Iamblichus: On the Mysteries · 42 of 218 · tr. Thomas Taylor
Chapter X-a
What you introduce, however, for the purpose of obtaining a knowledge of these things, whether it be your own opinion, or whether you have heard it from others, is neither true nor rightly asserted.
For you say, “ that to speak 104 boastingly, and to exhibit an adumbrative phantasm, are common to Gods and dæmons, and to all the more excellent genera of beings .” But the thing is not as you apprehend it to be.
For a God, an angel, and a good dæmon, instruct men in what their proper essence consists; and never use an addition in their language which transcends their power, or their appropriate good.
For truth is coexistent with the Gods, in the same manner as light with the sun.
And, at the same time, we say, that divinity is not in want of any beauty or virtue which it is possible to add to him through language.
Moreover, angels and dæmons always receive truth from the Gods, so that they never assert any thing contrary to this, each of them being essentially perfect, nor can they add any thing to it for the sake of commendation.
When, therefore, does the deception mentioned by you “ of speakingly boastingly ” take place.
For when a certain error happens in the theurgic art, and not such autoptic , or self-visible, images are seen as ought to occur, but others, instead of these, then inferior powers assume the form of the more venerable orders, and pretend to be those whose forms they assume; and hence arrogant words are uttered by them, and such as exceed the authority which they possess.
For, as it appears to me, 105 if any fraud germinates from the first principle, much falsehood is derived from the perversion, which it is necessary the priest should learn from the whole order in the phasmata, and by the proper observation of which they are able to confute and reject the fictitious pretext of these inferior powers, as by no means pertaining to true and good spirits.
Nor is it proper to introduce errors in the true judgment of things; for neither in other sciences or arts do we judge of their works from the aberrations which may happen to take place in them.
You should not, therefore, here characterize things which are scarcely performed with rectitude through ten thousand labours, from the errors which may, through ignorance, befall them; but rather assert something else of them.
For if the works which take place from the appearance of these powers are such as you say, viz.
if they are arrogant and false, yet the operations about fire of true spirits are genuine and true.
For, as in all other things, such as are principal primarily begin from themselves, and impart to themselves that which they give to others; as, for instance, in essence, in life, and in motion; thus also the natures which supply all beings with truth, primarily proclaim the truth of 106 themselves, and precedaneously unfold the essence of themselves to the spectators.
Hence, likewise, they exhibit to theurgists a fire which is of itself visible.
For it is not the province of heat to refrigerate, nor of light to darken or conceal any thing; nor with any other nature which essentially performs a certain thing, is a power present of at the same time effecting the contrary.
But things which do not possess a [true] nature, and which are contrary to things that exist essentially; these are able to receive contraries, and are adapted to fall into evil.
We must say the same thing, therefore, concerning phantasms.
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.
Falsehood and error are described as germinations from the first principle and perversion rather than positive existence.
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.
The text warns that fraud germinates from the first principle, implying a descent or corruption from the divine origin.
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.
True spirits are described as essentially perfect and proclaiming the truth of themselves to spectators.
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 centrally discusses theurgic art, phasmata, and the proper observation required by priests to confute errors.