Iamblichus: On the Mysteries

Hermes, the god presiding over language, is presented as common to all priests; ancestors dedicated their writings to him. The author accepts that the letter sent to his disciple Anebo was addressed to him, and offers a true answer, noting that Pythagoras, Plato, Democritus, and Eudoxus received instruction from the sacred scribes. He invites attention to what is said rather than to who speaks, and proposes to divide the genera of problems and identify the theologies from which the doubts arise—Chaldeans, Egyptian prophets, philosophers, and common conceptions. He states he will deliver the dogmas of the Assyrians and his own opinions, drawn from the pillars of Hermes which Plato and Pythagoras knew, answering theological questions theologically, theurgic ones theurgically, and philosophical ones philosophically. Addressing the statement that "it must be granted that there are Gods," he denies this is rightly put: an innate knowledge of the Gods coexists with the soul's essence, prior to reason; contact with divinity is not knowledge. The same holds for dæmons, heroes, and undefiled souls. Concerning the peculiarities distinguishing the more excellent genera, he critiques the inquiry as imperfect, arguing it should proceed through essence, power, and energy, and rejects distinctions drawn from active and passive motions, accidents, and the claim that essences are known through energies. He describes the good beyond essence and the good according to essence as the peculiarity of the Gods, with souls having only participation. Between the extremes he places two media: heroes, elevated above souls, and dæmons, suspended from the Gods, unfolding their invisible good. He ascribes the united and immoveable to the Gods, the partible to souls, and concludes by defining the extremes—one supreme and perfect, the other deficient—and the peculiarities of the first divine genera.

The speaker rejects the claim that the divine genera are distinguished by arrangement to different bodies—Gods to etherial, dæmons to aerial, souls to terrene—arguing the divine genera are free and unrestrained, rule bodies externally, receive nothing from them, and that such a view makes bodies more excellent than the divine genera. He states that inferior natures are produced in superior ones, essence and form descend from superior to subordinate, so the corporeal division is false. He argues that incorporeal essence cannot be distinguished by corporeal qualities, that the Gods are everywhere, and that this opinion subverts sacred institutions and theurgic communion; terrestrial natures exist in the pleromas of the Gods. He reframes the inquiry about why terrestrial and subterranean Gods are invoked, correcting that the Gods are not in the heavens alone, and explains divine allotment through the analogy of the sun and its light illuminating externally. He then rejects distinguishing the genera as passive and impassive, placing immutability in all divine genera; even the liberated soul does not suffer, so dæmons and heroes are impassive. Addressing why sacred operations treat them as passive, he attributes this to ignorance of sacerdotal mysticism, listing several causes of rites. Concerning particulars, he explains the erection of phalli as a sign of prolific power, obscene language as indicating matter's deformity, and, citing Heraclitus's term "remedies," how surveying passions purifies. He argues invocations render worshippers pure rather than drawing down the Gods, explains the anger of the Gods as abandonment of their care, the oblation of victims as invoking Gods and dæmons as expellers of evil, and the necessities of the Gods as peculiar to their nature—concluding the divine is impassive and uncompelled.

The speaker turns to the division of Gods from dæmons. He notes that "you" propose Gods are pure intellects and infer dæmons are psychical essences participating of intellect, and he calls such opinions confused. Addressing the doubt whether one should pray to inflexible pure intellects, he affirms prayer is proper only to these, explaining that the divine element in humans is excited in prayer. He rebuts the objections that incorporeals cannot hear sounds, that supplications are foreign to intellect, and that offerings are made to sensitive and psychical natures, holding that offerings share incorporeal forms. He criticizes the division separating Gods from dæmons by corporeal and incorporeal. Answering how sun, moon, and visible heavenly natures can be Gods if Gods are incorporeal, he says celestial bodies contain bodies in their divine lives and are allied to incorporeal essence. Addressing how some Gods are beneficent, others malefic (assumed from predictors of nativities), he insists all Gods are good; evils arise from material recipients' privation of symmetry, using Saturn's constipative and Mars's motive effluxes as examples. He answers what conjoins bodied celestial Gods with incorporeal Gods through paradigms and union. He then distinguishes dæmons from visible and invisible Gods, and rejects the division of passive from impassive, noting sacred rites are ordained intellectually, not through passion. Section II defines how dæmons, heroes, and souls differ in essence, power, and energy: dæmons proceed from generative and demiurgic powers, heroes from reasons of life; their essences, powers, and energies are specified. Soul follows, receiving portions from both, capable of elevation to the angelic order, and is distinguished by each nature's peculiarity.

Iamblichus proceeds to the appearances of the Gods and their attendants, answering the inquiry by what indication the presence of a God, angel, archangel, dæmon, archon, or soul is known. He states their appearances accord with their essences, powers, and energies. He distinguishes the phasmata: those of Gods are uniform, of dæmons various, of angels simple, of archangels near divine causes, of archons various, of souls all-various. He treats their light and colour (Gods salutary, dæmons dreadful, heroes—omitted in the inquiry but answered—milder than dæmons), their immutability of form, and order and quiet. He describes their beauty, the acuteness and rapidity of their energies, and the magnitude of their epiphanies, the Gods' concealing heaven, sun, and moon. He then defines the self-apparent statues or images, their light, and their fire, treating stability and motion of that fire. He describes what purifies souls—perfect in Gods, anagogic in archangels, angels dissolving the bond of generation, dæmons drawing souls down, heroes leading to sensible works. He instructs attribution of pure and stable qualities to more excellent genera, and treats commixture and the consumption of matter. He describes the gifts of the manifestations: the presence of Gods imparts health, virtue, purity; dæmons render the body heavy; undefiled souls are anagogic. He treats the order surrounding the powers (Gods surrounded by Gods or angels, depraved dæmons by wild beasts), the tenuity and subtlety of light, and finally the dispositions of the soul of those who invoke them. He concludes that the gifts and manifestations inquired about have received a fit reply.

The author tells the interlocutor that his claim—that boastful speech and adumbrative phantasms are common to Gods, dæmons, and the more excellent genera—is neither true nor rightly asserted. A God, angel, and good dæmon instruct men and never speak beyond their power, since truth coexists with the Gods. Boastful deception arises only when error occurs in the theurgic art and inferior powers assume the forms of venerable orders; the priest must confute such pretexts. True spirits exhibit self-visible fire. The Gods reveal true images, not phantasms like those in water or mirrors, and divinity does not transform itself into phantasms. The interlocutor's claim confounds the genera; the author asks how Gods differ from dæmons. Granting that ignorance is impiety, the author adds that a conception of the mind does not conjoin theurgists with the Gods; the synthemata perform their own work, and theurgic union is imparted by ineffable works and symbols, not human intellection. In Section III the interlocutor asks what foreknowledge is. The author states it is divine, unbegotten, eternal, sent from the Gods, not from bodies, nature, or art. On dreams, he distinguishes ordinary human dreams from god-sent (theopemptoi) dreams, marked by voices, an invisible spirit, and bright light. The wise say the soul has a twofold life, liberated in sleep. Examples: healing at the temple of Esculapius; Alexander's army preserved through Bacchus appearing in sleep; the city Aphutis saved from King Lysander through a dream sent by Jupiter Ammon. On enthusiasm, the author gives signs of true possession: the inspired are not burned by fire, unharmed when transfixed by spits, struck by axes, or cut, like the priest in Castabalis. One who draws down a divinity sees a descending spirit and a species of fire.

It is stated that knowing prior matters does not suffice; one must know what enthusiasm is. Enthusiasm is not a motion of dianoia joined with dæmoniacal inspiration; inspiration comes from the Gods, not dæmons, and is not mere ecstasy but a reelevation to a more excellent condition, consisting in being wholly possessed by divinity, followed by mental alienation. It pertains neither to soul nor body; divinity uses these as instruments. Divinations are true when effected rightly, false when the soul is disturbed. The causes of divine mania are illuminations from the Gods and spirits imparted by them, which emit words not understood by those who utter them with an insane mouth. The questioner's claim about those inspired by cymbals, drums, Corybantic possession, Sabazius, and the mother of the Gods is called foreign to enthusiasm, being physical; rather, sounds are consecrated to the Gods, and the soul, having heard divine harmony before entering body, recollects it. The Corybantes have a guardian nature, Sabazius Bacchic inspiration; those inspired by the mother of the Gods are precedaneously women, not males. The questioner names three oracles: Colophon (drinking water), Delphi (at the cavern's mouth on a tripod), and Brandchidæ (imbibing vapour); each prophetess is prepared by fasting and purification, illuminated externally by divinity. Oracular divination is separate from places, pervading all elements. Private divination by standing on characters is called deceptive and disturbed by depraved spirits. Divination through the phantastic part, using darkness, potions, incantations, water, walls, or celestial light, is termed the eduction of light, illuminating the luciform vehicle. Divination through art—viscera, birds, stars—uses divine signs produced through nature or genesiurgic dæmons; Heraclitus is cited: "neither speaking nor concealing, but signifying."

Descending to particulars, the text states that the soul of animals, their presiding dæmon, the air, and the circulation of the heavens change the viscera according to the will of the Gods, indicated by animals found without a heart. Birds are likewise moved by soul, dæmon, and heavenly power, sometimes destroying themselves supernaturally. The stars' motions approximate the eternal circulations; the sympathy of the universe sends signs through the heavens and air. The Gods, being separate, use dæmons, souls, and nature as media. This accords with the Gods' providence and does not draw down their intellect. Addressing the inquiry into the mode of divination, the text corrects the interlocutor for calling the Gods' providential care "subserviency," affirming divine energy has separate precedency and is never drawn down. Divinity produces all modes impartibly, in one energy. Its power extends even to inanimate things—pebbles, rods, wood, stones, corn, wheat—imparting soul to them, as it makes a stupid man speak wisely. On the causes of divination, the text answers that nothing is performed without a more excellent nature: Gods lead perfect operations, angels media, dæmons the last. It denies the Gods are drawn through necessity of invocation, which works by similitude, not violence. It rejects that the soul's passions cause divination, since the soul is darkened by body ("river of Negligence"), and that a mixed hypostasis of soul and divine inspiration exists, which would make the soul equal to the Gods. It rejects that matter from animals constitutes dæmons, since dæmons precede soul. Concerning knowledge in sleep, the text argues dreams show divination is externally derived from the Gods, and that enthusiasm is not passion but externally derived, since fumigations and invocations belong to divinity.

The text criticizes the view that divination's cause is the mania occurring in diseases, which assimilates enthusiasm to black bile, intoxication, and the fury of mad dogs. It divides ecstasy into two species, one leading to a worse condition and one imparting goods beyond human temperance, contrasting them point by point, and directs that divine mania be separated from human perversions, bodily diseases, ambiguous states, and enchantment's phantasms; such doubts are dismissed as contentious. It expresses astonishment at placing divination's truth with enchanters or with those incited by passion, and distinguishes true divination's invariable sameness from fortuitous truth, from truth between agents and patients, and from natural prescience such as animals' foreknowledge of earthquakes and rain, or the conjectures of the piloting and medical arts. It denies that nature, art, and sympathy suffice, and that there is a natural seed of divine prediction in us; it insists divination pertains to the Gods, not to nature, citing invokers' use of stones, herbs, sacred bonds, and opening shut places as signs that inspiration accedes externally. It then attacks the "artificers of efficacious images," arguing idols are man-made from matter, dissolve rapidly like mirror-images through fumigations, and that idol-makers resemble their images. It denies that observing celestial motions confers divine power, that material powers are elements of dæmons, and notes that no God or dæmon is drawn down by idols. Answering the view that a fraudulent genus of dæmons causes divination, it relates what was heard from the prophets of the Chaldeans: true Gods give good, associate with the purified, and banish evil; the flagitious attract depraved spirits. Theurgists remain undisturbed, evil spirits receding as if struck by lightning. This divination is undefiled, sacerdotal, and divine, affording ascent to intelligible fire. The discussion on divination terminates. Section IV begins.

The speaker proposes to consider the opposing arguments and invites the interlocutor to state the doubts, promising to answer. The first doubt: how superior beings, when invoked, are commanded as if inferior. The speaker distinguishes the invoked powers: Gods and more excellent natures impart benevolently; the middle genera guard judgment, aiding just works and impeding unjust; another irrational genus of dæmons acts without judgment, each allotted one power, illustrated by the sword and by the Charonean spiracles. He explains that the dianoia commands irrational spirits, invoking them as superior yet commanding them as inferior, and that the priest sustains a twofold character, as man and as invested with the form of the Gods. A truer solution removes human-like evocations, asserting divine works proceed through sameness, union, and consent, not contrariety. The next inquiry asks why the powers require the worshipper to be just yet act unjustly when called. The speaker answers that divine justice differs from human, the Gods knowing the soul's former lives. He addresses common doubts about providence, grants for argument that unjust things occur, and maintains the Gods are not their cause, since good causes good; evil dæmons assuming the appearance of Gods are responsible. From another hypothesis he treats the corporeal parts of the universe, whose evils are salutary to wholes, and concludes invocators pervert an involuntary gift. Regarding venereal impurity, he attributes such workings to human art and evil dæmons, not the divine. Section V raises the doubt concerning sacrifices' utility and the objection about vapours polluting the Gods. He answers by the transcendency of wholes over parts, noting the exhalation from sacrificed animals is coadapted to superior beings without restraining them.

The text argues that abstinence from animals presents no real difficulty: those who worship the Gods do not abstain lest the Gods be defiled by vapours, since the Gods and celestial bodies amputate matter intangibly and cannot be defiled by terrestrial exhalations. Defilement pertains only to material natures; the hypothesis of contrariety is subverted as pertaining nothing to the Gods. The first doubt is thus concluded. The next inquiry concerns sacrifices. Sacrifices are not offered merely for honour, thanks, or first fruits; their efficacious power is what matters. Assigning their cause to sympathy of powers, or to numbers (sixty in the crocodile for the sun), physical reasons (the dog, cynocephalus, weasel, common to the moon), material forms, or members (the heart of a cock) is rejected as making the Gods physical causes. It is better to assign friendship and familiarity binding fabricators to things fabricated. Causes are many—dæmoniacal, divine, one most ancient—all moved by a perfect sacrifice. The notion that Gods are allured by vapours is denied; dæmons' bodies are immutable, luciform, unindigent. Fire consumes matter, assimilates it, and elevates offerings and worshippers to the Gods. The sacred law of sacrifices is connected with the order of the Gods: some Gods are material, others immaterial; sacred operations begin from material Gods, requiring material worship (slaying animals, consuming victims). Corresponding to the twofold human condition, there are twofold sacrifices; the pure kind, as Heraclitus says, rarely befits one man. Cities require material sacrifice. Corporeal sacrifices serve the body's needs and health. Immaterial Gods bestow nothing pertaining to mortal life. Men are divided—the mass under nature, a few under intellect, media between—each worshipping accordingly.

The text presents a division of divine essences and powers: some have soul and nature ministrant to them, others are entirely separate, and others are media between these. It follows that Gods reigning over soul and nature receive physical powers and bodies, uniform Gods receive intellectual and liberated gifts, and median Gods receive twofold gifts. Turning to the mundane Gods and the four elements, the text argues that since humans are parts of the world, they should not pass beyond mundane orders; only a rare theurgist transcends bodies and matter. Piety must not be exercised partially: since powers precede the descending Gods, one who fails to honour each departs imperfect, while one who honours all remains secure. The mode of sanctity must be multiform and all-harmonic; omitting even a few things subverts the whole, like one burst chord causing dissonance. The summit recurs to the principal One, but only for a few, at life's setting. Sacred operations must imitate the world's variety. The text affirms a pure divine matter, generated by the demiurgus, so theurgy connects stones, herbs, animals, and aromatics into pure receptacles. Gods presiding over places receive their own productions; some Egyptian animals and man are sacred. Divinity leads worship, with presiding Gods, angels, and dæmons over sacrifices by genus. Prayer is discussed: three species—collective, bond of concordant communion, and seal of ineffable union—yielding illumination, communion of operation, and divine fire. Prayer's advantages and its conjunction with sacrifice to the Demiurgus are described. Section VI addresses why the inspector must not touch dead bodies yet operates through some: consecrated bodies differ from impure ones; divination through sacred animals like hawks works through dæmons and animal souls, predicting only small concerns. Section VII begins treating "violent threats"—threatening to burst heavens, unfold Isis's secrets, stop Baris, scatter Osiris—directed at partible irrational powers and dæmons, not Gods. Chaldeans use no threats; Egyptians sometimes do.

The author states that the following doubts require the same divinely-wise Muse, then unfolds the peculiarity of Egyptian theology: the Egyptians imitate nature and exhibit images through symbols of occult intellections, since superior natures rejoice in the similitude of inferior beings. He gives intellectual interpretations of symbols: "mire" signifies the corporeal and material; the God who causes generation transcends this; the God "sitting above the lotus" signifies transcendency, the lotus being circular and allied to intellect; the God "sailing in a ship" signifies the power governing the world, as a pilot governs from the stem, so the sun governs the world. The sun is diversified according to the zodiac and changes form each hour, indicating that the God is one. The author addresses names that are "not significant," arguing they signify to the Gods, and defends why Barbaric names are preferred, since sacred nations (Egyptians, Assyrians) have language adapted to the Gods; translated names lose power; the Greeks are studious of novelty, while Barbarians are stable and dear to the Gods. In Section VIII he treats the first cause, citing Seleucus, Hermes, and Manetho on the number of sacred books, and describes one God prior to the first God, then Emeph, Eicton, Amon, Ptha (whom the Greeks call Vulcan), and Osiris, with rulers assigned to sun and moon. He notes books under Hermes' name, Chæremon, and that Hermes narrated the anagogic path, which Bitys, prophet of King Ammon, explained, having found it in the adyta of Saïs. He addresses fate and the stars, stating man has two souls and can be liberated from fate through the Gods, and denies Homer's claim that the Gods are flexible. Section IX begins the discussion of the peculiar dæmon, twofold, theurgic and artificial, and questions concerning the lord of the geniture.

The author addresses Porphyry, quoting his claim that one who learns his nativity and knows his proper dæmon is liberated from fate; the author finds this inconsistent, since a dæmon allotted by fate cannot liberate from fate, and states the dæmon's origin is more ancient than the nativity. He sets aside doubts about the canons and genethlialogical science, arguing the efflux from the stars distributes the dæmon regardless of knowledge. He rejects Porphyry's inference that mathematical science is incomprehensible because of dissonance or Chæremon's writing against it, noting all sciences have controvertists, and citing predicted eclipses and Chaldean and native observations as evidence astrology is true. Against Porphyry's claim that the lord of the geniture is unattainable, he notes astrologers give five or more rules, and that theurgy yields abundant knowledge. He then unfolds the true doctrine: the peculiar dæmon is distributed from the whole world, established in the paradigm before the soul descends, presides over the whole soul until, through theurgy, one obtains a God as guardian. He denies the dæmon is divided among body, soul, and intellect, or that evil dæmons rule, or that the dæmon is a part of the soul, or that two or three are worshipped; each has one dæmon, invoked through one God, lord of dæmons. Turning to felicity, he denies any way apart from the Gods, dismisses human opinions and the phantasy, and distinguishes natural presage (in animals) and human conjecture (physicians) from boniform divine divination. He describes the intelligible man fettered by fate, liberated only through knowledge of the Gods, and the theurgic gift depositing the soul in the whole Demiurgus. He states Bitys unfolded two kinds of good from the Hermaic books, affirming the Egyptians deliver this.

Iamblichus closes the treatise by stating that he has answered, to the utmost of his ability, the inquiries concerning divination and theurgy, and prays that the Gods afford him an immutable guard of true conceptions, insert in him eternal truth, and supply him abundantly with participation of more perfect conceptions of the Gods, in which the most blessed end of good is posited and the confirmation of concordant friendship is secured. The remainder of the span consists of Additional Notes. A note on "Anebo" reports that Porphyry, in his Life of Plotinus and in the second book of his Treatise on Abstinence from Animals, mentions familiarity with an Egyptian priest, whom Gale conjectures to be the addressee; the diction indicates a great prophet later called a priest, and Apuleius in Metamorphoses xi calls the Egyptian Zaclas a chief prophet and priest. A note on "Hermes the God who presides over language" states the Egyptians celebrated two Hermes, the first signified here, the source of invention, son of Maia, bestower of mathesis; Proclus in his Comment. in Alcibiad. describes him as guardian of gymnastic, music, and disciplines, supplier of recollection. A note on the pillars of Hermes cites Amm. Marcellinus that they were concealed before the deluge in caverns called syringes near Thebes, interpreted by the second Hermes, and mentioned by Laertius, Dio Chrysostom, and Achilles Tatius. A note on the good distinguishes three orders of good, drawing on Plato's Sophista and the Elean guest. A note on daemons quotes Olympiodorus's Scholia on the Phædo giving a middle genus with six kinds and an alternate division, and cites a Chaldean Oracle on aerial, terrestrial, and aquatic dogs. A note on divine allotment quotes Proclus in Tim. on celestial and sublunary allotments, immutable intervals, etherial vehicles, wholeness of elements, aptitude for participation, and Iamblichus's doubt regarding Minerva's allotment of Athens and Saïs. A final note on theurgy identifies it with the magic of Zoroaster, cites Pythagoras, Proclus, Psellus, and Ficinus, and quotes Proclus on the sympathy of things: heliotropes, selenitropes, the sunflower, heated paper, the lotus, the sun-stone, lunar stone, helioselenus, solar animals such as lions and cocks, the cock feared by the lion, solar angels, and the priestly mingling of herbs and stones—thistle, laurel, mole's heart, sulphur, marine water.

The ancient priests, through sympathy and antipathy, collected or expelled virtues, purifying with sulphur and bitumen and sprinkling marine water; sulphur purifies by its odour, marine water by its fiery portion. In worship they offered animals, first received the powers of dæmons, then proceeded from dæmons to the energies of the Gods through instruction and symbols, and finally received themselves into communion with the Gods. The Emperor Julian, in an extract preserved by Cyril, states that inspiration from the Gods is rare, has ceased among the Hebrews and Egyptians, and that Jupiter gave observation through sacred arts. A note cites Plotinus and Proclus on the impassive soul, illustrated by an image reflected in a moving stream. Another note, citing Proclus on the Parmenides, describes the Gods as self-perfect unities in which all are in all, known through their participated natures, rooted like trees in the one. Proclus's Elements of Theology (Prop. 131) shows each God begins his energy from himself. A long passage from Hermeas's Scholia on the Phædrus treats enthusiasm, locating it in the "one" of the soul above intellect, distinguishing the producing, material, formal, and final causes, discussing why the soul does not always energize, the telestic art, allotments of souls, and enthusiastic statues animated by mystic operators. It then treats Plato's four manias—musical, telestic, prophetic, amatory—their gradation and mutual need, mentioning other inspirations from Nymphs, Pan, the mother of the Gods, and Corybantes, and citing Orpheus as possessed by all manias, with the Muses, Bacchus, Apollo, and Love presiding. It distinguishes internal from external manias, then describes the soul's descent from union with the Gods into intellect.

The soul, departing from intellect into reasoning and dianoia, apprehends beings syllogistically, then descends into generation and becomes filled with irrationality; it must return to its principles. Four manias assist this ascent and apocatastasis: the musical produces harmony; the telestic makes the soul perfect; the Dionysiacal renders it whole; the Apolloniacal elevates it from multitude to the one (whence Apollo is so named); the amatory conjoins the soul to the Gods and intelligible beauty. Their external energies are described: musical mania causes speaking in verse; telestic expels the noxious; prophetic contracts time into one present; amatory converts young persons and leads them from sensible to intelligible beauty. A mania coordinate with temperance produces inspirations in artists, as Asclepius in medicine and Hercules in practical life. Hermeas comments on Plato's mania from the Muses; Plato states one lacking such mania becomes an imperfect poet; Hermeas contrasts Chærilus and Callimachus with Homer and Pindar. Taylor cites Proclus, then argues no Roman poets possessed true enthusiasm, discussing Virgil's invocations and Caligula per Suetonius. Subsequent endnotes explain: the attentive power (προσεκτικον) as one indivisible apprehending faculty; the body as river of Lethe, citing Proclus, Empedocles, the Chaldean oracles; Plotinus's three classes of men, culminating in divine men; Simplicius on matter as mire; the innovation of the Greeks, with Julian against the Christians; Hermes's two principles, Eneph and Eicton, identified with Saturn and Phanes; the authenticity of Hermetic books; the decans, with a Hermes extract; Homer's "the Gods are flexible" interpreted non-literally; and dæmons presiding over parts of the body, citing Proclus.

The text describes dæmons presiding variously over men, lions, other animals, and plants, and more partially over the eye, heart, and liver; it states that all things are full of Gods, some exerting providence immediately, others through dæmons, and posits one principal dæmon governing everything in us with many subordinate dæmons over our parts. At P. 134 it raises how one may be liberated from these bonds. A quotation from Proclus in Tim. lib. v. describes the soul's salvation as return to intellectual form and flight from generation: the soul, hurled like seed, lays aside stubble and bark, becomes an intellectual flower and fruit, contains twofold circles and horses (one good, one contrary, per the Phædrus), one leading to generation, the other to true being. Dismissing her first habit and governing the irrational part by reason, she is led to a happy life; those initiated by Orpheus in the mysteries of Bacchus and Proserpine pray to obtain this with allotments of the sphere and cessation of evil. Cathartic virtue is called the salvation of souls; descending souls receive aerial, aquatic, and terrestrial vehicles. Marked "THE END," with printer's imprint (Ballantyne, Hanson & Co., Edinburgh and London). Footnotes follow. Note 1 describes a triad proceeding from a monad: Phanes as intelligible intellect, the intellectual triad Saturn, Rhea, Jupiter; Jupiter the Demiurgus; Apollo producing liberated Gods; and a Chaldean oracle on a triad shining in every world. Subsequent notes cite the Philosophical Works of Proclus and others, a Greek passage, Stillingfleet's discussion of distinctions in divine worship (citing Pythagoras, Herodotus, Isocrates, the Regilla inscription, and Valerius), Damascius on Egyptian first principles, and Gale's omissions.

An anonymous Greek testimony prefixed to Gale's manuscript states that Proclus, in his Commentary on the Enneads of Plotinus, identifies Iamblichus as the one answering Porphyry's Epistle under the persona of the Egyptian Abammon, the diction and conceptions confirming Proclus's judgment; a passage in Proclus's Commentary on the Timæus is cited as further evidence. Successive notes follow. Note 23 corrects Gale's translation of κατα τας κοινας εννοιας. Note 24 quotes Damascius on difference and knowledge. Note 25 describes undefiled souls between essential heroes and defiled souls, called terrestrial heroes in the Pythagoric Golden Verses. Notes 26–29, 35–38, 43–44 propose textual emendations. Note 30 defends Iamblichus on moderate gratification of passions against Gale's oil-on-fire remark. Note 31 refers to Taylor's Dissertation on the Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries. Notes 32–34 concern divine wrath, punishments of generation, and Proclus on divine necessity. Notes 39–41 treat the nature of the one, the Gods essentialized in the one, and invisibility of Gods versus dæmons. Note 42 identifies cosmocrators as planets. Note 45 cites a Chaldean oracle on terrestrial dæmons, explained by Psellus. Notes 48–50 concern divine dreams and wakefulness. Note 51 recounts, from Iamblichus's Life of Pythagoras, Pythagoras calming a Tauromenian lad through spondaic song, Empedocles saving his host Anchilus with a Homeric verse, and Pythagorean musical practices; Proclus and Ptolemy are quoted on music. Notes 52–55 discuss Olympus's melodies, the Corybantes, Curetes, and unpolluted Gods per Proclus. Notes 56–57 cite Servius, Euripides, Plato's Phædrus, and Hermias on purification and telestic art. Notes 58–66 treat Rhea, oracles, prophetic wands, and further emendations.

This span consists entirely of the translator's endnotes (numbered 66/67 through 85). Let me summarize them in order. Wait, let me check the starting note. It starts with Proclus commentary on First Alcibiades, likely note 66. Let me write summary in order.The span consists of numbered editorial notes. The first note cites Proclus's Commentary on the First Alcibiades, stating that in the mysteries an imperfect dæmon assumes the appearance of a more perfect one and draws down unpurified souls; that in the Eleusinian mysteries terrene dæmons appear before the God's manifestation; and that the Chaldean oracles forbid beholding them until the body is purified. A passage from Proclus's Platonic Theology is quoted describing mystics meeting multiform genera before receiving divine illumination. Warburton's translation is criticized. Note 67 quotes Damascius (via Photius) on a sacred woman who saw future events in water poured into a glass cup. Note 68 cites Psellus on light seized by natures like Socrates and Plotinus. Notes 69–70 reference the phantastic vehicle and discursive reason. Note 71 quotes Proclus on the Politicus regarding alliance to the dæmoniacal genus and symbolic narration. Notes 72–73 concern Heraclitus and a textual emendation. Notes 74–76 discuss divination through viscera (Herodian, Strabo), pestiferous auspices before the deaths of Cæsar, Marius, Pertinax, and Marcellus's battle, and divination by rods and tamarisk (Gale, Scholiast, Dinon, Metrodorus, Apollo, laurel). Note 77 corrects Gale's translation. Note 78 discusses God producing all things with cooperating divine powers, and answers Gale's objection about study of dæmons. Note 79 quotes Proclus that souls extend to divinity. Note 80 addresses Porphyry, Servius, Irenæus, and Plato's knowledge. Note 81 quotes Porphyry and Philolaus on the soul bound in the body. Notes 82–83 oppose Gale on hypostatic union, quoting Proclus and Maximus. Note 84 cites Hippocrates, Galen, and Roger Bacon on astronomy/astrology in medicine. Note 85 begins citing Proclus.

The prior note distinguishes three orders of dæmons: the first more intellectual, the second more rational, the third—of which Iamblichus now speaks—more irrational and material. Note 86 locates Charonea in Asia Minor with foul-smelling spiracles, cites Pliny on similar places near Puteoli, describes pestilential waters at Amsanctus among the Samnites, and quotes Cicero's De Divinatione. Note 87 states irrational spirits, as contributing to wholes, are more excellent than humans yet inferior through being irrational. Notes 88–92 cite Plotinus on Providence, Gale's translation, Proclus on Evil, and Ennead iv, quoting Plotinus that the universe is one animal united by sympathy. Note 93 identifies the art as magic, presenting a passage from Psellus On Dæmons: goeteia makes dæmon-images visible, leading some up from Hades and drawing others down; magic, the last part of sacerdotal science, investigates sublunary natures, produces statues procuring health, uses eagles, dragons, cats, dogs, crows, wax and clay, and makes fire appear, statues laugh, lamps kindle. Apuleius is quoted on magical incantations. Note 94 quotes Iamblichus (from Stobaeus) and Porphyry on souls' communion with bodies. Note 95 cites Porphyry On Abstinence. Notes 96–100 discuss the celestial body per Proclus, the number sixty in crocodile and sun per Aristotle, Gale's identification of Isis with the moon (which Taylor disputes), Horapollo's cynocephalus, and Plutarch on mice and the weasel. Note 101 gives Plutarch's defence of Egyptian animal worship, covering the ox, ichneumon, weasel, beetle, asp, crocodile, ibis, statues of Jupiter, Minerva, Venus, Neptune, and Pythagorean numbers. Notes 102–105 offer textual corrections. Note 106 records the cock sacred to Apollo and Olympiodorus's statement on it.

A note records Ficinus's observation that fire enkindled by humans resembles the heavens, participating of light, incorporeal, vital, and returning to celestial fire; the vehicle is called luciform. Proclus is cited on the telestic art obliterating the stains of generation through divine fire, with a Chaldean oracle and Hercules as an example of telestic purification. Textual readings in the Greek are proposed. The media are identified as the orders of Gods called archai (rulers) and apolutoi (liberated). Proclus on the First Alcibiades is quoted on daemons surrounding each God and on terrestrial daemons appearing in the Eleusinian mysteries. Simplicius on Epictetus compares divine works to letters in a sentence. Servius on the Aeneid is cited, with Oeneus's neglected sacrifice to Diana and the boar she sends, and Proclus on the anger of the Gods indicating human inaptitude. Plotinus is named. Further textual emendations follow, including thesmon and adytum, with Phanes and the Chaldean Oracles. Martianus Capella's account of the sun's ship with cat, lion, and crocodile is quoted, alongside Porphyry. Magical names from Alexander Trallianus are listed. A long passage from Proclus on the Timaeus concerns the ineffable, effable, and divine names of the world, statues of the telestic art, and Homeric divine-versus-human names. The antiquity of the Egyptians is asserted via Lucian and an oracle of Apollo, with an emendation of Ebraion to Chaldaion. Cathartic prayers, Seleucus the theologist, Hermaic books, an Egyptian priest of Heliopolis, Kneph, the moon as nature's self-visible statue, and Proclus's citation of Iamblichus on Hermes producing matter from essentiality follow. The final note on Chaeremon is fragmentary.

The span consists of editorial footnotes numbered 138 through 163, followed by a publisher's catalogue and transcriber's notes. Footnote 138 identifies a ninth king in the twenty-sixth dynasty of Saitan kings. Footnote 139 cites Plato's Timæus on the region of Egypt called Delta, the Saitical province, the city Saïs, King Amasis, and the divinity Neith (Greek Athena), and remarks on Gale's omission. Footnote 140 quotes two Chaldean oracles cited by Proclus concerning a transmitting name leaping into the infinite worlds. Footnotes 141–142 propose textual readings and note Gale's mistranslation of Iamblichus concerning the soul's conversion and elevation. Footnotes 143–147 address the science of nativities, joint risings and settings, periods of years, citing Proclus, Cicero, Diodorus Siculus, Hephestion, Porphyry, and Hermes on the horoscope and dæmon at birth. Footnotes 148–163 propose numerous textual emendations to the original Greek, citing the Odyssey, Iliad, the German editor's error substituting "pugilist," and Olympiodorus. The catalogue lists works by James Thomson, Henry S. Salt, and Bertram Dobell. Transcriber's notes state corrections of typographical errors and retention of archaic spellings.