Philosophy And Theurgy In Late Antiquity - Altervista

Symbols as ontological traces of the divineThe anagogic power of secret names and tokensAnimated theurgic hieroglyphs of the hidden AmunNeoplatonic rites of metaphysical reversionThe ineffable statues of transcendent light5: DIVINE RITES AND PHILOSOPHY IN NEOPLATONISMRitual and cosmic orderThe aim of philosophyDifferent aspects of divine actsTheurgy and spiritual hermeneuticsHieratic rites of ascentThe common metaphysical backgroundPhilosophers as sacred statuesTo be reborn into the solar worldThe cosmic theatre of sacrificial firesGolden cords of ApolloThe shining forth like a godAPPENDIX: THE LIMITS OF SPECULATION IN NEOPLATONISMThe Hermeneutical program of reading NeoplatonismNon-discursive divine presence and relational transcendenceMasks and tongues of the ineffableThe distinction between looking up at the Sun and looking down at reflectionsModes of intellection and unionTo live means to readGolden cords of ApolloThe shining forth like a godBIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS ON PHILOSOPHY & THEURGYGLOSSARY OF TERMSBIOGRAPHICAL NOTE .14073 Foreword.Philosophy, Theurgy, and the Gods.NEAR THE BEGINNING of Ani’s Book of Going Forth by Day, the soul of Ani (a scribe in ancientEgypt) states what he expects to have gained in the next life after leading a holy life on earth followingthe path laid down by the gods:May you grant power in the sky, might on earth, and vindication in the God’s Domain, a journeyingdownstream to Busiris as a living soul and a journeying upstream to Abydos as a heron; to go in andout without hindrance at all the gates of the Duat.1This ancient text, beautifully illustrated and written in the second millennium BCE, marks in a veryearly form the hopes and expectations of the religious elite: a special place in the next world with a

right to come and go back to the land of the living at will. It also shows the importance of the gods inthe process and—even more especially—the bond between the believer and those gods. In otherpassages it is clear that Ani has become a god himself, and is in fact Osiris when he joins the god inthe underworld. The path to Osiris is not easy, and there is much knowledge that Ani must haveattained on earth in order to navigate the underworld safely and eventually come successfully throughthe weighing of his heart (Plate 3) to the presence of the gods (Plates 4, 30, and 36). The entire processis therefore marked by Ani’s wisdom granted him by the gods. The process involved mutually godsand human beings.Although it is most probably true that the ancient Greeks from the fifth century BCE onwards couldnot have had access to The Book of Going Forth by Day, the so-called Egyptian Books of the Dead,buried as it they were their creators, and that even if they had had such access they could not havedeciphered the hieroglyphic writings in them, the fact remains that the ideas contained in this Egyptiantext were still available to them. The strange tales related by Herodotus (c. 484–c. 425 BCE) in bookII of his Histories show the power that Egypt had for capturing the Greek imagination, and even atthat time several works on this ancient nation and its religious beliefs were available. After the deathof Alexander the Great in 323 BCE, his general Ptolemy took control of Egypt, and his family retainedcontrol of the country until the Romans took it over after the death of Cleopatra in 30 BCE. Duringthat time, it is clear that even more works about the country and its ways were written, many of whichwere about their religious beliefs. Thereafter Egypt remained the land known for wisdom and magic.There is, then, a discernible literary and traditional path from Ani’s book to Iamblichus’ philosophy.In chapter two, below, Dr. Uzdavinys considers the role and meaning of theurgy in Iamblicheanphilosophy. He rightly shows that the word theourgia is one of many that Iamblichus and his fellowPlatonists use for the relationship between gods and mortals. It is also clear that Iamblichus believedthat his version of theurgy had ancient roots that extended back to the Egyptians. Indeed, he wrote hismost famous work, On the Mysteries, under the persona of an Egyptian priest.Iamblichus (c. 245–c. 325 CE) probably took the term ‘theurgy’ from the Chaldaean Oracles, sacredtexts assembled by the father/son team Julian the Chaldaean and Julian the Theurgist in the secondcentury CE.2 As Dr. Uzdavinys has argued, the term has been misapplied by scholars for many years,but more recently (thanks especially to the excellent scholarship of J.M. Dillon, G. Shaw, E.C. Clarke,and others) a better understanding of the meaning of the term has emerged along with a new visionof how theurgy and philosophy are interconnected in Iamblichean Neoplatonism. Interestingly, whathas emerged is a view of theurgy that is very much akin to Ani’s Egyptian beliefs.Dr. Uzdavinys’ learned work elucidates many of the connections between Iamblichus and theancient Egyptians, and I will not belabor them here. I will instead briefly suggest how Iamblichusinterpreted the (now lost) writings on ancient Egypt and the Chaldaean Oracles and created a brandof Neoplatonism that would stand for centuries after him. I should add too that the founders of theChaldaean Oracles, the two Julii, were (like Numenius, a Neopythagorean contemporary with themwho also had Platonic leanings) from Apamea. This adds a Syrian connection to theurgical rite, whichshould not be ignored. Indeed, as Dillon argues,3 Iamblichus likely set up his own Syrian school inApamea. Thus, Iamblichus is clearly setting himself, his school, and his philosophy in Eastern as wellas Egyptian currents of learning.This desire to attach Platonism to earlier traditions is an important aspect of Iamblichus’philosophical goal: the unity of Pagan teachings. In his De Mysteriis, he argues at length against thenarrowly Greek and narrowly (skeptical) philosophical beliefs articulated by Porphyry. ForIamblichus, Platonic philosophy is more than Greek texts and what he would see as narrowphilosophical eristics. Plato himself, he would argue, knew ancient wisdom and used it, and so it isimperative that Greek philosophers now do the same or risk misunderstanding Plato. Theurgy is themeans of bringing ancients and Plato together.What then is theurgy, and how does it make use of the Greek philosophical tradition along with theEgyptian/Chaldaean/Syrian mysticism? As Dr. Uzdavinys argues throughout this book, the cultures

and philosophies are all linked in diverse ways. As he also points out, the meaning of ‘theurgy’ hasbeen often misunderstood. ‘Theurgy’ is literally ‘gods’ work’ (from theoi ‘gods’ and ergon ‘work,activity, operation’). In the De Mysteriis, Iamblichus argues that this does not mean that we humanbeings force the gods to do work for us. The gods, as Plato had laid out in the Symposium (202b–203a), do not interact directly with human beings. They are separate and superior, and interaction isaccomplished via daemons, intermediary demigods that carry our prayers to the gods and the gods’gifts to us. So we mortals would have been cut-off from the gods except for the intermediaries, whichIamblichus identifies with angels, daemons, and heroes. These exist below the Moon and on earth andcan range as high as the ethereal bodies of the visible gods above (planets and stars). Thus, one waythat theurgic rituals work is via these intermediaries.Iamblichus, however, did not remove this earthly realm from interactions with the gods. Also in theDe Mysteriis, especially in book III, he lays out his theory of illumination (ellampsis). The gods shinea light from their ethereal bodies, and though they themselves stay separate from the material realmhere on earth, they nonetheless can illuminate objects and persons and interact with them in that way.This in turn brings up a third essential ingredient of theurgic rites: the person involved, the theurgist,initiate, or sacred object/person, must be adapted to receive the divine rays. For us human beings, thismeans that we must be appropriately purified. To take the lowest exemplum, if the theurgist wishesto use a child as a medium in a rite, then the theurgist must prepare the child for reception by purifyingthe child-recipient’s ethereal body. The ritual purifying renders the child fit for receiving the divinerays.On a higher level, if theurgists wish to channel the divine through their own body, then they willhave more preparation to do. Certainly they will have to purify themselves via ascetic living, etc., butthere is more involved because, in the case of children, the child’s intellect is not being engaged inthe rite. Indeed, the child is unaware of what is happening when the god’s light surrounds him. Fortheurgists, however, the intellect must be engaged, which in turn means that they must purify not onlytheir bodies and lower souls but also their minds. This would involve a regimen of study that includesnot only philosophy but also sacred ritual. As we saw in Ani’s case, the two sorts of study, thoughseparate, coalesce in meetings with the gods.If these three ingredients are present—a god working through intermediaries and emitting a lightdown below to a person or object adapted for its receipt—then the presiding theurgist will establishcontact with the divine. At the lowest level, this means that the child or object receives the divineillumination. When it is the theurgist that is involved or one of the theurgist’s advanced initiatesthrough the theurgist, when (that is) the mind of the recipient is engaged and the recipient has donethe appropriate study and preparation, the divine rays lift the soul of the theurgist or initiate out of thebody and up to the heavens, where it joins with the god.4 In this way, Iamblichus has preserved Plato’srequirement in the Symposium that the god does not descend and yet has assured that our ascent ispossible.Thus, Iamblichus can conclude that this is no base magical rite of the sort we encounter in the GreekMagical Papyri. This is a philosophical/theurgical ritual in which the soul ascends to the gods not byforcing the gods but by submitting to the divine will and dictates. In the De Mysteriis, Iamblichus iscareful to distinguish base magic, which leaves everything to chance and may lead its practitioners toconsort with falsity and evil daemons, and higher magic or theurgy. The latter is a guarantor of truthand happiness, combined as it is with the life of the gods.And so in ritual as after death, theurgy—‘god’s work’ performed willingly by the gods for thosewho prepare themselves appropriately—brings the philosopher/theurgist to the gods and perfects ourdivine, rational selves. We are reminded again of Ani facing Osiris. His prayer was for vindicationand the ability to move freely between realms. The goal of Iamblichus is not entirely dissimilar. Theknowledge we gain on earth guarantees us a place in heaven (and we are ‘divine’ in that sense, thoughnot literally gods), and that place means that our rational souls are united to the universal powers and

thus we, qua minds, can ‘travel’ between realms: ethereal, Intelligible, and that of the One. Theurgybrings peace, contentment, power, vindication, and a divine-like status.JOHN F. FINAMOREUniversity of Iowa .140739 IntroductionTHE HISTORICALLY UNCONTEXTUALIZED use of philosophy, mysticism, or ritual practiceis problematic in many respects, because it presupposes various self-evident and uncontestedcategories of thought and culture which, far from being ‘universal’ (at least in the popular positivisticsense), are in fact contextually conditioned, and may thus be constructed as idealized and fabulouscastles based upon normative socio-religious fantasies.This crucial insight, however, and the subsequent critical approach towards all sorts of culturalconstructions, or towards certain discursive veils, textual tricks, and rhetorical devises which are nowtaken as ‘tradition’, can neither dismiss nor compromise the ineffable divine transcendence, nor thatset of metaphysical principles which is truly archetypal. There is no question that human thought isinevitably inclined toward culturally determined and ideologically shaped generalizations (or simplytoward certain sweet illusions), and it has a ‘legal’ right to do so, because manifested reality(‘constructed’ or manifested in the sense of Neoplatonic ellampsis, irradiation) is itself a sort of Myth,a Myth of the ‘Divine Play’.This ontological conviction, expressed in the terms of mythical and theological images, is neitheran obligatory article of faith nor a solemn assertion of ‘perennial wisdom’; far from it. The Socraticirony and Shaivic laughter, dancing on the deconstructed corpses of the past, is not a hindrance ‘tobehold the secret and ineffable figures in the inaccessible places’, as Proclus used to say (In Euclid.141.22).We remain attentive to historical contexts (to the extent that they are actually ‘historical’;nonetheless, we suspect that these contexts themselves are hermeneutically constructed so as tofunction as organizing teleological visions and selective sets of memories, or rather as text-likemandalas of interrelated social and metaphysical fields. In a sense, all texts, all signs and symbols,and all phenomena are spurious and may be likened to a drunken hallucination, a mirage. This mirage,however, is rooted in the mystery of the immanent divine self-disclosure, which resembles an endlessarabesque reflecting the image of archetypal Ouroboros. Therefore our investigation, though beingsensitive to all available historical testimonies and details, cannot exclude or avoid certainmetaphysical premises, more or less a-historical comparisons, ‘unprovable’ noetic intuitions and even(sometimes pretended) ‘creative misunderstandings’ (as Pierre Hadot perhaps would say).This ‘holy myth-making’ in the widest cultural and ecological sense (including the perennialpresence of error and self-delusion) is not simply a heavenly sanctioned ‘human norm’, but the onlymeans of survival for our teleologically ‘constructed’ civilization, the only thin g that allows it to bearits heavy burden of paideia. This is so because our whole life and its rhythmic pattern increasinglyconsists of inherited, constructed, determined, and always creatively (hermeneutically) re-constructedmyths and dialectically performed rites of being.Bearing in mind all these reservations, we try to avoid thoroughly dogmatic assertions whilepresenting an integral but nonetheless selective picture of ancient philosophy and related ritualpractices in the Hellenic, Egyptian, and Mesopotamian contexts. While revealing striking parallelsand analogies, we are not inclined to the often too naïve theories of ‘influences’, ‘borrowings’, and‘diffusions’. Such theories may be correct or not, but by themselves they are unable to explain neitherthe meaning of current ideas and images (not to say the meaning of life), nor their role in themetaphysical and social economies of human existence.

The present monograph is devoted to the philosophy of late antiquity (especially, to Neoplatonism)understood as a way of life and as a path of inner transformation in one’s search for spiritual rebirthand unity with the divine principles. When regarded as a science of purification and restoration ofunity, philosophy is no less than a rite of becoming like God, and in this respect it is inseparable fromthe traditional sacred rituals, now partly or entirely interiorized.The religious ideas and practices of the Mediterranean, Egypt and the Near East serve as abackground for both philosophy (philosophia) and theurgy (theourgia). They equally includecontemplation and action (sometimes described as an ascent to Heaven), conceived of as a way ofliving perfectly — that is, in accordance with the divine patterns and archetypes — thereby fulfillingman’s last end (telos) which is to subsist at the level of Nous (the divine Intellect), to return to theOne.This monograph consists of five chapters, all of them written in 2007, except the last one, DivineRites and Philosophy in Neoplatonism, which was first delivered as a paper at the conferencePlatonism, Neoplatonism, and Literature, presented by the International Society for NeoplatonicStudies in Orono, Maine, USA, 28 June–1 July, 2002. The short version of the first chapter waspresented as a key-note lecture at the conference Philosophy: Its Essence, Power and Energy,organized by The Prometheus Trust in Glastonbury, UK, 28 June–1 July, 2007. I am grateful to TimAddey who invited me to present a key-note lecture at this conference and published my anothermonograph, namely, Philosophy as a Rite of Rebirth, From Ancient Egypt to Neoplatonism in 2008.The three remaining chapters (2, 3, and 4) were written at the La Trobe University in Bendigo,Australia. The Limits of Speculation in Neoplatonism, an article which appears as an appendix, wasinitially a paper presented at the Third Annual Conference of the Prometheus Trust (2008,Glastonbury, Somerset, UK).The present monograph is the result of prolonged studies which started long before my Ph.D.dissertation on Proclus (in Lithuanian) was defended in 2000; consequently I must express mygratitude to the late Professor A. Hillary Armstrong (though he was a bit skeptical regarding mygrowing interest in Egyptian matters), and the late Professor Henry J. Blumenthal, my supervisor atthe University of Liverpool, which I visited as an Honorary Research Fellow of the British Academy.Due to the kind attention of Ilsetraut Hadot and Pierre Hadot, I was also able to spend six months atthe Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in Paris in 1997–1998.Many colleagues and friends have contributed to my studies by their own academic research, theirpresence in various conferences and private meetings, and all sorts of assistance. They include MartinLings, Kathleen Raine, John Dillon, John Finamore, Jay Bregman, Gregory Shaw, Peter Kingsley,Anne Sheppard, Sara Rappe, Richard Sorabji and others.During the winter and spring of 2005, the Andrew Mellon fellowship afforded me the occasion tospend three months at the American Center for Oriental Research in Amman and opportunity to visitnumerous ancient sites in Jordan. I am particularly grateful to Pierre and Patricia Bikai and the staffof ACOR. Last but not least, I want to acknowledge the unwavering support of my wife Virginia andmy two daughters, Dorothea and Ruta.ALGIS UZDAVINYSKaunas (Lithuania)November 2008 .140736 1.The Origins and Meaning of PhilosophyReally there can only be one kind of knowledge. And rationality is simply mysticismmisunderstood.1

Truth itself is in danger of being extinguished. Men will experience its sunset since they are unableto endure its divine dawn (ten theian anatolen).2 .140739 Eidotheaand Proteus: the veiled images of philosophyThere are numerous definitions of philosophy and many different interpretations of what it reallyis: either the art of living (in response to the fundamental question: pos bioteon, ‘how should welive?’) or an epistemological project serving a certain demonic will to power and the increasingmadness of positivism—a contradictory and fruitless occupation which has nothing in common withgenuine

015 Divine light and luminous vehicle of the soul 3 Divine presence in images 5 Living images of the egyptian gods 5 To be made into a spirit of light 3 Rites of alchemical transformation 3 The opening of the statue's mouth 2 Mystical union with the noetic sun 5 Revelation of the divine face 0 Divine statues and their sacred gifts .