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Iamblichus on the mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians

Note 1 — INTRODUCTION.

Thomas Taylor translation

According to this theology, as I have elsewhere shown, in every order of things, a triad is the immediate progeny of a monad. Hence the intelligible triad proceeds immediately from the ineffable principle of things. Phanes, or intelligible intellect, who is the last of the intelligible order, is the monad, leader, and producing cause of a triad, which is denominated νοητος και νοερος, i. e. intelligible, and at the same time intellectual. In like manner the extremity of this order produces immediately from itself the intellectual triad, Saturn, Rhea, and Jupiter. Again, Jupiter, who is also the Demiurgus, is the monad of the supermundane triad. Apollo, who subsists at the extremity of the supermundane order, produces a triad of liberated Gods. (Θεοι απολυτοι.) And the extremity of the liberated order becomes the monad of a triad of mundane Gods. This theory, too, which is the progeny of the most consummate science, is in perfect conformity with the Chaldean theology. And hence it is said in one of the Chaldean oracles, “In every world a triad shines forth, of which a monad is the ruling principle.” (Παντι γαρ εν κοσμῳ λαμπει τριας ης μονας αρχει). I refer the reader, who is desirous of being fully convinced of all this, to my translation of Proclus on the Theology of Plato.

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