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THE ROLE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE, WILL AND LOVE IN ’ THEORY OF THEURGIC AND RELIGIOUS

Crystal Addey

Iamblichus provides a defence and explanation of the operation of theurgic prayer and invocation within his treatise, which is now called De Mysteriis,1 one of the most extensive surviving Late Antique works on Graeco-Roman polytheistic religious practices.2 This work answers the questions posed by the philosopher on the nature of various kinds of religious phe- nomena. In this sense, the work functions as a kind of dialogue. Theurgic prayer and invocation included the use of “unknowable” or so called “mean- ingless”’ names and probably also included the use of strings of vowels (voces magicae), although Iamblichus does not refer to these explicitly.3 The use of such sacred names and strings of vowels is well attested within rit- ual found in religious, magical and theurgic Late Antique texts, such as the magical handbooks found in Egypt and now known under the name of the Greek Magical Papyri.4 The vowel-strings are a written record of a sound sequence, while the names, which were often referred to as ono- mata barbara (“non-Greek names / words”), are strange words which do not have any obvious meaning. Both were spoken or uttered within

1 The original title of the work is: The Reply of the Master Abamon to the Letter of Porphyry to Anebo and the Solutions to the Questions it Contains. The modern title which the work is now commonly known as, On the Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldaeans and Assyrians (De mysteriis Aegyptiorum, Chaldaeorum, Assyriorum) was coined by Marsilio Ficino in the  fteenth century. 2 Iamblichus, De mysteriis (On the Mysteries), E.C. Clarke, J.M. Dillon and J.P. Hershbell (2003). All quotations and translations from this work are from this edition, unless otherwise speci ed. Henceforth, this work will be referred to using the abbreviation DM. 3 E.C. Clarke, J.M. Dillon and J.P. Hershbell (2003) 275, n. 354. 4 Cf. for example, PGM IV.930; 960–965; XIII.762–772; XIII.880–886; ed. K. Preisendanz (1928–1931). Cf. P. Cox Miller (1986) 481–505; F. Graf (1991) 188–213; S. Pulleyn (1997) 111– 112; 137–139. I do not wish to imply in any way that Iamblichus would have approved of such “magical” usages of sacred names and invocations (such as are attested to in the PGM); to the contrary, Iamblichus emphatically distinguishes theurgy from contemporary magical practices and I will argue that the role of divine providence and will within theurgy constitutes one of his key criteria for drawing a  rm distinction between them. 134 crystal addey contexts, as well as being inscribed upon cult statues and other ritual para- phernalia. Some examples of theurgic prayer can be found in the works of the later Neoplatonist philosopher, , who habitually opens with a prayer as the preface to his main works. For example, at the beginning of the Commentary on the Parmenides, Proclus’ prayer invokes the whole divine hierarchy, from the intelligible down to angels, daimones and heroes, and asks for appropriate help from each divine class of for the recep- tion of the mystical vision of Plato.5 Within Iamblichus’ De Mysteriis, one of the central questions raised by Porphyry concerns the question of the operation and purposes of theurgic prayer and religious invocation: ᾽Α ’ αἱ κλήσεις, φησίν, ὡς πρὸς ἐµπαθεῖς τοὺς θεοὺς γίγνονται, ὥστε οὐχ οἱ δαίµο- νες µόνον εἰσὶν ἐµπαθεῖς, ἀ ὰ καὶ οἱ θεοί. “But invocations,” the objection goes, “are addressed to the gods as if they were subject to external inuence, so that it is not only daemons that are thus subject, but also the gods.”6 Porphyry seems to be pointing towards a popular, contemporary criticism of prayer and invocations: that is, if the gods are unchangeable, eternal and are not subject to passions, a position accepted by most contemporary Late Antique philosophers, what is the purpose of and invocations? Do they aim to inuence, compel or constrain the gods?7 As John Dillon has aptly phrased this signi cant issue, “Once one accepted, as anyone with any philosophical training did, that , or the gods, were not subject to passions, and that … the world-order was (either entirely or very largely)

5 Proclus, In Parm. 617–618, trs. G.R. Morrow and J.M. Dillon (1987). Both the In Parm. and Theol. Plat. begin with a prayer to the gods. Cf. also Iamblichus, Vita Pyth. 1.1–2, trs. G. Clark (1989), for Iamblichus’ invocation to the gods to guide his discourse on the of Pythagoras, which he considers to be a gift of the gods to mortals. 6 DM 1.12 (40.12–13). E.C. Clarke, J.M. Dillon and J.P. Hershbell (2003) 51, n. 74 note that their translation “as the objection goes” seems to be a reasonable rendering of the third person φησίν “which is otherwise a little odd, since “Abamon” addresses Porphyry directly most of the time”. The use of the third person φησίν here may well point towards the popularity and frequency of this objection to magical and religious invocation within Late Antique philosophical discourse and religious debate. Cf. Z. Mazur (2004) 37, who notes that the complaint that magicians coerce the gods was commonplace by ’ time. 7 Cf. also DM 1.11 (37.4–5), where Porphyry raises a similar question regarding the opera- tion of theurgic ritual: “Why is it that many theurgical procedures are directed towards them [i.e. the gods] as if they were the subject to passions?” (Πῶς οὖν πρὸς ἐµπαθεῖς αὐτοὺς πο ὰ δρᾶται ἐν ταῖς ἱερουργίαις;); DM 4.1 (181.2–3).