Catalogue · Texts & Manuscripts
Hermeticism & Neoplatonism · treatise
On the Mysteries (Iamblichus)
De mysteriis Aegyptiorum · Theurgia, or the Egyptian Mysteries · Reply of Abammon to the Letter of Porphyry to Anebo
- Attribution
- Iamblichus of Chalcis (c. 245–c. 325), writing as the Egyptian priest Abammon
- Date
- Late 3rd or early 4th century CE; Wilder translation 1911
- Language
- Greek
- Manuscripts & printings
- Greek manuscript tradition; Latin version by Marsilio Ficino, Venice, 1497; Alexander Wilder, English translation, London and New York, 1911
On the Mysteries is the classic philosophical defence of theurgy, the ritual practice through which late antique Platonists sought union with the gods. Its Syrian author Iamblichus wrote it under the persona of an Egyptian priest, Abammon, replying point by point to a sceptical letter that the philosopher Porphyry had addressed to a priest named Anebo. Porphyry had asked how gods could be moved by prayers and offerings, how divination worked, and how one could distinguish gods, daemons, heroes and souls in visions. Iamblichus answers that the gods are not compelled by human acts; rather, rites and symbols established by the gods themselves allow the soul to be lifted to them, so that theurgy accomplishes what philosophical thought alone cannot. He sets out a hierarchy of divine beings and the signs of their appearances, discusses kinds of divination and possession, defends sacrifice and the use of names in foreign languages, and presents Egyptian and Chaldean wisdom as ancient sources of this sacred art. The work strongly influenced Proclus and later Neoplatonism, and Marsilio Ficino's Latin version of 1497 made it central to Renaissance magic, giving it the title On the Mysteries of the Egyptians. The archive presents Alexander Wilder's 1911 translation. The modern standard is the 2003 translation by Emma Clarke, John Dillon and Jackson Hershbell, and Gregory Shaw's study has made Iamblichus a central figure in the scholarly reassessment of theurgy.
What it contains
- Porphyry's questions and Abammon's reply
- Hierarchy of gods, daemons, heroes and souls
- Signs of divine appearances in visions
- Divination, inspiration and possession
- Sacrifice, prayer and divine names
- Egyptian and Chaldean wisdom and the goal of theurgy
Recent scholarship
Saffrey and Segonds' 2013 Budé edition supplies a new critical text, and Shaw's work (1995, revised 2014) and Addey's (2014) have repositioned theurgy as a serious religious philosophy.