Preface

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lAMBLICHUS
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OF THE
EGYPTIANS, CHALDEANS, AND ASSYRIANS.
TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK
BY
THOMAS TAYLOR.
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LONDON;
BERTRAM DOBELL,
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AND
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ADVERTISEMENT.
The various translations and original works of Thomas Taylor, though still in request by the more zealous students of ancient philosophy and occult science, have now become so scarce and expensive that it is only within the power of comparatively wealthy collectors to obtain them. This is a matter for regret, inasmuch as it cannot be affirmed that his writings have been, or are likely to be superseded, or that they are without value. They can hardly be neglected without loss by those who desire to understand the systems of philosophy which satisfied the spiritual needs of the antique world. It is not possible, even for the most feivent believer in modern “ progress,” to dis- miss the speculations of the ancient philo- sophers as antiquated notions which have had their day and no longer possess interest or value. The names of Socrates, Plato, and Aris- totle can never grow dim with age, nor is it possible to conceive a time when men shall cease to study and reverence them. As the disciple, the translator, and the expounder of
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these and of other sages of antiquity, Thomas Taylor deserves to be held in honour and re- membrance, and it would be a misfortune if his labours remained unknown because of the scarcity of his books. It is for this reason that the present reprint has been undertaken ; and it is hoped that it will meet with such a measure of success as may encourage the re- publication of various other works by the same author. It has been printed in handsome style and published at a moderate price in order that it may be regarded as a desirable addition to the scholar’s library, while yet it will not tax severely the means of the not too wealthy student. For the rest it is only necessary to say that this reprint is, in size, ' number of pages, type, and general get-up, an almost exact facsimile of the original edition, which was first printed in 1821. No altera- tions or additions have been made in or to the original text, as it is thought that those who care for Taylor’s writings will prefer to have them in their integrity. Should it be found possible, however, to continue the series it is intended to prefix to a future volume an essay on Taylor, which will contain a bio- graphy of him, and a critical estimate of his writings.
May, 1895.
INTRODUCTION.
It appears to me that there are two descrip- tions of persons by whom the present work must be considered to be of inestimable worth, the lovers of antiquity and the lovers of ancient philosophy and religion. To the former of these it must be invaluable, be- cause it is replete with information derived from the wise men of the Chaldeans, the prophets of the Egyptians, the dogmas of the Assyrians, and the ancient pillars of Hermes ; and to the latter, because of the doctrines contained in it, some of which originated from the Hermaic pillars, were known by Pythagoras and Plato, and were the sources of their philosophy ; and others are profoundly theological, and unfold the mysteries of ancient religion with an admir- able conciseness of diction, and an inimita- ble vigour and elegance of conception. To
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which also may be added, as the colophon of excellence, that it is the most copious, the clearest, and the most satisfactory de- fence extant of genuine ancient theology.
This theology, the sacred operations per- taining to which called theurgy are here developed, has for the most part, since the destruction of it, been surveyed only in its corruptions among barbarous nations, or during the decline and fall of the Roman empire, with which, overwhelmed with pol- lution, it gradually fell, and at length totally vanished from what is called the polished part of the globe. This will be evident to the intelligent reader from the following remarks, which are an epitome of what has been elsewhere more largely discussed by me on this subject, and which also demon- strate the religion of the Chaldeans, Egyp- tians, and Greeks to be no less scientific than sublime.
In the first place, this theology celebrates the immense principle of things as some- thing superior even to being itself; as exempt from the whole of things, of which it is nevertheless ineffably the source ; and
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does not, therefore, think fit to enumerate it with any triad* or order of beings. In- deed it even apologizes for giving the ap- pellation of the most simple of our concep- tions to that which is beyond all knowledge and all conception. It denominates this principle however, the one and the good ; by the former of these names indicating its transcendent simplicity, and by the latter
* According to this theology, as I have elsewhere shown, in every order of things, a triad is the immediate progeny of a monad. Hence the intelligible triad proceeds immediately from the ineffable principle of things. Phanes, or intelli- gible intellect, who is the last of the intelligible order, is the monad, leader, and producing cause of a triad, which is de- nominated vorjTos Kai voepos, i. e. intelligible, and at the same time intellectual. In like manner the extremity of this order produces immediately from itself the intellectual triad, Saturn, Rhea, and Jupiter. Again, Jupiter, who is also the Demiurgus, is the monad of the supermundane triad. Apollo, who subsists at the extremity of the supermundane order, produces a triad of liberated Gods. (0eot a7roA,vTot.) And the extremity of the liberated order becomes the monad of a triad of mundane Gods. This theory, too, which is the progeny of the most consummate science, is in perfect con- formity with the Chaldean theology. And hence it is said in one of the Chaldean oracles, ‘‘In every world a triad shines forth, of which a monad is the 'ruling principle.” (IlavTi yap cv Koa-pcp XapTrec rpias rjs pova the reader, who is desirous of being fully convinced of all this, to my translation of Proclus on the Theology of Plato.
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its subsistence as the object of desire to all beings. For all things desire good. At the same time, however, it asserts that these appellations are in reality nothing more than the parturitions of the soul, which, standing as it were in the vestibules of the adytum of deity, announce nothing pertaining to the ineffable, but only indicate her spontaneous tendencies towards it, and belong rather to the immediate offspring of the first God than to the first itself Hence, as the result of this most venerable conception of the supreme, when it ventures not only to de- . nominate it, though ineffable, but also to assert something of its relation to other things, it considers this as preeminently its peculiarity, that it is the principle of princi- ples ; it being necessary that the characte- ristic property of principle, after the same manner as other things, should not begin from multitude, but should be collected into one monad as a summit, and which is the principle of all principles.
The scientific reasoning from which this dogma is deduced is the following. As the principle of all things is the one, it is
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necessary that the progression of beings should be continued, and that no vacuum should intervene either in incorporeal or / corporeal natures. It is also necessary that every thing which has a natural progression should proceed through similitude. In con- sequence of this, it is likewise necessary that every producing principle should gene- rate a number of the same order with itself, viz. nature j a natural number ; soul, one that is psychical {i. e. 'belonging to soul) ; and intellect an intellectual number. For if whatever possesses a power of generating, generates similars prior to dissimilars, every cause must deliver its own form and charac- teristic peculiarity to its progeny ; and be- fore it generates that which gives subsist- ence to progressions, far distant and sepa- rate from its nature, it must constitute things proximate to itself according to es- sence, and conjoined with it through simili- tude. It is, therefore, necessary from these premises, since there is one unity, the prin- ciple of the universe, that this unity should produce from itself, prior to every thing else, a multitude of natures characterized
by unity, and a number the most of all things allied to its cause ; and these natures are no other than the Gods.
According to this theology, therefore, from the immense principle of principles, in which all things causally subsist, ab- sorbed in superessential light, and involved in unfathomable depths, a beauteous pro- geny of principles proceed, all largely par- taking of the ineffable, all stamped with the occult characters of deity, all possessing an overflowing fulness of good. From these dazzling summits, these ineffable blossoms, these divine propagations, being, life, intel- lect, soul, nature, and body depend ; monads suspended from unities, deified natures pro- ceeding from deities. Each of these mo- nads, too, is the leader of a series which extends from itself to the last of things, and which, while it proceeds from, at the same time abides in, and returns to, its leader. And all these principles, and all their pro- geny, are finally centred and rooted by their summits in the first great all-compre- hending one. Thus all beings proceed from, and are comprehended in, the first
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being : all intellects emanate from one first intellect ; all souls from one first soul ; all natures blossom from one first nature ; and all bodies proceed from the vital and lumi- nous body of the world. And, lastly, all these great monads are comprehended in the first one, from which both they and all their depending series are unfolded into light. Hence this first one is truly the unity of unities, the monad of monads, the prin- ciple of principles, the God of Gods, one and all things, and yet one prior to all.
No objections of any weight, no argu- ments but such as are sophistical, can be urged against this most sublime theory, which is so congenial to the unperverted conceptions of the human mind, that it can only be treated with ridicule and contempt in degraded, barren, and barbarous ages. Ignorance and impious fraud, however, have hitherto conspired to defame those inestimable works in which this and many other grand and important dogmas can
* Viz. The Philosophical Works of Proclus, together with those of Plotinus, Porphyry, lamblichus, Syrianus, Ammo- nius, Damascius, Olympiodorus, and Simplicius.
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alone be found ; and the theology of the ancients has been attacked with all the in- sane fury of ecclesiastical zeal, and all the imbecile flashes of mistaken wit, by men whose conceptions on the subject, like those of a man between sleeping and waking, have been turbid and wild, phantastic and confused, preposterous and vain.
Indeed, that after the great incompre- hensible cause of all, a divine multitude subsists, cooperating with this cause in the production and government of the universe, has always been, and is still, admitted by all nations and all religions, however much they may differ in their opinions respecting the nature of the subordinate deities, and the veneration which is to be paid to them by man; and however barbarous the con- ceptions of some nations on this subject may be, when compared with those of others. Hence, says the elegant Maximus Tyrius, ^'You will see one according law and assertion in all the earth, that there is one God, the king and father of all things, and many Gods, sons of God, ruling to- gether with him. This the Greek says, and
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the Barbarian says, the inhabitant of the continent, and he who dwells near the sea, the wise and the unwise. And if you pro- . ceed as far as to the utmost shores of the ocean, there also there are Gods, rising very near to some, and setting very near to others.” *
The deification, however, of dead men, and the worshiping men as Gods, formed no part of this theology, when it is con- sidered according to its genuine purity. Numerous instances of the truth of this might be adduced, but I shall mention for this purpose, as unexceptionable witnesses, the writings of Plato, the Golden Pytha- goric Verses,t and the Treatise of Plutarch
* Ei^a cSots av ev Tracra yy ofiocfioyvov vojxov Kai Xoyov, on 6eos €ts TravTtov ]3aa-iXevs Kai irarrip, Kai deoL ttoXXoi, Oeov TratSes, fSapos Xeyei, Kai o yTreipuiTy^ Kai o 6aXaTTio o aa’0(f>os. K(^v eiri rov WKcavov eXdys ras rji'ovas, k(^K€i Oeoi, tois /jtev avtcr^ovTes ay^ov p.aXa, tois 8e KaTa8vop.evoi, Dissert, i.
. Edit. Princ.
t “ Diogenes Laertius says of Pythagoras, that he charged his disciples not to give equal degrees of honour to the Gods and heroes. Herodotus (in Eutei'pe) says of the Greeks, That they worshiped Hercules two rVays, one as an immoHal deity, and so they sacrificed to him ; and another as a Hero, and so they celebrated his memory. Isocrates (Encom. He-
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on Isis and Osiris. All the works of Plato, indeed, evince the truth of this position,
len.) distinguishes between the honours of heroes and Gods, when he speaks of Menelaus and Helena. But the dis- tinction is no where more fully expressed than in the Greek inscription upon the statue of Regilla, wife to H erodes Atti- cus, as Salmasius thinks, which was set up in his temple at Triopium, and taken from the statue itself by Sirmondus ; where it is said. That she had neither the honour of a mortal nor yet that which was proper to the Gods. OuSe upa dvr\- TOL of Herodes, and by the testament of Epicteta, extant in Greek in the Collection of Inscriptions, that it was in the power of particular families to keep festival days in honour of some of their own family, and to give heroical honours to them. In that noble inscription at Venice, we find three days appointed every year to be kept, and a confraternity established for that purpose with the laws of it. The first day to be observed in honour of the Muses, and sacrifices to be offered to them as deities. The second and third days in honour of the heroes of the family; between which honour and that of deities, they showed the difference by the dis- tance of time between them, and the preference given to the other. But whereinsoever the difference lay, that there was a distinction acknowledged among them appears by this pas- sage of Valerius, in his excellent oration, extant in Dionysius Halicarnass. Antiq. Rom. lib. ii. p. 696. I call, says he, the Gods to witness, whose temples and altars our family has worshiped with common sacrifices ; and next after them, I call the Genii of our ancestors, to whom we give Sevrepas Tipas, the second honours next to the Gods, (as Celsus calls those, Ttts TrpocrrjKovcras rtpas, the due honours that belong to the lower dcemons.) From which we take notice, that the Heathens did not confound all degrees of divine worship, giving to the lowest object the same which they supposed to
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but this is particularly manifest from his Laws. The Golden verses order that the immortal Gods be honoured first, as they are disposed by law ; afterwards the illus- trious Heroes, under which appellation the author of the verses comprehends also an- gels and dmmons, properly so called ; and in the last place, the terrestrial daemons, i. e. such good men as transcend in virtue the rest of mankind. But to honour the Gods as they are disposed by law, is, as Hierocles observes, to reverence them as they are arranged by their demiurgus and father ; and this is to honour them as be- ings not only superior to man, but also to daemons and angels. Hence, to honour men, however excellent they may be, as Gods, is not to honour the Gods according to the rank in which they are placed by their Creator; for it is confounding the divine with the human nature, and is thus acting directly contrary to the Pythagoric
be due to the celestial deities, or the supreme God. So that if the distinction of divine worship will excuse from idolatrj'^, the Heathens were not to blame for it.” See Stillingfleet’s Answer to a book entitled Catholics no Idolaters, p. 510, 513, &c.
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precept. Plutarch too, in his above men- tioned treatise, most forcibly and clearly shows the impiety of worshiping men as Gods.*
So great an apprehension indeed,’' says Dr. Stillingfleet,t had the Heathens of the necessity of appropriate acts of divine worship, that some of them have chosen to die, rather than to give them to what they did not believe to be God. We have a remarkable story to this purpose in Arrian and Curtiust concerning Callisthenes. Alex- ander arriving at that degree of vanity as to desire to have divine worship given him, and the matter being started out of design among the courtiers, either by Anaxarchus, as Arrian, or Cleo the Sicilian, as Curtius says ; and the way of doing it proposed, viz. by incense and prostration; Callis- thenes vehemently opposed it, as that which would confound the difference of human and
* See the extracts from Plutarch, in which this is shown, in the Introduction to my translation of Proclus on the Theology of Plato.
t Answer to Catholics no Idolaters. Lond. l676. p. 211
I Arrian, de Exped. Alex. 1. iv. et Curt. lib. viii.
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divine worship, which had been preserved in- violable among them. The worship of the Gods had been kept up in temples, with altars, and images, and sacrifices, and hymns, and prostrations, and such like ; hut it is by no means fitting, says he, for us to confound these things, either by lifting up men to the honours of the Gods, or depressing the Gods to the honours of men. For if Alex- ander would not suffer any man to usurp his royal dignity by the votes of men ; how much more justly may the Gods disdain for any man to take their honours to himself. And it appears by Plutarch,* that the Greeks thought it a mean and base thing for any of them, when sent on any embassy to the kings of Persia, to prostrate themselves before them, because this was only allowed among them in divine adoration. There- fore, says he, when Pelopidas and Ismenias were sent to Artaxerxes, Pelopidas did no- thing unworthy, but Ismenias let fall his ring to the ground, and stooping for that, was thought to make his adoration ; which
* Vit. Artaxerx. iElian. Var. Hist. lib. i. c. 21.
C
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was altogether as good a shift as the Jesuits advising the crucifix to be held in the man- darin’s hands while they made their adora- tions in the Heathen temples in China.
Conon* also refused to make his adoration^ as a disgrace to his city ; and Isocrates t accuses the Persians for doing it, because herein they showed that they despised the Gods rather than men, by prostituting their honours to their princes. Herodotus mentions Sper- chies and Bulis, who could not with the greatest violence be brought to give adora- tion to Xerxes, because it was against the law - of their country to give divine honour to men.\ And Valerius Maximus § says, ‘'the Athe- nians put Timagoras to death for doing it ; so strong an apprehension had possessed them, that the manner of worship which they used to their Gods, should be preserved sacred and inviolable.” The philosopher Sallust also, in his Treatise on the Gods and the World, says, ""It is not unreasonable to suppose that impiety is a species of punish- ment, and that those who have had a know-
* Justin, lib. vi. J Lib. vii.
t Panegyr.
§ Lib. vi. cap. iii.
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ledge of the Gods, and yet despised them, will in another life be deprived of this knowledge. And it is requisite to make the punishment of those who have honoured their kings as Gods to consist in being ex- pelled from the Gods.’’
When the ineffable transcendency of the first God, which was considered as the grand principle in the Heathen religion by the best theologists of all nations, and par- ticularly by its most illustrious promulga- tors, Orpheus, Pythagoras, and Plato, was forgotten, this oblivion was doubtless the principal cause of dead men being deified by the Pagans. Had they properly di- rected their attention to this transcendency they would have perceived it to be so im- mense as to surpass eternity, infinity, self- subsistence, and even essence itself, and that these in reality belong to those venera- ble natures which are, as it were, first un- folded into light from the unfathomable
* Kat KoXacreb)^ 8e eiSos eivai adeiav ovk airetKOS. rovs yap yvovras deovs, Kai Kara rr] (ravras, eSei ttjv Siktjv avruiv rroitjcrai tcjv Occjjv eKTrecreiv. Cap. xviii.
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depths of that truly mystic unknown, about which all knowledge is refunded into igno- rance. For, as Simplicius justly observes,
“ It is requisite that he who ascends to the principle of things should investigate whe- ther it is possible there can be any thing better than the supposed principle ; and if something more excellent is found, the same inquiry should again be made respect- ing that, till we arrive at the highest con- ceptions, than which we have no longer any more venerable. Nor should we stop in our ascent till we find this to be the case. . For there is no occasion to fear that our progression will be through an unsubstan- tial void, by conceiving something about the first principles which is greater and more transcendent than their nature. For it is not possible for our conceptions to take such a mighty leap as to equal, and much less to pass beyond, the dignity of the first principles of things.’' He adds, This, therefore, is one and the best extension [of the soul] to [the highest] God, and is, as much as possible, irreprehensible ; viz. to know firmly, that by ascribing to him the
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most venerable excellences we can con- ceive, and the most holy and primary names and things, we ascribe nothing to him which is suitable to his dignity. It is sufficient, however, to procure our pardon [for the attempt], that we can attribute to him nothing superior.” If it is not possi- ble, therefore, to form any ideas equal to the dignity of the immediate progeny of the ineffable, e. of the first principles of things, how much less can our conceptions reach that thrice unknown darkness, in the reverential language of the Egyptians,!
* Ka6 -)(pr] Tov €7Ti ra
Tov eivai Ti KpciTTov T’i]s V7roTe6ei(rr] €7T CKeLVOv ^7]T€iv, €(j)'S av CIS Tas aKpoTaTas evvoias (XOiapev, ovSe yap evXa^rjreov prj K€vep^aTb)p€v, pei^ova riva Kat vTTipfiaLvovTa ras wpiara^ ap)pi Svvarov ryXcKOVTOv TrrjS'qpa 7rvj&q(raL ras rjperepa^ €vvoLas, ws TrapLcr(t)6r]vaL Ty a^i^ to/v ttjoo/twv ap^cav, ov Xeycj /cat vnepur- Trjvac. pia yap avry -irpos 6eov avaraa-is apis’r/, /cat tos Svva- TOv aTTTatS’OS. Kat (vv evvoiSpev aya6(ov ra a-epvoTara^ /cat ayuarara, Kat TrpiOTOvpya, Kat ovopara Kat Trpaypara avro) avartOevras eiSevai ^ej8atu)9, on prjSev avareOetKapev a^tov. apK€L 8c yptv CIS o’vyyvioprjv, to pySev c/ccii/wv vTrepTepov.
Simplic. in Epict. Enchir. p. 207. Lend. l670. 8vo.
t Of the first principles, says Damascius in MS. Trept ap^oiv, the Egyptians said nothing, but celebrated it as a darkness beyond all intellectual conception, a thrice un-
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which is even beyond these ? Had the Heathens, therefore, considered as they ought this transcendency of the supreme God, they would never have presumed to equalize the human with the divine nature, and consequently would never have wor- shiped men as Gods. Their theology, how- ever, is not to be accused as the cause of this impiety, but their forgetfulness of the sublimest of its dogmas, and the confusion with which this oblivion was necessarily attended.
But to return to the present work. To some who are conversant with the writings of Porphyry, who know how high he ranks among the best of the Platonists, and that he was denominated by them, on account of his excellence, the philosopher, it may seem strange that he should have been so un- skilled in theological mysteries, and so ignorant of the characteristics of the beings superior to man, as by his epistle to Anebo he may appear to have been. That he was not, however, in reality thus unskilful and
known darkness. Hpior-qv apx’?*' avvfxvrjKaa-iv, o-kotos virep Traa-av voTjertv, otkotos ayvo)
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ignorant, is evident from his admirable Treatise on Abstinence from Animal Food, and his Acpopjuai 7rpo9 ra uorjra, or Auxiliaries to Intelligibles. His apparent ignorance, there- fore, must have been assumed for the pur- pose of obtaining a more perfect and copious solution of the doubts proposed in his Epistle, than he would otherwise have received. But at the same time that this is admitted, it must also be observed, that he was inferior to lamblichus in theological science, who so greatly excelled in knowledge of this kind, that he was not surpassed by any one, and was equaled by few. Hence he was de- nominated by all succeeding Platonists the divine, in the same manner as Plato, ''to whom,” as the acute Emperor Julian re- marks, " he was posterior in time only, but not in genius.” *
The difficulties attending the translation of this work into English are necessarily great, not only from its sublimity and no-
* For farther particulars respecting this most extraordi- nary man, see the introduction to my translation of his Life of Pythagoras, and my History of the Restoration of the Platonic Theology.
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velty, but also from the defects of the origi- nal. I have, however, endeavoured to make the translation as faithful and com- plete as possible; and have occasionally availed myself of the annotations of Gale, not being able to do so continually, because for the most part, where philosophy is con- cerned, he shows himself to be an inaccu- rate, impertinent, and garrulous smatterer.
f
THE
EPISTLE OF PORPHYRY
TO THE
EGYPTIAN ANEBO.
Porphyry to the Prophet Aneho greeting.
I COMMENCE my friendship towards you from the Gods and good dsemons, and from those philosophic disquisitions, which have an affinity to these powers. And concerning these par- ticulars indeed, much has been said by the Grecian philosophers ; but, for the most part, the principles of their belief are derived from conjecture.
In the first place, therefore, it is granted that there are Gods. But I inquire what the peculiarities are of each of the more excellent genera, by which they are separated from each other ; and whether we must say that the cause of the distinction between them is from their energies, or their passive motions, or from things
B
2
that are consequent, or from their different arrangement with respect to bodies ; as, for instance, from the arrangement of the Gods with reference to etherial, but of daemons to aerial, and of souls to terrestrial, bodies ?
I also ask, why, since [all] the Gods dwell in the heavens, theurgists only invoke the terres- trial and subterranean Gods ? Likewise, how some of the Gods are said to be aquatic and aerial? And how different Gods are allotted different places, and the parts of bodies ac- cording to circumscription, though they have an infinite, impartible, and incomprehensible power? How there will be a union of them with each other, if they are separated by the divisible circumscriptions of parts, and by the difference of places and subject bodies ?
How do theologists, or those who are wise in divine concerns, represent the Gods as passive, to whom on this account, it is said, erect phalli are exhibited, and obscene language is used? But if they are impassive, the invocations of the Gods will be in vain, which announce that they can appease the anger of the divinities, and procure a reconciliation with them ; and still more, what are called the necessities of the Gods, will be vain. For that which is impassive cannot be allured, nor compelled, nor necessitated. How, therefore, are many
3
tilings, in sacred operations, performed to them as passive ? Invocations, likewise, are made to the Gods as passive ; so that not daemons only are passive, but the Gods also, conform- ably to what Homer says,
“And flexible are e’en the Gods themselves.” *
But if we assert with certain persons, that the Gods are pure intellects, but that daemons, be- ing psychical, participate of intellect ; in a still greater degree will pure intellects be incapable of being allured, and will be unmingled wdth sensible natures. Supplications, however, are foreign to the purity of intellect, and therefore are not to be made to it. But the things which are offered [in sacred rites] are offered as to sensitive and psychical essences.
Are, therefore, the Gods separated from dae- mons, through the former being incorporeal, but the latter corporeal ? If, however, the Gods are incorporeal alone, how will the sun and moon, and the visible celestials, be Gods ?
How, likewise, are some of the Gods benefi- cent, but others malefic ?
What is it that connects the Gods in the heavens that have bodies, with the incorporeal Gods ?
* Iliad, lib. x. v. 493.
B 2
4
AA'hat is it that distinguishes daemons from the visible and invisible Gods, since the visible are connected with the invisible Gods ?
In what do a daemon, hero, and soul, differ from each other ? Is it in essence, or in power, or in energy?
What is the indication of a God, or angel, or archangel, or daemon, or a certain archon, or soul being present? For to speak boastingly, and to exhibit a phantasm of a certain quality, is common to Gods and daemons, and to all the more excellent genera. So that the genus of Gods will in no respect be better than that of daemons.
Since the ignorance of, and deception about, divine natures is impiety and impurity, but a scientific knowledge of the Gods is holy and beneficial, the ignorance of things honourable and beautiful will be darkness, but the know- ledge of them will he light. And the former, indeed, will fill men with all evils, through the want of erudition, and through audacity ; but the latter will be the cause to them of every good. [I wish you, therefore, to unfold to me the truth respecting these particulars.^']
[And, in the first place, I wish you to explain
* Gale has omitted to give the original of the sentence contained in the brackets ; the translation of which I have added from the answer of lamblichus to this epistle.
5
to me distinctly^'] what that is which is effected in divination ? For we frequently obtain a knowledge of future events through dreams, when we are asleep ; not being, at that time, in a tumultuous ecstasy, for the body is then quiescent ; but we do not apprehend what then takes place, in the same manner as when we are awake.
But many, through enthusiasm and divine inspiration, predict future events, and are then in so wakeful a state, as even to energize according to sense, and yet they are not con- scious of the state they are in, or at least, not so much as they were before.
Some also of those who suffer a mental alienation, energize enthusiastically on hearing cymbals or drums, or a certain modulated sound, such as those who are Corybantically inspired, those who are possessed by Sabazius, and those who are inspired by the mother of the Gods. But some energize enthusiastically by drinking water, as the priest of Clarius, in Colophon ; others, by being seated at the mouth of a cavern, as those who prophesy at Delphi ; and others by imbibing the vapour from water, as the prophetesses in Branchidse. Some also become enthusiastic by standing on
* Here also the original is omitted by Gale, and the translation of it is given by me from the text of lamblichus.
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characters, as those that are filled from the in- tromission of spirits. Others, who are con- scious what they are doing in other respects, are divinely inspired according to the phan- tastic part ; some, indeed, receiving darkness for a cooperator, others certain potions, but others incantations and compositions : and
some energize, according to the imagination, through water ; others in a wall, others in the open air, and others in the sun, or in some other of the celestial bodies. Some also esta- blish the art of the investigation of futurity through the viscera, through birds, and through the stars.
I likewise ask concerning the mode of divi- nation, what it is, and what the quality by which it is distinguished \ All diviners, indeed, assert, that they obtain a foreknowledge of future events through Gods or daemons, and that it is not possible for any others to know that which is future, than those who are the lords of futurity. I doubt, therefore, whether divinity is so far subservient to men, as not to be averse to some becoming diviners from meal.
But, concerning the causes of divination, it is dubious whether a God, an angel, or a daemon, or some other power, is present in manifesta- tions, or divinations, or certain other sacred
7
energies, as is the case with those powers that are drawn down through you [priests] by the necessities with which invocation is attended.
Or does the soul assert and imagine these things, and are they, as some think, the pas- sions of the soul, excited from small incen- tives?
Or is a certain mixed form of subsistence produced from our soul, and divine inspiration externally derived ?
Hence it must be said, that the soul gene- rates the power which has an imaginative per- ception of futurity, through motions of this kind, or that the things which are adduced from matter constitute dsemons, through the powers that are inherent in them, and especially things adduced from the matter which is taken from animals.
For in sleep, when we are not employed about any thing, we sometimes obtain a know- ledge of the future.
But that a passion of the soul is the cause of divination, is indicated by this, that the senses are occupied, that fumigations are introduced, and that invocations are employed ; and like- wise, that not all men, but those that are more simple and young, are more adapted to pre- diction.
The ecstasy, also, of the reasoning power is
8
the cause of divination, as is likewise the mania which happens in diseases, or mental aberra- tion, or a sober and vigilant condition, or suffu- sions of the body, or the imaginations excited by diseases, or an ambiguous state of mind, such as that which takes place between a sober condition and ecstasy, or the imaginations arti- ficially procured by enchantment.
Nature, likewise, art, and the sympathy of things in the universe, as if they were the parts of one animal, contain premanifestations of certain things with reference to each other. And bodies are so prepared, that there is a presignification of some by others, which is clearly indicated by the works performed in predicting what is future. For those who in- voke the divinities for this purpose, have about them stones and herbs, bind certain sacred bonds, which they also dissolve, open places that are shut, and change the deliberate inten- tions of the recipients, so as from being de- praved to render them worthy, though they were before depraved. Nor are the artificers of efficacious images to be despised. For they observe the motion of the celestial bodies, and can tell from the concurrence of what star with a certain star or stars, predictions will be true or false ; and also whether the things that are performed will be inanities, or significant
9
and efficacious, though no divinity or daemon is drawn down by these images.
But there are some who suppose that there is a certain obedient genus of daemons, which is naturally fraudulent, omniform, and various, and which assumes the appearance of Gods and daemons, and the souls of the deceased ; and that through these every thing which ap- pears to he either good or evil is effected ; for they are not able to contribute any thing to true goods, such as those of the soul, nor to have any knowledge of them, but they abuse, deride, and frequently impede those who are striving to be virtuous. They are likewise full of pride, and rejoice in vapours and sacrifices.
Jugglers likewise fraudulently attack us in many ways, through the ardour of the expec- tations which they raise.
It very much indeed perplexes me to under- stand how superior beings, when invoked, are commanded by those that invoke them, as if they were their inferiors ; and they think it requisite that he who worships them should be just, but when they are called upon to act unjustly, they do not refuse so to act. Though the Gods, likewise, do not hear him who in- vokes them, if he is impure from venereal con- nexions, yet, at the same time, they do not re- fuse to lead any one to illegal venery.
10
[I am likewise dubious with respect to sacri- fices, what utility or power they possess in the universe, and with the Gods, and on what account they are performed, appropriately in- deed, to the powers who are honoured by them, but usefully to those by whom the gifts are olffered.*]
Why also do the interpreters of prophecies and oracles think it requisite that they should abstain from animals, lest the Gods should be polluted by the vapours arising from them ; and yet the Gods are especially allured by the vapours of animals ?
Why is it requisite that the inspector [who presides over sacred rites] ought not to touch a dead body, though most sacred operations are performed through dead bodies? And why, which is much more absurd than this, are threats employed and false terrors, by any casual person, not to a dsemon, or some de- parted soul, but to the sovereign Sun himself, or to the Moon, or some one of the celestial Gods, in order to compel these divinities to speak the truth? For does not he who says that he will burst the heavens, or unfold the
* The paragraph within the brackets is omitted in the original ; but I have supplied it from the following answer of lamblichus to this Epistle. This omission is not noticed by Gale.
11
secrets of Isis, or point out the arcanum in the adytum, or stop Baris, or scatter the members of Osiris to Typhon, [or that he will do some- thing else of the like kind *], does not he who says this, by thus threatening what he neither knows nor is able to effect, prove himself to be stupid in the extreme? And what abjectness does it not produce in those who, like very silly children, are possessed with such vain fear, and are terrified at such fictions? And yet Chaeremon, who was a sacred scribe, writes these things, as disseminated by the Egyptians. It is also said, that these, and things of the like kind, are of a most compulsive nature.
What also is the meaning of those mystic narrations which say that a certain divinity is unfolded into light from mire, that he is seated above the lotus, that he sails in a ship, and that he changes his forms every hour, accord- ing to the signs of the zodiac ? For thus, they say, he presents himself to the view, and thus ignorantly adapt the peculiar passion of their owm imagination to the God himself. But if these things are asserted symbolically, being symbols of the powers of this divinity, I re- quest an interpretation of these symbols. For
* Here likewise the words within the brackets, which are omitted in the original, are added from lamblichus ; but the omission is not noticed by Gale.
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it is evident, that if these are similar to passions of the Sun, when he is eclipsed, they would be seen by all men who intently survey the God.
What also is the design of names that are without signification ? and why, of such, are those that are barbaric preferred to our own ? For if he who hears them looks to their signifi- cation, it is sufilcient that the conception re- mains the same, whatever the words may be that are used. For he who is invoked is not of the Egyptian race ; nor, if he was an Egyp- tian, does he use the Egyptian, or, in short, any human language. For either all these are the artificial contrivances of enchanters, and veils originating from our passions, which rumour ascribes to a divine nature ; or we ignorantly frame conceptions of divinity, contrary to its real mode of subsistence.
I likewise wish you to unfold to me, what the Egyptians conceive the fii'st cause to be ; whether intellect, or above intellect? whether alone, or subsisting with some other or others ? whether incorporeal, or corporeal ; and whether it is the same with the Demiurgus, or prior to the Demiurgus? Likewise, whether all things are from one principle, or from many prin- ciples? whether the Egyptians have a know- ledge of matter, or of primary corporeal quali- ties ; and whether they admit matter to be
13
imbegotten, or to be generated? For Chsere- mon, indeed, and others, do not think there is any thing else prior to the visible worlds ; but in the beginning of their writings on this sub- ject, admit the existence of the Gods of the Egyptians, but of no others, except what are called the planets, the Gods that give com- pletion to the zodiac, and such as rise together with these ; and likewise, the sections into decans, and the horoscopes. They also admit the existence of what are called the powerful leaders, whose names are to be found in the calendars, together with their ministrant offices, their risings and settings, and their significations of future events. For Chseremon saw that what those who say that the sun is the Demi- nrgus, and likewise what is asserted concern- ing Osiris and Isis, and all the sacred fables, may be resolved into the stars and the phases, occultations and risings of these, or into the in- crements or decrements of the moon, or into the course of the sun, or the nocturnal and diurnal hemisphere, or into the river [Nile]. And, in short, the Egyptians resolve all things into physical, and nothing into incorporeal and living essences. Most of them likewise sus- pend that which is in our power from the motion of the. stars ; and bind all things, though I know not how, with the indissoluble bonds
14
of necessity, which they call fate. They also connect fate with the Gods ; whom, neverthe- less, they worship in temples and statues, and other things, as the only dissolvers of fate.
Concerning the peculiar deemon, it must be inquired how he is imparted by the lord of the geniture, and according to what hind of efflux, or life, or power, he descends from him to us ? And also, whether he exists, or does not exist ? And whether the invention of the lord of the geniture is impossible, or possible? For if it is possible he is happy, who having learned the scheme of his nativity, and knowing his proper daemon, becomes liberated from fate.
The canons, also, of genethliology [or predic- tion from the natal day] are innumerable and incomprehensible. And the knowledge of this mathematical science cannot be obtained ; for there is much dissonance concerning it, and Chseremon and many others have written against it. But the discovery of the lord, or lords, of the geniture, if there are more than one in a nativity, is nearly granted by astrolo- gers themselves to he unattainable, and yet they say that on this the knowledge of the proper dsemon depends.
Farther still, I wish to know whether the peculiar dsemon rules over some one of the parts in us ? For it appears to certain persons.
15
that daemons preside over the parts of our body, so that one is the guardian of health, another of the form of the body, and another of the corporeal habits, and that there is one daemon who presides in common over all these. And again, that one daemon presides over the body, another over the soul, and another over the intellect ; and that some of them are good, but others bad.
I am also dubious whether this daemon is not a certain part of the soul, [such, foi; instance, as the intellectual part ;] and if so, he will be happy who has a wise intellect.
I see likewise, that there is a twofold worship of the peculiar daemon; the one being the worship as of two, hut the other as of three. By all men, however, the daemon is called upon by a common invocation.
I farther ask, whether there is a certain other latent way to felicity, separate from the Gods ? And I am dubious whether it is requi- site to look to human opinions in divine divi- nation and theurgy? And whether the soul does not devise great things from casual cir- cumstances? Moreover, there are certain other methods which are conversant with the predic- tion of future events. And, perhaps, those who possess divine divination, foresee indeed what will happen, yet are not on this account
16
happy ; for they foresee future events, but do not know how to use this knowledge properly. I wish, therefore, that you would point out to me the path to felicity, and show me in what the essence of it consists. For with us [Greeks] there is much verbal contention about it, be- cause we form a conjecture of good from human reasonings. But by those who have devised the means of associating with beings more ex- cellent than man, if the investigation of this subject is omitted, wisdom will be professed by them in vain ; as they will only disturb a divine - intellect about the discovery of a fugitive slave, or the purchase of land, or, if it should so happen, about marriage, or merchandize. And if they do not omit this subject, but assert what is most true about other things, yet say nothing that is stable and worthy of belief about felicity, in consequence of employing themselves about things that are difficult, but useless to man- kind ; in this case, they will not be conversant either with Gods or good daemons, but with that daemon who is called fraudulent ; or, if this is not admitted, the whole will be the in- vention of men, and the fiction of a mortal nature.
SambUcIjus* on tlje jffilsstctics, ^c.
THE
ANSWER OF THE PRECEPTOR ABAMMON
TO THE
EPISTLE OF PORPHYRY TO ANEBO,
AND A
SOLUTION OF THE DOUBTS CONTAINED IN IT.