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Gregory Shaw – Theurgy and the Soul Theurgy and the Soul For my parents, Norman J. Shaw and Rita G. Shaw gregory shaw Theurgy and the The Neoplatonism Soul of Iamblichus second edition John Milbank Foreword & Aaron Riches Second Edition, Angelico Press/Sophia Perennis, 2014 © Gregory Shaw 2014 Foreword © John Milbank & Aaron Riches, 2014 Revised edition of the work originally published by The Pennsylvania State University Press 1995 All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission. For information, address: Angelico Press 4709 Briar Knoll Dr. Kettering, OH 45429 angelicopress.com Ppr. 978-1-62138-063-4 Cloth 978-1-62138-072-6 Cover Image: Figure of Iamblichus from the oldest manuscript of De Mysteriis Liber; and a modified detail of folio 4r from the Nuremberg Chronicles, ca. 1493. Cover Design: Michael Schrauzer contents Acknowledgments for the First Edition i Abbreviations iii Foreword: Neoplatonic Theurgy and Christian Incarnation v Preface to the Second Edition xix Introduction: To Preserve the Cosmos 1 I Matter and Embodiment 1 Embodiment in the Platonic Tradition 23 2 Matter as Cosmic Instrument 31 3 Matter as Obstacle to the Embodied Soul 41 4 Theurgy as Demiurgy 50 II The Nature of the Embodied Soul 5 The Descent of the Soul 67 6 Soul as Mediator 78 7 The Constraints of Embodiment 90 8 The Freedom of Immortal Bodies 98 9 The Paradox of Embodiment 110 10 Descending to Apotheosis 121 11 Eros and the One of the Soul 134 1 III The Liturgy of the Cosmos 12 Cult and Cosmos 147 13 Ritual and the Human Hierarchy 162 14 Ritual as Cosmogony 173 15 Material Sunthemata 183 16 Intermediate Sunthemata—Seeing and Hearing the Gods 192 17 Intermediate Sunthemata—Naming the Gods 201 18 Noetic Sunthemata—Mathematics and the Soul 212 19 Noetic Sunthemata—The Theurgy of Numbers 223 20 The Sunthema of the Sun 242 IV Toward a Universal Platonism 21 The Platonizing of Popular Religion 259 Conclusion 266 Select Bibliography 273 Index 293 Acknowledgments for the First Edition his book began as a doctoral dissertation under the direc- Ttion of Birger Pearson of the University of California, Santa Barbara. I am grateful for his unfailing support of my work and the high standards of his scholarship. I owe thanks to other professors at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Richard Hecht introduced me to Iamblichus, asked the right questions, and infected me with his passion for the religions of Late Antiquity. Hal Drake was always generous with his time, and his pointed sugges- tions, encouragement, and humor were a great help. Ruth Majercik taught me a great deal about theurgy and led me, by example, into the study of later Platonism. I owe many thanks to Peter Brown of Princeton University, whose interest in this manuscript has been a source of encouragement from the beginning. He read several versions of the work and offered strategies that brought clarity and coherence to the entire manu- script. This publication is due primarily to his generous advice. Equal thanks are owed to John Dillon of Trinity College, Dublin, who also read several versions of the manuscript; he tightened my argument and corrected numerous errors, including my translations of Iamblichus’s Greek. Jay Bregman of the University of Maine, Orono, initially urged me to publish the manuscript and later read the final version, making several helpful suggestions. The time these scholars have given to this work will always be appreciated. I am also grateful to two French scholars of Neoplatonism, H.D. Saffrey and the late Jean Trouillard, who invited me into their homes to share their ideas, books, and conversation in the winter of 1982–83. Trouillard’s publications had previously allowed me to glimpse the beauty of Platonic theurgy, and the intelligence and kindness he conveyed personally confirmed for me the depth and wisdom of the tradition that he embodied. My thanks also to Erma i Theurgy and the Soul Pounds of Tempe, Arizona, and Robert Johnson of Encinitas, Cali- fornia, who earlier helped me recognize such depth. Two Faculty Summer Grants from Stonehill College aided my research and provided time for revisions of the manuscript, which Thomas Hallinan graciously photocopied on several occasions. The constant support of my colleagues in the Department of Religious Studies at Stonehill has also been a great help. The late Helen Nes- bitt was kind enough to give the first four chapters of the manu- script hours of careful reading, which produced clearer and more economic prose. Working with the editorial staff of Penn State Press has been a pleasure. Peter Potter has always been prompt, clear, and professional, and he made several suggestions that improved the manuscript. Betty Waterhouse did a meticulous job of copyediting, correcting numerous bibliographical errors, tightening my prose, and asking for needed clarifications. My thanks also to Cherene Holland and others at Penn State Press who have helped bring the manuscript to publication. An earlier version of this manuscript has the unique distinction of having been “bottled” by Cameron Shaw, an artist, whose Untitled Table with Thesis on Theurgy has been dis- played in galleries in New York, Boston, and Los Angeles. Finally, I thank my wife, Lisa, for her lighthearted patience and understanding through all phases of bringing this book to publica- tion. She has read and listened to all the revisions and has made many suggestions to improve my writing, but, more importantly, she allows me to see a world detached from my academic interests. My thanks as well to Ariel and Adrian, who reminded me to play. ii AbbreviationsAbbreviations ANRW Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt CAG Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca CH Corpus Hermeticum CMAG Catalogue des Manuscrits Alchimiques Grecs CO Chaldean Oracles De Abst. De Abstinentia (Porphyry) DA In De Anima (Simplicius [?]) DCMS De Communi Mathematica Scientia Liber (Iamblichus) DM De Mysteriis (Iamblichus) Dub. et Sol. Dubitationes et Solutiones de Primis Principiis in Platonis Parmenidem (Damascius) Enn. Enneads (Plotinus) Entretiens Entretiens sur l’Antiquité Classique, vol. 21: De Jam- blique à Proclus ET Proclus: The Elements of Theology (Dodds) GA De Generatione Animalium In Nic. In Nicomachi Arithmetica Introductionem (Iamblichus) In Remp. In Platonis Rempublicam Commentaria (Proclus) In Tim. In Platonis Timaeum Commentari (Proclus) La Rev. La Révélation d’Hermès Trismégiste, 4 vols. (A.-J. Festugière) NHC Nag Hammadi Codices Stob. Stobaeus: Anthologium, 4 vols. (ed. C. Wachsmuth and O.Hense) TA Theologoumena Arithmeticae (Iamblichus [?]) Th. Pl. Proclus: Theologie Platonicienne, 5 vols. (ed. H.D. Saffrey and L.G. Westerink) VP De Vita Pythagorica Liber (Iamblichus) iii Theurgy and the Soul iv Foreword Neoplatonic Theurgy and Christian Incarnation uropean culture and the Christian religion from which it is Einseparable are constituted in, and founded upon, a double inheritance: the Law of the Old Covenant and the wisdom of Greek thought. In modernity this double inheritance has tended to be tidily parsed, as if the former concerned the substance of cultic practice and salvation, concrete and “material,” while the latter con- cerned the pure disembodied act of reason and of philosophical wisdom. And so the Hebrew basis of Christian culture and religion is thought of as meaty and incarnational, while the Hellenistic con- tribution is colored by a superficial (and false) sense that Hellenism, and especially Platonic thought, rests on an unequivocal body-soul, matter-spirit dualism. This division is highly distortive. The sapiential literature of the Hebrew Bible itself proves that no such tidy division exists, since herein the Scriptures themselves already bears traces of the Helle- nistic culture and thought that would later permeate Christianity. And if on the one hand we are seeing that Christianity inherited a certain “Hellenism” already within its Scriptures, on the other hand we are discovering more and more that, inasmuch as the philosophy of the Greeks was itself fully “religious”—concerned above all not with “philosophizing” in a modern sense, but rather with the culti- vation of spiritual practices that would realize the communion of the soul with the gods through concrete practices—the liturgical practice of Christianity, too, inherits significantly from the cultic practices of Greek philosophy. In this regard the recovery of the thought and influence of the Syrian Neoplatonist Iamblichus (c.245–c.325) may prove, in time, to stand at the very heart of a new self-understanding of Western culture and religion—one less domi- v Theurgy and the Soul nated by the old mischaracterization and now freshly aware of the integrity of the double inheritance; and in particular how Christian liturgy, the sacramental practice of the Church and the metaphysics of the Incarnation owe a perhaps significant debt to the pagan Pla- tonic tradition. The seminal work of Gregory Shaw stands at the crossroads of this new realization. Theurgy and the Soul is a profound introduction and account of Iamblichian theurgy, “a ‘work of the gods’ capable of transforming man to a divine status” (5). Theurgy, as Shaw shows us, originated with the second-century Platonists, who used the term to explain the divinizing power of the rites of the Chaldean Oracles, some of which were thought to have been transmitted by the soul of Plato himself. In the performance of these rites, Iamblichus understood the goal of philosophy to be accomplished, namely, union with the divine. And thus, as Shaw outlines, Iamblichus sets out the defini- tive Platonic apology and rationale for theurgy, which after him became integral to the Neoplatonic tradition from the pagan Pro- clus to the Christian Denys the pseudo-Areopagite. These theurgic rites, as far as we can tell, approximate something of the “sacramen- tal,” in that “matter” (hyle) is used within a cultic rite to effect divine union.
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