In Response to Porphyry’s Letter to Anebo (De Mysteriis), Iamblichus rejects the view of Plotinus and Porphyry that daemons are subject to passions (παθήµατα/πάθη) or affected by matter (ὕλη) in a way that alters their inherently good nature. Instead, Iamblichus proposes that daemons, as superior beings, are not confined to bodies but influence them from outside, imparting goodness to them without receiving anything from them (I.8.24,3–6). Iamblichus develops a daemonology in which daemons are u…
Read moreIn Response to Porphyry’s Letter to Anebo (De Mysteriis), Iamblichus rejects the view of Plotinus and Porphyry that daemons are subject to passions (παθήµατα/πάθη) or affected by matter (ὕλη) in a way that alters their inherently good nature. Instead, Iamblichus proposes that daemons, as superior beings, are not confined to bodies but influence them from outside, imparting goodness to them without receiving anything from them (I.8.24,3–6). Iamblichus develops a daemonology in which daemons are unaffected by generation. However, Iamblichus introduces the notion that daemons are “not entirely pure” from “powers that fall into generation” (I.20.64,6–10). This has been interpreted as a contradiction in Iamblichus’s daemonology, suggesting that daemons may be capable of becoming evil. This paper investigates what these powers are and how they influence daemons. We argue that these “powers that fall into generation” do not lead daemons towards evil but allow daemonic powers to be, in a certain way, influenced by human intentions, while preserving the impassibility and good nature of the daemon. In conclusion, we present how, for Iamblichus, ἀπαθεῖς daemons can be subject to instrumentalization by human beings due to an interplay of the cosmological-metaphysical powers of οἰχείωσις, φιλία, ἐπιτηδειότης, and συµπάθεια–ἀντιπάθεια.
