杨布里科斯

Iamblichus ( eye-AM-blik-əs; Ancient Greek: Ἰάμβλιχος, romanized: Iámblichos; Aramaic: 𐡉𐡌𐡋𐡊𐡅, romanized: Yamlīkū; c. 245 – c. 325) was a Syrian Arab Neoplatonic philosopher who determined a direction later taken by Neoplatonism. Iamblichus was also the biographer (or hagiographer) of the Greek mystic, philosopher, and mathematician Pythagoras. In addition to his philosophical contributions, his Protrepticus is important for the study of the sophists because it preserved about ten pages of an otherwise unknown sophist, whose name is not mentioned and who is currently known as "Anonymus Iamblichi" ("Iamblichus's Anonymous").

Life

According to the Suda and Iamblichus's biographer, Eunapius, Iamblichus was born in Chalcis (later called Qinnašrīn) in Coele Syria, now in northwest Syria. Iamblichus was descended from the Emesene dynasty. He initially studied under Anatolius of Laodicea and later studied under Porphyry, a pupil of Plotinus (the founder of Neoplatonism). Iamblichus disagreed with Porphyry about theurgy, reportedly responding to Porphyry's criticism of the practice in On the Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians.

He returned to Coele Syria around 304 to found a school in Apamea (near Antioch), a city known for its Neoplatonic philosophers. Iamblichus designed a curriculum for studying Plato and Aristotle, and wrote commentaries on the two which survive only in fragments. Pythagoras was his supreme authority, and he wrote the ten-volume Collection of Pythagorean Doctrines with extracts from several ancient philosophers;……

Philosophy

Iamblichus detailed Plotinus's Neoplatonic formal divisions, applied Pythagorean number symbolism more systematically, and (influenced by other Near East systems) interpreted Neoplatonic concepts mythically. Unlike Plotinus, who broke from Platonic tradition by positing a separate soul, Iamblichus re-affirmed the soul's embodiment in matter and believed that matter was as divine as the rest of the cosmos.

Cosmology and theology

Iamblichus placed the Monad at the head of his system, from which emanates the Nous (intellect, or demiurge) and the psyche. Plotinus represented the Nous as three stages: objective being, subjective life, and realized intellect. Iamblichus divided them into two spheres: intelligible (the objects of thought) and intellective (the domain of thought).

Iamblichus and Proclus may have introduced a third sphere between the two worlds, separating and uniting them.……

Reception

Iamblichus was praised by his followers, and contemporaries credited him with miraculous powers. The Roman emperor Julian, not content with Eunapius's modest eulogy that Iamblichus was inferior to Porphyry only in style, regarded him as second only to Plato and said that he would give all the gold in Lydia for one of his letters. During the 15th- and 16th-century revival of interest in his philosophy, Iamblichus's name was rarely mentioned without the epithet "divine" or "most divine".

Works

Only a fraction of Iamblichus's books have survived; knowledge of his system is preserved in fragments of writings preserved by Stobaeus and others: notes by his successors (especially Proclus), his five extant books and sections of his work on Pythagoreanism. In addition to these, Proclus attributed to him the On the Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians, also known as The Theurgia or On the Egyptian Mysteries. Although stylistic and doctrinal differences exist between this book and Iamblichus's other works, it originated from his school at least. Iamblichus also completed a coherent polytheist theological system under the Egyptian pseudonym Abammon.

Editions and translations

On the Mysteries (De mysteriis), ed. Gustav Parthey, Teubner, 1857; ed. Edouard des Places, Collection Budé, 1989.

• The Life of Pythagoras
• English translation: Thomas Taylor, 1818

On the Pythagorean Way of Life (De vita pythagorica), ed. Theophil Kießling, Leipzig, 1816; ed.……