Iamblichus describes Pythagoras visiting the mountain on account of its reputation for sacredness, stating that it was the most holy of all mountains, and access was forbidden to many, while Tacitus states that there was an oracle situated there, which Vespasian visited for a consultation ; Tacitus states that there was an altar there, but without any image upon it, and without a temple around it.

The Babyloniaca of Iamblichus describes an Egyptian princess named Berenice who loves and marries another woman.

Later, the Neoplatonist Iamblichus changed the role of the " One ", effectively altering the role of the Demiurge as second cause or dyad, which was one of the reasons that Iamblichus and his teacher Porphyry came into conflict.

The figure of the Demiurge emerges in the theoretic of Iamblichus, which conjoins the transcendent, incommunicable “ One ,” or Source.

Later Neoplatonic philosophers, especially Iamblichus, added hundreds of intermediate beings as emanations between the One and humanity ; but Plotinus ' system was much simpler in comparison.

The essentially devotional nature of Plotinus ' philosophy may be further illustrated by his concept of attaining ecstatic union with the One ( henosis see Iamblichus ).

753: Gods and the One God ," in Reading Religions in the Ancient World: Essays Presented to Robert McQueen Grant on His 90th Birthday ( Brill, 2007 ), p. 113, with reference also to Iamblichus.

At the head of his system, Iamblichus placed the transcendent incommunicable " One ", the monad, whose first principle is intellect, nous.

The first and highest One ( nous ), which Plotinus represented under the three stages of ( objective ) being, ( subjective ) life, and ( realized ) intellect, is distinguished by Iamblichus into spheres of intelligible and intellective, the latter sphere being the domain of thought, the former of the objects of thought.

" Neoplatonists such as Iamblichus attempted to reconcile this perspective by adding another hypostasis above the original monad of force or Dunamis.

Women were also numbered amongst his students, including Gemina, in whose house he lived during his residence in Rome, and her daughter, also Gemina ; and Amphiclea, the wife of Ariston the son of Iamblichus.

Iamblichus wrote of gods, angels, demons and heroes, of twelve heavenly gods whose number is increased to thirty-six or three hundred and sixty, and of seventy-two other gods proceeding from them, of twenty-one chiefs and forty-two nature-gods, besides guardian divinities, of particular individuals and nations.

Clearly, Iamblichus meant for the masses of people to perform rituals that were more physical in nature, while the higher types, who were closest to the divine ( and whose numbers were few ), could reach the divine realm through contemplation.

Taylor was an admirer of Hellenism, most especially in the philosophical framework furnished by Plato and the Neoplatonists Proclus and the " most divine " Iamblichus, whose works he translated into English.

Plutarch's mention of Hermes Trismegistus dates back to the first century CE, and Tertullian, Iamblichus, and Porphyry are all familiar with Hermetic writings.

Iamblichus was the author of the ( Babyloniaka, " Babylonian History "), a romance novel in Greek, which, if not the earliest, was at least one of the first productions of this kind in Greek literature.

Although under Plotinus, Neoplatonism began as a school of philosophy, the teachings of later Neoplatonists such as Iamblichus and Proclus incorporate additional details of the emanation process in terms of the dialectical action of the hypostases and further subdivisions from Plotinus ' original three hypostases.

Ammonius cites Iamblichus who said knowledge is intermediate between the knower and the known, since it is the activity of the knower concerning the known.

* Iamblichus De mysteriis Aegyptorum edited by Marsilio Ficino is published.

Iamblichus ' analysis was that the transcendent cannot be grasped with mental contemplation because the transcendent is supra-rational.

Porphyry and Iamblichus refer to a biography of Pythagoras by Apollonius, which has not survived ; it is also mentioned in the Suda.

Steuco was strongly influenced by Iamblichus ’ s statement that knowledge of God is innate in all, and also gave great importance to Hermes Trismegistus.

A male writer from Lucania called Aresas is also mentioned by Iamblichus in his Life of Pythagoras.

There is an extant work sometimes attributed to Iamblichus under this title written two centuries later which contains a great deal of material thought to have been copied or paraphrased from Nicomachus ' work.

The great pagan antagonist of the 3rd century was the neo-Platonic philosopher, Porphyry ; but under Constantine his disciple Iamblichus was the chief restorer and defender of the old gods, and his system of defence is that which we find made the official religion by Julian ( 361 – 3 ).

Consequently, it is not astonishing to find that Simon and his disciples represent not St. Paul, but Iamblichus.

The refutation of idolatry is against Iamblichus.

Iamblichus, also known as Iamblichus Chalcidensis, or Iamblichus of Apamea ( Ancient Greek:, probably from Syriac or Aramaic ya-mlku, " He is king ", c. 245 – c.

It was with Porphyry that he is known to have had a disagreement over the practice of theurgy, the criticisms of which Iamblichus responds to in his attributed De Mysteriis Aegyptiorum ( On the Egyptian Mysteries ).

Some translate this as " magic ", but the modern connotations of the term do not exactly match what Iamblichus had in mind, which is more along the lines of a sacramental religious ritual.

Iamblichus ' analysis was that the transcendent cannot be grasped with mental contemplation because the transcendent is supra-rational.

Iamblichus is mentioned in ancient Neoplatonic writings as his pupil, but this most likely means only that he was the dominant figure in the next generation of philosophers.

Much of Iamblichus ' mysteries is dedicated to the defense of mystic theurgic divine possession against the critiques of Porphyry.

His book Vita Pythagorae on the life of Pythagoras is not to be confused with the book of the same name by Iamblichus.

Iamblichus and Plotinus commonly assert that nous produced nature by mediation of the intellect, so here the intelligible gods are followed by a triad of psychic gods.

Then within this intellectual triad Iamblichus assigns the third rank to the Demiurge, identifying it with the perfect or Divine nous with the intellectual triad being promoted to a hebdomad.

* Iamblichus, ( 245-c. 325 ), Neoplatonist philosopher

Iamblichus of Calcis ( Syria ), a student of Porphyry ( who was himself a student of Plotinus ) taught a more ritualized method of theurgy that involved invocation and religious, as well as magical, ritual.

The last " Greek " philosophers of the revived Akademia in the 6th century were drawn from various parts of the Hellenistic cultural world and suggest the broad syncretism of the common culture ( see koine ): Five of the seven Akademia philosophers mentioned by Agathias were Syriac in their cultural origin: Hermias and Diogenes ( both from Phoenicia ), Isidorus of Gaza, Damascius of Syria, Iamblichus of Coele-Syria and perhaps even Simplicius of Cilicia.

* Neoplatonism: Plotinus ( Egyptian ), Ammonius Saccas, Porphyry ( Syrian ), Zethos ( Arab ), Iamblichus ( Syrian ), Proclus

Another work of some importance, Anecdota Graeca ( 1781 ), from the Paris and Venice libraries, contains the Ionia ( violet garden ) of the empress Eudocia, and several fragments of the Neoplatonists Iamblichus and Porphyry, Procopius of Gaza, Choricius, and the Greek grammarians.

* Theological principles of arithmetic ( Theologumena arithmeticae, an anonymous work sometimes ascribed to Iamblichus ), ed.

The last " Greek " philosophers of the revived Academy in the 6th century were drawn from various parts of the Hellenistic cultural world and suggest the broad syncretism of the common culture ( see koine ): Five of the seven Academy philosophers mentioned by Agathias were Syriac in their cultural origin: Hermias and Diogenes ( both from Phoenicia ), Isidorus of Gaza, Damascius of Syria, Iamblichus of Coele-Syria and perhaps even Simplicius of Cilicia.