Publisher's Synopsis
IN an epistle to the Egyptian Anebo, assigned to Porphyry, the learned Greek writer asked, "What is the meaning of these mystic Narrations which say that a certain divinity is unfolded into Light from mire; that he is seated above a lotus, that he sails in a ship, and that he changes his form every hour according to the sign of the Zodiac? If these things are asserted symbolically, being symbols of the powers of this divinity, I request an interpretation of these symbols." According to Proclus, in his Commentary on the Enneads of Plotinus, Jamblichus wrote his work on the Mysteries as a reply to the pertinent questioning of Porphyry.1 But Jamblichus, like so many who have followed him, began with things where he first met with them, on the surface, in their latest phase. He represented the Egyptians as worshippers of the one God, uncreated, unique, omnipotent, and universal. He starts with this as their starting-point, and affirms that all the other gods of the Pantheon are nothing more than the various attributes and powers of the Supreme personified. In short, he makes Monotheism the foundation instead of the summit of the Egyptian religion. This view has been maintained by several Egyptologists.
