This chapter investigates the contours of prognosis itself. It begins by describing prognosis in the Neoplatonist Iamblichus’ De Mysteriis. It then “catches” Iamblichus in the act of inventing a new definition of prognosis in his response to Porphyry, shifting it away from discrete knowledge of particular events towards panoptic knowledge that emerges as an expression of divine substance. This chapter then shows how both the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies and the Manichaeans were also theorizing prognosis along similar lines.

This chapter draws attention to a little-known text attributed to John Chrysostom, which has so far not aroused the interest of specialists in ancient divination and prophecy: the prologue to the commentary on the Book of Jeremiah, which nevertheless enjoyed a certain popularity in the Byzantine world. The prologue exposes a classification of forms of prophecy that has no notable parallel in patristic literature. A significant parallel can be established instead with the Neoplatonic theory of divination, as set forth for example in Iamblichus’ Response to Porphyry (De mysteriis). This parallel concerns in particular the hierarchy of the forms of predictive knowledge, as well as the relationship between demonic and natural prophecy/divination. An English translation and a commentary of the fragment concerning the prophecy is given.

Divination was an important focus of philosophical dialogue and ‘pagan’-Christian religious debates in late antiquity.One of the most extensive late antique exchanges on the nature of divination and other religious practices is that evident in Porphyry’s Letter to Anebo and Iamblichus’ Reply of the Master Abamon to the Letter of Porphyry to Anebo and the Solutions to the Questions It Contains. This chapter re-assesses the key features of this exchange, arguing for its status as an important philosophical dialogue which bears some resemblance to oracular modes of discourse. In order to support this argument, the broader status of questioning, interrogation, and inquiry in traditional Greek oracular practices and within Platonism is examined. The chapter analyses the ways in which Porphyry’s and Iamblichus’ exchange is framed within these philosophical and oracular contexts, demonstrating that this dialogue draws implicitly on Socrates’ interrogation of the Delphic oracle as presented in Plato’s Apology and on Plutarch’s Delphic Dialogues. The citation and discussion of Porphyry’s Letter to Anebo by the Christian Church Fathers Eusebius and Augustine will also be considered in relation to exploring pagan-Christian religious approaches and debates.

The chapter examines the somewhat unexpected links between Origens and Iamblichus views on foreknowledge deriving from the divine. Both share a division of foreknowledge, venerating that which comes from a highest god and devaluing that which is thought to derive from the material world or lower divinities. This contributes a late chapter to a history of divination in the classical world, and to a formation story of early Christian notions of prophecy.

Chapter 1 draws on Julian’s earliest surviving oration – the Letter to Themistius – to illustrate the interaction between Julian’s early rhetoric and the political discourse developed at the court of Constantius II. The first section challenges scholarly readings of the Letter as voicing a rejection of the late antique ideal of the sovereign as ensouled law. It argues that Julian’s primary intent in this text lies rather in a desire to advertise his exegetical skills at the expense of his interlocutor, the famous philosopher Themistius. The second sectio contextualises Julian’s ambition in the context of third- and fourth-century debates on the relationship between leadership and culture. It shows that this theme was invested with particular significance by Christian authors – such as Lactantius and Eusebius – who used it in claiming Christianity’s intellectual dominance over pagan thinking. This testifies to the existence of a shared perception that cultural authority legitimised political authority but also signals the ambitions of Christian intellectuals to negotiate Christianity’s cultural prestige in conversation with the Roman elites.

Ancient Greek philosophy has often been dismissed as irrelevant to contemporary environmental thought or part of the problem in environmental terms because of its apparent dualism and anthropocentrism; Plato is often seen as emblematic of this philosophical stance. Following the research of Timothy Mahoney, this chapter calls into question this characterisation of Plato’s philosophy. Additionally, it examines the environmental perspectives of several philosophers within the later Platonic tradition, whose philosophy was closely connected with ancient Mediterranean religions and has been largely marginalised and excluded from the canon of western philosophy. This chapter argues that there is an important strand in ancient philosophy which is participatory, relational and ecocentric, depicting the philosopher as rooted in place and landscape, and necessitating the philosopher’s recognition of the interconnectedness and sacredness of the natural world and the kinship and ensouled nature of all beings and natural entities. As such, this chapter suggests that ecocentric environmental perspectives can be discerned within Platonism (especially within late antique theurgy) and that, consequently, this strand of ancient philosophy has a great deal to offer to environmental ethics and contemporary environmental thinking on nature and the natural world.

Discussion of the only Hermetic practitioners still known to us by name: Zosimos of Panopolis, Theosebeia, and Iamblichus of Chalcis. They shared a strong emphasis on the embodiment of spirit, in the contexts of alchemy and theurgy.

In this essay I argue that there is an Iamblichean and Neoplatonic theory of ethics. By examining the seven grades of virtue recognised by Iamblichus, I show that there is associated with each grade a specific kind of cognition or knowledge. The hierarchy of kinds of knowledge is parallel not only to the grades of virtue but also to the various stages of the soul’s theurgical ascent. The higher that we ascend in the ritual, the better and more secure the knowledge we possess. Examining and interpreting a series of passages in book V of the De mysteriis, I argue that Iamblichus associates various classes of humanity with the grades of virtue and the kinds of knowledge that they possess. Putting these various criteria together, I show that Iamblichus believed that all humanity at all levels has a kind of virtue and that the philosopher-theurgists themselves have a duty to descend with their higher knowledge and work for the benefit of all humanity.

The present chapter aims to show the connection between the ethical views of early Neoplatonist philosophers (Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus) and their metaphysical doctrines concerning the hierarchy of being. In the first section, it is argued that Plotinus focuses on virtues within the framework of a discussion about how the embodied soul can revert to the intelligible god (Enn. 1.2(19)). According to Plotinus the intelligible god has no virtues: there are paradigms of virtues in the Intellect, but these are not the virtues themselves. This is consistent with Plotinus’ view that different levels in the hierarchy of being are heterogeneous and do not share the same properties. Plotinus’ approach makes the status of political virtues problematic. Sections two and three focus on Porphyry and Iamblichus respectively. Their arrangements of the levels of virtues are connected to their accounts of the hierarchy of being, which are different both from that of Plotinus and from each other. Porphyry’s account in Sent. 32 is based on the idea that the cause pre-contains what depends on it (hence Porphyry’s emphasis on paradigmatic virtues). Iamblichus’ account seems to rely on his view that different levels in the hierarchy are connected via analogy.