Renaud Gagné (University of Cambridge)
Theurgy constructed a distinctive discourse on the theology and practice of secrecy. One of the most refined products of the mysterisation of religious culture in the Roman East, theurgy creatively reconfigured the registers of philosophy, cult, and poetry to build a powerful vision of ineffability, where the languages of telestic ritual and wisdom are inextricably imbricated. There is a veritable ontology of secrecy at the heart of this intricate refoundation of tradition in search of a concealed world. The knowledge of the theurgist, grounded in a capacious exegetical engagement with a deep archive of texts and rituals, gave original shapes to old ideas, and opened fascinating new strategies for the conceptualisation and experience of the limits of intelligibility. While a number of associated fields have received excellent detailed scholarly attention in the last two decades, such as secrecy in Platonism and Pythagorean traditions, or secrecy in magical papyri, Hermeticism, and "mystery cults", the theme of secrecy in theurgy remains something of a blind spot. This paper will seek to open some perspectives on the question. A number of recent works of synthesis on theurgy can allow us to build on newly secure foundations. One text, Iamblichus' De Mysteriis, will be the focus of analysis for this essay. The following quote (1.21) can illustrate the kind of material at play:
"What ritual, after all, and what cult celebrated according to hieratic laws, is there which is accomplished by the utilisation of passion, or which produces some satisfaction of passions? Was not this cult established by law at the beginning intellectually, according to the ordinances of the gods? It imitates the order of the gods, both the intelligible and that in the heavens (μιμεῖται δὲ τὴν τῶν θεῶν τάξιν, τήν τε νοητὴν καὶ τὴν ἐν οὐρανῷ). It possesses eternal measures of what truly exists and wondrous tokens, such as have been sent down hither by the creator and father of all, by means of which unutterable truths are expressed through secret symbols (οἷς καὶ τὰ μὲν ἄφθεγκτα διὰ συμβόλων ἀπορρήτων ἐκφωνεῖται), being beyond form brought under the control of form, things superior to all image reproduced through images, and all things brough to completion through one single divine cause, which itself so far transcends passions that reason is not even capable of grasping it (ἥτις τοσοῦτον κεχώρισται τῶν παθῶν, ὥστε μηδὲ λόγον αὐτῆς δυνατὸν εἶναι ἐφάπτεσθαι)." (trans. Clarke, Dillon, Hershbell)
The usage of arrheton and aporrheton in the treatise will serve as a lexical guiding thread. After close reading of some key passages in context, the paper will discuss the language and rhetoric of secrecy used there, and situate the relevant ideas in the wider web of resonances activated by the text.