Iamblichus and the Theory of the Vehicle of the Soul 9780891308836, 0891308830

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John F. Finam ore

Iamblichus and the Theory of the Vehicle of the Soul

Scholars Press Chico, California

IAM BLICHUS AND T H E THEORY OF TH E V EH IC LE OF TH E SOUL

John F. Finamore

1985 The American Philological Association ©

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication D ata Finamore, John F., 1951Iamblichus and the theory of the vehicle of the soul. (American classical studies; no. 14) Bibliography: p. 1. Iamblichus, ca. 250-ca. 330. 2. Soul—History of doctrines—Early church, ca 30-600.1. Title. 11. Series. B669.Z7F55 1985 128 1 85-10788 ISBN 0-89130-883-0 (alk. paper)

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

IOANNI ATQUE AMELIAE SINE QUIBUS NON

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...................... .......... ........... .......ix INTRODUCTION.................. ........... .... ...... ...............1 Section I.

IAMBLICHUS AND PORPHYRY ON THE VEHICLE'S COMPOSITION, GENERATION, AND ULTIMATE FATE............................ J_1

II.

THE HUMAN SOUL'S CONNECTION TO THE GOOD....... ...........33

III.

THE DESCENT OF THE SOUL.....................

....59

A. The Process of the Descent.......... ......... ........59 B. The Reasons for the Soul's Descent.............. ..... 91 IV.

THE THEURGIC ROLE OF THE VEHICLE IN IAMBLICHUS’ RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY....................... 12 5

CONCLUSION.........

165

LIST OF WORKS CITED............................................... .171

Thanks are owed to Antonia Tripolitis, Anna Benjamin, Robert Bolton, and Michael Rohr, who formed my dissertation committee, and to Roger Hornsby, who suggested several stylistic revisions.

Early drafts

of several sections of this treatise were read at the American Philological Association Meetings and at the University of Texas at Austin.

My work was improved by comments and questions of

classicists and philosophers attending those readings. I wish to thank the reviewers of the American Philological Association Monograph Board for their suggestions and corrections. One of them, John M. Dillon, has made himself known to me.

I owe

him a special debt of gratitude for his gracious and constructive comments. Finally, I owe special thanks to Susan McLean who, during the time I have been researching, writing, and revising this work, has helped me immensely both through discussions of neoplatonic philosophy and through her unswerving moral support.

The neoplatonic theory of the vehicle βχημα,-πυεϋΐχι is, as its ancient adherents perceived it, based upon the writings of Plato and supported by those of Aristotle.^·

If one looks for such

supporting passages, however, one finds little with which to defend the neoplatonists' claims.

As Kissling (318) has said:

The theory of the δχημα-πνεΟμα, as met with in the Neo-Platonic writers, represents the reconciliation of Plato and Aristotle on a subject which the former never taught and the latter was incapable of defining intel­ ligibly. How, then, do the neoplatonists conceive of the vehicle of the soul, and with which Platonic and Aristotelian texts do they connect that belief? The vehicle is intended to join together two diametrically opposed entities:

the incorporeal soul and the corporeal body.

It

is, therefore, neither material nor immaterial, but a mean between these two extremes.

Later philosophers claimed that ether, mentioned

in Epinomis 981c5-8 (a work they believed to be by Plato) and in Aristotle's works (e.g., De Caelo 270b20-26), was the substance comprising the vehicle. three functions:

For neoplatonists, the vehicle fulfills

it houses the rational soul in its descent from

the noetic realm to the realm of generation; it acts as the organ of eense-perception and imagination; and, through theurgic rites, it can be purified and lifted above, a vehicle for the rational soul's return through the cosmos to the gods. Neoplatonists were able to ascribe these functions to the teachings of Plato and Aristotle.

In Tim. 41el-2, Plato says that

the Demiurge "distributed each fsoul? to each CstarJ, and having

mounted themCi.e., human soulsj as if on a vehicle, he showed them the nature of the universe."

For a neoplatonist, the vehicle

is not the star but the δχηια-πνεΟμα.

Once the soul is situated

on its own vehicle, it descends into generation.

Neoplatonists

interpret, in a similar way, the myth of the Phaedrus, in which the souls of the gods and humans are compared to charioteers riding in chariots όχήματα,

247bl-3).

For neoplatonists, each of these

passages shows a soul connected to its own vehicle both in the cosmos and in the descent to earth. The vehicle's imaginative function depends upon Aristotelian theory (e.g., De Gen. A n . 744al-5).

Sense perceptions are impressed

upon the vehicle and can thereby be processed by the soul.

(Note

that here again the vehicle is intermediary between the bodily senses and the immaterial soul.)

Furthermore, in De Gen. A n . 736b37-

38, Aristotle says that the pneuma is "analogous to the element comprising the stars" (άνάλογον οδσα τφ των δστρων στοιχείψ) . Thus, it is a simple step for later philosophers to combine Aristotle's ττνεΟμα with ether, the element of the stars, and with the "Platonic" δχημα,

onto which the Demiurge placed the soul. From the doctrine of the soul's increasing materiality in

its descent,*1 the vehicle obtains its third, theurgic function.

For

if the vehicle becomes stained by material additions in its descent, purification from these material stains must be accomplished before the soul can reascend.

In accordance with religious practice of

the third and fourth centuries A.D., the purification of the vehicle can occur in theurgic, ritual acts. Plotinus attaches little importance to theurgy,and, as a

result, is relatively unconcerned with the δχημα-πνεΰμα. uses the term δχημα

He never

to refer to the soul's ethereal body.

Never­

theless, Plotinus does seem to subscribe to a belief in an entity like the vehicle.^

In Enn. IV.3.15, in discussing the descent of

the soul, Plotinus says that when the soul leaves the noetic realm, it goes "first into heaven and receives there a body through which it continues into more earthy bodies" (lines 1-3).

Here is the

notion, common in the later theories of the vehicle, of gradations or envelopes of matter attaching themselves onto a primary body. Plotinus seems to adopt the role of purification from these envelopes at Enn. Ill.6.5.22-29:7 But the purification of the part subject to affections is the waking up from inappropriate images and not seeing them, and its separation is effected by not inclining much downwards and not having a mental picture of the things below. But separating it could also mean taking away the things from which it is separated when it is not standing over a vital breath (πνεύματος) turbid from gluttony and sated with impure meats, but that in which it resides is so fine that it can ride on it (έπ* αώτοϋ οχεΕσδαι.) in peace. Here Plotinus clearly mentions the πνεΟμα in relation to its purification and the soul's separation from the body.

It would

seem that the soul can exist peacefully with its purified πνεύμα (although Plotinus is hesitant: εϋη δ ” 4 5 ) cited by Dillon (372-373), Dodds (319), Verbeke (365), Kissling (322, 324-325), Smith (6 6 ), and Festugiere (127). 2

Compare De An . ap. Stobaeus I, p. 374, 2, where Iamblichus calls vehicles αύτοειδέσι πνεύμασι. Festugiere (206) translates: "certain pneumatic bodies of a nature always identical to itself." See also his notes 4 and 5 ad loc. 3 The translation is Dillon's (195).

4

See Dillon (380), though he now rejects his original translation of συμπεφορημόυως. ■*Proclus, In Tim. Ill, pp. 266, 31-267, 11. Since Iamblichus believes that the vehicle did not originate in moving causes (In Tim. Fr. 81), the vehicle's cause must be unmoved. This points to the Demiurge. Note that Proclus agrees that the vehicle is created by an unmoved cause (El. Th . prop. 207 and Dodd's note, p. 306). Note also that what Proclus says a little further on (In Tim. Ill, p. 268, 10-18) is Iamblichean doctrine (e.g., De A n . I, p. 379, 12-15 and De Myst. I 17, p. 50, 16-51, 9). Proclus appears to be interweaving Iamblichean ideas throughout this discussion. ^According to Festugiere (237 n. 4), the doctrine of the περιβλήματα is "present in Hermetic or Christian gnosis," and he notes the similarity between a passage from the Corpus Hermeticum and Iamblichus' words. Iamblichus would have continued after p. 385, 10 much as he did in 384, 19-28; that is, he would go on to give the views of Plotinus, Porphyry, and the priests. For a review of the concept of vestments (χιτώνες), see Dodds (307-308). ^See also Larsen (181).

g Simplicius, in Arist. Categ. p. 374 ff. Kalbfleisch. A translation is given by Festugiere (196 n. 2). 9 For the meaning of the νεΛπροβάλλεΐν, "to project from itself," see especially De Myst. II 2, p. 6 8 , 12-13: the soul projecting (προβάλλουσα) different forms (είδη), reasons (λόγους), and lives (βίους). Cp. Iamblichus' De Communi Mathematica Scientia, p. 44, 7-10, where Iamblichus says that the soul is reminded of the true forms in mathematics and then brings forth from itself (προβάλλει) the λόγοι appropriate to them. See also p. 43, 21, where the gpyov of the mathematical science calls forth from itself (