ABSTRACT
Although Eunapius places him firmly within the Plotinian line of succession in the fourth century,1 Iamblichus’ doctrines on the human soul and the inherent power of ritual or religious acts for all souls set him sharply at odds with the views of both Plotinus and Porphyry.2 Disagreements between Iamblichus and Porphyry have been recognized since antiquity,3 but the implications of their rupture have never been explored. This is partly because historians have only recently come to grips with Iamblichus’ standing as a philosopher in his own right rather than as some late antique mystic and charlatan.4 The differences between Iamblichus, Porphyry and Plotinus are many, but I shall concentrate on one, namely Iamblichus’ argument that no soul had the power on its own to return to its divine source without the human person’s participation in religious rituals involving matter. Shaw has referred to this claim as Iamblichus’ “via universalis,” and it depends-in parton Iamblichus’ conviction that all human souls have somehow fallen away from the divine realm. As I shall show, such a contention flew in the face of Plotinus’ and Porphyry’s convictions that there was no common path for both philosophers and ordinary people to follow in their quest to return to their divine source. I shall argue that Iamblichus’ articulation of his via universalis in the treatise that now goes by the name On the Mysteries prompted a wide-ranging response from
Shaw, “Eros and Arithmos: Pythagorean Theurgy in Iamblichus and Plotinus,” AncPhil 19 (1999) 121-43 at 124.
