A human being is defined as a rational soul combined with a physical body. As such, Iamblichus places the soul under the fifth Parmenidean hypothesis: “irrational souls are “woven into” rational souls” (Kupperman 2014, 145).

Our souls are derived the divine Demiurge and common father of all, Zeus, through “the Whole Soul via the World Soul” (Kupperman 2014, 145). The divine Julian writes that as Zeus was setting all things in order, there fell from Him drops of sacred blood, and from these drops of divine blood arose the race of man (Flavius Claudius Iulianus, II 307).

 

Ousia-Dunamis-Energia Triad

All beings, including human souls, can be analyzed into three:

1. Their Essence/Substance (Ousia)
2. Their Power (Dunamis)
   
3. Their Activity (Energeia)
   

 

I. Essence

All beings have Essence/Substance (Ousia). The essence is a being’s inner-most or most fundamental self. The existence of human souls is lowest, “deficient, and relatively imperfect” (Iamblichus De Mysteriis, I.6-7) (Shaw 2014, 87).

 

Typically, an entity’s essence is difficult to access or even recognize. In humanity’s case, the difficulty is made worse.

Iamblichus follows Plato and the language of the Chaldean Oracles by dividing humanity into three different groups.

1. The great herd of humanity, whose soul is combined with a body and self-identifies as that body
   
2. The beginning theurgist and philosopher, whose soul is combined with a body and self-identifies as that body, however is midway to knowing their separateness.
3. The theurgic sage, whose souls are the only ones who are fully and experientially aware of their ultimate separateness from the body which it inhabits.

The combined nature of the human soul, of humanity, is a unique trait of a unique kind of soul.

 

Where the soul comes from

Iamblichus writes that the human soul comes after Nous (the Celestial Demiurge). A soul is separate from all the greater kinds and is the mean between fully immaterial, indivisible beings and fully material, divisible ones. Further, the soul descends completely into a body upon incarnation, with none of it remaining outside of generation.

This tells us significant information about the nature of the soul.

• Firstly, the soul depends from the level of Nous as it extends into the Psychic Cosmos. This makes the soul distinct from, inferior to, and dependent upon the rest of the greater kinds.
• Although the human soul is connected to Nous it also exists on its own, separated from Nous beneath the World Soul, and so must participate in Nous in order to experience Intellect in its fullest. In this lower position, human souls are the mediators between the divine and physical realms and their inhabitants.
• This recalls the divine Julian’s descriptions of King Helios as Celestial Demiurge as a mean between the Intelligible and sensible realms, leading and uniting these two otherwise separate levels. Just as the Celestial Demiurge leads the celestial realm, so too does the human soul participating Nous through demiurgic theurgy.

The soul descends by the will of the Gods for two reasons:

• The soul’s descent is to complete creation in a uniform manner, as in accordance with Plato’s Timaeus.
• The soul descends in order to manifest the life of the Gods in creation.

In both cases the will of the Gods is carried out by the soul in generation. Since the nature of the Gods is ultimately good, the descent of the soul is likewise good.

 

II. Power

Power (Dunamis) is an entity’s potential expression of its essence. Esssentially, it’s what it can do. Human souls lack the power to “do all things, neither at one time, nor in an instant, nor uniformly” (Shaw 2014, 87) (Iamblichus De Mysteriis, I.6-7).

The easiest way to understand an entity’s essence is through its powers and activities. Although the human soul eventually falls into generation and becomes incarnated into a physical body, the soul’s power only reside in the soul, and not the body and soul together. Some powers are expressed when the soul exists away from the body while others are expressed only when soul and body are conjoined. Further, incarnation causes some of the soul’s disincarnate powers to express differently while incarnate. This is in line with Plato’s Phaedo’s view of the soul’s ability to comprehend truth being lessened while incarnate.

Iamblichus’ De Mysteriis makes it clear that a human has two souls, one rational and one irrational.

• The rational soul “Partak[es] of the power of the Demiurge” (Iamblichus De Mysteriis, VIII.6, 321). In Plato’s Timaeus, the Celestial Demiurge creates what is immortal. Meaning that it is He is responsible for the creation of the rational soul.
• The irrational soul, “is contributed to us from the circuit of the heavenly bodies” (Iamblichus De Mysteriis, VIII.6, 321). Going back to Plato’s Timaeus: while the Celestial Demiurge creates what is immortal, it is the Gods under Him who create everything that is mortal in the soul, i.e., the irrational soul. Through the irrational soul our irrational powers become active, either stemming from irrational powers found in the rational soul itself or originating in the irrational soul. The Irrational Soul is the same thing as the Shade, as like the Irrational Soul the Shade lacks cognizance until it is empowered by offerings, and thus we can deduce that these faculties are not native to it.

Plato gives a metaphorical tripirate division of the rational soul. This is not to be taken literally; as the rational soul is only one part. However, it is convenient to divide the soul into three to better understand the soul’s relation to the virtues:

• Reason: Which allows us to learn
• Spirited: Which allows us to feel strong emotions such as anger
• Appetitive: Which allows us to desire physical things

 

The soul’s actual powers, though, are different from the parts, and include:

• Growth
• Imagination
• Perception
• Opinion
• Thought that moves the body
• Desire for good and evil
• Intellection
• Memory or the mental retention of images

Just as the soul has a life alone and a life with the body, some of the soul’s powers are connected to one or the other of the soul’s modes of existence.

 

III. Activity

Activity (Energeia) is a soul’s power in action. Human souls have the nature to “incline and turn itself towards the things generated and governed by it” (Iamblichus De Mysteriis, I.6-7) (Shaw 2014, 87).

and can arise either from:

• The soul itself
• From the passions of the body
• A combination of the two

All the causes of activities are the soul. We can’t attribute any activity to the body alone, even those that arise from bodily passions, because bodies are incapable of self-movement. We can think of the soul as the batteries of the body.

Iamblichus likens the One of the soul, the soul’s principle of unity and Intellect, to a ship’s helmsman, and a ship to a body:

• The helmsman controls the ship and sets its course, even if wind and other factors influence the ship’s response to the helmsman’s command.
• The ship has movements proper to it when controlled by the helmsman, but the helmsman (the One of the soul) has activities proper to it when separate from its ship. These include divine possession, immaterial thinking, and union with the divine.

Unlike the activities of the Gods and Archangels, human activities, which only occur when soul and body are conjoined, are disconnected from the essence and life of the soul. Specifically, these activities include “change, divisibility, corporeality dimensionality, and extension.” (Iamblichus De Anima, III.16, 43) Such activities cannot belong to the non-physical soul as it exists by itself, as they are immortal, unchanging and unextended.

The human soul, a fallen divinity, is in its highest state the last of the Greater Kinds. To rise once again, one must engage in worship, or cultus. Cultus is steeped in theurgic activity and serves as the stepping stone for theourgia.

 

Bibliography

Flavius Claudius Iulianus Augustus, and Wilmer Cave. Wright. The works of emperor Julian. London: Heinemann etc., 1962.

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.

Kupperman, Jeffrey S. “Living Theurgy: a course in Iamblichus Philosophy, Theology and Theurgy”. London: Avalonia, 2014.

Proclus. Proclus’ Commentary on Plato’s Parmenides. Translated by Glenn R. Morrow and John Dillon. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992.

Sallustius, “On the Gods and the Cosmos”, 4th Century AD, accessed May 17, 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.

Plato, and Benjamin Jowett. The complete works of Plato. United States?: Akasha Pub., 2008.