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MYSTICISM AND RATIONALITY. A NEOPLATONIC PERSPECTIVE
1he interesting thing for our purposes is that the Chaldaean Oracles
and Plato are set on a par, as representatives of a direct revelation of truth
"in an unveiled way". Ihis amounts to saying that theurgy is coextensive with
philosophical speculation, the latter being scientific, the former religious.
It can be shown, however, that in Proclus’ case, this does not mean that theurgy
became more important than philosophy. Quite the contrary: the truth of
the revelation of the Oracles is always judged on the basis of Plato’s scientific
doctrines, not the other way around.
The same can be inferred about Damascius’ way of dealing with theurgy.
Damascius himself wrote a history of the late Academy, titled Vita Isidori,
in which he explains how after the death of Proclus, the school was in decay
and had a really bad reputation, especially because of its predilection for
theurgy and neglect of philosophy. Damascius seems to have been the one
who set things right by reinstating the balance between philosophy and
theurgy (also called hieratic practice). As he writes in his commentary on
Plato’s Phaedo, the relationship between the two has always been going back
and forth between two extremes:
To some philosophy is primary, for example, Porphyry and Plotinus and a great
many other philosophers; to others hieratic practice, for example, Iamblichus,
Syrianus, Proclus, and the hieratic school generally. Plato, however, recognizing
that strong arguments can be advanced from both sides, has united the two into
one single truth by calling the philosopher a “Bacchus” (Phaedo 69 D 1); for by using
the notion of a man who has detached himself from genesis as an intermediate
term, we can identify the one with the other. (Damascius, In Phaedonem 1, $ 172,
1-5, tr. Westerink)
This passage shows that Damascius did indeed want to establish a balance
between the two. His remark that “Plato has united the two” is a direct appeal
to the authority of the founder of the school to prove the point. It is, thus,
safe to say that, in contrast to his immediate predecessors, Damascius re¬
established the importance of philosophical discourse, without doing away
with theurgy. Yet, here again, the balance between the two means that the
foundational insights are laid by philosophy and then confirmed by hieratic
texts:
Just as the other arts and sciences appeal to philosophy for corroboration,
philosophy resorts to hieratic science to confirm her own doctrines. (Damascius,
In Phaed. Il, § 109, 1-3, tr. Westerink)
5 Cf. Gerd Van Riel, Le divin Platon: texte et sacralité dans le néoplatonisme grec, in D. De
Smet, G. de Callatay, J.M.F. Van Reeth (eds.), Al-Kitab: la sacralité du texte dans le monde
de l'Islam, Bruxelles (Société belge d’études orientales), 2004, 83-92.
Daréczi-Sepsi-Vassänyi_Initiation_155x240.indb 175 6 2020.06.15. 11:04:19