Like a picture of a loved one, you cherish it because it holds the essence of who is depicted, not for the paper that it is made out of. When an icon of a God is created, that same essence is cherished and worshiped. It is not the material of the icon that is venerated, but rather it is the essence that emanates from the icon which evokes the God that is worshiped and praised. It is by invoking this presence that the icon makes it easier to concentrate and focus on the Gods, allowing us to connect ourselves to the divine.

The providence of the Gods reaches everywhere and needs only some congruity for its reception. All congruity comes about by representation and likeness, which is why temples are made in the image of heaven and icons are made in the likeness of the divine (Sallustius XV).

 

Iamblichus on creating icons

Against Eidolon

Iamblichus displayed disapproval of eidôlopoiêtikê technê, the art of idol making, a production method where the sculptor is not trying to make a statue of a God but is trying to make a God. Iamblichus warns of this production method, writing that “one must apprehend the nature of this miracle-mongering and under no circumstances perform it or believe in it!” (Athanassiadi 2015, 123).

An eidolon (idol) is created by humans, not Gods. They are made from matter, not Intelligible substances. Such matter, although ostensibly holding divine tokens, isn’t put together in such a way as to invoke a deity, but instead contain a jumble of various tokens of different deities or Forms, leaving their effectiveness nonviable. Merely sculpting a statute to resemble a particular God, Daimon, Angel, etc., though a beginning, is not sufficient.

Such an image is a mere reflection of the divine, and there is little purpose in worshiping an eidolon or mistaking it for true divinity. Eidolon rely on matter and, in the words of the divine Iamblichus, “what good, then would arise as springing up from matter and things material?” (Iamblichus De Myteriis, III.28, 189).

Iamblichus overall condemns the art of idol making, writing “that the image[idol]-maker does not use the astral revolutions or the powers inherent in them, or the powers found naturally around them, nor is he at all able to control them; rather he operates with those emanating last from nature in the visible (realm) about the extreme part of the universe, and does so purely by technical skill, and not by theurgic skill” (Iamblichus De Myteriis, III.28, 191).

 

Eikon

However, this doesn’t mean that the divine Iamblichus or Julian were iconoclasts against the use of divine images in worship. The divine Julian writes that even the Encosmic Gods can be neither properly worshiped in their transcendent, natural states nor their divine images (i.e., the planets and stars):

“For since being in the body (sômati) it was in bodily wise that we must needs perform our service to the gods also, although they are themselves without bodies (asômatoi); they therefore revealed to us in the earliest images (agalmata) the class of gods next in rank to the first, even those that revolve in a circle around the whole heavens [i.e., the planets]. But because not even to these can due worship be offered in a bodily fashion (sômatikôs)—for they are by nature not in need of anything—another class of images (agalmatôn) was invented upon the earth, and by performing our worship to them we shall make the Gods propitious to ourselves.” (Johnston 2008, 464)

By including the correct symbols and tokens, whether sculpted into the statue or included as pharmaka (amulets and/or talismans inside the statue) and through purifications, fumigations, and invocations, the reflection becomes a true image, an eikon (icon), of the divine, fully invested with its reason-principles. Iamblichus approved of this art, called hê telestikê technê, or the telestic art. This is when someone is trying to make a statue of a God, as opposed to making a God. While the technical art of image making is merely the creation of an inanimate idol, the telestic theurgist crafts something with an ability to capture the essence of what is depicted by the idol. Just as the skilled painter captures the divine Form of his or her subject, sculpted cult statues can contain the eikon of a higher reality, becoming its visible representation. This, in turn, becomes a kind of demiurgy; for just as the Demiurge creates the universe as an agalma (image/statue) for the everlasting Gods (Plato Timaeus, 37c-d), the theurgist creates an ensouled statue for a particular God or Goddess (Uždavinys 2008, 219) (Uždavinys 2008, 223). While image makers try to create a God by forming their statue at the correct astrological moment, the telestic priest creates a statue that is animated with the divine through the use of symbola (divine symbols), synthemata (divine images), and theurgy, all while also knowing how to link the symbola, both together and to their divine causes, in order to compose a pure image which preserves the analogy with divine creation. In short, while an eidolon is merely a reflection of the divine, an eikon is an image of the divine.

There is, of course, a difference between the Forms represented in paintings and regular artwork and the images of the Gods or any other entity with its source above the Intellective Realm. This is because the Forms are Intellective (Noeric); however, the essence (ousia) of the Gods is Intelligible and thus utterly ineffable. The Gods, though at the top of the chain of Being, are still beyond even the reaches of the soul’s comprehension or imagination.

Why then, one may ask, are the icons of the Gods anthropomorphic? This question can be asked about the images of any spiritual entity, none of which are naturally defined by a humanoid appearance. The answer is found in Plato’s Timaeus, which states living beings are the most beautiful things as they have a soul, and human bodies are created by the Encosmic Gods to be like their own; that is, consisting of spheres (Plato Timaeus, 44d). Thus the closest embodied thing to the Gods is the human form. The Gods are not anthropomorphic, but rather humans are deomorphic. However, not all statues are in human form. There is some suggestion in Iamblichus’ Pythagorean material, and his lost On Divine Statues, of an egg, spherical or dodekahedron-shaped agalma connected to the World Soul. The World Soul itself also plays a crucial role in the consecration of statues and their preparation to receive the purifying light of the divine (Krulak ‎2009, 91-95).

Olympiodorus explains that the statues themselves aren’t considered divine, nor do they literally house a divine being within them since we can only lift ourselves up, not bring the Gods down (Krulak ‎2009, 112-4). Instead, the statue becomes connected to the divinity that’s being invoked through their tokens, effectively making the statue a body for the divinity that is ruled from the outside rather than the inside (Kupperman 2014, 207).

 

One can create an eikon by following these steps.

 

Bibliography

Addey, Crystal. Divination and Theurgy in Neoplatonism: Oracles of the Gods. Farnham, Surrey,: Ashgate Publishing Group, 2014.

Athanassiadi-Fowden, Polymnia. Mutations of Hellenism in Late Antiquity. Farnham: Ashgate Variorum, 2015.

Dunn, Patrick. The practical art of divine magic: contemporary & ancient techniques of Theurgy. Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd, 2015.

Flavius Claudius Iulianus Augustus, and Wilmer Cave (France) Wright. The works of the Emperor Julian. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006.

Iamblichus. De Anima. Translated by John F. Finamore and John M. Dillon. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002.

Iamblichus. De Mysteriis. Translated by Emma C. Clarke, John M. Dillon and Jackson P. Hershbell. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003.

Johnston, Sarah Iles. “Animating Statues: A Case Study in Ritual.” Arethusa 41.3 (2008): 445-477.

Krulak, Todd. “The Animated Statue and the Ascension of the Soul: Ritual and the Divine Image in Late Platonism.” PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2009.

Kupperman, Jeffrey S. Living Theurgy: A Course in Iamblichus’ Philosophy, Theology and Theurgy. London: Avalonia, 2014.

Sallustius, “On the Gods and the Cosmos”, 4th Century AD, accessed August 19, 2017, http://www.platonic-philosophy.org/files/Sallustius%20-%20On%20the%20Gods%20(Taylor).pdf

Shaw, Gregory. Theurgy and the soul: the Neoplatonism of Iamblichus. Second ed. Kettering, OH: Angelico Press, 2014.

Smith, Rowland. Julian’s Gods: Religion and Philosophy in the Thought and Action of Julian the Apostate. London and New York: Routledge, 2014

Tanaseanu-Döbler, Ilinca. Theurgy in Late Antiquity: the invention of a ritual tradition. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013.