THEURGY (ΘΕΟΥΡΓΊΑ). - From θεός "god" and ἔργον "work," it means "divine operation," almost always of a magical character, performed by one who is invested with divine power, that is, by the theurgist, an epithet first adopted by a certain Julian, son of the Chaldean Julinus, who lived in the time of Marcus Aurelius and is the presumed author of the Chaldean Oracles, a composition in verse in which the mystic-astral doctrines of Babylonian science are fused with the philosophical doctrines of Greece.
While Neoplatonism with Plotinus and in part with his disciple Porphyry had remained on a noble plane of mystical philosophy, with Iamblichus, a disciple of Porphyry and author of the De mysteriis Aegyptorum, it descends to the level of magic, since he claimed to bring about union with the Supreme Being by magical means, furnished above all by sacrifice, capable of raising one toward the One despite man's moral inferiority, and by divination, whether divine, which occurs through a sacred sleep, or demonic, which is had by means of amulets and talismans.
The theurgist can free himself from every bond with matter, rendering himself insensible to fire or to wounds, can rise into the air, transfigure himself and read the future. In short, the theurgist, thanks to his commerce with the divine world, can command without limit the things of the world (Iamblichus, De myst., 7, 4; 96, 9). The theurgist gave himself this epithet to differentiate himself from the magician, inasmuch as he considered himself a confidant of the celestial spirits and affirmed that his miracles "came about through simple faith and trust in God and not through the sorceries and incantations of a sinful curiosity which they call magic or, by a more detestable name, Goetia" (St. Augustine, De civ. Dei, X, 9); by this term (γοετεία from γοάω = "I groan, I lament") were meant the lugubrious incantations that preceded the operations of diabolical magic.
Bibliography3 works
Nicola Turchi