Journal of Early Christian Studies

Journal of Early Christian Studies

Volume 7, Number 4, Winter 1999
Johns Hopkins University Press
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Neoplatonic Theurgy and Dionysius the Areopagite *

— (bio)

Abstract

Until recently, Neoplatonic theurgy has been defined by scholars as an attempt to

manipulate the gods through ritual, and its influence in late antique Platonic circles has
been interpreted as evidence for the decline of Greek rationality caused in large part by
the teachings of the fourth-century Syrian Platonist, Iamblichus. Although scholarly
research on theurgy and Iamblichus has now corrected these misunderstandings, they
have le their mark on related areas of research: a notable example is the role of theurgy
in the Christian liturgy of Dionysius the Areopagite.

This essay argues that the distinction between Iamblichean and Dionsyian theurgy—
asserted by leading theologians and scholars—is based on a caricature of Iamblichean
theurgy. When Iamblichean theurgy is properly understood, the Christian theurgy of
Dionysius may be seen as an example of the same kind of theurgy that Iamblichus
defined in the De mysteriis. This essay aims to refute the false distinction between
“pagan” and Christian theurgy and to suggest that such distinctions reflect more the
apologetic interests of scholars than an accurate reading of the evidence.

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 “. . . enlightened with the knowledge of visions, being both consecrated and
consecrators of mystical understanding, we shall become luminous and theurgic,
perfected and able to bestow perfection.”

Dionysius (EH 372B)

Introduction
Why are Christian theologians reluctant to admit that Dionysius was a theurgist? Why do
they resist seeing the liturgy as a theurgical rite? And [End Page 573] why is it that the term
theourgia and its cognates—which appear forty-seven times in the Dionysian corpus—never
appear in the Luibheid and Rorem translation, but are explained away in the footnotes? 1 To
suggest that Dionysius was a theurgist places one in a volatile arena, for the status of the
Areopagite and the value of this work continue to be matters of heated debate. Recently, Fr.
Kenneth Wesche rea irmed Luther’s well-known censure that the Areopagite “platonizes
more than he Christianizes” 2 and declares that “we cannot share the view that his chief
inspiration was the Christian faith. . . . [for] the center of Dionysius’ ‘theoria’ is not the
christological confession of the Church, but ‘gnosis.’” 3 Wesche maintains that Dionysius
was so enthralled by Neoplatonic gnosis that it “undercut his understanding of the
Christian faith,” 4 diverted him from the saving work of Christ, and caused him to embrace a
dualistic Christianity that promoted clericalism. 5 Wesche concludes:

. . . because his [Dionysius’] thought is centered on gnosis, rather than on the

Incarnation, his thought leads on a subtly divergent path that radically shi s the
focus and distorts the real meaning of Christ. 6

In the eyes of Orthodox Christians like Wesche, Dionysius’ spirituality was not truly
orthodox because of the influence of Neoplatonism, specifically that of the fi h-century
Neoplatonist Proclus; only when the Dionysian writings have been corrected by the
commentaries of Maximus the Confessor and John of Scythopolis do they reflect genuine
principles of Christian faith. In response to Wesche, Dionysius has been [End Page 574]
defended by Hieromonk Alexander Golitzin along with counter charges that his accusers
are ignorant of “Greek Christianity” and that our understanding of Dionysius generally has
been hampered by a Protestant bias. 7 Golitzin, in his passionate and learned defense of the
Areopagite, forthrightly admits that scholarship on Dionysius—including his own—reflects
the “confessional presuppositions” and even the temperament of individual scholars. 8
With a figure as theologically seminal as the Areopagite—long believed to be Paul’s convert
(Acts 17.34)—this is not surprising. Scholarship on Dionysius o en seems to have the
unspoken agenda of trying to determine whether or not his teachings are in accord with
one’s preferred theology. 9 One theme, however, seems to persist throughout the polemics:
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the more Neoplatonic Dionysius appears, the less acceptable. This, clearly, is the position of
Wesche. 10 The critique of Neoplatonism as a merely cerebral spirituality incapable of
penetrating the mystery of the Incarnation has long been a topos among Christian
apologists. In a Christian apologetic context, too much Neoplatonism is believed to alienate
one from the central mystery of Christ, and this has had significant consequences on
Dionysian scholarship. Those who want to preserve the Christian authority of the
Areopagite must argue, with Vladimir Lossky, that Dionysius’ dependence on the writings of
the Neoplatonists “is limited to outward resemblances which do not go to the root of their
teaching, and relate only to a vocabulary which was common to the age.” 11 Andrew Louth,
more recently, follows Lossky, noting that all educated men of the fi h and sixth centuries—
Christian or pagan—“shared a culture,” which accounts for Dionysius sharing many [End
Page 575] terms with Neoplatonists. Yet, like Lossky, Louth argues that the Areopagite’s
spirituality was distinctively Christian, not Neoplatonic. 12

If being too Neoplatonic diminishes Dionysius, then his practice of theurgy presents a far
more serious problem. Since the time of Augustine, theurgy has been condemned by
Christians as a diabolical attempt to converse with demons and manipulate the gods. 13
Today theurgy is not only considered anathema to the Church but to most who value
rational thought. In an article that continues to shape scholarly thinking, E. R. Dodds
maintained that theurgy was promoted by the fourth-century Neoplatonist Iamblichus, a
“superficial” thinker whose divine work (theion ergon) was simply an Oriental superstition
that appealed to human weakness. According to Dodds: “As vulgar magic is commonly the
last resort of the personally desperate, of those whom man and god have alike failed, so
theurgy became the refuge of a despairing intelligentsia which already felt ‘la fascination de
l’abîme.’” 14 For Dodds and an entire generation of scholars, theurgy exemplified the
“failure of nerve” and decline of the rationality that we admire in the classical Greeks and in
ourselves.

Among Christians specifically, the question of a Dionysian (and therefore Christian)

theurgy touches a nerve that still separates Protestant from Orthodox and Roman Catholic
scholars. Orthodox scholars like Golitzin, who accept the Areopagite as representative of
their tradition, see a Protestant bias in the scholarship of those, like Paul Rorem, who say
the elements of the Eucharist for Dionysius were merely symbols of something to be
apprehended intellectually. 15 Protestant scholars like Rorem, on the other hand, are
reluctant to admit that Dionysius attributed to the sacraments any kind of “magical”
e icacy, for that would taint him with the superstition of imbuing material objects with
divine or “theurgical” power. 16 In sum, the charge of guilt by association with
Neoplatonism, in either its philosophical or its theurgical aspects, continues to shape our
scholarship on Dionysius.

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 If Dionysius practiced theurgy, it would present a serious challenge to [End Page 576] his
“orthodoxy,” for to have been a theurgist in the Neoplatonic sense would condemn the
Areopagite in the eyes of all scholar-apologists. It is not surprising, therefore, that his
theurgy has been described by two leading Dionysian scholars, Andrew Louth and Paul
Rorem, as fundamentally di erent from Neoplatonic, i.e. “pagan,” theurgy. 17 Before we can
evaluate this assessment, however, we must know more about Neoplatonic theurgy and
how it was practiced. In this essay I hope to show that Rorem and Louth’s distinction is
based on a misunderstanding of Iamblichean theurgy. Further, I hope to demonstrate that
Dionysius’ understanding and practice of theurgy, while distinctively Christian, was derived
from the principles of Iamblichus’ theurgy as well as from his teachings on the soul. Finally,
although I agree that Dionysian (Christian) theurgy should be distinguished from
Iamblichean theurgy, I will argue that the distinction ought to be based on grounds other
than those proposed by Rorem and Louth.

I. Iamblichean Theurgy
As noted, Dodds’ characterization of theurgy as a corrupt and superstitious form of
Platonism still carries a great deal of influence among scholars. Iamblichus’ defense of
theurgy in the De mysteriis was dismissed by Dodds as “a manifesto of irrationalism, an
assertion that the road to salvation is found not in reason but in ritual.” 18 For a Victorian
rationalist like Dodds, Iamblichean theurgy was nothing more than a superstitious attempt
to contact spirits and manipulate gods, practices not unlike those seen by Dodds in the
spiritualist salons of early twentieth-century Europe. 19 It is understandable, therefore, that
those who accept Dodds’ assessment would want to separate Dionysius’ theurgy from the
misguided and possibly nefarious practices of Iamblichus. Curiously, however, Dodds’
definition of theurgy cannot be found in the writings of Iamblichus. Perhaps the brilliance
of Dodds as a classicist and historian of ideas led many scholars to accept his assessment of
theurgy without reading the De mysteriis or, if they read it, to replace the philosophical
context in which it was written with the twentieth-century [End Page 577] issues that
concerned Dodds. 20 Research into Iamblichus and theurgy in the last thirty years has
yielded much greater insight into later Neoplatonism and has now determined that Dodds’
evaluation of theurgy was wrong. 21 Iamblichus clearly states throughout the De mysteriis
that theurgy was not an attempt to influence the gods, not only because it would have been
impious but impossible. Iamblichus is unambiguous on this issue precisely because the De
mysteriis was written to address it. In response to the charge from his former teacher
Porphyry that theurgic invocations attempt to coerce the gods, Iamblichus replies:

This sort of invocation does not draw the impassible and pure [Gods] down towards
what is subject to passions and impure; on the contrary it makes us, who through
generation are born subject to passions, pure and unchangeable. 22
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 Despite its apparent meaning, an invocation does not call the gods to us, it calls us to the
gods. An invocation, Iamblichus says, [End Page 578]

does not, as the name (prosklesis; 42.6) seems to indicate, incline the intellect of the
Gods to men, but according to the truth . . . the invocation makes the intelligence of
men fit to participate in the Gods, elevates it to

the Gods, and harmonizes it with them through orderly persuasion.

(DM 42.9–15)

If Dodds was wrong, and his spiritualist context has been inappropriately applied to
theurgy, then what was the hieratic Neoplatonism of Iamblichus, and what issues did it
address?

The scion of a family of Syrian priest-kings, Iamblichus had been a student of the
Pythagorean Anatolius and later studied with Porphyry in Rome where he was initiated into
Plotinian Platonism. 23 Iamblichus, however, felt that Porphyry and his teacher Plotinus
had diverged from traditional Platonic and Pythagorean teachings by inflating the powers
of the human soul and suggesting that a “higher” part of the soul never descends into this
world or the body. The Plotinian soul, therefore, could withdraw in contemplation to reach
its higher, undescended essence without the outside support of religious ritual. The
consequences of such a belief are significant both cosmologically and socially, 24 and, in
response, Iamblichus developed a psychological theory and a soteriological praxis in sharp
contrast to the positions taken by his predecessors. Iamblichus argued that even the
highest part of the soul descends into a body and is therefore far more subject to corporeal
experience than Plotinus and Porphyry had allowed. 25 For Iamblichus, the human soul, as
defined in Plato’s Timaeus, unknowingly projects its divine logoi outside itself during
embodiment and is thereby sewn into the fabric of the material world. Although divine and
immortal, the embodied soul experiences a fundamental change unique among immortal
entities: [End Page 579] human souls must become mortal and subject to death. According
to Iamblichus,

the soul is a mean, not only between the divided and undivided, the remaining and
proceeding, the noetic and irrational, but also between the ungenerated and
generated. . . . Wherefore, that which is immortal in the soul is filled completely with
mortality and no longer remains only immortal. The ungenerated part of the soul
somehow becomes generated just as the undivided part of the soul becomes
divided. 26

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 The embodied soul, Iamblichus says, “becomes a stranger to itself” 27 and once exiled
from its own immortality, the soul must receive assistance from the gods to recover its lost
divinity. 28

Iamblichus’ complex and paradoxical psychology reflected the mystery and paradox of
One itself as it unfolds into its “other”: the multiplicity of Beings. While this self-inversion
causes no rupture among Higher Beings, whose essences are immediately reflected and
returned by their images, human souls become immersed in a medium that does not allow
for their immediate reflection and return. 29 Their divinity may be recovered only through
the medium of mortal bodies and as integral parts of the natural world. Therefore, in
theurgy the divine and mathematical proportions (logoi) of the soul are recovered only
when the soul ritually appropriates their correspondences (analogoi) in Nature. For
Iamblichus the cosmos was a living temple, a vast theophany, where the soul progressively
recovered its divinity in the process of unifying itself with the divine powers revealed in the
material world. An essential element in every theurgic ritual, therefore, was the
correspondence between the objects used in the rite and their analogues in the soul: the
outer objects, imbued with divine power, awakened correspondences within the soul,
provided that the soul was able to receive them and had the capacity to contain their
power. In e ect, the disorienting flood of sensation described in the Timaeus (44) was
appropriated and redirected in rituals [End Page 580] that e ected the soul’s return. The
material cosmos and sensate experiences were thereby transformed from disorienting
obstacles into theurgic icons capable of uniting the soul with the gods.

The soul’s journey to the One, therefore, incorporated the daimonic urges and images
which bound the soul to the body, yet, Iamblichus argued, since the rulers of these daimons
were gods, the proper ritual use of their material images allowed the soul to enter directly
into their power. Iamblichus maintained that the release of this power was a divine activity,
not human; in a word, it was theurgy, the activity of the gods. As souls were progressively
freed from their embodied confusion they employed ritual objects that were less densely
material until, very rarely, a soul performed entirely immaterial forms of ritual worship (DM
226.9–13; 230.15–19). Again, the inner/outer correspondence determined the e icacy of the
theurgic rite. As Iamblichus put it: “Each attends to his sacrifice according to what he is, not
according to what he is not; therefore the sacrifice should not surpass the proper measure
of the one who performs the worship” (DM 220.6–9). The kind of theurgic rite one
performed had to be coordinated with one’s spiritual capacity. Intensely alienated souls
required a denser and more material rite, while more unified souls performed a less
material form of worship.

The most distinguishing characteristic of Iamblichus’ Platonism was his doctrine of the
incarnate soul and its correlate, that the soul was unable to e ect or to comprehend its own
deification; this was accomplished only by the gods in theurgic rites. Iamblichus explains:
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 Intellectual understanding does not connect theurgists with divine beings, for what
would prevent those who philosophize theoretically from having theurgic union
with the Gods? But this is not true, rather it is the perfect accomplishment of
ine able acts, religiously performed and beyond all understanding, and it is the
power of ine able symbols comprehended by the Gods alone, that establishes
theurgical union. . . . In fact, these very symbols, by themselves, perform their own
work, without our thinking. . . .

(DM 96.17–97.6)

Although Iamblichus sometimes describes theurgical union as noesis or gnosis, he was

careful to distinguish theurgical gnosis and noesis from its human correlates. Theurgy was
always the work of the gods, not of man. 30 [End Page 581]

II. Dionysian and Iamblichean Theurgy

In his groundbreaking study of the Dionysian liturgy, Paul Rorem presents persuasive
evidence that Iamblichus’ theory of theurgy influenced the Areopagite. There is no patristic
precedent, Rorem argues, for Dionysius dividing worshipers into three classes: 1) those who
worship with the aid of obscure (material) images; 2) those who need no material aids at
all; and 3) “our hierarchy,” which stands as a “mean between extremes” and thus uses both
material and immaterial forms of worship. 31 Rorem says that Dionysius borrowed this
threefold division from Iamblichus, who had distinguished three classes of souls and three
forms of worship in the De mysteriis. 32 Iamblichus’ divisions reflect his understanding of
the di erent levels of theurgic capacity in human souls. Accordingly his divisions are: 1) the
great “herd” who follow fate and employ a material form of worship; 2) the rare souls who
have risen to the level of the divine Nous and who practice an immaterial form of worship;
and 3) those souls between the extremes who practice both material and immaterial forms
of worship (DM 224.6–225.10). Rorem also credits Iamblichus for influencing Dionysius’
unique interpretation of the liturgy. Rather than typologically correlating the actions of the
liturgy to events in Jesus’ life and death—as was standard patristic practice—Dionysius
relates liturgical actions to timeless and intelligible realities. This, Rorem notes, is precisely
how Iamblichus interpreted Egyptian theurgic rites, encouraging his readers—as Dionysius
did later—to elevate themselves to the “intelligible truth” and to abandon the merely
visible or aural impressions. 33

Rorem explains that, although Dionysius adopted Iamblichus’ triadic division of worship,
he made significant changes. The Areopagite distinguished the material order from the
intermediate according to the mythic chronology of the Church where chronological
priority is equated with spiritual immaturity. Prior to Christ we lived under the Old Law, and
the divine was veiled under obscure images which nevertheless foreshadowed the divine
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work, or theurgy, of Christ (EH 432B). To worship through the “sacred pictures of the
scriptures” (EH 432B), Dionysius says, is appropriate for those bound by greater materiality
and multiplicity. A er the advent of Christ, the less material choreography of [End Page
582] the Christian liturgy represents a kind of worship which Dionysius says “is both
celestial and of the Law for it occupies a place half way between the two opposites [of
spiritual and material worship]” (EH 501D). Celestial worship—corresponding to the purely
immaterial theurgy of Iamblichus—was practiced by angels, Dionysius says, not by mortals.
34 For the Christian community at the intermediate level, which Dionysius refers to as “our

hierarchy,” the theurgies of Christ are revealed in the liturgy of the Church.

While I agree with Rorem’s analysis, I believe it can be pressed further. I would suggest
that the di erences between Iamblichus and Dionysius on the orders of worship reflect the
di erences in their respective world-views. Iamblichus situated himself within the
Pythagorean/Platonic myth where, as described in the Timaeus, the cosmos is rooted in a
divine beneficence that continually reveals itself in mathematical proportions. These divine
ratios unfold into the heavenly cycles, the seasonal rhythms, and are eventually crystalized
into the four geometric elements that sustain all material bodies. 35 Dionysius, by contrast,
was situated within the biblical myth and chronology celebrated by the Church. 36 This
included a divinely given world rejected by souls who fall prey to the devil, followed by the
descent of a redeemer who enters the world to o er salvation from demons through the
rites of the Church. The Iamblichean soul was also “fallen,” but this was caused by the
disorienting experience of embodiment that was necessary to the soul’s mediating
function. Significantly, while the status of the material cosmos for Christians was
ambiguous or demonic, for Iamblichus the cosmos was esteemed as a living theophany, a
“liturgy” choreographed by the Demiurge and built into the substance and patterns of
nature. 37 Material theurgy for [End Page 583] Iamblichus, therefore, included the use of
natural objects such as stones, plants, herbs, seeds, animals, and other tokens
(sunthemata) capable of awakening the soul to its participation in the divine. 38 The
background for Iamblichean theurgy was the creative activity of the gods in nature; for
Dionysius it was the activity of Christ as recorded by the Church. The consequences of this
di erence will be discussed later.

Iamblichus’ psychology of the divided soul may well have influenced Dionysius’
understanding of material symbols. According to Iamblichus, while heavenly beings
possess immediate access to the divine—demonstrated by their circular (noetic) movement
—embodied souls move rectilinearly and must proceed “outside” themselves to reach the
unity of Nous. 39 Dionysius similarly contrasts the circular movement of divine intelligences,
who have immediate access to the divine, with the rectilinear movement of human souls
who must proceed outside themselves to be “upli ed by external things.” 40 Both
Iamblichus and Dionysius maintain that the dividedness of human souls requires multiple
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and material forms of worship—corresponding to the soul’s divisions—“until we are
brought as far as we can into the unity of deification.” 41 The hieratic use of sensate
imagery, essential to Neoplatonic theurgy, was thus also essential to Dionysian theurgy, but
Dionysius draws his symbols from the scriptures and the liturgy, not from nature.
Iamblichean theurgy is thus narrowed by Dionysius into an ecclesiastical context, but in
both cases material symbols reveal the immaterial presence of the divine. Iamblichus
declares that “the gods produce signs through nature which serve them in the work of
generation. . . .” 42 Through the work of attendant daimones, the gods manifest their
intentions and communicate their ine able presence symbolically through “particular
bodies, animals, and everything in the world. . . .” 43 For Dionysius, however, this presence
is revealed specifically through the material symbols of the liturgy. He says: [End Page 584]

It is not possible for the human intellect to be li ed up to the immaterial mimesis

and contemplation of the heavenly hierarchies unless it makes use of the material
guide proper to it. The visible beauties [of the liturgy] are signs of the invisible
beauty, the beautiful odors of incense represent the di usion of the intelligible, and
the material lights are icons of the immaterial gi of light. . . . Order and rank [of the
clergy] here below are a sign of the harmonious ordering [of the soul] toward divine
things, and the reception of the most divine Eucharist [an icon] of participation in
Jesus. And as many things as are given to heavenly beings transcendentally
(huperkosmio\s), are given to us symbolically. 44

Another Iamblichean influence may be detected in Dionysius’ imperative to complete

one’s material worship through biblical imagery prior to participation in the liturgy.
Dionysius cautions catechumens not to proceed to the intermediate rites of “our hierarchy”
before completing their “incubation in the paternal scriptures.” Should they fail to
complete their material worship, catechumens would emerge from baptism into “our
hierarchy” like “still-born fetuses” and receive no benefit from the liturgy. 45 In the De
mysteriis Iamblichus similarly insists that immaterial theurgies should not be engaged
before one has completed all rites to the material gods. He explains:

According to the art of the priests, it is necessary to begin sacred rites from the
material Gods. For the ascent to the immaterial Gods will not otherwise take place.

(DM 217.8–11)

Failure to perform the material rites puts the soul at odds both with material daimones
and with the bodily instincts and passions that correspond to them. Theurgists ascended to
the noetic gods only by assimilating themselves first to “everything in the world.” As
Iamblichus put it, “the ascent to the One is not possible unless the soul coordinates itself to
the All and, with the All, moves toward the universal principle of all things.” 46 Souls who
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 have not yet coordinated their passions with the powers of the natural world must
complete the material theurgies or “they will utterly fail to attain immaterial or material
blessings. . . .” 47 On the other hand, Iamblichus says that [End Page 585]

he who celebrates all these powers and o ers to each gi s that are pleasing and
honors that are as similar to them as possible, will always remain secure and
infallible since he has properly completed, perfect and whole, the receptacle of the
divine choir. 48

The Iamblichean theurgist who becomes the receptacle of the divine choir by bringing
his or her soul into correspondence with the theurgic powers of nature seems to have been
the model for the Dionysian hierarch. “If you talk of hierarchy,” Dionysius says, “you are
referring in e ect to the arrangement of all the sacred realities. Thus, whoever says
‘hierarch’ indicates an inspired and divine man learned in all sacred knowledge, and in
whom his own hierarchy is completely perfected and made known.” 49 If one accepts
Golitzin’s argument that the bishop must bring the “interior” hierarchy—within his soul—
into correspondence with the outer hierarchy revealed in the liturgy, then we see a
Christian transposition of the principles of Iamblichean theurgy. For both Dionysius and
Iamblichus the human soul is transformed and deified in theurgic rites and in the same
way: the powers of the soul are brought into correspondence with divine archetypes by
means of their symbolic icons.

Is Dionysian theurgy, then, a specifically Christian expression of Iamblichean theurgy? As

Rorem has demonstrated, Dionysius borrowed his triadic division for worship from
Iamblichus. Indeed, the triads and mean terms that can be found throughout the Dionysian
corpus are also borrowed—at least indirectly—from the Syrian Neoplatonist. 50 Iamblichus’
rationale for the theurgic use of material symbols is adopted by Dionysius, as is Iamblichus’
imperative that one must complete material rites before proceeding to less material
theurgies. It would seem that Dionysius simply adapted the principles and some of the
terminology of Iamblichus’ psychology and theurgy to complete his hieratic vision of the
Church. 51 In light of the evidence it is hard not to see Dionysius as kind of [End Page 586]
“Christian Iamblichus” who succeeded—where Iamblichus himself had failed—in building a
theurgic society. 52

III. Who is the Subject of the Ergon Theou?

Despite the wealth of evidence pointing to an Iamblichean influence on Dionysius, Paul
Rorem—who is largely responsible for uncovering this evidence—maintains that Dionysian
theurgy was fundamentally di erent from the theurgy of Iamblichus. Rorem acknowledges

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that Dionysius’ use of the term theurgy derived from Iamblichus but claims that the
Areopagite transformed its meaning. He writes:

Our author used the term “theurgy” to mean “work of God,” not as an objective
genitive indicating a work addressed to God (as in Iamblichus, e.g. de Mysteriis I, 2,
7:2–6) but as a subjective genitive meaning God’s own work . . . especially in the
incarnation. 53

Another important di erence, Rorem says, is that while Iamblichus believed that the
theurgical symbols themselves elevated the soul, for Dionysius “the upli ing does not
occur by virtue of the rites or symbols by themselves but rather in their interpretation. . . .”
54

Andrew Louth accepts Rorem’s distinctions, but with some qualifications. Like Rorem,
Louth characterizes Neoplatonic theurgy as if it were an objective genitive so that the ergon
theou is “a work concerned with the gods: human beings accomplished a work which
a ected the divine realm,” 55 yet Louth then seems to nuance (or contradict) his point,
saying that Iamblichus did not believe the gods were a ected by human actions but that
“theurgic action made humans responsive to the divine.” 56 With Rorem, Louth agrees that
the ergon theou for Dionysius is [End Page 587] a subjective genitive, the work of god,
specifically the divine works of the incarnate Christ. 57 He maintains that for Dionysius the
term theourgia “seems never to be used of religious rituals” 58 but refers only to the
“historical divine acts recalled in liturgical celebration.” 59 Concerning the anagogic power
of theurgical symbols, Louth argues that, although for Dionysius generally it is our
interpretation of symbols and not the symbols themselves that elevates the soul, there are
significant exceptions as, for example, when Dionysius says that many of the mysteries of
the sacraments are beyond our understanding (EH 568A). 60

Rorem refers to the De mysteriis (I.2; 7.2–6) to support his claim that Iamblichean theurgy
was an objective genitive, a “work addressed to God” and not “God’s own work,” yet the
passage cited by Rorem merely describes Iamblichus’ methodology in responding to
Porphyry’s questions about theology, theurgy, and philosophy. Iamblichus says:

We will explain to you appropriately what is germane to all questions: we will

answer theological topics theologically, theurgical topics theurgically, and together
with you we will examine philosophical issues.

(DM 7.2–6)

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 One must assume that Rorem erred in citing this passage, for there is nothing in it that
supports his contention that the ergon theou for Iamblichus was an objective genitive, that
is, a human activity concerning and directed to the gods. 61

Annick Charles-Saget has recently analyzed the components of the term “theurgy”
(theos/ergon) in the De mysteriis, focusing precisely on the “question of the subject of the
ergon.” 62 Charles-Saget argues that, for Iamblichus, the subject of the ergon cannot be a
human being because of the profound change su ered by the soul in its embodiment, or as
John Rist recently put it, because of the “weakness of the soul.” 63 To [End Page 588] be
e ective, theurgic rituals must be empowered by the gods and convey their good will by
ritually recapitulating the gods’ work of creation. 64 Iamblichus says:

Is not every sacred rite legislated noetically from first principles according to the
laws of the Gods? For each rite imitates the order of the Gods, both the intelligible
and the celestial Gods, and each possesses the eternal measures of the universe and
wondrous signs which have been sent down here by the Demiurge and Father of all
things, and through which the unspeakable is expressed through ine able symbols.
...

(DM 65.6–9)

It is frustrating that Iamblichus does not provide concrete details to exemplify what he
means, but his explanation of theurgic prayer comes closer and again addresses the
question of the subject of the ergon. He says:

If anyone would consider the hieratic prayers, how they are sent down to men from
the Gods and are symbols of the Gods, how they are known only to the Gods and
possess in a certain way the same power as the Gods, how could anyone rightly
believe that this sort of prayer is derived from our empirical sense and is not divine
and spiritual?

(DM 48.5–11)

Strictly speaking, a theurgical prayer was not an address to the gods but a way of
entering the power of their voice and awakening a corresponding voice in one’s soul. 65
Unless one is constrained by “confessional pre-suppositions” to overlook what Iamblichus
himself says, it would be di icult to read the De mysteriis and conclude that Iamblichus
believed a theurgic rite was man addressing (or a ecting) the gods rather than what
Iamblichus says it is: the gods addressing man, calling us back to divinity through rituals
designed by the Demiurge himself in the act of creation. 66

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 The question of the subject of the ergon, however, is exceedingly complex for, a er all, it
is a human being who performs the ritual. How then can he or she not be the “subject” of
the ergon? Charles-Saget acknowledges that a theurgic ritual appears to be a human
activity, one that [End Page 589] includes gestures and symbols, but she explains that the
visible activity serves only to make the soul receptive to the invisible activity of the gods. If
the soul has been properly purified and is su iciently receptive, the ine able symbols in the
rite are awakened and act through the soul, even if they are not conceptually understood. 67
In this awakening, Iamblichus says, “the soul is then entirely separated from those things
which bind it to the generated world, and it flies from the inferior and exchanges one life for
another. It gives itself to another order, having entirely abandoned its former existence”
(DM 270.15–19). 68 Thus, in theurgy human activity becomes the vehicle for a divine activity
measured by the receptive capacity (epitedeiotes) 69 of a soul that experiences a “secret
sumpatheia” with divine powers. 70 Charles-Saget concludes:

Thus, there are not two incompatible meanings of theourgia: the actor of the human
rite, in his ritual e acement, imitates in his order the communication of the
indivisible and the divisible that the divine demiurgy accomplishes at every
moment. 71

To receive, to enact, and to be elevated by theurgic symbols was to enter the hidden
activity of the Demiurge and become a cocreator. Rather than escaping from the cosmos, as
Porphyry had encouraged, the theurgist embraced it by entering a demiurgic dimension
where even his own body was transformed into an icon of the divine. In theurgy, Iamblichus
designed a praxis that not only saved the soul but also solved the Platonic problem of
embodiment that had so vexed Plotinus. 72 In the act of theurgy the soul was
simultaneously human and divine, mortal and immortal, united in the One and divided in
the body, all within an activity that embraced and transcended the oppositions. Iamblichus
explains:

All of theurgy has two aspects. One is that it is a rite conducted by men which
preserves our natural order in the universe; the other is that it is empowered by
divine symbols, is raised up through them to be joined on high with the Gods, and is
led harmoniously round to their order. This latter aspect rightly assumes the shape
of the Gods.

(DM 184.1–8) [End Page 590]

If the ergon theou of Iamblichean theurgy is more accurately described as a subjective

genitive, “god’s own work,” 73 then what would distinguish the theurgy of Dionysius from
that of Iamblichus? Rorem contends that Iamblichus connected the soul’s ascent in theurgy
“to the force of the rituals per se” while Dionysius linked the ascent of the soul to a
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“spiritual process of understanding the ritual and never to the rites themselves.” 74 Clearly,
Iamblichus was more concerned than the Areopagite not to reduce the transcendent power
of ritual to a conceptual schema, for it was precisely the purpose of the De mysteriis to
respond to the overly rationalized Platonism that Iamblichus saw in Porphyry’s school. Yet,
despite the polemical tone of the De mysteriis in this regard, Iamblichus maintains that
without “our thinking” the ritual henosis of theurgy cannot occur (DM 98.8–10). In short, the
mind played a necessary auxiliary role to prepare the soul for theurgy. 75 However, because
of the soul’s embodied condition, “our thinking” can never e ect the soul’s henosis.

Dionysius would certainly have agreed with Iamblichus’ insistence on approaching the
divine through symbols. 76 And, although the Areopagite says that the contemplation of
symbols elevates the soul, this contemplation was not merely a human theoria, “certainly
no detached knowledge of specific facts,” 77 but a theoria shaped, inspired, and prepared
by the divine through the images of scripture and sacramental rites. Rorem says that for
Dionysius, theoria can indicate a “spiritual perception of the highest order,” 78 so to
characterize it as an “interpretation” may be misleading. 79 For if the material elements of
the liturgy do not convey the [End Page 591] divine presence but need, rather, to be
interpreted to grasp their “conceptual” meanings, then Dionysius would rightly be subject
to the kind of critique o ered by Wesche. 80 Dionysian theoria was not, however, a
conceptual interpretation, it was more a direct and performative experience. 81 Although
Dionysius clearly is freer in his use of the term theoria than Iamblichus, I believe that this
was probably due more to the di erence in their intellectual milieux than to an essential
di erence in their conceptions of theurgy. When the Areopagite wants to emphasize the
transcendence of the divine beyond human understanding he sounds very much like
Iamblichus. Describing his ine able union with god, Dionysius says that the “theurgic
lights” he received from both the scriptures and divinely inspired masters (DN 592B)
initiated him into experiences beyond thought. He explains:

We call a halt to the activities of our minds and, to the extent that is proper, we
approach the ray which transcends being. Here, in a manner no words can describe,
preexist all the goals of all knowledge and it is of a kind that neither intelligence nor
speech can lay hold of nor can it at all be contemplated since it surpasses
everything and is wholly beyond our capacity to know it. 82

If the role of theoria in Dionysius is not, perhaps, as foreign to Iamblichean theurgy as the
term might suggest, and if the subjective/objective genitive distinction is incorrect, then
what would distinguish Dionysian from Iamblichean theurgy? Louth contends that
Dionysian theurgy di ers from the Iamblichean in that divine acts for Dionysius refer only to
the acts of Christ and never to ritual acts. 83 Here, I believe, Louth draws too firm a line
between the historical acts of Jesus and their expression in the liturgy. For, if the purpose of
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the liturgy is to deify its [End Page 592] members, this would require direct participation in
the theurgies, and this could hardly be e ected by simply recalling (or interpreting) the acts
of the historical Jesus. 84 While Dionysian theurgy is distinctively Christian—with Christ as
the “principle and essence of every theurgy” (EH 372A)—Dionysius understood that Jesus’
transmission of “theurgic mysteries” (ta theourga musteria) 85 in the Eucharist required the
hierarch, in performing these rites, to be assimilated to these theurgies and communicate
their deifying power to others. Louth’s insistence that theurgies be confined to the activities
of Jesus “recalled” in the liturgy, 86 simply cannot account for this deifying activity nor for
the diversity of other evidence. 87 The kinds of theurgic experience that Louth does not
discuss include the “theurgic lights” visited upon angels and holy men (CH 208C, 340B), the
“theurgic gnosis” desired and received by angels (CH 309A-C, EH 501 B), the “theurgic
measures” by which we receive God’s presence (EH 477D), the perfecting power of “every
theurgic holiness in us” (EH 484D), and the “theurgic lights” (theourgika phota) that
Dionysius says he received from holy men (DN 592B). These exemplify more than our
recalling or celebrating the divine works of the historical Jesus; they describe a direct
transmission and experience of deifying activity: theurgy. John of Scythopolis explained
Dionysius’ use of theourgikos phos as follows: “He calls theurgic lights the teachings of the
saints, in so far as they produce a light of knowledge and make gods of those who believe.”
88
When Dionysius states that the purpose for members of “our hierarchy” is to become
“luminous and theurgic, perfected and able to bestow perfection” (EH 372B), he is
describing the deifying power that priests experience and transmit in the liturgy and
initiations. [End Page 593]

It may be more correct to see Dionysian theurgy as a specific expression of the theurgy
that Iamblichus described in general terms. The De mysteriis tells us almost nothing about
the actual performance of rituals, while Dionysius outlines specific rites in detail. The
principal outlines of Iamblichus’ theory of theurgy might, in fact, be applied to any religious
community that receives and enacts divine power through religious ritual. In Dionysius’
Christian theurgy, Hierotheus provides a model for “experiencing communion with the
things praised” (i.e., the theurgies of Christ), an experience that Dionysius describes as a
kind of ecstasy. 89 He says of Hierotheus:

He was so caught up, so taken out of himself (existamenos heautou) experiencing

communion with the things praised, that everyone who heard him, everyone who
saw him . . . considered him to be inspired, to be speaking divine praises. 90

This was possible to Hierotheus because he, like the Egyptian theurgists of Iamblichus, 91
“not only learned but also experienced divine things, for he had a sumpatheia with these
things” (DN 648B). Sumpatheia or homoiosis with divine theurgies was the Dionysian norm,
not the exception. Consider his description of the eucharistic mystery:
/
 A er the hierarch sings the holy theurgies, he performs the most sacred actions and
li s up into view the celebrated objects through the sacredly displayed symbols.
And having revealed the gi s of the theurgies he himself enters into communion
(koinonia) with them and exhorts the others to follow.

(EH 425D)

As in Iamblichean theurgy, the hierarch—united with divine theurgies—no longer acts

only as a man but as a god, or, in this case, the god-man Christ, and he exhorts others to
share in this deification. Indeed, if a priest does not enter into koinonia with these
theurgies, if he remains unilluminated and untheurgic, he has no light to pass on to others
and should be expelled from the priestly orders. 92 For Dionysius, the liturgy [End Page
594] is more than a human ritual, it is “god’s own work,” an invitation to enter theurgies
that “make gods of those who believe.” As Iamblichus put it:

If these things were only human customs and received their authority from our legal
institutions one might say that the worship of the Gods was the invention of our
ideas. But in fact God is the leader of these things . . . and each nation on earth is
alloted a certain common guardian by him, and every temple is similarly alloted its
particular overseer.

(DM 236.1–8)

IV. Conclusion: Theurgy—Cosmocentric or Anthropocentric?

Like Iamblichus, Dionysius believed that god was present in the liturgy and leading the
rites, which explained their deifying power. Did Dionysius, then, simply transpose the
principles of Iamblichean theurgy into his ekklesia? Did he create a theurgic society, as Rist
suggests, in a manner that was more politically successful than anything Iamblichus or
other Neoplatonists were able to achieve? 93 The e ort of theologians to deny this by
making a caricature of Iambichean theurgy and then finding substantial di erences to
distinguish the theurgy of the Church from the “pagan” theurgy of Iamblichus is, quite
simply, contradicted by the evidence. To suggest that Dionysian theurgy was not di erent in
kind, but only in specific expression, from Iamblichean theurgy should not be reason to
condemn the Areopagite. It simply recognizes that in the fourth to the sixth centuries,
particularly among Syrian theologians—both Christian and non-Christian—there was a
pronounced interest in experiencing the divine rather than merely thinking and talking
about it, and Iamblichus was the first to provide a comprehensive rationale for doing so. 94
Unless we choose to dismiss the role of experience in the rites of the Church, we must
follow Dionysius in seeing the liturgy as theurgy, a rite that e ects a cognitive, perceptual,
and ontological shi so profound in receptive participants that it culminates in theosis, the

/
deification of the soul. For both Iamblichus and Dionysius this deification was e ected in
rites that united the “fallen” soul with divine activities (ta theia energeia), and scholars of
Neoplatonic theurgy could learn a great deal from [End Page 595] Dionysius about the
specifics of theurgic ritual that Iamblichus does not discuss.

Despite the profound similarity between the theurgies of Iamblichus and Dionysius,
there is at least one very significant, perhaps crucial di erence: the role of nature and the
material cosmos in their respective systems. As R. T. Wallis explained: “Neoplatonic
‘sacramentalism’ di ers from its Christian counterpart in that it depends solely on the
world’s basic god-given laws, not on a supernatural intervention over and above those
laws.” 95 A simple point with far-reaching consequences.

Iamblichus maintained that Egyptian theurgy “imitated the nature of the universe and
the creative activity of the Gods” (DM 249.14–250.1). To perform a theurgic ritual, therefore,
was to participate in this “creative activity” according to the soul’s receptive capacity
(epitedeiotes). Following traditional Platonic and Pythagorean teachings, the cosmos was
seen as the supreme icon of divinity, and Iamblichus honored those “sacred races” who
preserved rituals that mimetically reflected the unchanging demiurgy of the gods (DM VII.5;
259.1–260.1). Theoretically, any society could be theurgic as long as its rituals and prayers
preserved the “eternal measures” of creation (DM 65.6), which is perhaps why the emperor
Julian could see Judaism as a “theurgic” religion. 96 It is important to note that, for
Iamblichus, theurgic activity was always—in analogia—cosmogonic activity, and this is
precisely what distinguished theurgy from sorcery (goeteia). 97 Although sorcerers, like
theurgists, exercised a knowledge of cosmic sympathies, their spells did not “preserve the
analogy with divine creation” (DM 168.15–16) and thus failed to be theurgic. Theurgists
aligned themselves with the divine currents of the cosmos while sorcerers, like parasites,
drew these same powers to themselves and eventually to their own destruction (DM
182.13–16).

Iamblichus’ theurgy was cosmocentric and could not be adapted to the selfish practices
of sorcerers nor, rightly, to the hegemonic vision of a single religion, for the diversity of
peoples, climates, and geography would naturally require diversified forms of theurgic
worship. Each sacred community—Egyptian, Assyrian, or Chaldean—practiced a di erent
form of theurgy yet, according to Iamblichus, to be genuinely theurgic the rites of each cult
had to be in “analogia with creation.” The theurgies of each sacred race, therefore,
manifested the gods, each was a [End Page 596] living sunthema of the divine. In
Dionysius’ terms, these sacred races would have been designated “hierarchies,” revealing
the divine and leading souls into deification. For the Areopagite, however, there was but
one human hierarchy as required by the Christian myth, while for Iamblichus there would
have been many, for Neoplatonic theurgy was imagined within a polytheistic and pluralistic
cosmos. The embodied variety of the material cosmos required a corresponding variety of
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theurgic societies, and this too was consistent with Iamblichean metaphysics where the
utterly ine able One can be “known” only in the Many: each henophany both veiling and
revealing its ine able source. In order to create one universal and theurgic “church,” the
Pythagorean myth of cosmogony-as-theurgy had to be changed, and this was initiated by
the Areopagite, who shi ed theurgy’s center of gravity from the cosmos to man.

James Miller has pointed out that, while Dionysius preserved the Neoplatonic dynamics
of prohodos and epistrophe that are ritually enacted in Iamblichean theurgy, in its Dionysian
form the natural cosmos is replaced by ecclesiastic and angelic orders. 98 This means that
Dionysian theurgy is no longer an extension of the act of creation (in analogia with divine
creation) but becomes something beyond or beside nature, in what the Church calls the
“new creation”: the supernatural orders of the Church and its angels. 99 Theurgical symbols
for Dionysius are no longer found in the natural world but in the ecclesiastical world: its
scriptural images and cultic rites. Miller argues that, by eliminating nature and the heavenly
bodies from Christian theurgy, Dionysius achieved far greater clarity and increased the
Church’s political authority for, in Christian theurgy, the ekklesia assumes the divine status
ascribed to the physical cosmos in pagan theurgy. 100 A. H. Armstrong notes this shi from
the natural to the ecclesiastical cosmos. He says: [End Page 597]

It is only in the Church that material things become means of revelation and
salvation through being understood in the light of Scripture and Church tradition
and used by God’s human ministers in the celebration of the Church’s sacraments. It
is the ecclesiastical cosmos, not the natural cosmos, which appears to be of primary
religious importance for the Christian. There is here a new and radical sort of
religious anthropocentricism, which may have had far-reaching consequences. 101

It is interesting that the consequence most disturbing to Armstrong was also feared by
Iamblichus. To Porphyry’s remark that the gods were too elevated to be contacted in
material rites Iamblichus replied that his opinion “amounts to saying . . . that this lower
region is a desert, without the Gods” (DM 28.9–11). Outside of the “new creation” of the
Church, this lower region does become a desert, deprived of the presence of true divinity.
Armstrong continues:

It is easy to see how the anthropocentrism, with all its consequences, has outlasted
the dominance of the Church. In so far as the Church became the only theophany,
when it ceased to be an e ective theophany, (as it has long ceased to be for most
Europeans), there was no theophany le for the majority of men, no divine self-
manifestation here below. 102

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 Dionysius can hardly be held responsible for our “wholly profane, desacralized non-
human world” lamented by Armstrong. 103 Indeed, Dionysius followed Origen and Gregory
of Nyssa in their positive evaluation of nature, yet while Origen recognized sacred symbols
within the natural world, Dionysius placed them solely within the Church, 104 and by
shi ing the context of theurgy from the natural to an ecclesiastic world he necessarily
changed the very nature of the “divine work.” 105 Ancient [End Page 598] theurgists worked
within the parameters of nature and sought to unify themselves with its Creator through
natural symbols; the Christian theurgist, by contrast, worked within the parameters of the
institutional Church and sought to achieve union with Christ through the ritual enactments
of a myth that asserted an entirely “new creation” and liberation from the “old world” that
had become the domain and instrument of Satan. This, I would argue, is the most
significant di erence between the theurgy of Iamblichus and the theurgy of Dionysius, a
di erence with consequences we have only begun to explore.

Gregory Shaw
Gregory Shaw is Professor of Religious Studies at Stonehill College, North Easton, Massachusetts

Footnotes
I would like to thank Stonehill College for a President’s Summer Grant to support the preparation of this essay.

1. Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, translation by Colm Luibheid; foreword, notes, and translation collaboration by Paul Rorem
(New York: Paulist Press, 1987). It should be noted that, while the translation includes helpful footnotes by Rorem and an exhaustive
index to biblical “allusions and quotations,” it includes no index of important Neoplatonic terms. All translations and citations in this
essay have been checked with the critical text of Dionysius, the Corpus Dionysiacum I (the Divine Names edited by B. M. Suchla) and II
(other writings, including the letters, edited by H. Ritter and G. Heil; Berlin: De Gruyter, 1990, 1991). Citations will be given the column
and number of the Migne text (as appear in the Luibheid and Rorem translation) and, when appropriate, the page and line numbers of
the critical text in parentheses.

2. Kenneth Paul Wesche, “Christological Doctrine and Liturgical Interpretation in Pseudo-Dionysius,” St. Vladimir’s Theological
Quarterly 33 (1989): 44.

3. Ibid., 54.

4. Ibid., 68.

5. Ibid., 59.

6. Ibid., 73, my emphasis.

7. Alexander Golitzin, “On the Other Hand,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 34 (1990): 321–22. The Protestant bias has also come to
influence Orthodox and Roman Catholic scholars (see below, n. 10).

8. Alexander Golitzin, “The Mysticism of Dionysius Areopagita: Platonist or Christian,” Mystics Quarterly 3 (1993): 98.

9. Golitzin, “On the Other Hand,” 306, n. 7.

10. See n. 3. In a further response to Wesche, Golitzin maintains a far more nuanced position, arguing that the well-known distinction
between a “biblical” and a “platonizing” Christianity is questionable. This distinction, Golitzin says, “echoes altogether too clearly the
reaction of Roman Catholic and Orthodox scholars earlier this century to the late nineteenth and early twentieth century thesis of a
‘Hellenized’—and therefore corrupted—Christianity associated in particular with Adolf von Harnack.” See Golitzin, “Hierarchy Versus
Anarchy? Dionyius Areopagita, Symeon the New Theologian, Nicetas Stethatos, and Their Common Roots in Ascetical Tradition,” St.
Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 38 (1994): 152–53 n. 95.

11. Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1976), 32.

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12. Louth, Denys the Areopagite (Wilton: Morehouse-Barlow, 1989), 23–24.

13. Augustine, City of God, Book 10.

14. E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), 288.

15. Golitzin, “Mysticism” 106. Louth’s statement that the historical divine acts are “recalled” in the Eucharist is subject to the same
critique.

16. Paul Rorem, “The Upli ing Spirituality of Pseudo-Dionysius,” in Christian Spirituality, ed. Bernard McGinn and John Meyendor
(New York: Crossroad, 1986), 134.

17. Andrew Louth, “Pagan Theurgy and Christian Sacramentalism,” JTS n.s. 37 (1986): 432–38; Paul Rorem, Biblical and Liturgical
Symbols Within the Pseudo-Dionysian Synthesis (Toronto: The Pontifical Institute, 1984), 104–11.

18. Dodds, Greeks and the Irrational, 287.

19. Ibid., 288, 296–97; cf. E. R. Dodds, Missing Persons (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1977), 55.

20. Those who have adopted Dodds’ characterization of theurgy as an attempt to manipulate, influence, or coerce the gods are as
impressive as they are diverse. They include the Jungian/archetypal psychologist James Hillman, Healing Fiction (Dallas: Spring
Publications, 1983), 78–79; scholar of Jewish mysticism Moshe Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1988), 157 . Idel’s work in particular has stimulated an entire generation of scholarship on kabbalistic “theurgical” practices despite
the fact that Idel uses Dodds’ twentieth-century definition of theurgy, not Iamblichus’!; Bernard McGinn, The Presence of God: A History
of Western Mysticism, vol. 1 (New York: Crossroad,1994), 57, 172.

21. Jean Trouillard, “La théurgie,” in L’un et l’âme selon Proclos (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1972), 171–89; Iamblichi in Platonis Dialogos
Commentariorum Fragmenta, tr., edited, with commentary by John Dillon (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1973); B. D. Larsen, Jamblique de Chalcis:
Exégète et philosophe (Aarhus: Universitetsforlaget, 1972); A. C. Lloyd, “The Later Neoplatonists,” in The Cambridge History of Later
Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy, ed. A. H. Armstrong (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), 269–325; Carlos Steel, The
Changing Self: A Study on the Soul in Later Neoplatonism: Iamblichus, Damascius and Priscianus, tr. S. Haasl (Brussels: Paleis der
Academien, 1978); Andrew Smith, Porphyry’s Place in the Neoplatonic Tradition (The Hague: Martinus Nijho , 1974), 81–99; Anne
Sheppard, “Proclus’ Attitude to Theurgy,” CQ 32 (1982): 212–24; A. Sheppard, “Theurgy,” Oxford Classical Dictionary (1995); Gregory
Shaw, “Rituals of Unification in the Neoplatonism of Iamblichus,” Traditio 41 (1985): 1–28; idem, Theurgy and the Soul: The
Neoplatonism of Iamblichus (University Park: Penn State Press, 1995); Garth Fowden, The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach to the
Late Pagan Mind (London: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 131–41; Polymnia Athanassiadi, “Dreams, Theurgy and Freelance
Divination: The Testimony of Iamblichus,” JRS 83 (1993): 115–30.

22. The standard edition is Jamblique: Les mystères d’Egypte, trans. and ed. E. des Places (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1966). References to
the De mysteriis will use the Parthey pagination of des Places’ text and will be noted as DM. DM 42.2–5 (modified from Fowden’s
translation, Egyptian Hermes, 133).

23. For a biographical outline, see John Dillon, “Iamblichus of Chalicis,” ANRW II.16.2 (1987): 863–78.

24. Cosmologically, it negates the role of the cosmos in the soul’s paideia; socially, it condemns the common man to this “lower”
cosmos, leaving salvation in the hands of the philosophical elite. It should be noted, however, that despite Plotinus’ condemnation of
matter as “evil itself” (Ennead I.8.3.39–40) or his description of the soul as essentially undescended (I.1.12.25–29; IV.3.12.5–6), he was
not as anticosmic as Iamblichus’ polemical writings on the soul might suggest. In fact, Iamblichus’ theurgy might best be understood
as an attempt to secure the vision of Plotinus by grounding it in the experiences of the embodied soul. See G. Shaw, “Eros and
Arithmos: Pythagorean Theurgy in Iamblichus and Plotinus,” Ancient Philosophy 19 (1999): 124–25.

25. This crucial di erence between Iamblichean and Plotinian Platonism was pointed out by A. C. Lloyd, “The Later Neoplatonists,” in
Armstrong, Cambridge History. See also Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul, 1–15, 61–69. For the soteriological consequences of accepting the
soul as embodied see Shaw, “Theurgy as Demiurgy: Iamblichus’ Solution to the Problem of Embodiment,” Dionysius 12 (1988): 37–59.

26. Simplicius (Priscianus?) In libros Aristotelis de anima commentaria [DA] 89.35–37; 90.21–24 in CAG 9 ed. M. Hayduck (Berlin: G.
Reimeri, 1882).

27. DA 223.31: heterousthai pros heauten.

28. The paradox of embodiment for the Iamblichean soul has been brilliantly examined by Carlos Steel, Changing Self.

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29. That all “real beings” descended by producing images of themselves in other things was a principle articulated by Plotinus (Enn. III
6.17.12). For a discussion of this see Pierre Hadot, Porphyre et Victorinus II (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1968), 330–43; for its
expression in Iamblichus see Simplicius, In cat. 374.6–376.19; Steel, Changing Self, 62; John Finamore, Iamblichus and the Theory of the
Vehicle of the Soul (Chico: Scholars Press, 1985), 11–27.

30. For example, Iamblichus refers to the soul’s “innate knowledge” (emphutos gnosis) of the gods (DM 7.14) and then says that “in
truth, our contact with the gods is not knowledge because knowledge is always separated from its object,” and theurgical union
transcends the duality of knowing (DM 8.3–5).

31. Rorem, Symbols, 106–7; cf. Ecclesiastical Hierarchy [EH] 501C, see Luibheid and Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysis, 234 n. 146; Celestial
Hierarchy [CH] 121D–124D, Luibheid and Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysis, 146–47.

32. Rorem, Symbols, 108–9.

33. Ibid.

34. Dionysius’ divergence from Iamblichus as regards “celestial worship” (immaterial theurgy) may be nuanced by the fact that
Iamblichus says souls who perform the noetic/immaterial theurgy—“the rarest of all things”—are, themselves, “most rare” (DM 219.14–
15; 228.2–3), and this immaterial worship comes only at the culmination of one’s life (228.5–11). Further, Iambichus explains that these
rare and most blessed theurgists are elevated to the rank of angels (69.12–14). Significantly, Dio-nysius designates the bishop
(hierarch) an “angel” because of his likeness to angels and his ability to transmit divine power (CH 293A). Thus, immaterial theurgy for
both Iamblichus and Dionysius is performed by angels or angelic souls.

35. Timaeus 53c–55c.

36. Dionysius refers to this sacred history as a record of “theurgies,” i.e., the actions of the divine “for us” (EH 440BC).

37. Dionysius also participated in the Platonic-Pythagorean myth but, unlike Iamblichus, he viewed it through the
fall/apocalypse/redeemer mythology of the Church.

38. DM 233.7–16.

39. In Tim., frag. 49, Dillon, Iamblichi Chalcidensis; on the importance of noetic circularity for Iamblichus see Shaw, Theurgy and the
Soul, 89–91.

40. Divine Names [DN] 705B; (Suchla: 154.4).

41. EH 373B; (Heil/Ritter: 65.12–13), tr. by Luibheid and Rorem, modified.

42. DM 135.14.

43. DM 136.2–3. Iamblichus explains that the function of daimones is to give concrete expression to the “good will” of the gods,
including the binding of souls to particular bodies (DM 67.15–68.1); cf. Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul, 130–33.

44. CH 121D–124A, translation modified from Lubheid and Rorem and from Golitzin, “Hierarchy Versus Anarchy?” 149–50; (Heil/Ritter:
8.19–9.7).

45. EH 432D–433A.

46. Quoted by Damascius, Dubitationes et solutiones I.79.12–14, ed. by Ruelle (Paris: 1889).

47. DM 220.5.

48. DM 229.3–7.

49. EH 373C; (Heil/Ritter: 66.2–5). See Golitzin’s translation and comments on this passage in “Hierarchy Versus Anarchy?” 148.

50. That Iamblichus was responsible for introducing the mean term and triadic structures into Neoplatonic vocabulary see E. R. Dodds,
Proclus: The Elements of Theology (Oxford: Clarendon Press, [1933] 1992), xxi–xxii.

51. Consider, for example, Dionysius’ use of the term sunthema to describe the “solid food” and the “table” used in the celebration of
the Eucharist (Letter 9 [1109A, 1112A]; Heil/Ritter: 200.12; 203.7). Sunthema was a technical term in the Chaldean Oracles to denote the
hidden names of the gods that allow theurgists to ascend to the divine; see The Chaldean Oracles, text, translation and commentary by
Ruth Majercik (Leiden: Brill, 1989), 141. The term appears throughout the De mysteriis; see Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul, 48–50, 267. For

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other theurgical terms in the Dionysian corpus see H. D. Sa rey, “New Objective Links Between the Pseudo-Dionysius and Proclus,”
Neoplatonism and Christian Thought, ed. Dominic O’Meara (Norfolk, VA: International Society for Neoplatonic Studies, 1982), 64–75,
246–48.

52. On this suggestion, see the very interesting essay by John Rist, “Pseudo-Dionysius, Neoplatonism and the Weakness of the Soul,”
From Athens to Chartres: Neoplatonism and Medieval Thought, ed. H. J. Westra (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 144–45.

53. Lubheid and Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius, 52 n. 11. Cf. Rorem, Symbols, 14–15, and Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius: A Commentary on the
Texts and an Introduction to Their Influence (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 120.

54. Rorem, Symbols, 116.

55. Louth, Denys, 73.

56. Ibid., 74. Rorem also explains that “theurgic invocations do not actually call down the gods but rather elevate the human soul
toward the divine. . . .” Symbols, 108.

57. Ibid., 74; Andrew Louth, “Pagan Theurgy,” 434.

58. Ibid., 434.

59. Ibid., 435.

60. Ibid., 437–38.

61. Andrew Smith has discussed the passage cited by Rorem, “Iamblichus’ Views on the Relationship of Philosophy to Religion in De
Mysteriis,” The Divine Iamblichus: Philosopher and Man of Gods, ed. H. J. Blumenthal and G. Clark (London: Bristol Classical Press, 1993),
74–86, and explains that Iamblichus makes “constant use of discursive argument” on theurgical issues (78). This should not be taken to
mean that Iamblichus understood his discursive argument to be theurgy!

62. Annick Charles-Saget, “La théurgie, nouvelle figure de l’ergon dans la vie philosophique,” Divine Iamblichus, 107.

63. Rist, Pseudo-Dionysius, 141–44. Iamblichus o en emphasizes the weakness of the soul, e.g.: “The human race is weak and small, it
sees but little and is possessed by a congenital nothingness” (DM 144.12–14).

64. See DM 44.11–14 where the good will of the gods is mingled with their necessity; 141.6–13 where all forms of divination manifest
one beneficent will; 209.14–17 where all forms of life are said to preserve the will of their creator.

65. Iamblichus refers to this divine aspect in the soul as the “one in us.” See Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul, Chapter 11: “Eros and the One
of the Soul,” 118–26.

66. For a critique of Rorem’s objective/subjective genitive distinction concerning theurgy, see Thomas Tomasic’s review in Speculum 62
(1987): 178–82; Tomasic characterizes Rorem’s Biblical and Liturgical Symbols as an exercise in “belief justification” rather than an
“objective, historical analysis.”

67. Charles-Saget, “Théurgie,” 111–12.

68. The particular soul, however, never ceases to remain soul even as it becomes the participant in a divine and universal action (DM
69.5–19).

69. On the importance of epitedeiotes in theurgy see Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul, 86–87.

70. Charles-Saget, “Théurgie,” 113.

71. Ibid., 113, my emphasis.

72. Shaw, “Theurgy as Demiurgy.”

73. Smyth #1330–1331 clearly distinguishes the objective genitive from the sub-jective, which makes it all the more surprising that
Rorem and Louth give to Iamblichean theurgy the sense of an objective genitive, as if the gods were the passive objects of man’s
activity, a point that Iamblichus denies throughout the De mysteriis. See Herbert Weir Smyth, Greek Grammar, revised by Gordon M.
Messing (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976).

74. Rorem, Symbols, 109.

75. On this point see Andrew Smith, “Iamblichus’ Views,” 74–86.

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76. See Rorem, Symbols, 105–6; CH 121CD.

77. Ibid., 110.

78. Ibid., 114. As Rorem notes, angels themselves engage in the theoria of God in an immediate (and circular) way, CH 205C.

79. The problem here may simply be one of translation, by no means an easy task! However, when Luibheid translates the Greek
noetos as “conceptual” throughout the corpus it tends to obscure rather than illuminate the meaning of the text. Most readers would
not characterize nondiscursive intuition as “conceptual.” Golitzin seems to have the same concern with Rorem’s language, but in a
liturgical context. He says: “It is di icult, for me at least, to avoid the impression that Christ’s presence here is meant to be more than
merely ‘conceptual’” (Golitzin, “Mysticism,” 106–7).

80. Wesche, “Christological Doctrine,” 68.

81. The apophatic exercises in Dionysius might be better characterized as “performative” than “conceptual,” for only the former allows
the “utterly transcendent to be revealed as utterly immanent. . . .” See Michael Sells, Mystical Languages of Unsaying (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1994), 1–10. To engage the transcendent ritually through immanent objects was neither opposed to, nor a
prerequisite for, the exercise of negative theology; it was, rather, the direct result of and correlate to apophasis. This point is explained,
with references to Dionysius, by A. H. Armstrong, “Negative Theology,” Downside Review 95 (1977): 176–89.

82. DN 592D; (Suchla: 115.9–13), translation by Lubheid and Rorem, modified slightly.

83. Louth, “Pagan Theurgy,” 434.

84. In any case, the theurgy of Jesus’ incarnation is more o en described by Dionysius in terms of a metaphysical unfolding than as a
concrete record of historical events. The incarnation is a movement from wholeness to fragmentation, from simplicity to complexity,
from eternity to temporality (DN 592A), and from indivisible unity to divided plurality (EH 429A). These are the same definitions that
Iamblichus used to characterize the e ects of embodiment on the soul!

85. Letter 9 (1108A); (Heil/Ritter: 198.4).

86. Louth, “Pagan Theurgy,” 435.

87. Louth is responding, he says, to “the common view that Denys’ Christianity has been swamped by his enthusiasm for
Neoplatonism. . . .” (“Pagan Theurgy,” 434). In an e ort to insure Dionysius’ “orthodoxy,” despite his theurgical language, it seems that
Louth interprets the evidence to avoid Neoplatonic, or worse, theurgical contamination.

88. Translation by H. D. Sa rey, who says that John of Scythopolis “o ers us an explanation altogether pagan and without any basis in
the Christian tradition” (“New Objective Links,” 71–72).

89. See Rist, “Pseudo-Dionysius,” 148, who notes liturgical comparisons to Hierotheus’s experience in EH 425D, 440B, 444A. For the role
of ecstasy in Iamblichean theurgy see Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul, 234–36.

90. DN 681D–684A; (Suchla: 141.11–14), tr. by Lubheid and Rorem.

91. Speaking of the veneration of star gods, Iambichus says: “The Egyptians do not simply contemplate these things theoretically, but
by means of sacred theurgy they report that they ascend to higher and more universal realms. . . .” (DM 267.6–9).

92. Letter 8 (1092B); Dionysius’ idealistic views of the Church are in sharp contrast to those of Augustine; see Rist, “Pseudo-Dionysius,”
158.

93. Rist, “Pseudo-Dionysius,” 144, 156.

94. See Golitzin’s reference to the “current of thought” among fourth-century thinkers in Syria-Palestine as regards the soul’s liturgical
experience (“Hierarchy Versus Anarchy?” 172–73 n. 164).

95. R. T. Wallis, Neoplatonism (New York: Scribner, 1972), 121.

96. Jay Bregman, “Judaism as Theurgy in the Religious Thought of the Emperor Julian,” The Ancient World 26 (1995): 135–49.

97. DM 168.13–16; cf. Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul, 169.

98. James Miller, Measures of Wisdom: The Cosmic Dance in Classical and Christian Antiquity (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
1986), 461.

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 99. Iamblichean theurgy was also supernatural. Indeed, A. H. Armstrong suggests that Iamblichus was the first to use huperphues as a
term meaning above nature (A. H. Armstrong, “Iamblichus and Egypt,” Les Etudes philosophiques 2–3 [1987]: 186–87). Yet huperphues
for Iamblichus was never removed from nature or creation for, as a Pythagorean, Iamblichus imagined theurgy according to
arithmological principles. The transcendent power of the gods is in matter and in nature, just as simple numbers reside in and support
their complex derivatives without being a ected by them. Huper phusis (above nature) could never be equated by Iamblichus with
para phusis (against nature) for anything opposed to nature was opposed to the manifesting gods (DM 158.14–159.3). For Dionysius,
however, huper phusis is synonymous with para phusis (DN 648A). This, I believe, reflects the transformation of Neoplatonic principles
within the context of the Christian myth.

100. Miller, Measures of Wisdom, 461.

101. A. H. Armstrong, “Man in the Cosmos: A Study of Some Di erences Between Pagan Neoplatonism and Christianity,” in Romanitas
et Christianitas, ed. W. den Boer et al. (London: North Holland, 1973), 11.

102. Ibid., 11–12.

103. Ibid., 12.

104. Golitzin, contrasting Dionysius’ system with that of Evagrius says: “. . . Dionysius has put the Church and its organized worship in
the place of Evagrius’ providential cosmos.” See Hieromonk Alexander (Golitzin), Et Introibo ad Altare Dei: The Mystagogy of Dionysius
Areopagita, with Special Reference to its Predecessors in the Eastern Christian Tradition (Thessalonika, 1994), 346.

105. The shi away from cosmocentric theurgy, however, was gradual. In Maximus’ Mystagogia, a commentary on the EH of Dionysius,
he says that the church is an “image of the sensible world” and “the world can be thought of as a church.” See The Church, the Liturgy
and the Soul of Man: The Mystagogia of St. Maximus the Confessor, tr. with historical note and commentary by Dom Julian Stead (Still
River: St. Bede’s Publications, 1982), 71. The world as church or temple is perfectly consistent with the principles of Iamblichean
theurgy, so long as our church is not the only church.

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