In providing a detailed presentation and analysis of divination and oracles as they were embedded in philosophy during Late Antiquity, A. explores a subject that has only rarely received full attention on the part of scholars. In fact, divination and oracles were ‘deeply connected’ with philosophy from the Second Sophistic until the end of Late Antiquity. A. focuses her study on Porphyry's Philosophy from Oracles and Iamblichus’ De mysteriis. For Porphyry and Iamblichus, oracles have a primarily soteriological function: for those who use them in an appropriate manner they can aid the salvation of the soul at every stage of the soul's journey. Iamblichus considers oracles and other forms of inspired divination, such as oneiromancy (dream divination), divination by statues and by numbers, to be the super rational culmination of philosophy and the centre of theurgist ritual. They connect the human being with the divine realm, act as a stage on the way to mystical union and are an important source of truth. The theurgist is the point of contact with, and assimilation to, the gods. Many philosophers of this time consulted oracles and some even made oracular pronouncements themselves.
Apparently, from the classical period onward, cities which consulted oracles kept collections of received responses. The famous Sibylline oracle, for example, in the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, circulated throughout the Classical and Hellenic Greek and Roman world (p. 8). The other famous oracle collection was the Chaldean Oracles, favoured by the Neoplatonists, which was a set of metaphysical, ethical and ritual instructions for the salvation of the soul. In the third and fourth centuries c.e., oracular sanctuaries were well-known public institutions and initiation by mystical rites was practised by many devotees. Theurgy, which literally means ‘god working or divine work’, was widely respected and extensively used by later Neoplatonist philosophers, which circumstance is the focus of this book. Porphyry's Philosophy from Oracles, A. claims, is one of the most important texts produced by a Neoplatonist philosopher on oracles and traditions. She gives a thorough analysis of the 48 fragments, which are preserved, interestingly, by dissenters such as Augustine in The City of God and Eusebius in Praeparatio evangelica, as well as six fragments quoted by later authors such as Proclus, Damascius and Michael Psellus. Porphyry collected his oracles from oracular sanctuaries such as Delphi, Didyma and Charos and they feature the Graeco-Roman deities Apollo, Hecate, Asclepius, Pan and Serapis. Iamblichus’ De mysteriis, composed between 280 and 205 c.e. as a reply to Porphyry's Letter to Anebo, is a detailed examination of contemporary divination.
Chapter 2 gives a very thorough presentation of Porphyry's Philosophy from Oracles and relates it to allegorical exegesis, and its use in decoding ancient texts such as Homer but which can be used to decode the enigmas of oracles as well. Oracles are aimed at the followers of Graeco-Roman religions and particularly those who are seeking salvation of the soul. They come from the gods and are divine, sacred utterances that call for interpretation. The oracles that he collects contain many philosophical doctrines thus demonstrating the close relationship between philosophy and divination as a practice designed to purify the soul and enhance contemplation. Porphyry uses mystery cult terminology (the mysteries are ‘unutterable/unspeakable’ (arrêta) following Plato's Symposium which contains language and imagery from the Eleusinian mysteries, and refers to Phaedo as well. Socrates compares the philosopher's vision of the Forms to epopteia, the moment of revelation at the Eleusinian mysteries (Sym. 209e–10a), as did middle Platonists such as Plutarch and Numenius (p. 52). This suggests that there is continuity in the mystical tradition that can be traced to Plato. A. provides a taxonomy of oracle terminology as well. This is informative for the scholar who may not be familiar with this obscure philosophical history (the verb chraô, to proclaim; ho chrêsmos, the answer of an oracle; to logion, sacred utterance; chrêsmologoi, itinerant profession oracle collectors, etc.).
One fascinating piece of late-antique intellectual history is the debates between Christian and pagan authorities on the nature and roles of oracles and ritual. As A. Busine suggests (‘Porphyry and the Debate over Traditional Religious Practices’, in P. Vassilopoulou and S.R..L. Clark [edd.], Late Antique Epistemology [2009]), Porphyry may have gathered his collection of oracles as a means to answer Christian claims that truth and wisdom had to be found in the logia of the Bible and to create a competing ideology. A. gives us a detailed presentation of the Christian ‘backlash’ against theurgy and divination, as Porphyry's Philosophy from Oracles was a key polemical target for Christians. Eusebius attempted to undermine and discredit the religious authority and validity of Graeco-Roman religious practices and theurgy as well. Praeparatio evangelica uses two key strategies. It equates the pagan gods with evil daimones, following a long tradition in early Christianity, and claims that they gave the oracles. Second, he blurred the boundaries between theurgy, pagan religious traditions and magic. Augustine, too, in The City of God attacks his ‘formidable enemy’ (p. 154) pointing out Porphyry's contradictory views. Augustine was an enemy of theurgy, exemplified by Iamblichus’ De mysteriis.
Chapter 5 explores the relationship between divination, rationality and ritual. Traditionally minded scholars such as E.R. Dodds regarded divination as superstition and ‘irrational’ opposing the rationality of Plotinus to the theological bent of Iamblichus (The Greeks and the Irrational [1951]). While Iamblichus seemed to prioritise theurgy over philosophy, Plotinus’ mystical union with the One was obtained through rational methods of pure contemplation. A. suggests this criticism does not understand that divination, rationality and ritual have a ‘subtle complex and nuanced relationship and are not dichotomous’. Scholars such as A.H. Armstrong conflate divination with magic to show that Plotinus considered magical action to be ineffective for gaining contact with the intelligible realm or transcendent union with the One. A. finds such an argument problematic. For Iamblichus, theurgy does not merely work through sympathy on a horizontal level but works by invoking the gods through their symbols on a vertical axis. A. claims the vertical model is largely consistent with Plotinus’ metaphysics but distant from his theory of magic. Plotinus’ disparagement of harmful magic does not implicate theurgy.
While there is little to criticise in this valuable and scholarly book, A. does not include enough discussion of the political and social contexts in which the ‘pagan holy man’, viz. philosopher/theurgist, operated. For this she might have referred more extensively to Eunapius’ colourful accounts of the oracular utterances of the philosophers whose lives he documents, and to the explorations by G. Fowden (JHS 102 [1982], 33–59), P. Athanassiadi and others. While A. does mention the female philosopher Sosipatra, Eunapius gives us oracular pronouncements of many other philosophers of his time and their circumstances. Although she has an extensive list of references to their work, she does not cover them in any detail in the text.
In the twenty-first century we are used to philosophy being either a child of epistemology and analytic philosophy, or of a continental philosophy that deconstructs former texts. The idea that philosophy was once closely tied to pagan theology and that oracles were considered to be truth-yielding pronouncements may seem quite alien and strange. A. argues that oracles and inspired divination were regarded by Neoplatonists as a fundamental aspect of their philosophy: rationality and revelation were considered to be interlinked and complementary, in fact, ‘mutually inclusive’ (p. 4). Rationality is not opposed to ritual for these philosophers, who stage rationality as a means to an end. Reason can potentially lead one, when used in the appropriate contexts, to higher transcendence. It can, for example, be used to decode the oracle correctly (p. 286). Oracles are symbols that need to be decoded allegorically, however, understanding is in the service of potential mystical union. This book is important as a scholarly capitulation of philosophy and its relation to oracles but also poses an intriguing challenge to the modern dichotomy between rationality and ritual.
