De MysteriisSociety of Biblical Lit, 2003 - 377 страници This volume presents the first modern English translation of Iamblichus’s De mysteriis alongside the standard critical edition of the text by Édouard Des Places (Les Belles Lettres, 1966). This important work, which provides a unique insight into the mystical side of late Neoplatonism, has hitherto been neglected to an unfortunate degree, partly due to its inaccessibility. Iamblichus argues that the only true good is union with the gods and that the only route to this divine union is theurgy—religious ritual demonstrating supernatural power—which both symbolizes and encapsulates the extraordinary miracle of the soul’s conversion back to its divine origin. The process of sacrifice, the activities of angels and demons, the meaning of divine possession, and the functioning of oracles are all examined in this extraordinary defense of theurgic mysticism against contemporary critics such as Porphyry. Clarke, Dillon, and Hershbell bring this famous and fascinating text to light through their introduction and extensive notes. |
Съдържание
| ix | |
Title | 3 |
Book II | 83 |
Book III | 119 |
Book IV | 203 |
Book V | 227 |
Book VI | 281 |
Book VII | 291 |
Book VIII | 305 |
Book IX | 327 |
Book X | 345 |
Select Bibliography | 355 |
| 365 | |
Популярни откъси
Страница xi - JEA Journal of Egyptian Archaeology JHS Journal of Hellenic Studies JRS Journal of Roman Studies JTS Journal of Theological Studies OUP Oxford University Press 1920 1 Notes on Roman Coins found at Aldington, Worcestershire.
Страница xxxix - Atum! When you came into being you rose up as a high hill, You shone as the Benben Stone in the temple of the Phoenix in Heliopolis.
Страница xvi - Ignorance and priestcraft, however, have hitherto conspired to defame those inestimable works,1 in which this and many other grand and important dogmas can alone be found ; and the theology of the Greeks has been attacked with all the insane fury of ecclesiastical zeal, and all the imbecil flashes of mistaken wit, by men whose conceptions on the subject, like those of a man between sleeping and waking, have been turbid...
Страница xvi - ... unities, the monad of monads, the principle of principles, the God of Gods, one and all things, and yet one prior to all. No objections of any weight, no arguments but such as are sophistical, can be urged against this most sublime theory which is so congenial to the unperverted conceptions of the human mind, that it can only be treated with ridicule and contempt in degraded, barren, and barbarous ages.
Страница xl - ... in the form of Atum there came into being heart and there came into being tongue. But the supreme god is Ptah, who has endowed all the gods and their ka's through that heart of his which appeared in the form of Horus, and through that tongue of his which appeared in the form of Thoth, both of which were forms of Ptah.