The golden chain, p.24
The Golden Chain, page 24
On account of these things [i.e., the considerations drawn from the nature and destinies of the soul] therefore the true lovers of wisdom are temperate and firm, and not for the reasons which the multitude assigns: but the soul of the philosopher reasons thus, and does not think that Philosophy ought to liberate her from the body, but that while Philosophy is freeing her she may give herself up to pleasures and pains so as to be again entangled in bonds, condemning herself to endless labor, handling, so to speak, her web in the very opposite way from the example of Penelope; on the contrary, calming the passions to rest, following her reason and in it ever abiding, contemplating that which is true, divine, and beyond the sphere of opinion, and being nourished by it, she deems that she must thus pass her life as long as it lasts, and that after “death” she will go to that which is akin and congenial to herself, and so be delivered from all human evils.
From this course of reasoning it is evident that Philosophy brings to us a release from human or corporeal chains and a deliverance from the incidents of temporal birth [generation], and leads to that which truly is, and to a knowledge of Truth itself and the purification of souls. But if in this above all things there is true felicity, we must cultivate Philosophy most zealously, if we wish to be truly happy. Moreover, it is right to reflect that, since the soul is immortal, it requires our anxious care, not merely for this interval of time which we call “life,” but always; and most serious will be the danger if we neglect the soul. For if death were a total annihilation, great would be the gain to the wicked, since they would be liberated by death at once from the body and from their depravity, together with the soul; but now, since the soul proves to be immortal, there is for her no escape from evils, nor salvation, other than by becoming as good and wise as possible.
For the soul descends to Hades with nothing whatever but her education and culture, which as it is said is [according to its kind] either of the greatest aid or of the greatest disadvantage to the soul, at the very outset of her journey thither. For the better soul dwells with the Gods, traverses the heavenly sphere, and receives a better allotment; but he who has been guilty of unjust acts and is full of depravity and impiety, going into the subterranean dungeons receives fitting penalties.
For the sake of these things, therefore, we ought to use our utmost efforts to gain virtue and wisdom in this life. For the contest is noble and the hope great, and on account of these one should believe confidently in the worth of his own soul if through life he has ignored corporeal and mundane pleasures as alien, and considered any participation of them as pernicious to himself, but has given himself to those pleasures which are inherent in learning— and, ornamenting his soul not with anything alien to its essence but with its own connate ornaments, namely wisdom, justice, fortitude, liberty, and truth, he is ready to take the journey into Hades when the appointed time arrives.
These things being so, we should not make the accumulation of riches our highest aim, nor glory and honor, but the acquisition of Wisdom and truth and the way by which the soul may reach the most excellent condition. Things of the greatest worth should not be held in less esteem than those of a trifling character. Neither, therefore, must attention be given to the body, nor to the getting of money, nor to anything else, prior to the care of the soul, which it should be our chief business to bring to the best possible condition. For Virtue does not arise from riches, but from Virtue come riches and all other goods, private and public, to men. This one thing, therefore, must be deemed absolutely true, namely that to a good man neither in life nor after death will any evil come, nor are his affairs neglected by the Gods; so that to him will be given all the goods which contribute to felicity, and he who closely follows the path leading to Virtue will live most happily. Let therefore an exhortation to the study of Philosophy, drawn from the preceding, be of this kind.
14. Next we must draw an exhortation from the life of philosophers of the first rank, the Coryphaeans,37 according to the teachings of Pythagoras. For these philosophers have never from their childhood known the way to the forum, or where a law court is, or council chamber, or any other political meeting-place; laws and decrees, whether spoken or written, they neither hear nor see. The ambitious striving of political clubs for offices, public meetings, and banquets and revelings with minstrelsy—all these are practices which do not occur to them even in dreams. What has been well or badly transacted in the city, or what infamy may attach to anyone from his ancestors, either by his father’s or mother’s side, of this he is as ignorant as he is of the number of drops of water in the ocean. And he is even ignorant that he is ignorant of all these particulars, for he does not keep himself aloof from them for the sake of reputation; but in reality it is only his body which dwells and is conversant in the city, while his discursive reason (dianoia), deeming all these things trifling and of no value, despises them and soars all abroad, “measuring,” as Pindar says, “the regions below the earth and those upon it, star-gazing into heaven’s height,” and thoroughly investigating all the nature of the beings which each whole contains, but not descending to anything which is near.
It is said, for example, that Thales astronomizing and looking intently upward fell into a well, and a bright and lively Thracian girl taunted him about the accident, saying that in his eagerness to know what was in heaven he could not see what was around him and under his feet. Now the same taunt is good for all students of Philosophy. They are indeed entirely ignorant what their nearest neighbor is about, and almost whether or not he is a human being; but what man is, and what it becomes him, as distinguished from every other creature, to do or suffer, into all this they make diligent inquiry.
Therefore when a philosopher of this kind chances to hold a public or private conversation with anyone, when he is compelled to enter a law-court, or some such place, and engage in a discussion concerning the things before his eyes and under his feet, he is a fruitful subject for merriment, not only to Thracian girls but to the whole company, tumbling into pitfalls and getting into all sorts of embarrassments because of his ignorance, and behaving so awkwardly that people look upon him as a kind of booby. If he is shamefully treated, he does not retaliate, as he has no private grudge, and he is regarded as ridiculously inspired because he knows no evil of anyone and is without any appetite for gossip. When others are praised and eulogized, he is only unfeignedly amused, and is for this also counted as a manifest simpleton. When he hears a tyrant or king praised, it is in his estimation much as if some herdsman, or swineherd, shepherd, or cow-herd, were praised for his large stock of serviceable beasts; with this difference, however, that he thinks of a herd of cattle as less treacherous and ungovernable than the animals tended and milked by a tyrant.
And as for the ruler, he must become even more rude and uncultured than a herdsman, for he is always hard at work and girt in by his stone walls as by the sides of a mountain cavern. When this philosopher hears that some one owns a thousand acres or more, this marvelous possession is for him an unconsidered trifle, since he has been wont to view the whole earth. They who sing of pedigree, how that some are noble because they count seven rich ancestors, are to him of dull and narrow sight, being unable in their ignorance to fix their eyes upon the whole of time or to reflect that everyone has had myriads of forefathers and ancestors, amongst whom are numbered rich and poor, kings and slaves, both barbarians and Greeks. When they boast that in their genealogical tree the five and twentieth ancestor was Hercules the son of Amphitryon, they forget in their petty arithmetic that Amphitryon’s five and twentieth ancestor was nobody in particular, and that he in turn had a fiftieth; and the philosopher smiles at their meager reckonings, and fatuous absorption in their own vain and foolish selves.
In all this, however, he is ridiculed by the multitude, in part because he has a proud bearing, as they think, in part because he is ignorant of what is at his feet, and in matters of detail is always at fault.
But when the philosopher leads anyone to take a higher view, and bids him mount out of questions of private injury into the consideration of justice and injustice, as each is in itself and as they differ from each other and from all other things, or when they turn from the question whether the rich king is happy to inquire into kingship and human happiness generally, of what nature they are and what kind of man ought to be happy and escape misery—when such questions as these are to the fore, and that narrow-minded legal personage must give a reason and answer, then he presents a counterpart of the philosopher. For, suspended aloft at such an unusual height and looking into mid-air, he becomes dizzy and dismayed, his want of wit and incoherent babble making him a laughing-stock, not to Thracian girls or any uneducated person, for they do not see the absurdity, but to all whose training has not been that of slaves. Such is the condition and character of each: one is that of the man really, bred in freedom and leisure, who should be given the name philosopher, who surely is not to blame if he is foolish and at a loss when it falls to him to perform some such servile duty as to pack a trunk, or flavor a sauce, or make a fawning speech; the other is the man who can do all these services thoroughly and with dispatch, but who does not know how to don his cloak gracefully, or, by acquiring harmony of language to sing well the true life of the Gods and blessed men.
I think, therefore, if all men were convinced of these things, there would be more peace and less evil in the world. But, indeed, evil cannot be altogether destroyed, for there must always be something opposite to good: it cannot, however, find a place in the home of the Gods, but of necessity flourishes in the mortal nature and this terrestrial region. Wherefore we must endeavor to fly from this world to the other with the utmost haste. Moreover, one should know that flight means becoming like to God as much as possible; and the way to be like God is to become just and holy and wise. But it is difficult to persuade the many that these are the true reasons for shunning evil and seeking Virtue, and not, as they think, in order to have the appearance of goodness. But the notions of the many on this subject are as absurd as an old woman’s fable. The real truth may thus be stated: God can never be unjust, but is wholly just, and nothing can be more like Him than the perfectly just man.
By this means we distinguish genuine worth from worthlessness and puerility; for to know the nature of God is wisdom and true virtue, and not to know it is sheer ignorance and vice. All other wisdom [so called] or ability, whether in politics or in the arts, is vulgar and ignoble. It is far better not to allow for a moment that the men who are unjust, profane, or unrighteous in word or deed are men of powerful minds because they are rogues. Such men glory in their name, and imagine that they are spoken of not as good-for-nothing encumbrances but as exemplary citizens. They must be told that their worthlessness is in proportion to their false opinion of their value. They are ignorant of what they most of all should know, that the consequence of injustice is not merely lashes and death, which the wrong-doer sometimes escapes, but a punishment which is inevitable. For in the nature of things there are two types, namely one divine and blessed, the other ungodlike and repulsive; those who live unjustly do not see in the extremity of their folly and blindness that they are becoming like the earthly type and unlike the divine, and their reward is that their life is in harmony with the corresponding type or exemplar.
If we say to them that unless they abandon their unscrupulous ways they, when they die, will not be admitted into the place that is pure of evil, and in this world will be given over to things which are in conformity with their unworthy behavior, they in their abounding cunning and craft will look on us as giving the counsel of fools. However, one noteworthy thing befalls them. If they are willing to discuss in private their objections to Philosophy, and wait manfully and unflinchingly to see the matter out, then, strange to say, they lose their satisfaction in themselves, their brilliant rhetoric fades, and they become as little children. But if these things are true, and the life of those who devote themselves to the acquisition and practice of Philosophy is more divine and felicitous than any other mode of living, we should do nothing else than to grasp nobly and ardently the principles of Philosophy....
16. Hence, if these things be true, we cannot avoid believing that the real nature of education38 is not such as some assert, who pretend to infuse into the mind a knowledge of which it was destitute, just as sight might be instilled into blinded eyes, whereas our present reasoning shows us that there is a power inherent in the soul of each person which is the instrument by which each of us is able to learn; and that just as we might suppose it to be impossible to turn the eye round from darkness to light without turning the whole body, so must this faculty or instrument be wheeled round in company with the entire soul away from the world of death and generation, until it is enabled to endure the contemplation of the real world and the brightest part of it, which we call the good. Hence this process of revolution or converting must give rise to an art teaching in what way the change will most easily and most effectually be brought about. Its object will not be to implant in a person the power of seeing, but, on the contrary, it assumes that he possesses it, though he is turned in a wrong direction and does not look toward the right quarter; and its aim is to remedy this defect.
Therefore, though the other so-called virtues of the soul seem to resemble those of the body—inasmuch as they really do not preexist in the soul, but are formed in it in the course of time by habit and exercise—the virtue of wisdom does most certainly appertain to a more divine substance, which never loses its actuality, but by change of position becomes useful and serviceable, or else remains useless and injurious. For you must have noticed how keen-sighted are the puny souls of those who have the reputation of being clever but vicious, and how sharply they see through the things to which they are directed, thus proving that their powers of vision are by no means feeble, though they have been compelled to become the servants of wickedness, so that the more sharply they see, the more numerous are the evils which they work. But, if from earliest childhood these characters had been shorn and stripped of those leaden, earth-born weights, which grow and cling to the pleasures of eating, and gluttonous enjoyments of a similar nature, and which keep the eye of the soul turned upon the things below—if they had been released from these snares, and turned around to look at objects that are true, then these very same souls of these very same men would have had as keen an eye for such pursuits as they actually have for those in which they are now engaged. Now, therefore, since we are “born” here, it is evident from the same reasoning what nature the function of Philosophy has and how precious it is. For to cleanse the soul of every taint of generation, and to purify that actuality of it to which the power of reason belongs, is the chief function of Philosophy. This therefore is the best mode of living, namely to live and die practicing justice and the other virtues: and this mode we must follow, if we wish to become truly happy.
17. But if our hearers should be advised from ancient discourses and sacred myths, both of the Pythagoreans and others, from these we will proceed to draw an exhortation. Rightly are those called happy who need nothing, and the life of those who have innumerable desires is dangerous and full of trouble.39 I should not wonder, indeed, if Euripides is right when he says,
Who knoweth if to live is to be dead,
And to be dead is to live?40
And one might wonder if we are all really dead, and the body is our tomb, and that part of the soul in which the desires reside is of a nature liable to be over-persuaded and to be swayed continually to and fro. And so some smart Sicilian or Italian turned this into a fable, and, playing with the word, from its susceptibility to all impressions and capacity for holding belief, named it a jar, and the foolish he called uninitiated: in these uninitiated, that part of the soul where the desires are, the licentious and non-retentive portion of it, he compared to a jar full of holes, because there was no possibility of filling or satisfying it. Wherefore, this thinker shows, contrary to the opinion of the multitude, that of all those in Hades, which signifies the invisible region, the uninitiated are the most miserable, and are forced to carry water into their leaky jar in a sieve perforated just like the other. And by the sieve he represents the soul: and the soul of the foolish he likened to a sieve, because it is full of holes, as incapable of holding anything by reason of its incredulity and forgetfulness, i.e., its inaptitude for receiving and retaining knowledge. This may indeed seem somewhat whimsical; still it shows clearly what I want to prove, namely that one should choose, in preference to a life of insatiable self-indulgence, one that is orderly and regular and ever content and satisfied with what it has.
5. Iamblichus
On the Mysteries of the Egyptians
The actual title of Iamblichus’ De mysteriis in the manuscripts is The Reply of the Master Abammon to the Letter of Porphyry to Anebo and the Solution to the Problems raised therein. The title On the Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians was the contribution of Marsilio Ficino. In this work, Iamblichus, wearing the mask of an Egyptian priest called Abammon, defends the practice of theurgy (theourgia) and answers Porphyry’s doubts regarding the efficacy of hieratic art. Iamblichus’ philosophical justification of theurgy (which he regarded as essentially Egyptian and Chaldean in origin) was of importance for the later sacramental theology of the Greek Christian Fathers.
The excerpts presented here were translated by Thomas Taylor and published in 1821 under the title On the Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians.
