Jamblique

Jamblique (Iamblicos), born in 250 with Chalcis (Syria), died in 325, neo-platonist philosopher .

He enters towards the 30 years age to the Roman school of Porphyre of Tyr (itself raises Plotin) and then turns over to Syria to teach philosophy with Apamée, at an unknown date. Jamblique is thus the third neo-platonist Master, after Plotin and Porphyre. The Neo-Platonism is a misadventure resulting from the teaching of the aristotelism and platonism, which finds its origin in Egypt, is formalized in Italy (Plotin), deepens in Rome (Porphyry), moves in Syria (Jamblique) and in Athens (Syrianus, Proclus).

Biography

Concerning the life of Jamblique of Chalcis, we hardly have biographical elements. We know only that it is originating in Syria, as Porphyre was originating in Tyr in Phénicie. Plotin, as for him, came from Egypt, probably from Alexandria, where we know that it began the study of philosophy at the 28 years age with Am Saccas, auprès of which there remained 11 years. About fifty years separate the birth from Plotin (206-270) of that of Jamblique, and there are about fifteen years between Porphyre and its Jamblique pupil. The difference in age between the Master and the disciple is weak when they arrive at the adulthood. It is to say on the one hand that the Neo-Platonism of these three figures develops in a little more than one century, and that, on the other hand, to take account of the Eastern origin of this philosophy developed in Rome, can be worthy of interest.

Always it is that it is towards about thirty that Jamblique leaves to Rome to perfect its philosophical education at Porphyre. This one had opened a school in Rome, after the death of its Plotin Master into 270, in Minturno in Campanie, shortly after the assassination into 268 of the emperor Gallien, his guard. Plotin was never turned over to Egypt and Porphyre was in Sicily, in Lilybée, at the time of the death of Plotin.

The thought of Jamblique

Intellectual background

One regards as pertaining to the Néo-platonisme thinkers who are distinguished from Platonic (those which received the teaching of Plato directly) and from the thinkers belonging to the Means-Platonisme, school which interprets the dialogs of Plato on the basis of reference to Aristote and with the Stoïcisme. Confusion can reign, because one generally calls Platoniciens the philosophers of the average platonism. What it is necessary to know, before approaching the clean thought of Jamblique, it is that at the school of Plotin one read the Platonic ones (Sévère, Numénius, Atticus, etc) and of Aristotéliciens (Aspasius, Alexandre d' Aphrodise, etc). It should be also known that interpretations of Plotin concerning Plato was not free from criticism in the intellectual world of the time, since we know that the former Athenian Porphyry Master, Longin, criticized the little of orthodoxy of which Plotin made proof.

To supplement this rapid panorama and before approaching what returns into clean in Jamblique, let us say a word of the polemical context in which the Neo-Platonism is constituted. So on a side, the political world saw one difficult moment (the emperor Gordien, with which Plotin left in the East, is made assassinate, like later its guard Gallien), other, the Neo-Platonism is confronted with the emergence of the Christianisme and its misadventures of the moment, whose main thing is the Gnose. We should not lose sight of the fact only the Gnosis, which is a Christian Hérésie, is undoubtedly, at the moment when the Neo-Platonism develops, the religious current which has the most vitality. Spreading itself through the Empire, the Gnosis promised safety with whoever had a revelation or a knowledge ( gnosis ) special. This knowledge affirmed that the world in which we live is the result of bad and ignorant forces, a world in which are imprisoned fragments of a higher world, made good divinities. This outline general, which is complicated as soon as one stops with such or such representative of the Gnosis, is achieved in the fact that we wait, as divine elements immersed in the body, to be released from our body and the powers of the evil.

The Gnosis meets two enemies: the Neo-Platonists, who see in it a perversion of Platonisme (cf Porphyre, Vie of Plotin , CH. 16 and Plotin, end of the second Ennéade : Against the Gnostic ones) and the Fathers of the Church, who see in this heresy the mark of Greek paganism (On the meeting between Hellenic philosophy, the New Testament and the contemporary gnostic elements of the foundation of the Catholic church, to see Adolf von Harnack, in the bibliography).

The Timée of Plato and mathematics

One could not start to think the work of Jamblique without seeing initially that we deal with compiler. It brings back the doctrines which it admires and one has all the reasons to think that its Exhortation with Philosophy (Protreptique), is in fact a work written by Aristote.

However, one can distinguish two topics at Jamblique, which touch with its doctrines of the heart, undoubtedly inspired by the doctrines of the Timée of Plato, text in which the author makes heart the mediation between the understandable indivisible one - the idea - and sensitive divisible and multiple one. The heart thus ensures the internal cohesion of the universe (topic to be brought closer to the function of Eros, in the Banquet of same Plato). How Jamblique does he interpret this function of the heart? Which is the instrument of this heart to rationalize sensitive the, multiple one and changing (to fix the phenomenon in a form - the idea) and reciprocally to make phénoménaliser the thought? For Jamblique, mathematics is this property by which the heart gives its unit to various and is able to rationalize the order of the sensitive one.

Théurgie

The second interest of Jamblique goes to the Théurgie . In this direction, one can say that it separates from Plotin, for whom it would act of an irrational attitude. The théurgie is a whole of mystical practices, of ritual that one can raise still today in Islam, among followers of the Soufisme: it is a question for the heart of being linked in a mystical fusion with the Unutterable one. In other words, the théurgie (of théos , god and urgos , to manufacture) is not a whole of superstitions, for Jamblique, but a means for the heart of diviniser, as a practitioner of the rites which, degree per degree (while starting initially with sacrifices, then by reaching higher levels, while proceeding to invocations), make reach a mystical extase. This extase is not a capacity which the man has on the gods, but the result of a divine retrocession which has permi to climb the levels. In other words, the provision with the ritual comes from the gods who proceed in a émanative way.

However, Jamblique does not manage to unify its mystic and his philosophy. It will be necessary to await Proclos and Damascius, to see to achieve itself and to develop a negative Théologie, whose elements will flash back on the Hermétisme and the theological rationalism of a Saint-Augustin, as on the attempt of the emperor Julien paganizing Christianity.

Works

Collection (synagogè) of the opinions pythagoricians . This sunagogè contains:

* Of vita pythagorica : Life of Pythagore ; tr. Alain Philippe Segonds and Luc Brisson. Paris: beautiful Letters, 1996. (The wheel with books; 29). 240p. ISBN 2-251-33924-X.

It acts to propose a type of existence pythagorician . The life pythagorician is a life of wisdom suggested by the gods.

Protreptique ; ED. and tr. Edouard of the Places. Paris: beautiful Letters, 1989. (Collection of the Universities of France). vii-289p. ISBN 2-251-00397-5.

For which reasons is it necessary to philosophize? Initial allusion to the Vie pythagorician connects the Protreptique to the whole of the doctrines. Jamblique exhorts with philosophy by means of symbols. The method is illustrated by a scale, which makes pass from a level lower than a higher level. Jamblique quotes its work Péri Théou (On the gods) and announces a Péri sumbolôn (On the symbols). If the first chapters are excluded, the Protreptique is a compilation of Platonic texts and aristotelicians, if not a text of Aristote itself.

Of communi mathematica scientia

Comment on the arithmetic introduction of Nicomaque

mysteries of Egypt ; ED. and tr. Edouard of the Places, the 3rd re-examined and corrected pulling. Paris: beautiful Letters, 1996. (Collection of the Universities of France). 401p. ISBN 2-251-00176-X.

an answer to the doubts expressed by Porphyry on the théurgie, the effectiveness of the sacrifices, the nature of the angels and the geniuses, etc This work was published pseudonymement, but Proclus allots it to Jamblique.

Treated Heart ; Fragments published in A.J. Festugière, the Revelation of Hermes Trismégiste , volume III. Paris, Sapwood, 1953.

Theologumena arithmeticae

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