Iamblichus: On the Mysteries · 86 of 218 · tr. Thomas Taylor
Chapter V
The multitude, also, are accustomed to doubt in common the very same thing concerning providence, viz. why certain persons are afflicted undeservedly, as they have not done any thing unjustly prior to their being thus afflicted. For neither here is it possible to understand [perfectly] what the soul is, and its whole life, how many offences it has committed in former lives, and whether it now suffers from its former guilt. In this life, also, many unjust actions are concealed from human knowledge, but are known to the Gods, since neither is the same 211 scope of justice proposed to them as to men. For men, indeed, define justice to be the soul’s performance of its own proper business, [89] and the distribution of desert, conformably to the established laws, and the prevailing polity. But the Gods, looking to the whole orderly arrangement of the world, and to the subserviency of souls to the Gods, form a judgment of what is just. Hence the judgment of just actions with the Gods is different from what it is with us. Nor is it wonderful, if we are unable, in most things, to arrive at the supreme and most perfect judgment of more excellent natures. What also hinders, but that to each thing by itself, and in conjunction with the whole alliance of souls, justice may in a very transcendent manner be decreed by the Gods? For if a communion of the same nature in souls, both when they are in and when they are out of bodies, produces a certain identical connexion and common order with the life of the world, it is likewise necessary that, a fulfilment of justice should be required by wholes, and especially when the magnitude of the unjust deeds antecedently committed by one soul transcends the infliction of one punishment 212 due to the offences. But if any one should add other definitions, through which he can show that what is just subsists with the Gods in a way different from that in which it is known by us, from these also our design will be facilitated. For me, however, the beforementioned canons are alone sufficient for the purpose of manifesting the universal genus, and which comprehends every thing pertaining to the medicinal punishments inflicted by divine justice.
Themes
◆Body As Obstacleanthropology
The material body viewed as a prison, tomb, or source of error that hinders spiritual knowledge and return.
The text states that human knowledge is hindered by the concealment of unjust actions in bodies.
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 explicitly describes a 'communion of the same nature' and 'common order' between souls and the world that produces justice.
Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.
The passage centrally discusses divine justice and providence regarding the ordering of souls and the world.
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.
It suggests that punishment is inflicted due to former guilt rather than positive evil existence.