The ubiquity of divinity according to Iamblichus and Syrianus

Abstract

In two passages in particular of his Commentary on the Timaeus, Proclus attributes to his master Syrianus a series of arguments in favour of not confining gods or daemons to any particular level of the universe, either hypercosmic or encosmic, as had been the more or less universal practice of earlier Platonists, but asserting the ubiquity of all classes of 'higher being' at every level, and criticising earlier doctrine as in effect cutting the gods off from contact with man, thus undermining the power of theurgy. This interesting development was in fact initiated (as in so many other details of Syrianus' doctrine) by his Syrian forerunner Iamblichus of Chalkis, and it is this doctrine that this essay seeks to explore. © Copyright 2013 John Dillon.