Iamblichus: On the Mysteries · 30 of 218 · tr. Thomas Taylor
Chapter XXI
The division, however, of the passive from the impassive , which you adopt, may perhaps be rejected by some one, as not adapted to either of the more excellent genera, through the causes which we have before enumerated; and it also deserves to be subverted, because it is inferred that these genera are passive, from what is performed in religious ceremonies. For what sacred institution, what religious cultivation, which is conformable to sacerdotal laws, is effected through passion, or produces a certain completion of passions? Is not each of these legislatively ordained from the first, conformably to the sacred laws of the Gods, and intellectually? Each also imitates both the intelligible and celestial order of the Gods; and contains the eternal measures of beings, and those admirable signatures which are sent hither from the Demiurgus and father of wholes, by which things of an ineffable nature 80 are unfolded into light through arcane symbols, things formless are vanquished by forms, things more excellent than every image are expressed through images, and all things are accomplished through a divine cause alone, which is in so great a degree separated from passions, that reason is not able to come into contact with it. This, therefore, is nearly the cause of our aberration to a multitude of conceptions. For men being in reality unable to apprehend the reasons of sacred institutions, but conceiving that they are able, are wholly hurried away by their own human passions, and form a conjecture of divine concerns from things pertaining to themselves. In so doing, however, they err in a twofold respect; because they fall from divine natures; and because, being frustrated of these, they draw them down to human passions. But it is requisite not to apprehend after the same manner, things which are performed both to Gods and men, such as genuflexions, adorations, gifts, and first fruits, but to establish the one apart from the other, conformably to the difference between things more and things less honourable; and to reverence the former, indeed, as divine, but to despise the latter as human, and as performed to men. It is proper, likewise, to consider, 81 that the latter produce passions, both in the performer and those to whom they are performed; for they are human and corporeal-formed; but to honour the energy of the former in a very high degree, as being performed through immutable admiration, and a venerable condition of mind, because they are referred to the Gods. 82 SECTION II.
The Hermetic axiom that the structure of the cosmos is reflected at every scale — 'as above, so below; as within, so without' — making each level a legible map of the others.
The passage states that sacred institutions imitate the intelligible and celestial order of the Gods.
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 text references the Demiurgus and father of wholes as a source from which beings unfold.
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.
Passions are described as aberrations that frustrate divine natures rather than positive ontological states.
Salvation through direct experiential knowledge of the divine nature, not through faith, ritual, or moral works alone.
The passage emphasizes the inability to apprehend reasons of sacred institutions through human passions and the necessity of establishing the one apart from the other.
The felt condition of exile from one's divine origin — Rumi's reed flute torn from its bed, Plotinus's 'we have forgotten,' the Gnostic forgetfulness; the affective wound that complements return_to_source and gives the return its motive.
Men fall from divine natures and are frustrated of them when they draw them down to human passions.
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.
The text speaks of imitating the intelligible and celestial order of the Gods.
Iamblichean ritual practice that engages the gods directly through consecrated material symbols and actions, on the premise that divine power descends into properly prepared matter — distinct from philosophical contemplation alone.
The passage critiques religious ceremonies performed through passion as not conformable to sacerdotal laws and divine causes.