Iamblichus (Greek: Iamblichos) (GIAMBLICO (ἸΆΜΒΛΙΟΣ, IAMBLICHUS))

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

GIAMBLICO (Ἰάμβλιος, Iamblichus). – Neoplatonic philosopher, b. at Calcis in Coelesyria, d. under Constantine the Great around 330. Little information about his life is available, mixed with fanciful legends, in Eunapius (Vitae Philos. ac Soph.). He was a disciple of the Peripatetic Anatolius and later of Porphyry.

His principal work is a vast compendium of Pythagorean doctrines in 10 books, cited by Syrianus under the title: Συνχωγή τῶν Πυθαγορείων δομμάτων, of which

5 books with individual titles remain (v. BIBLICA). Important for the history of Neoplatonic religious syncretism is the book De mysteriis, whose authenticity was contested without serious grounds, but which today is once again generally attributed to G.

With G., Neoplatonism becomes increasingly religious and mystical, while still not renouncing its rationalistic claims. Above Plotinus’s One-Good, G. places the absolutely ineffable Principle (ἡ πάντη, ἄρχητος ἀρχή); but beneath the One-Good, triadic hypotheses multiply in an artificial symmetrical order. G.’s influence in the school was great: his philosophy, which sought to reconcile traditional polytheism with speculative principles, was enthusiastically followed by the emperor Julian the Apostate in his attempt to restore paganism.

BIBL.: Works by G.: De vita Pythagorica, ed. A. Westermann, Paris 1862 (added to the Cobetiana ed. of Diogenes Laertius) and A. Nauck, St Petersburg 1884; Protrepticae o Adhortatio ad philosophiam (in which precious fragments of Aristotle’s Protrepticus are preserved), ed. E. Pistelli, Leipzig 1888; De communi mathematica scientia, ed. N. Festa, there 1891; In Nicomachii arithmeticum introductionem, ed. E. Pistelli, there 1894; Theologonema arithmeticae (doubtful), ed. V. De Falco, there 1922; De mysteriis, greco-lat., ed. G. Parther, Berlin 1857. Among the lost works, important is the Teologia Calduica in 28 books (cited by Damascius, De primis principis, ed. Car. Aem. Ruelle, Paris 1880, p. 86); a treatise on L'anima, of which substantial fragments remain in Stobaeus, ed. C. Wachsmuth; a treatise on Gli Dei, a source for Macrobius (Sat., I, 17-23) and Sallustius, the Neoplatonic philosopher, in De diis et mundo (F. W. A. Mullach, Frag. philos. Graec., III, pp. 30-50). For G.’s theological metaphysical doctrines V. the testimonies chiefly in Proclus and Damascius.

Studies: E. Vacherot, Histoire critique de l'Ecole d'Alexandrie, II, Paris 1846, pp. 126-44; E. Zeller, Die Philosophie der Griechen: Die nacharistotelische Philosophie, Zweite Hälfte, 4th ed., Leipzig 1903, pp. 735-82; G. Mau and W. Kroll, s. V. in Pauly-Wissowa, cols. 645-51; Überweg, I, 12th ed., Berlin 1926, pp. 612-17 (bibl.); Th. Whittaker, The Neo-Platonists, 2nd ed., Cambridge 1928, pp. 121-36, 225-28; G. Verbeke, L'évolution de la doctrine du Pneuma du Stoicisme à St Augustin, Paris-Louvain 1945, pp. 374-84. Pietro Marrucchi