far as I have the power, that of all things, both of those which may be perceived by the soul, or which exceed its grasp, the first and highest division is into those things which are, and those which are not — there occurs to me a general name for all these, which is called c, in Greek, and natura in Latin.3

In these lines Eriugena is already presenting the human soul as the center and measure of

the universe, a view which springs from the Greek Christian tradition in which human

nature is the universal mediator.4 The human subject's natural objects o f thought reveal its

importance — the human subject may think and inquire after "all things." This includes

both the presentation of sensible objects to the soul through external sensation, objects of

3 I. 441 A: saepe m ihi cogitanti, diligentiusque quantum vires suppetunt inquirenti, rerum omnium, quae vel animo percipi possunt, vel intentionem eius superant, primam summamque divisionem esse in ea quae sunt, et in ea quae non sunt, horum omnium generate vocabulum occurit, quodgraece (jj-doiq, latine vero natura vocitatur. In supplying the Latin text, I have, as a rule, consulted the most recent critical edition o f each book of the Periphyseon. This means that I have used E. Jeauneau's 1996 edition for Book One. For books Two and Three I have used I.P. Sheldon-Williams' 1972 edition. For books Four and Five I have resorted to T. Gale's 1681 edition. In providing English translations o f passages from the Periphyseon, I have used Sheldon-Williams translation as revised by J. O'Meara (Montreal, 1987), with minor modifications. Elsewhere, the translation is my own if no translation is cited.4 See E. Jeauneau's commentary and bibliography, Homelie sur le Prologue de Jean (Paris, 1969), 336-8.


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thought proper (these being objects "which may be perceived by the soul"), and, more

surprisingly, the supra-conceptual, those things which "exceed its grasp." Later, Eriugena

will clarify that the supra-conceptual is "understood properly of God alone, and of the

reasons and essences of all the things which have been created by him."5 The combination

of conceptual objects and the supra-conceptual is the sum of the universe, which Eriugena

calls natura. As the subject o f natura, human nature is present to every level o f the

universe. Because this property is unique to human nature, the human soul may be

described as occupying the center of the universe.

Based on its presence to all things, the soul is able to think the first and highest

division o f all things. This is the division into being and non-being. The soul's ability to

perceive this division of nature demonstrates that the soul is capable o f making scientific

judgments at all levels o f the universe, but more surprising is the revelation which follows:

the first and highest division o f all things is not only perceived by the human soul, but

created by it. This can be deduced from Eriugena's initial definition o f being and

non-being: "all things which fall within the perception of bodily sense or (within the grasp

of) intelligence are truly and reasonably said to be, but those which because of the

excellence of their nature elude not only all sense but also all intellect and reason rightly

seem not to be."6 Eriugena does not, for example, define non-being as privation and being

as substance. Those definitions would subsist independently o f human nature. Instead, he

defines non-beings as "those things which, on account of the excellence o f their nature,

5 I. 443A-B: in solo deo et in omnium rerum quae ab eo condita sunt rationibus atque essentiis recte intelliguntur.6 I. 443A: omnia quae corporeo sensui vel intelligentiae perceptioni succumbunt vere ac rationabiliter d id esse, ea vero quae per excellentiam suae naturae non solum sensum sed etiam omnem intelledum rationemque fugiunt iure videri non esse.


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escape not only sense but also intellect and reason," and beings as "those things which are

accessible to corporeal sense or the perception of intelligence." These definitions have no

meaning outside of a human subject. That is, without a human subject, there would be no

ground for distinguishing being from non-being. Eriugena subsequently provides four

more ways o f defining being and non-being, but these are either distinctions within the

realm o f being as defined above, or restatements of the above definition using different

terms. They do not detract from his positioning of the human mind as the measure o f the

being o f all things.

Because of the privileged position he gives to the human mind as dividing and

uniting all things, Eriugena has rightly been associated with a dialectical theological

system. According to Eriugena himself dialectics is "that art which concerns itself with

the division o f genera into species and the resolution of species into genera."7 He praises

it as the highest of sciences, one which "did not arise from human contrivances, but was

first implanted in nature by the originator of all the arts that are properly so called, and

was later discovered therein by the sages who make use of it in their subtle investigations

o f reality."8 However, in the Periphyseon it is not at all clear what is the object of

dialectical investigation, and what is the subject. We have already seen that Eriugena

credits to human nature not only the perception of nature's division into being and

non-being, but also the creation of that division. When Eriugena makes his more famous

division of nature into four sections — nature which creates and is not created, nature

7 IV. 748D-749A: ars ilia quae dividit genera in species, et species in genera resobht.8 IV. 749A: non ab humanis machincttionibus sit facta, sed in natura rerum, ab auctore omnium artium quae vere artes sunt, condita, e t a sapientibus inventa, et ad utilitatem solertis rerum indaginis usitata.


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which creates and is created, nature which is created and does not create, nature which

neither creates nor is created — the matter grows more complex. On the one hand,

Eriugena clearly states that the perceiving subject is responsible for the division o f nature:

"in the earlier book we spoke briefly of the universal division o f universal nature — not as

(a division) o f a genus into its species nor o f a whole into its parts,... but by a kind of

intellectual contemplation of the universe, under which term I include both God and

creature."9 In this passage, intellectual contemplation appears to constitute the divided

universe. However, Eriugena elsewhere appears to state that the division of nature does

not depend on a human subject, but exists in nature itself. The resolution o f this paradox

and its counterparts is perhaps the most important step toward understanding Eriugena's

theory of human nature.10

We cannot begin to approach the resolution of this paradox until we have situated

Eriugena within the Iamblichan tradition. Eriugena's positing o f a human soul which exists

prior to the world and, in some sense, constitutes the world, is his contribution to the

Iamblichan tradition of Neoplatonism, which had long held that the human soul plays a

positive role in the creation of the world through its embodiment.

II. 523D-524D: in superiore libro de universalis naturae universali divisione non quasi generis in form as sen totius in partes... sed intelligibili quadam urriversitatis contemplatione — universitatem dico deum e t creaturam.10 S. Gersh, From Iamblichus to Eriugena (Leiden, 1978), 272-3 has treated this subject briefly, and provides relevant passages. His conclusion: "these seemingly conflicting accounts o f the nature of reality in Eriugena's philosophy are probably intended to be reconciled by the doctrine of a double creation according to which all created things including man himself are produced initially by God's own act o f cognition but in a secondary sense by the human mind."


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The Divided Soul

Iamblichus and his school established their views on the soul in opposition to Plotinus,

who acknowledged the soul's descent into the body, but maintained that part of the soul

always remains in contact with the intelligible realm:

The whole soul does not descend, not even in the case o f our soul; rather, something of it always remains in the intelligible.11

By turning toward intellection the soul may be released from its chains and ascend, if it takes its lead from memory and contemplates true beings. For the soul has something eternal, something higher, which never descends.12

Happiness is merely the embodied soul's contemplation of its higher part. The soul

appears to be divided in Plotinus — it has a lower part, which dwells in a body, and a

higher part which subsists in the intelligible realm and appears to be an individuated

intellect.13 It is the lower part of this soul for which salvation is necessary, a discovery of

stability, which cannot be found in the bodily, since the material world is always in motion,

and unstable. Nothing is preserved in the bodily except the process o f change. Instead,

Plotinus finds a ground o f stability for the lower soul in its higher part — individuated

11 Erm eadlV.S.8: ob i t a a a ob8’ f] f i p e r d p a £ 8 u , &A.A.' icrx i x i ab-tTji;t v xffl voTirm dee 1.12 Ibid. IV.8.4: fe7ticn:pcc<j>sIcra 8e rtpoq vd-notv X.beoGat xe feic xcdvSeoji(5v Kat d v a p a tv e iv , 6-tav &pxf|v A.dpfl &vap.vfja£ax; QeacGai xd 6vxa* ydp x i d e i ob8dv flxxov b7iep£xov x t.13 Plotinus seems to indicate that the intelligible realm is individuated just as thesensible when he says that "however many kinds o f living creatures are in the intelligible world, the same number must also exist in the sensible world" (£8e i , 6era kv vorj-tm ic6ap.cp, xot abxoc -tabxa ytvr\ Cc&cov Ka i fev x<5 ata-fbi-taj biudpxe tv), ErmeadIV. 8 .1 . However, Plotinus' position on the individuation of intellect is far from clear. Cf. H.J. Blumenthal, "Did Plotinus Believe in Ideas of Individuals?" in Phronesis 11 (Assen, 1966), 61-80.


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intellect. Since the realm o f intellect is both individuated and stable, it may provide a

fitting place for the lower soul to find rest.

Plotinus does not make clear the extent to which the soul's discovery o f stability

involves the transformation of the embodied soul into the intellect which is its principle.

He may possibly allow for a gradual purification of the embodied soul over the whole of

time, by which it enters into higher and higher bodies until it is indistinguishable from its

principle.14 The actions of the soul will determine what kind of body it enters in its next

incarnation, or whether it will enter a body at all, or how soon it will return after leaving

the last one.

This reincamational path of the soul never emerges explicitly in Plotinus because

he is simply not interested in developing his structure of the soul into a complete system.

Because the soul has its own access to the intelligible world in the form of its individuated

intellect, Plotinus does not need to develop a complete system to allow for the soul's

salvation. It has only to look inside itself and discover its principle, and it will find itself

saved. Soul and intellect are immediately present to each other.

For Iamblichus, this portrayal o f the human soul is inconsistent with the fact of

human unhappiness:

If when the best part of us is perfect, then the whole of us is happy, what would prevent us all, the whole human race,

14 EnneadTV. 8. 5: "the lighter punishment for the soul's error is to enter, and quickly at that, into another body from judgment according to its worth" (xfj?[dqtapx ta ? ] 86 x6 feXaxxov e t? ac&paxa dcXXa S uva i x a t 0axxov fex xp laeco? x-q? x ax ‘ tav ). E.R. Dodds, in his edition of Proclus1 Elem ents o f Theology (Oxford, 1933), 304-5 notes that for Porphyry an enduring release from the cycle o f rebirth is possible, but that this is not made clear in Plotinus, and explicitly rejected by Proclus. Eriugena sides against the doctrine of a cycle of rebirths:Armotationes in M ar dam an, 13. 1.


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from being happy at this moment, if the highest part o f us is always enjoying intellection, and always turned toward the gods?15

The feet is, we are not all happy at this moment, and so the soul cannot be eternally

present to the intelligible world, even if only in part. The presupposition underlying this

assertion, and on which the development o f a salvation for human individuals will be

based, is that the soul must act as a whole. If the soul is mired in the bodily, then the

whole soul is mired in the bodily.16

If the whole soul has descended into the bodily, then how can it be saved without

losing its individuality? That is, if the whole soul subsists at the level of the bodily, isn't its

instability inherent in it, so that salvation, a discovery of stability, would destroy its

nature? Much o f Iamblichus' philosophical writing, particularly his De M ysteriis, is

devoted to constructing a system which answers this question. In part, Iamblichus

resolves the problem by remaining in harmony with Plotinus — he divides the soul into an

aspect enslaved by the bodily, and an aspect free from enslavement. The soul's descent

into the temporal world has not deprived it of a principle which allows it access to the

divine:

For the soul has in it a principle of revolution into the intelligible, of abandoning the generated world, and o f contact with true being and the divine. ...For when what is

15 Fr. 87, 341DE, HE334.3 (trans. Dillon): e l 8 i 6 x a v xo fev fiiiiv K p& xic ixovx £ A . e i o v fj, K at x 6 6Xov fiM-cuv e t i 8 a i | i . o v , x t KCoXiiei icai vuv fijiaq s h S a l p - o v a q e C v a t dcvOpdntouq dwtavxaq, e l p.£v yap 6 v o u q x o u x o , o t S e v 7tp6q xtlv v • e l 86 p .6 p i o v ebSatpcov K a t Xoiicfj.16 Proclus and Iamblichus differ on the particulars of the soul's descent — for Proclus, the soul's o h a ta remains uncorrupted, while Iamblichus demands that the soul's o-bcrla descend into temporality — but both thinkers agree that the soul's preservation cannot be achieved by mere introspection. See C. Steel, op. cit; also G. Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul: The Neoplatonism o f Iamblichus (Pennsylvania, 1995), 98-106.


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more advanced in us becomes active, and the soul is elevated toward what is higher than itselfi then it is separated altogether from what is lower, trades one life for another, and gives itself to another order, entirely giving up the order it once knew.17

In this passage, Iamblichus takes pains to make clear how different the "liberated" soul is

from the descended soul. The soul becomes other than itself acquiring "another life,"

divesting human life and activity for the life and activity of the gods. However, Iamblichus

just as emphatically declares that this process is not an ecstasy — ecstasy means passion,

and the saved soul is free of passions. The soul's beatific otherness is acquired, in a sense,

by its fully becoming itself.18 That is, the soul's "more excellent parts" — those which truly

define it -- must express themselves in order for transformation to occur.

So far, there is no significant difference from Plotinus. Gregory Shaw has argued

that the true difference between Iamblichus and Plotinus lies in the means allocated for the

soul's liberation.19 As Shaw explains: "the angelic soul of the theurgist was the functional

equivalent o f Plotinus's undescended soul, yet the realization o f this divine status was

explained by the two Platonists in strongly contrasting terms."20 For Plotinus, the soul

saves itself through a turning inward to realize its inherent rationality. Because Iamblichus

D eM ysteriis, VIE. 7 (269.13-270.19): £ x e i ydcp dpxfi v o lx e ta v fi yoxfi xfi^ e t ? xd vorj-tov 7teplaycoyfi? x a t xfiq (Jotoctt&ctecoq p.£v dntd xcov y iy vop.6 vcov feict S i xd 6v icat xd Qeiov (ruvadfiq. ...Oxav y&p 8f| x&PeXx to v a 'xaiv kv fip.iv fevepYjj, x a t rcpdq xd xpe tx x o v a d v d y n x a i crbxfiq fi yuxfi, xd xe xc°ptC£'cai- itavxdjcao’t x<5v xei-p6vcov, ^cofiv x s k x i p a v d v 0 ’ kxipac, dX X dxxexai, x a t 8 (Scoot v feauxfiv e lq &AAr|v 8 tax6crp.Tiaiv xfiv jtpox£pav d cd sioa TtavxeXdoq.18 Ibid. X. 1 (286.10-12): "self-knowledge and self-reversion follow knowledge of the gods" (p.exd xfi<; xdav 0e<5v Yvcbqecoq fi jtpoq kavxo-bq ferctaxpodfi x a t fi Yvcocrtq £auxd5v cruvgrcsxat).19 In Theurgy and the Soul: The Neoplatonism o f Iamblichus (Pennsylvania, 1995).20 Ibid. 68.


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has emphasized the soul's complete descent, he does not advocate introspection. Instead,

the soul turns outward to sacred rites: the theurgy for which Iamblichus is famous. These

rites save the soul, but they do not enable its escape from the body. The soul never

escapes generation — it merely ceases to become a slave to generation. Its salvation is not

an escape from the bodily, but perfect embodiment. Iamblichus says this explicitly:

From their first descent, the divinity dispatched souls into this world intending their reascent to it. As a result, no change comes about through such an ascent, nor do the descents and ascents of souls oppose one another. For just as, in the whole order of things, generation and our world are bound up with an intelligible essence, so also in the order o f souls, release from generation harmonizes with concern for generation.21

This passage brings out the delicate distinction between the divided souls of Plotinus and

Iamblichus. For Plotinus, the soul must ascend from generation to a noetic life; in

Iamblichus, the ascent to a divine life does not differ from the perfect possession o f a

temporal life. As Shaw has it, the Iamblichan theurgist attains divine status "through ritual

practices and a demiurgic assimilation of all the powers that he encountered in

embodiment. For Plotinus, it was less an assimilation of cosmic powers than a realization

that the soul, as undescended, never really encountered them."22 For Plotinus, the soul's

division must be overcome; for Iamblichus, it is the perfect possession of a divided soul

21 D eM ysteriis. VUI. 8 (272.8-272.15): toed xpi; rcpc&XTiQ xa068ou ki t i xobxcp xax^rcepAyev 6 0e6q x&<; vyuxdcq, lvajrdcA.iv e tq ab xov fejtav6A.0coacv. Obxe ofiv g.exaPoA.h x i ; y iy v e ' t c c \ S id x p q xotai3xr|<; dvaYCOYfis obxe pdcxovxai a t xdc0o8oi xcov \irux<nv x a t a l dvoSot. Qcraep y&P * a t xcp jcavxt xfj v o ep a o b a ta f] Y^veo'r? x a t xd jcav x68e auvfipxTixai, obxoo x a t fev xfi xcov vj/uxoov 8 iaxoap.f|cre i xfi jcept y£ve<siv abxcnv fejci(ieA.etg cru|xc|>covei x a t fi died ysv taecoq A-bcnq.22 Shaw, op. cit. 68.


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which leads to salvation. This new view demands that the descent of the soul be viewed

as a positive motion, where, for Plotinus, the value of the soul's descent is questionable.

The Descent of the Soul

When Plotinus attempts to explain the descent o f the soul into a body, he has to reconcile

somehow, or at least juxtapose, two conflicting accounts of Plato — that of the soul's

descent as a x6a.p.ot, a kind of disastrous use of free-will, and that of the soul's descent as

a beneficial act of creation on behalf of the intelligible.23

From Plato's Timaeus, Plotinus draws an account in which the sensible world is

good, a "blessed god."24 The soul descends into the sensible by a divine decree, in order

that the sensible may be filled with the beauty of the intelligible. The soul is the necessary

mean between the intelligible and the sensible: it is the conduit through which the beauty

of the intelligible passes into the sensible. This holds true for both the whole realm of soul

(the world-soul), and for individual souls.25 Plotinus makes use of the Timaeus account in

his arguments against the Gnostics — that the bodily world is not evil, since it is the

23 Ennead IV. 8.1. E.R. Dodds, Pagan and Christian in an Age o f Anxiety(Cambridge, 1965), 25-26 notes that the early essays of Plotinus emphasize x6Xp.a as the cause of the soul's descent, while the later essays emphasize the necessity o f the soul's descent for the completion of the universe. More recently, G. O'Daly, Plotinus' Philosophy o f the ^//"(Shannon, 1973) has undermined the idea of a development in Plotinus' thought over the course of the Enneads. O'Daly argues a continuous tension in Plotinus between a definition of human nature as soul alone and as composite o f soul and body.24 Timaeus, 34 b 8.25 Ennead TV. 8. 1: "the soul of this whole world, then, was sent from God into theworld, and also the soul of each of us, contributing toward the world's perfection." (fj xe ofrv \jruxf| f| too rcavxd? xotixou x&piv e tq ocbxd ttocpd xou Beou ©rj, fjxe feKdoxou fijxajv, jrpdq xd i t X e o v abxd e lv a i) .


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intelligible made visible by the soul. It is also a key element in his rationale for why the

One must emerge into the Many: "the One must not remain solitary — for then all things

would be hidden, since the One has no form in itself."26 The descent of the soul is

synonymous with the full emergence of reality and the completion of the universe.

However, Plotinus recognizes that Plato's Timaeus is only half the story. In other

dialogues (Plotinus quotes passages from the Phaedo, Phaedrus, and Republic), Plato

describes the descent of soul into body as enchainment or entombment, caused not by a

benevolent divine decree, but by judgments (icp ta e iq), losses (KXrjpo i), chance

(x tixa i), and necessity (dcvdcyicai).27 Plotinus dwells especially on Plato's Phaedrus

account, in which the individual soul is described as a winged chariot with driver and two

horses. When the soul directs its gaze toward the good, it ascends. When it turns toward

the sensible, its wings break and it falls into the bodily. By this account, the soul's descent

into body is an undesirable punishment, from which the soul attempts to free itself by

again directing its gaze at the good. This account also emphasizes the self-determination

of the soul: it chooses to turn toward the sensible. From this account, Plotinus draws his

own understanding of the soul's fall as due to its own audacity (x6A.pa), or its desire to

exist for itself alone (e I va i feanxcnv).28

I f Plotinus draws Plato's two accounts together without fully reconciling them,

Iamblichus and the later Neoplatonists develop a means of reconciling Plato's Timaeus

account with his Phaedo and Phaedrus accounts. Shaw has identified this means as the

26 Ib id IV. 8. 6: 5 e l (xf| £v p.6vov e lv a i - feK^Kpamxo ydcp &v iz&vxap.op<j>f|v fev fexstvcp obx §xovxa*27 Plotinus quotes from Phaedo, 62 b 2-5; Republic, 514 a 5, 515 c 4, 517 b 4-5;Phaedrus, 246 c 2, 247 d 4-5.28 E nneadW . 8. 1; V. 1. 1.


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whole/part relation.29 Plato's Phaedo and Phaedrus accounts describe the individuated

soul's initial experience o f the world. When it comes to experience the world from the

perspective o f the whole, rather than merely from the perspective of its individuated self

the soul understands the world from the perspective o f the Timaeus account. In

Iamblichan terms, this account runs as follows: the highest divinity stands outside o f the

realm o f essence, which is the realm of the gods. The gods preserve the essences o f all

things, but in an undifferentiated way. It is the ranks o f lesser divinities who differentiate

and render expressible these inexpressible essences.30 A fortio ri, this task is also given to

the soul, which lives out the divine discourse at the level of the sensible. As a result,

descent from the divinity has solely positive effects on the universe as a whole: it

completes the common bond between gods and souls, it maintains the continuity between

the highest and lowest natures, it makes an indivisible community of all things, and

maintains all things in the best proportion.31

However, what is good for the full manifestation of the divine at every level o f

being may be bad for the individual soul:

The very things which are salvific for the whole because of the perfection of the things which are present and the things to which they are present, — these may be harmful to the parts because of the lack of symmetry natural in a part. In the motion of the whole, then, all revolutions preserve the

29 Op. cit. 54-7.30 D e M ysteriis. L 5 (16. 17). Dionysius later captures this paradox in his descriptionof the angels: "it was given to them to be the forms of the good and to manifest in themselves the goodness which is hidden and to be heralds of the divine silence" (x a t xd & ya0oe i8±q abxaiQ fe8copfi0Ti x a i xd fex<|>atveiv fev feauxaiQ xf|v xpu<|>tav dtya0dxTixa x a t s f v a i &YY£kou<; (fonts p t ^ a y y e X x ixdq xiiq 0 s ta q a ty n s )De D ivinibus Nominibus, 696B. I accept the reading o f oiynQ for tctiytk found in the greater portion of the manuscripts.31 Ibid. 1.5 (17.8-20).


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whole cosmos just so, but some one o f the parts is often unsettled by another part, as we clearly see happens in a dance.32

According to Iamblichus, the divine experiences no evil, nor is there any evil in the

workings of the whole universe, but individual souls in that universe may experience evil.

However, the soul's experience of evil is contingent — there is nothing to prevent the

dancers from avoiding each other. In the above passage, Iamblichus explains that

individuals may experience evil because of their lack of symmetry. Elsewhere, he

reiterates this explanation, along with two additional reasons for the soul's experience of

evil:

Certain destructive and evil things happen to parts, which, while they are good and salvific for the whole and for the harmony of all things, they bring a certain necessary corruption to parts, either because parts cannot bear the activity o f wholes, or because of some other mixture and blend o f their own weakness, or thirdly, because o f a lack o f symmetry among the parts.33

The evil that the soul bears in this present life is a result of its acquired unfitness for the

energy o f the whole, a weakness originating in itself or a disproportion between itself and

32 Ibid. 1.18 (56.7-15): xa ahxa xm phv 6Xco icai rcavx t acoxfjp t a e Cvat 8 t a xf|v xeA .et6xr|xa xdiv xe fev6vxcov x a i oZc, Svectxi, x o iq 8 t p.6pecri pXaPepd S id xqv |i.epioxf|v &aujip.sxptav. K at t v xfi xou rcavxoq ofiv KivifcrEi jtacrai. p.£v a t icepi<|>opat xdv rcdvxa xdaiiov tbaatixcog 8 taiJj-uA.dxxo'UCTiv, t v 8 t x i xqjv t v jx^pei JtoAAdxis 0A.tpexat inc‘ dXXou p.6pou<;, 67tep x a t fev dpxiicrei itep r<{>av<5q 6pc5pev y iyvdi ievov . Plotinus, too, compares the soul's experience of evil with a collision of dancers: EnneadTL.9.9, 37-40.33 Ibid. IV.8 (192.3-10): a u p P a tv e i x iv d rc e p t xdp.6p-n x ax d x a t 67.60pia, cb? |i£v itpdq xd 6Xa x a t xf|v dppov tav xou rcavxdi; 6 v x a acox^P t a x a t dyaOd, 'zoZq 8 t |i6 p e a iv d v ay x a tav x iv a 4>0opdv fercdyovxa, xcp p.f| 8 i3vaa0ai <|)6peiv x a? xdiv 6Xcov fevepyetaq, f\ &AAti x i v t crupp.t^et x a t xpdae t xqq dtj)' feauxdov da0eve taq , f| xo xp txov dcru|j.p.exp t a x<5v p.epd5v 7t p o q dAAr|A.a.


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various other parts of the world. Theurgy is the tool to ameliorate that experience — to

reintroduce symmetry, to rediscover the unmixed body of the soul, to acquire the dunamis

which can accomodate the energeia of the gods. The result is the reconciliation of an

individual with a world which is wholly good.

The Use of Symbols and Sacred Texts

The soul has thus come to itself in a state of disarray. It experiences evil, and longs to be

free of it. Theurgy appears to be the means to this freedom with divine knowledge as its

end, but what constitutes divine knowledge?

In his De M ysteriis, Iamblichus introduces the question of the nature of divine

knowledge in the context o f a discussion which seems at first to be about fortune-telling.

As a whole, the De M ysteriis is intended to refute various attacks made on theurgy in a

letter of Porphyry. Among other things, Porphyry has asked in his letter: "what comes to

be in foreknowing the future?"34 Iamblichus immediately criticizes this as the wrong

question — it assumes that foreknowledge is proper to the world of generation

(y lyvdpe v6v), coming into existence in time through a change in an already subsisting

nature or through human artifice. As Iamblichus explains, foreknowledge is rather a

divine work (0e fov £pyov), supernatural, sent down from the sky, ungenerated and

eternal. That is, foreknowledge is the eternal knowledge of all the things that have

happened and will happen contained in the divine realm.

34 Ibid. m.I (99. 11-12): x i xd y i y v 6 \xevdv feaxiv fev xfj xou p.6XA.ovxoq Ttpoyvc&ae t.


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