Magic herbs and demons in Orphic rites.
More stress is laid upon the power of demons and herbs in a description which has been left us by Saint Cyprian,[1318] bishop of Antioch in the third century, of some pagan mysteries upon Mount Olympus into which he was initiated when a boy of fifteen and which have been explained as Orphic rites. His initiation was under the charge of seven hierophants, lasted for forty days, and included instruction in the virtues of magic herbs and visions of the operations of demons. He was also taught the meaning of musical notes and harmonies, and saw how times and seasons were governed by good and evil spirits. In short, magic, pseudo-science, occult virtue, and perhaps astrology formed an important part of Orphic lore.
Books ascribed to Zoroaster.
Cumont states in his Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism that “towards the end of the Alexandrine period the books ascribed to the half-mythical masters of the Persian science, Zoroaster, Hosthanes and Hystaspes, were translated into Greek, and until the end of paganism those names enjoyed a prodigious authority.”[1319] Pliny regarded Zoroaster as the founder of magic and we have met other examples of his reputation as a magician. Later we shall find him cited several times in the Byzantine Geoponica which seems to use a book ascribed to him on the sympathy and antipathy existing between natural objects.[1320] Naturally a number of pseudo-Zoroastrian books were in circulation, some of which Porphyry, the Neo-Platonist, is said to have suppressed. At least he tells us in his Life of Plotinus[1321] that certain Christians and other men claimed to possess certain revelations of Zoroaster, but that he advanced many arguments to show that their book was not written by Zoroaster but was a recent composition.
The Chaldean Oracles.
There has been preserved, however, in the writings of the Neo-Platonists a collection of passages known as the Zoroastrian Logia or Chaldean Oracles[1322] and which “present ... a heterogeneous mass, now obscure and again bombastic, of commingled Platonic, Pythagorean, Stoic, Gnostic, and Persian tenets.”[1323] Not only are these often cited by the Neo-Platonists, but Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Proclus composed commentaries upon them.[1324] Some think that these citations and commentaries have reference to a single work put together by Julian the Chaldean in the period of the Antonines. This “mass of oriental superstitions, a medley of magic, theurgy, and delirious metaphysics,”[1325] was reverenced by the Neo-Platonists of the following centuries as a sacred authority equal to the Timaeus of Plato. Our next chapter will therefore deal with the writings of the Neo-Platonists upon whom this spurious mystic literature had so much influence.
CHAPTER XI
NEO-PLATONISM AND ITS RELATIONS TO ASTROLOGY AND THEURGY
Neo-Platonism and the occult—Plotinus on magic—The life of reason is alone free from magic—Plotinus unharmed by magic—Invoking the demon of Plotinus—Rite of strangling birds—Plotinus and astrology—The stars as signs—The divine star-souls—How do the stars cause and signify?—Other causes and signs than the stars—Stars not the cause of evil—Against the astrology of the Gnostics—Fate and free-will—Summary of the attitude of Plotinus to astrology—Porphyry’s Letter to Anebo—Its main argument—Questions concerning divine natures—Orders of spiritual beings—Nature of demons—The art of theurgy—Invocations and the power of words—Magic a human art: theurgy divine—Magic’s abuse of nature’s forces—Its evil character—Its deceit and unreality—Porphyry on modes of divination—Iamblichus on divination—Are the stars gods?—Is there an art of astrology?—Porphyry and astrology—Astrological images—Number mysticism—Porphyry as reported by Eusebius—The emperor Julian on theurgy and astrology—Julian and divination—Scientific divination according to Ammianus Marcellinus—Proclus on theurgy—Neo-Platonic account of magic borrowed by Christians—Neo-Platonists and alchemy.
Neo-Platonism and the occult.
That the Neo-Platonists were much given to the occult has been a common impression among those who have written upon the period of the decline of the Roman Empire, of the end of paganism, and the passing of classical philosophy. This is perhaps in some measure the result of Christian viewpoint and hostility; probably the Christians of the period would seem equally superstitious to a modern Neo-Platonist. If the lives of the philosophers by Eunapius sound like fairy tales,[1326] what do the lives of the saints of the same period sound like? If the Neo-Platonists were like our mediums, what were the Christian exorcists like? But let us turn to the writings of the leading Neo-Platonists themselves, the only accurate mirror of their views.