s. Theurgy was
magic, "the last part of the sacerdotal science,"[11] and was practised
in the Greater Mysteries, to evoke the appearance of superior Beings.
The theory on which these Mysteries were based may be very briefly thus
stated: There is ONE, prior to all beings, immovable, abiding in the
solitude of His own unity. From THAT arises the Supreme God, the
Self-begotten, the Good, the Source of all things, the Root, the God of
Gods, the First Cause, unfolding Himself into Light.[12] From Him
springs the Intelligible World, or ideal universe, the Universal Mind,
the _Nous_ and the incorporeal or intelligible Gods belong to this.
From this the World-Soul, to which belong the "divine intellectual forms
which are present with the visible bodies of the Gods."[13] Then come
various hierarchies of superhuman beings, Archangels, Archons (Rulers)
or Cosmocratores, Angels, Daimons, &c. Man is a being of a lower order,
allied to these in his nature, and is capable of knowing them; this
knowledge was achieved in the Mysteries, and it led to union with
God.[14] In the Mysteries these doctrines are expounded, "the
progression from, and the regression of all things to, the One, and the
entire domination of the One,"[15] and, further, these different Beings
were evoked, and appeared, sometimes to teach, sometimes, by Their mere
presence, to elevate and purify. "The Gods," says Iamblichus, "being
benevolent and propitious, impart their light to theurgists in unenvying
abundance, calling upwards their souls to themselves, procuring them a
union with themselves, and accustoming them, while they are yet in body,
to be separated from bodies, and to be led round to their eternal and
intelligible principle."[16] For "the soul having a twofold life, one
being in conjunction with body, but the other being separate from all
body,"[17] it is most necessary to learn to separate it from the body,
that thus it may unite itself with the Gods by its intellectual and
divine part, and learn the genuine principles of knowledge, and the
truths of the intelligible world.[18] "The presence of the Gods, indeed,
imparts to us health of body, virtue of soul, purity of intellect, and,
in one word, elevates everything in us to its proper nature. It exhibits
that which is not body as body to the eyes of the soul, through those of
the body."[19] When the Gods appear, the soul receives "a liberation
from the passions, a transcendent perfection, and an energy enti