Iamblichus on the Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians (Second Edition 1895)/Section10
SECTION X.
It now remains, in the last place, that we should speak concerning felicity, about which you make various inquiries, first of all proposing objections, afterwards doubting, and then interrogating. Adducing, therefore, all that is said by you, we shall answer it appropriately. You inquire, then, "whether there is not some other latent way to felicity." But how, in that path which recedes from the Gods, is it probable there can he an ascent to felicity? For if the essence and perfection of all good are comprehended in the Gods, and the first and ancient power of them is with us priests, and if by those who similarly adhere to more excellent natures, and genuinely obtain a union with them, the beginning and end of all good is earnestly pursued; if this be the case, here the contemplation of truth, and the possession of intellectual science are to be found.[1] And a knowledge of the Gods is accompanied with a conversion to, and the knowledge of, ourselves.
Hence you in vain doubt, "that it is not proper to look to human opinions." For what leisure can he have whose intellect is directed to the Gods to look downward to the praises of men? Nor do you rightly doubt in what follows, viz. "that the soul devises great things from casual circumstances." For what principle of fictions can there be in truly existing beings? Is it not the phantastic power in us which is the maker of images? But the phantasy is never excited when the intellectual life energizes perfectly. And is not truth essentially coexistent with the Gods? Is it not, likewise, concordantly established in intelligibles? It is in vain, therefore, that things of this kind are disseminated by you and others. But neither do those things for which certain futile and arrogant men calumniate the worshipers of the Gods, the like to which have been asserted by you, at all pertain to true theology and theurgy. And if certain things of this kind germinate in the sciences of divine concerns, as in other arts evil arts blossom forth; these are doubtless more contrary to such sciences than to any thing else. For evil is more hostile to good than to that which is not good.
I wish, in the next place, to reply to such assertions as calumniate divine prediction. For you compare with it "certain other methods which are conversant with the prediction of future events." To me, however, it does not appear to be any thing honourable if a certain natural aptitude is ingenerated in us to the indication of the future, just as in animals there is a foreknowledge of earthquakes, or winds, or tempests. For an innate presage of this kind is the consequence of acuteness of sensation, or sympathy, or some other conjoint motion of the physical powers, and is not attended with any thing venerable and supernatural. Nor if some one, by human reasoning, or artificial observation, conjectures from signs those things of which the signs are indicative (as physicians foreknow that a fever will take place from the systole and torpor of the pulse), neither does he appear to me to possess any thing honourable and good. For he conjectures after a human manner, and concludes from our reasoning power about things which are acknowledged to be effected naturally, and forms a judgment not very remote from the corporeal-formed order. Hence, if there is in us a certain natural presentiment of the future, in the same manner as in all other animals, this power is clearly seen to energize; this presentiment does not in reality possess any thing which is most blessed. For what is there among the things which are implanted in us by nature in the realms of generation that is a genuine, perfect, and eternal good?
Divine divination, therefore, which is conjoined with the Gods, alone truly imparts to us a divine life; since it participates of [divine] foreknowledge, and divine intellections, and renders us in reality divine. It likewise causes us to be genuine participants of the good, because the most blessed intellectual perception of the Gods is filled with all good. Hence those who possess this divination "do not," as you conjecture, "foresee future events, and are nevertheless unhappy." For all divine foreknowledge is boniform. Nor "do they foresee, indeed, what is future, but do not know how to use this knowledge properly." For, together with the foreknowledge, they receive the beautiful itself, and true and appropriate order: and utility is also present with it. For the Gods, in conjunction with it, deliver a transcendent power of defence against the inconveniences which accede from nature. And when it is necessary to exercise virtue, and the ignorance of future events contributes to this, then the Gods conceal what will be for the sake of rendering the soul better. But when the ignorance of what is future does not at all contribute to this, and foreknowledge is advantageous to souls, for the sake of their salvation and reascent [to divinity], then the Gods insert the foreknowledge which pertains to divination in the penetralia of the essences of souls.
But why am I prolix about these particulars? For I have abundantly shown, in what has been before said, the transcendency of divine above human divination. It is better, therefore, in compliance with your request, "to point out to you the way to felicity, and show you in what the essence of it is placed." For from this the truth will be discovered, and at the same time all the doubts may be easily dissolved. I say, therefore, that the more divine[2] intelligible man, who was formerly united to the Gods by the vision of them, afterwards entered into another soul, which is coadapted to the human form, and through this became fettered with the bonds of necessity and fate. Hence it is requisite to consider how he may be liberated from these bonds. There is, therefore, no other dissolution of them than the knowledge of the Gods. For to know scientifically the good is the idea of felicity; just as the oblivion of good, and deception about evil, happen to be the idea of evil. The former, therefore, is present with divinity; but the latter, which is an inferior destiny, is inseparable from the mortal nature. And the former, indeed, measures the essences of intelligibles[3] by sacred ways; but the latter, abandoning principles, gives itself up to the measurement of the idea of body. The former is a knowledge of the father; but the latter is a departure from him, and an oblivion of the God who is a superessential father, and sufficient to himself. The former, likewise, preserves the true life of the soul, and leads it back to its father; but the latter draws down the generation-ruling[4] man, as far as to that which is never permanent, but is always flowing. You must understand, therefore, that this is the first path to felicity, affording to souls an intellectual plenitude of divine union. But the sacerdotal and theurgic gift of felicity is called, indeed, the gate to the Demiurgus of wholes, or the seat, or palace, of the good. In the first place, likewise, it possesses a power of purifying the soul, much more perfect than the power which purifies the body; afterwards it causes a coaptation of the reasoning power to the participation and vision of theis inserted good, and a liberation from every thing of a contrary nature; and, in the last place, produces a union with the Gods, who are the givers of every good.
With respect to the good, likewise, they conceive that one kind is divine, and this is the God who is prior to the intelligible; but that the other is human, and is a union with the former. And these two kinds of good Bitys has unfolded from the Hermaic books. This part, therefore, is not, as you suspect, omitted by the Egyptians, but is divinely delivered by them. Nor do "theurgists disturb the divine intellect about trifling concerns;" but they consult it about things which pertain to the purification, liberation, and salvation of the soul. Neither do they studiously employ themselves in things which are indeed difficult, yet useless to mankind; but, on the contrary, they direct their attention to things which are of all others most beneficial to the soul. Nor, in the last place, are "they deceived by a certain fraudulent dæmon," who, having vanquished a fallacious and dæmoniacal nature, ascend to an intelligible and divine essence.
And thus we have answered, to the utmost of our ability, your inquiries concerning divination and theurgy. It remains, therefore, at the end of this discussion, that I should beseech the Gods to afford me an immutable guard of true conceptions, to insert in me truth eternally, and to supply me abundantly with the participation of more perfect conceptions of the Gods, in which the most blessed end of our good is posited, and the confirmation of our concordant friendship with each other.
- ↑ In the original ενταυθα δη ουν και η της αλεθειας παρεστι θεα, και η της νοερας επιστημης But instead of η της νοερας επιστημης, which appears to me to be defective, I read η κτησις της νοερας επιστημης.
- ↑ For θεωτος here, I read θεωτερος.
- ↑ In the original, by a strange mistake, (Greek characters)[Greek: tôn thnêtôn] here instead of (Greek characters)[Greek: tôn noêtôn], which is obviously the true reading. The version of Gale also has intelligibilium.
- ↑ i. e. Man, considered as a rational soul, connected with the irrational life; for this man has dominion in the realms of generation.