The Ubiquity of Divinity According to Iamblichus and Syrianus1

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1 The International The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition 7 (2013) Journal of the Platonic Tradition brill.com/jpt The Ubiquity of Divinity According to Iamblichus and Syrianus1 John Dillon Trinity College, Dublin jmdillon@eircom.net Abstract In two passages in particular of his Commentary on the Timaeus, Proclus attributes to his master Syrianus a series of arguments in favour of not confining gods or daemons to any particular level of the universe, either hypercosmic or encosmic, as had been the more or less universal practice of earlier Platonists, but asserting the ubiquity of all classes of higher being at every level, and criticising earlier doctrine as in effect cutting the gods off from contact with man, thus undermining the power of theurgy. This interesting development was in fact initiated (as in so many other details of Syrianus doctrine) by his Syrian forerunner Iamblichus of Chalkis, and it is this doctrine that this essay seeks to explore. Keywords Greek philosophy, Neoplatonism, gods, Iamblichus, Syrianus In two passages in particular of his Commentary on the Timaeus, III 198, 5-28 (= Syrianus, In Tim. Fr. 19 Wear) and III 154, , 3 (= Syr. In Tim. Fr. 20 Wear), Proclus attributes to his master Syrianus a series of arguments in favour of not confining gods or daemons to any particular level of the universe, either hypercosmic or encosmic, as had been the more or less universal practice of earlier Platonists, but asserting the ubiquity of all classes of higher being at every level, and criticising earlier doctrine as in 1) This paper was first delivered at a panel on Syrianus as the 2010 conference of the ISNS in Madrid John Dillon DOI: / This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC 3.0) License,

2 146 J. Dillon / The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition 7 (2013) effect cutting the gods off from contact with man, thus undermining the power of theurgy. This interesting development which in fact makes perfectly good sense, in that gods and daemons, as immaterial beings, should not be subject to restrictions either spatial or temporal in fact is initiated (as in so many other details of Syrianus doctrine) by his Syrian forerunner Iamblichus of Chalkis, in this and so many other respects a source of inspiration to Syrianus and the Athenian School. I Specifically, at De Myst. I 8, in the process of countering Porphyry s critique of theurgy, Iamblichus denounces the theory that the gods are confined to the supracosmic sphere, and the daemons and other intermediate beings to various lower levels of the cosmos in the process enunciating a flat contradiction of Plato s dictum in Symp. 203a2: God does not mingle with Man. Of course, he accepts the division of beings among the various elements, as set out in the Epinomis,2 but he interprets this rather as a matter of spheres of influence than of any sort of spatial location. What I would like to do on this occasion is, first, to take a look at the passage of the De Mysteriis, and then to see how it applies to the Proclan testimonies as to the doctrine of Syrianus. We can then draw some conclusions. De Mysteriis I 8 begins as follows (Iamblichus has just been, in the immediately previous chapters [5-7], drawing distinctions, for Porphyry s edification, between the characteristics and roles of the four classes of spiritual being, gods, daemons, heroes and pure souls): We do not, however, accept the way in which your hypothesis distinguishes them, which declares that the cause of the distinction now being investigated is the assignment of these entities to different bodies, for example that of the gods to aetherial bodies, that of daemons to aerial ones, and that of souls to earthly bodies. For this concept of assignment (katataxis), as for instance the assignment of Socrates to his tribe when this is exercising its prytany, is unworthily predicated of the divine classes, seeing as they are all 2) I would not in fact attribute the Epinomis to Plato himself, but rather to his faithful follower Philippus of Opus, but later Platonists will not have doubted its genuineness.

3 J. Dillon / The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition 7 (2013) absolute and autonomous in themselves. After all, to give bodies superior discretion in giving form to their own primary causes is to reveal a strange anomaly; for this would mean that these latter would be at the service of the former, and minister to them in the matter of generation. In fact, the genera of superior entities are not even present in bodies, but rule them from outside; so there is no question of their sharing in the changes to which bodies are subject. (DM 1 8, 23-4, my trans.)3 What Iamblichus is seeking to nail Porphyry on here is an implication that he discerns in Porphyry s position, that of linking the higher beings specifically, gods and daemons4 to a specific type of body, aetherial or aerial, and therefore to a particular region of the universe. This, he argues, would be to accord bodies, or a bodily element, a decisive role in situating spiritual beings like assigning Socrates to his tribe, he adds derisively, when it is their turn to serve on the council!5 This has the effect, which Porphyry plainly has no problem with, of confining gods to the heavenly realm above the moon, while daemons and other intermediate beings occupy the region of the air between the moon and the earth. This would have been a widely-held view in the Platonic tradition, recognising the intermediate role of daemons, following the famous passage of the Symposium (202e), which assigns them the role of conveying human petitions to the gods, and divine blessings to mortals, allowing the gods to remain free of any contamination arising from immediate contact with mortality. However, this is a position which Iamblichus decides to confront head-on, and it is interesting to speculate as to the reason for this, as it is a position taken up later by Syrianus as well, as we shall see. First, however, let us look at a further passage from DM I 8 (27-8): What, after all, would cause true being, which is essentially incorporeal, and has nothing in common with the bodies participating in it, to be divided among qualitatively distinct bodies? And how would that which is not locally 3) In Emma C. Clarke. John M. Dillon & Jackson P. Hershbell, Iamblichus. De Mysteriis, SBL Publications/Brill: Boston/Leiden, ) Archangels, angels, heroes and archons have not yet come into the picture; that must wait for the exposition in Book II. 5) This is plainly a reference to the famous occasion in 406 B.C. when Socrates found himself presiding at the trial before the Boulé of the generals who had lost the sea-battle at Arginusae, and refused to move the motion for their condemnation an odd comparison, perhaps, for a senior Egyptian priest to make!

4 148 J. Dillon / The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition 7 (2013) present to bodies be distinguished by bodily locations, and that which is not constricted by the particular circumscriptions of subjects be contained individually by the various parts of the cosmos? And indeed what is it that prevents the gods from proceeding in any direction, and hinders their power from going further than the vault of heaven? For that, after all, would be the function of a more powerful cause, such as would restrict and enclose them in certain parts of the cosmos. In fact, the truly real, and that which is essentially incorporeal, is everywhere that it wishes to be. Iamblichus here takes a stand against any restriction of the range of influence of the divine. From a Neoplatonic perspective, it might be objected that the domain of the heavenly gods which is what is being discussed here could indeed be restricted by a higher power, such as the hypercosmic gods, or the transcendent Demiurge, but Iamblichus is plainly envisaging no such complications in the present context, The gods are regarded here as supreme, and the suggestion of a force superior to them is intended to be absurd. It is not Iamblichus speaking here, of course, we must remember, but the Egyptian priest Abammon! Now we may address ourselves to the possible motivation behind this assertion of the omnipresence of the gods apart, of course, from the concern to confute Porphyry at every turn! Such a motivation in fact emerges just below (s. 28). It involves the validation of theurgic practices: And indeed, speaking generally, this doctrine (sc. confining the gods to the heavenly realm) constitutes the ruination of sacred ritual and theurgical communion of gods with men (τῆs ἱερᾶs ἁγιστείαs καὶ τῆs θεουργικῆs κοινωνίαs θεῶν πρὸs ἀνθρώπουs ἀναίρεσιs), by banishing the presence of the higher classes of being outside the confines of the earth. For it amounts to nothing else but saying that the divine is set apart from the earthly realm, and that it does not mingle with humanity (ἀνθρώποιs οὐ συμμίγνυται), and that this realm is bereft of divinity; and it follows, according to this reasoning, that not even we priests would have learned anything from the gods, and that you are wrong to interrogate us as if we had some special degree of knowledge, if in fact we differ in no way from other mortals. It is hard not to see this remark about the divine not mingling with humanity as an implicit contradiction of the dictum of the Symposium (203a2): θεὸs δὲ ἀνθρώπῳ οὐ μείγνυται. God does not mingle with man. This, one might think, would be a rather daring démarche for a Neoplatonic

5 J. Dillon / The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition 7 (2013) philosopher, but not perhaps for a senior Egyptian priest. At any rate, Iamblichus is speaking here as a champion of theurgy, and identifying this doctrine of the ubiquity of the gods as a necessary tenet of the theurgical position. It might indeed be argued and doubtless would have been by Porphyry that identifying the heavens as the proper realm of divinity is not intended to confine the gods to that quarter, or to deny their capacity to extend their activity to the earthly sphere, but Iamblichus chooses to interpret it in that sense, and in so doing sets himself at odds in an interesting way with his own philosophic tradition. II That this was not just a flash in the pan, however, or an ad hoc response to provocation by Porphyry, is shown by the re-emergence of the dispute a hundred years or so later, in the Athenian School. The issue comes up in the course of the Commentary on the Timaeus of Syrianus, where he is commenting on two contiguous lemmata of the dialogue, 39e-40a, and 40d. The first passage is that in which Timaeus is listing the four types of being that inhabit the cosmos, starting from the heavenly gods (by which he plainly means the planetary and astral bodies), and then proceeding through the aerial beings (by which he certainly means the birds, since he describes them as winged ), and the aquatic, to the terrestrial. This passage, however, caused much agonizing among later Platonists, since it did not seem right to them that Plato should fill in the intermediate stages in the cosmos between gods and men with beings inferior to men, viz. birds and fish. It came to seem obvious that Plato must instead have intended to list various intermediate classes of beings, viz. daemons in the air, and rather humbler beings, such as nymphs, as inhabitants of the water, and this revisionary interpretation was facilitated by adducing a passage from the Epinomis, 984 b-d, where daemons and other intermediate beings are identified as occupying the elements between the heavenly fire and the earth.6 6) The Epinomis actually postulates three intermediate classes of being between heaven and earth, the inhabitants of aether, air and water respectively, but this does not greatly disturb the exegetes.

6 150 J. Dillon / The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition 7 (2013) It is this interpretation that is firmly established in Neoplatonic times, and it is on the basis of this that we find Syrianus presenting his comments, duly reported by his pupil Proclus (In Tim. III 108, 5 28 = Fr. 19 Wear). The odd thing here is that among the predecessors of Syrianus whose interpretations he is combating we appear to find Iamblichus. He is not, admittedly, mentioned by name on this occasion, but he is probably to be identified with the second of three anonymous commentators who precede Syrianus in Proclus account (III 107, , 4).7 In this case, we are confronted with a rather curious situation, as Iamblichus would here be identified as maintaining a position which we have just seen him attacking in the De Mysteriis, to wit, that the sphere of the gods is to be confined to the heavenly realm, and the intermediate realms are to be reserved for various classes of daemon. Let us consider the text: Such being the difference among the exegetes, we pay due reverence to the connoisseur of metaphysical reality (τὸν φιλοθεάμονα τῶν πραγμάτων), but we will venture to follow our teacher and say that the heavenly race of gods embraces all the celestial classes, whether divine or angelic or daemonic, while in that class which goes through the air (τὸ ἀεροπόρον) he wants to include all those entities in any way assigned to the air, whether gods that are allotted to the air, or the daemons following upon them, or the mortal beings that spend their time in the air (sc. birds); the watery combines all those classes of being which have been assigned to the water and are nourished in water,8 and the footed class comprises those beings which roam 7) In these anonymous sequences of authorities a phenomenon much more characteristic of the Parmenides Commentary that of that on the Timaeus, where authorities such as Porphyry or Iamblichus are more normally quoted by name Iamblichus is usually the last before Syrianus. Here, however, Wear adduces, in favour of identifying Iamblichus with the second rather than the third, the employment by Proclus of the phrases τὰ κρείττονα ἡµῶν γένη and πρὸs τὰ πράγµατα ἀποβλέποντεs, which are elsewhere associated with Iamblichus, and she has a good point; but then we have a problem as to who to identify with the third authority, who is reported as seeking to reconcile the first two positions, and is referred to, with mild irony, as τὸν ϕιλοθεάµονα τῶν πραγµάτων. Proclus would hardly refer to his spiritual grandfather, Plutarch of Athens, in this way, but there is another possible candidate in the dissident pupil of Iamblichus, Theodorus of Asine, who is actually quoted by name a little further on, in connection with the lemma Tim, 40d7-8, as we shall see in a moment, so he becomes a reasonably plausible candidate. 8) This will presumably include both water-nymphs and fish.

7 J. Dillon / The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition 7 (2013) upon the earth and which are established and grow in the earth. (trans. Wear; my italics) Syrianus goes on to attribute the whole arrangement of beings throughout the universe to the Demiurge, acting either directly or indirectly (through the Young Gods, for the creation of mortal beings), in this closely reflecting the Timaeus. He does not here strongly dispute the limitation of gods to the heavenly realm, merely mentioning (in the phrase that I have italicized) that there may be gods in the realm of air as well as daemons. His position becomes clearer, however, a little further on, where he commenting on the lemma 40d7-8: περὶ δὲ τῶν ἄλλων δαιμόνων εἰπεῖν καὶ γνῶναι τὴν γένεσιν μεῖζον ἢ καθ ἡμᾶs, To know and tell about the generation of the other daimones is beyond our powers. The problem here is that Plato has chosen to use the term daimon in what one might call its traditional or Homeric sense, simply to refer to gods, or divinities in general; but for a scholastically-minded commentator such an explanation will not do. The divine Plato never employs a term carelessly or loosely; so he must have meant something by this use of daimon. Let us see how Syrianus addresses the problem (Procl. In Tim. III 154, , 3 = Syr. In Tim. Fr. 20 Wear). Here, we may note, Theodorus of Asine figures by name, offering an ingenious but ultimately unsatisfactory explanation: Going back to the previous subject of enquiry, let us say about these gods in charge of generation (genesiourgoi theoi) which are the subject of discussion here, why on earth he has termed them daimones in this passage? Theodorus takes a different approach to this.9 They are called daimones, he says, as being in relation (en skhesei), but gods as being unrelated (askhetoi) to what is below them, ranking them in the parts of the whole cosmos below the moon, as ensouling the universe in different ways in each case. On the other hand, our Master first of all deemed it fitting to understand them as daimones in distinction from the heavenly gods, for they are dependent upon them, and it is in conjunction with them that they exercise 9) Test. 27 Deuse. Theodorus plainly accepts that there are gods based in the realm below the moon; he is only concerned to explain why on this occasion they can also be described as daemons. This is when stress is being placed on their relational aspect with what is inferior to them, while they may be described as gods when their transcendent aspect is being emphasized.

8 152 J. Dillon / The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition 7 (2013) providence over their own allotments. And this formulation is in accordance with the practice of Plato. For after all, in the Symposium (202e, 203bc), he calls Eros a daemon, as being a follower of Aphrodite and as proceeding from Resource (Poros), who is truly a god, although in the Phaedrus (242d) he postulates that he is a god, in view of the life brought forth by him. Then, starting from another angle, he says that there are both daemons in the heavenly realm and gods in the realm beneath the Moon, but in the former realm the whole class of them is called gods, wherefore also he called the formal grouping (idea) of the heavenly gods a class (genos, Tim. 39e), although daemons are there also envisaged under that heading, but in the latter realm the whole group is called daemons, since there it is the divine characteristic which prevails, while here it is the daemonic, an exclusive concentration on which has led certain critics to divide the divine and the daemonic along the lines of the heavenly and generated realms, whereas in fact one should assign both to both areas, and say that the divine prevails in the former realm, the daemonic in the latter, but the divine is present in this realm also. Syrianus goes on to remind us that Plato in the Timaeus describes the world as a happy god (eudaimon theos, 34b9), and such a divinity must have no part of itself left devoid of gods and divine providence. Furthermore, he adds, the efficacy of theurgy is a powerful argument for the ubiquity of gods: And this also would be strange, that the art of theurgy (telestiké), and oracles and statues of gods are established on the earth, and through the application of certain symbols should be made receptive, formed as they are from particular and corruptible material, and made capable of participating in God and being moved by him and foretelling the future, whereas the creator of all should not place in control of the elements as a whole, which are indestructible components of the cosmos (ἀφθάρτοιs οὖσι τοῦ κόσμου πληρώμασι),10 divine intellects, souls and gods. Is it that he did not wish to? And how would he not wish to, since he wishes to make all things like unto himself (cf. Tim. 29e). Or is he perhaps unable to? But what is stopping him? For we see it is possible from the works of theurgy. So if he is willing and able, it is plain 10) It is interesting to note here the use of the rare term plérômata, more at home in Gnostic contexts than in Neoplatonic ones, as it also turns up in De Myst. I 8: 29: τὰ δ ἐπὶ γῆs ἐν τοῖs πληρώµασι τῶν ϑεῶν ἐχοντα τὸ εἶναι, though admittedly with a rather different meaning. The Iamblichean usage is the first in a surviving Neoplatonic author.

9 J. Dillon / The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition 7 (2013) that he established gods as overseers of generation, with areas of interest allotted to them. This is a significant passage, I would suggest, for discerning the rationale behind the assertion of Syrianus, and of Iamblichus before him, of the ubiquity of gods. The rites of theurgy are directed towards getting into direct touch with some level of divinity, and the theurgist does not want to feel that he is being fobbed off with inferior grades of daemon: he calls on gods, and he wants gods to show up. Much space is given, in Book II of the De Mysteriis, to listing the various manifestations put forth by the higher beings, in order that the theurgist may not be deceived by the appearance of an inferior entity an angel, perhaps, or a hero, or even a sublunary archon11 when one is expecting a god. So gods must not be confined to the heavens, even if that is their primary base of operations, and the Platonic dictum God does not mingle with man must be tacitly rejected. Syrianus goes on here to say that there is a host of every sort of daemon in the service of the gods, having charge of regions, nations, cities, or even individuals; but that does not preclude there being gods in this region also. This may be seen to recall what Iamblichus goes on to say in De Myst, I 9, in response to another provocation of Porphyry s, where he is explaining that, although the spheres of influence (lêxeis) of different gods may be allotted to different elements or regions of the earth, yet their power extends everywhere equally (I 9: 30-1): So then, whether we are talking about the assignment of regions of the universe, such as heaven or earth, or of cities or localities consecrated (sc. to one deity or another), or even of precincts or sacred statues, the fact is that divinity illumines everything from without, even as the sun lights everything with its rays. Even as the sunlight, then, envelops what it illuminates, so also does the power of the gods embrace from outside that which participates in it. And similarly, even as the light is present in the air without blending with it,... even so the light of the gods illuminates its subject transcendently 11) For instance, in II 4-5, we are taken in great detail through the differences in purity, intensity and steadiness of the light that accompanies epiphanies of different levels of divinity, from gods, through archangels and angels, down to daemons, archons and souls.

10 154 J. Dillon / The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition 7 (2013) (khóristós), and is fixed steadfastly in itself even as it proceeds throughout the totality of existence. (my trans., in Clarke-Dillon-Hershbell) This can in turn be seen as anticipating Theodorus of Asine s distinction between gods as in relation (en skhesei) and unrelated (askhetoi) mentioned above. The influence of the gods here is compared to the light of the sun, which illuminates without being mixed with the objects of its illumination. Iamblichus continues, rising to a fine sequence of Iamblichean parallel clausulae: On the same principle, then, this world as a whole, spatially divided as it is, brings about division throughout itself of the single, indivisible light of the gods. This light is one and the same in its entirety everywhere, is present indivisibly to all things that are capable of participating in it, and has filled everything with its perfect power; by virtue of its unlimited causal superiority it brings to completion all things within itself and, while remaining everywhere united to itself, brings together extremities with starting-points. It is indeed in imitation of this that the whole heaven and cosmos performs its circular revolution, is united with itself, and leads the elements round in their cyclic dance, holds together all things as they rest within each other or are borne towards each other, defines by equal measures even the most farflung objects, causes lasts to be joined to firsts, as for example each to heaven, and produces a single continuity and harmony of all with all. III In view of this unanimity, then, between the Iamblichus of the de Mysteriis and Syrianus, we should perhaps end by considering whether there is in fact a serious discrepancy on this question between Iamblichus here and in his Timaeus Commentary. It does after all seem as though Iamblichus is to be included among those previous commentators who have confined the gods to the heavenly realm. I think, however, that the discrepancy may be more apparent than real. After all, the issue being addressed by commentators at Tim. 39e-40a is really the nature of the true inhabitants of the intermediate zones between heaven and earth, viz. air and water, and it seems in consequence not unreasonable that Iamblichus, while maintaining a doctrine of the

11 J. Dillon / The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition 7 (2013) ubiquity of gods for polemical purposes, in defending the efficacy of theurgy against Porphyry, would leave the gods in their heaven when being primarily concerned to assert that daemons, not birds, were the true inhabitants of air, and nymphs, not fish, the proper inhabitants of water. Syrianus, on the other hand, building on the findings of his predecessors, is in a better position to introduce further refinement into their solutions by insisting on the point that gods are to found also in zones other than that of heaven. That, I recognise, is not an entirely satisfactory resolution of what remains a rather awkward discrepancy, but it will have to do for the moment. The main issue to be emphasized is that it is concern for the validation of theurgical practice that prompts the argument, among later Neoplatonists, that the gods are not to be confined to the heavenly realm, but are to be found everywhere. Bibliography Clarke, Emma C., John M. Dillon & Jackson P. Hershbell, Iamblichus. De Mysteriis, SBL Publications/Brill: Boston/Leiden, Deuse, W., Theodoros von Asine: Sammlung der Testimonien und Kommentar. Wiesbaden, Klitenic Wear, Sarah, The Teachings of Syrianus on Plato s Timaeus and Parmenides, Brill: Leiden/Boston, 2011.