are some who, by standing on “magical characters,” are “filled with spiritual influence.”112 Iamblichus counters that when these amateur ritualists seek to employ such dubious divinatory techniques for questionable ends, all kinds of things can go awry. Instead of calling forth the presence of the gods, Iamblichus argues, such practices “produce a certain motion of the soul contrary to the gods,” and draw from them “an indistinct and phantom-like appearance which sometimes, because of the feebleness of its power, is likely to be disturbed by evil daemonic influences.”113 In such instances, the gods, given their generous nature, are inclined to respond out of friendship. But because they have been invoked or petitioned in the wrong fashion, they respond commensurately with a sort of second-rate epiphany. Thus, improper divinatory techniques, faulty theurgy we might say, put the ritualist at risk of falling prey to these spirits. This is the extent to which Iamblichus engages with questions about evil daemons and their cosmic effects and activities. And it is telling that his focus is on proper ritual, the main bone of contention with Porphyry.
To return, then, to the main point, contrary to Porphyry’s view that blood sacrifices propitiate and feed evil spirits, Iamblichus asserts that all sacrifices are divinely ordained.114 And these ordained practices work in such a way as to affirm and strengthen the bonds of philia and sympatheia established by gods, heroes, daemons and other good spirits with human souls. When humans perform divine rites, they activate relationships already built into the fabric and order of the cosmos. According to Iamblichus, each cosmic level has its appropriate set of rituals.115 In the case of blood sacrifices, these rites do not propitiate evil daemons, rather they are the “perfect sacrifice” for those “material gods” (ὁι ὑλάιοι) who “embrace matter within themselves and impose order on it.”116 Iamblichus writes, “And so, in sacrifices, dead bodies deprived of life, the slaughter of animals and the consumption of their bodies, and every sort of change and destruction, and in general processes of dissolution are suitable to those gods who preside over matter.”117
These animal sacrifices help and heal the worshipper who is constrained by the body and suffers accordingly. They also aid in the release of the soul from its attachment to the body. Indeed, Iamblichus argues that human beings are frequently involved with gods and good daemons who watch over the body, “purifying it from long-standing impurities or freeing it from disease and filling it with health, or cutting away from it what is heavy or sluggish.”118
Iamblichus uses fire to explain how sacrifices symbolize the way in which these spirits help human souls to become free: “The offering of sacrifice by means of fire is actually such as to consume and annihilate matter, assimilate it to itself rather than assimilating itself to matter, and elevating it towards the divine and heavenly and immaterial fire.”119 The burning of matter pleases the gods and daemons because it symbolizes the procedures by which souls are liberated from the bonds of generation and become more like the gods.120 One sacrifices and burns animals, their flesh and blood, in order to become free from flesh and body. Instead of being a polluting practice, animal sacrifice was a purifying one.
Given the transformative nature of sacrifice, Iamblichus insists that the order in which sacrifices are to be performed could be neither altered nor circumvented. Even the individual dedicating his or her life to philosophical pursuits and theological speculation, if he or she wished to be healed of the suffering associated with embodiment and generation, must perform the proper sacrifices in the correct order and manner.121 This position runs counter to the one Iamblichus presents as Porphyry’s, namely that one can think one’s way out of the bonds of nature, regardless of one’s ritual participation. Porphyry was of the opinion that the philosopher did not need theurgy or ritual practices involving matter, but could reach God by virtue of the intellect. Iamblichus, however, denied that philosophers could escape such practices in this way.
Sacrifice and Soteriology: Porphyry and Iamblichus on the Via Universalis
Porphyry’s position raised another concern for Iamblichus. Although he fully recognized that not all human beings could become completely purified or free from the grip of matter and return to the soul’s source, and although he reserved this end for the true philosopher, Iamblichus did not wish to consign ordinary people to a polluted existence, laboring under the delusion that the sacrifices they performed benefited them, when in fact the sacrifices contributed to their spiritual demise. He writes: “So if one does not grant some such mode of worship to cities and peoples not freed from the fated processes of generation and from a society dependent on the body, one will continue to fail of both types of good, both the immaterial and the material; for they are not capable of receiving the former, and for the latter they are not making the right offering.”122 In other words, Iamblichus objected to what he understood to be Porphyry’s denial of universal salvation, a path of participation in the gifts of the gods common to both ordinary people and philosophers or theurgists.
Augustine has been a source of confusion when it comes to Porphyry’s soteriology. In his City of God, Augustine claimed that Porphyry was searching for a universal way, a way to salvation for all souls, not just the souls of a few elite philosophers.123 On Augustine’s account, Porphyry failed in his endeavor because he could not overcome his pride and accept that Christianity constituted the answer to his search. It is impossible to determine whether Porphyry ever earnestly sought to find some via universalis. But it is obvious from On Abstinence that he felt that the salvific regimen he proposed to Firmus Castricianus was one that very few people could attain.124 Hence, Porphyry was making an argument for a form of ritual purity that he openly recognized could be achieved by only a small elite group of specially trained, spiritually devout philosophers. By upbraiding his friend for incontinence where animal food was concerned, he was not prescribing a way of life for everyone. Rather, he highlighted precisely what set him and his peers apart from the ordinary person, namely, his theological knowledge and his ascetic purity.
Despite the fact that Iamblichus expressed a more general concern about the spiritual well-being of people other than members of the philosophical elite and his own theurgic caste, he was equally invested in establishing his own authority as one who could lead others on the path to salvation, as we shall see in Chapter 4. However, elaborating the universal scope of his soteriological message was precisely the way in which he sought to do this. In this way, Iamblichus placed his own theological and theurgical expertise in a larger context than did Porphyry. He saw himself as providing a means for the salvation of more than just the philosopher. This salvation may have been only partial or truncated. But at the very least, he set the average practitioner of traditional religion on the path to salvation through the latter’s participation in rituals that honored different orders of good spirits. Furthermore, the theurgist or priestly philosopher was the one who could broker this salvation effectively for others. So although both Porphyry and Iamblichus admitted that few souls could become completely purified and freed from embodiment, Iamblichus saw purification as a process in which all souls could participate. He disagreed with the idea that most souls were constrained to live a polluted existence, a pollution that afflicted them not only because they were prone to enjoy a good meal and participate enthusiastically in carnal pleasure now and then, but, even more tragically, because they worshipped what they believed were gods, with harmful sacrifices.
Although Iamblichus sought to remedy some of the difficult implications of Porphyry’s views on popular religion, and although he sought to put all participants in traditional ritual on the path to purification, he still maintained with Porphyry that it was not possible for everyone to be a philosopher and to achieve complete release from corporeality and generation. One aspect of Christianity that was so offensive to many intellectual elites in the late ancient world was the view that all believers were like philosophers, not only saved and purified, but also in possession of true wisdom.125 This was, for those living the philosophical life, an impossibility and an affront. Without rigorous ascetic training and intense contemplation, there was no way that the ordinary person
