Iamblichus Quotes

Iamblichus

All things in the world of Nature are not controlled by Fate for the soul has a principle of its own.

Iamblichus
(On the Mysteries: De Mysteriis Aegyptiorum)

Wait for the appointed hour.

Iamblichus (Quoted by Eunapius in The Lives of the Sophists)

No one will deny that the soul of Pythagoras was sent to mankind from Apollo's domain, having either been one of his attendants, or more intimate associates, which may be inferred both from his birth, and his versatile wisdom.

Iamblichus (Life of Pythagoras - Chapter 2)

This proves that in their enthusiasm [i.e., their state of inspiration] they are not aware of what they are doing and are not living a human or bodily existence as far as sensation and volition are concerned, but live instead another and diviner kind, which fills them and takes complete possession of them.

Iamblichus (On the Mysteries: De Mysteriis Aegyptiorum)

The divine endowment of divination (mantike) alone, therefore, being conjoined with the gods, imparts to us the divine life and likewise making us participants of the divine foreknowledge and the divine thoughts, renders us truly divine.

Iamblichus (On the Mysteries: De Mysteriis Aegyptiorum)

For man, as these writings affirm, has two souls. The one is from the First Intelligence and is participant of the power of the Creator, but the other is given from the revolutions of the worlds of the sky, to which the God-beholding soul returns.

Iamblichus (On the Mysteries: De Mysteriis Aegyptiorum - The Two Souls of Man)

Before the things that really are, even the first principles of all things, is One Divine Being, prior even to the first God and King, abiding immovable in the aloneness of his own absolute unity. For neither is Intelligence nor any principle else intermingled with him, but he is established an exemplar of the God self-begotten, self-produced and only-begotten, the One truly Good. For he is the something Absolutely Great and Supreme, the Source of all things, and root of the first ideals subsisting in the Supreme Mind. Then from this One, the God sufficient in himself caused himself to shine forth:3 and hence he is self-engendered and self-sufficient. For he is the Beginning and God of Gods, a unity proceeding from the One, subsisting before essence, and the principle of essence. For from him are being and essence; and he is called accordingly Noëtarch, Chief of the realm of thought.

Iamblichus (On the Mysteries: De Mysteriis Aegyptiorum - The Two Souls of Man)

After the theurgic discipline has conjoined the soul individually with the several departments of the universe, and with all the divine powers that pervade it, then it leads the soul to the Creator of the world, places it in his charge, and frees it of everything pertaining to the realm of matter, uniting it with the Sole Eternal Reason (Logos).
    What I am saying is this: That it unites the soul individually to the One, Father of himself, self-moving. He who sustains the universe, spiritual, who arranges all things in order, who leads it to the supreme truth, to the absolute, the efficient, and other creative powers of God: thus establishing the theurgic soul in the energies, the conceptions and creative qualities of those powers. Then it inserts the soul in the entire Demurgic God.
    This, with the Egyptian Sages, is the end of the "Return" as taught in the Sacred Records

Iamblichus (On the Mysteries: De Mysteriis Aegyptiorum)

More quotes by other insightful Neoplatonic Philosophers and Mystics

Iamblichus Biography

Iamblichus portrait

Born: 245
Died: 325

Iamblichus was a Syrian Neoplatonic philosopher that is best known, alongside Porphyry for being a key figure in the early stages of Neoplatonic philosophy.

Notable Works

Collection of Pythagorean Doctrines
Life of Pythagoras
The Egyptian Mysteries (disputed)