Iamblichus: On the Mysteries · 6 of 218 · tr. Thomas Taylor
Chapter Va
In the next place, let us direct our attention to the solution of your inquiries.
There is, therefore, the good itself which is beyond essence, and there is that good which subsists according to essence; I mean the essence which is most ancient and most honourable, and by itself incorporeal.
And this is the illustrious peculiarity of the Gods, which exists in all the genera that subsist about them, preserving 31 their appropriate distribution and order, and not being divulsed from it, and at the same time being inherent with invariable sameness in all the Gods, and their perpetual attendants.
In souls, however, which rule over bodies, and precedaneously pay attention to them, and which, prior to generation, have by themselves a perpetual arrangement, essential good is not present, nor the cause of good, which is prior to essence; but to these a certain participation [27] and habit, proceeding from essential good, accedes; just as we see that the participation of beauty and virtue is very different [in these souls] from that which we behold in men.
For the latter is ambiguous, and accedes to composite natures as something adventitious.
But the former has an immutable and never failing establishment in souls, and neither itself ever departs from itself, nor can be taken away by any thing else.
Such, therefore, being the beginning and end in the divine genera, conceive two media between these extreme boundaries, viz.
the order of heroes, which has an arrangement more elevated than that of souls, in power and virtue, in beauty and magnitude, and in all the goods which subsist about souls, and which, though it entirely transcends the 32 psychical order, yet, at the same time, is proximately conjoined to it, through the alliance of a similar formed life.
But the other medium, which is suspended from the Gods, though it is far inferior to them, is that of dæmons, which is hot of a primarily operative nature, but is subservient to, and follows the beneficent will of the Gods.
It likewise unfolds into energy the invisible good of the Gods, being itself assimilated to it, and gives completion to its fabrications conformably to it.
For it renders that which is ineffable in the good of the Gods effable, illuminates that which is formless in forms, and produces into visible reasons [or productive forms] that which in divine good is above all reason.
Receiving also a connascent participation of things beautiful, it imparts and transfers it, in unenvying abundance, to the genera posterior to itself.
These middle genera, therefore, give completion to the common bond of the Gods and souls, and cause the connexion of them to be indissoluble.
They also bind together the one continuity of things from on high as far as to the end; make the communion of wholes to be inseparable; cause all things to have the best, and a commensurate mixture; in a certain respect, equally transmit the progression from more excellent to inferior natures, and the elevation from things posterior 33 to such as are prior; insert in more imperfect beings order and measures of the communication which descends from more excellent natures, and of that by which it is received; and make all things to be familiar and coadapted to all, supernally receiving the causes of all these from the Gods.
You must not, therefore, think that this division is the peculiarity of powers or energies, or of essence; nor assuming it separately, must you survey it in one of these.
But by extending it in common through all the genera, you will give perfection to the answer concerning the peculiarities of Gods, dæmons, and heroes, and also of those in souls which are now the subjects of your inquiry.
Themes
◆Anthropomorphismtheology
Attributing human characteristics, emotions, or form to the divine; embodied divine imagery.
The text explicitly describes Gods as having 'appropriate distribution' and 'perpetual attendants' rather than abstract principles.
The Stoic and Plotinian doctrine that all parts of the cosmos are bound by hidden affinities, so that a movement in one part resonates through the whole; the metaphysical basis for astrology, magic, and divination.
The passage describes a binding connexion between Gods and souls that makes their communion indissoluble.
A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.
The passage explicitly outlines a structured hierarchy of genera (Gods, dæmons, heroes, souls) flowing from the transcendent divine source.
Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness.
The text contrasts essential good with a 'participation' that is adventitious and ambiguous in composite natures.
The doctrine — central to Eastern Orthodox and Maximian theology — that the human person is progressively transformed into a partaker of the divine nature by grace, not merely justified or united in passing ecstasy.
Heroes are described as having an arrangement more elevated than that of souls, implying a higher participation in the divine nature.