[82]. This assertion, that the nature which is perfectly exempt can never become one with that which departs from itself, is opposed by Gale, who says that man is composed of soul and body, and yet the latter is far inferior to, and less excellent than, the former. But in adducing this instance, he clearly shows that he does not understand what Iamblichus says. For the human soul being a medium between a certain impartible and partible essence, so far as it partakes of the partible essence, has a certain alliance with body, and is not perfectly exempt from it. But this is not the case with divine inspiration and our soul: for the former in a perfectly exempt manner transcends the latter. Let it, therefore, be granted him that, as Psellus says, “hypostatic union conducts different essences or natures to one hypostasis,” yet such a union can never take place between two things, one of which has no habitude, proximity, or alliance to the other. Gale was led into this mistake by not properly attending to the words perfectly exempt, το παντελως εξῃρημενον, which are here employed by Iamblichus. But such mistakes are usual with Gale, from his inaccurate and rambling manner of thinking. He likewise forgot, at the time he was writing notes on Iamblichus, that he was the master of a grammar school, and not a philosopher.
From what has been said, the absurdity, also, of their opinion is immediately obvious, who fancy that the divine essence can be mingled and united with the mortal nature. For if such a union were possible, it would benefit and exalt the latter, but injure and degrade the former. Just as in the union of the rational soul with the body (as Proclus beautifully observes in Tim. p. 339), “the former, by verging to a material life, kindles indeed a light in the body, but becomes herself situated in darkness; and by giving life to the body, destroys both herself and her own intellect [in as great a degree as these are capable of receiving destruction]. For thus the mortal nature participates of intellect, but the intellectual part of death, and the whole, as Plato observes in the Laws, becomes a prodigy composed of the mortal and the immortal, of the intellectual and that which is deprived of intellect. For this physical law which binds the soul to the body is the death of the immortal life, but vivifies the mortal body.”
[83]. Here again Gale, from not understanding, opposes Iamblichus. For he says, “sed nec hoc sequitur. S. Maximus, ubi hypostaticam unionem declarat; hæc inquit, cernuntur in corpore et anima. Una ex utroque confit hypostasis composita. Servat autem in se naturam perfectam utriusque sc. corporis et animæ, και την τουτων διαφοραν ασυμφυρτον και τα ιδιωματα ασυμφυρτα και ασυγχυτα.” i. e. “But neither does this follow. S. Maximus, where he unfolds hypostatic union, says these things are perceived in the soul and body. One composite hypostasis is produced from both. But this hypostasis preserves in itself the perfect nature of each, and likewise the difference of these unmingled, end the peculiarities unmingled and unconfused.” This hypostatic union, however; as we have before observed, cannot take place between divine inspiration and the soul, because the former is perfectly exempt from the latter.
Gale adds, “Quæro autem quid velit Iamblichus per αμφοιν? Opinor, ψυχην et την εξωθεν θειαν επιπνοιαν. Non facile evincet επιπνοιαν esse αιδιον τι, utpote quæ sit transiens dei actio.” i. e. “I ask what Iamblichus means by both. I think the soul and divine inspiration externally derived. But he will not easily prove that inspiration is something eternal, because it is a transient energy of God.” Gale is right in his conjecture, that Iamblichus by the word both in this place, means the soul and divine inspiration externally derived; for it can admit of no other meaning; but when he adds, that inspiration cannot be something eternal, because it is a transient energy of divinity, he shows himself to be as bad a theologist as he is a philosopher. For God being an eternal, or rather a supereternal nature, his energies have nothing to do with time and its transitive progressions, but are stably simultaneous; so that transition does not exist in his inspiring influence, but in the recipients of it, these being of a temporal and mutable nature. Hence it is just as absurd to call any energy of divinity transient, as it would be to say that the light of the sun is transient, because it shines through diaphanous, but not through opaque, substances.
[84]. Hippocrates was of opinion that physicians ought to be skilled in astronomy. And Galen derides those physicians who deny that astronomy is necessary to their art. See his treatise entitled Si quis sit Medicus eundem esse philosophum. And in lib. viii. cap. 20, of his treatise De Ingenio Sanitatis, he calls physicians that are ignorant of astronomy homicides. But by astronomy here, both Hippocrates and Galen intended to signify what is now called astrology. Roger Bacon also, in his Epistle to Pope Clement, says, “Opera quæ fiunt hic inferius, variantur secundum diversitatem cœlestium constellationum, ut opera medicinæ et alkimiæ.” i. e. “The works which are performed in these inferior realms are varied according to the diversity of the celestial constellations, as, for instance, the works of medicine and alchemy.” If, however, as Galen says, and doubtless with great truth, physicians that are ignorant of this are homicides, how numerous must the medical homicides be of the present age!
[85]. According to Proclus, in Alcibiad. Prior, there are three orders of dæmons, the first of which are more intellectual, the second are of a more rational nature, and the third, of which Iamblichus is now speaking, are various, more irrational, and more material.
[86]. Charonea is a country of Asia Minor, bordering on the river Meander; and in it there are spiracles which exhale a foul odour. According to Pliny, there are places of this kind in Italy, in the country of Puteoli, now Puzzulo. In Amsanctus, also, a place in the middle of Italy, in the country of the Samnites, there were sulphureous waters, the steams of which were so pestilential, that they killed all who came near them. Hence Cicero, in lib. i. De Divin. “Quid enim? Non videmus, quam sint varia terrarum genera? Ex quibus et mortifera quædam pars est, ut et Amsancti in Hirpinis, et in Asia Plutonia.”
[87]. And these irrational spirits, so far as they contribute to wholes, are more excellent than we are, though through being irrational they are inferior to us.
[88]. See the justice of providence in this respect most admirably defended by Plotinus, in the first of his treatises on Providence, which treatise forms one of the five books of Plotinus translated by me, in 8vo. 1794.
[89]. In the original, την ιδιαν της ψυχης αυτοπραγιαν, which Gale very inadequately translates proprium animæ officium.