Source books
Books
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22 books of 370 · oldest first
Neoplatonism 22
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late second century CE
The Chaldean Oracles
Fragmentary theurgical revelation on the soul's ascent, the paternal intellect, and the rites by which the two are joined.
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written c. 253–270; arranged and published by Porphyry c. 301
Enneads
Plotinus wrote separate treatises rather than a book called The Enneads. Porphyry arranged fifty-four of them into six groups of nine.
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late third century
Life of Pythagoras
A religious-philosophical biography that helped turn Pythagoras into an archetypal sacred philosopher.
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third century
On Abstinence from Animal Food
Connects vegetarianism with purification and the philosophical life.
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c. 270–300
Isagoge
A work of logic whose medieval influence reached far beyond occultism.
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third century
Letter to Marcella
A spiritual and ethical exhortation to his wife.
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c. 301
Life of Plotinus
Our fundamental biographical source for Plotinus, and an introduction to the Enneads.
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early fourth century
On the Mysteries
Written as a response to Porphyry and framed as by the Egyptian priest 'Abammon'. It argues for divination, sacrifice, sacred symbols and theurgy as legitimate means by which...
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early fourth century
On the Pythagorean Life
Transforms Pythagoras into an exemplary initiatory philosopher, and preserves a great deal of Pythagorean tradition.
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early fourth century
Protrepticus
A spiritual-philosophical exhortation incorporating older Pythagorean and Platonic material.
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fifth century
Elements of Theology
A rigorously organised series of propositions mapping emanation from, and return toward, the first principle.
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fifth century
Commentaries on Plato
On the Timaeus, Republic, Parmenides and others, transmitting elaborate cosmological and metaphysical systems to later thinkers.
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fifth century
Hymns
Poetic devotional works, revealing that his philosophy was also religious practice.
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fifth century
Platonic Theology
A vast account of the hierarchy of divine realities found in Plato.
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c. 500
The Celestial Hierarchy
Organises the angels into a systematic hierarchy.
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c. 500
The Divine Names
Explains how divine names express manifestations of a God ultimately beyond all names.
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c. 500
The Mystical Theology
A foundational text of apophatic mysticism: God is approached by stripping away concepts and affirmations.
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early 10th century
Book of Definitions
Short definitions of philosophical terms, and the earliest Jewish statement of a Neoplatonic descent from a First Cause through intellect and soul.
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written c. 1045; Latin translation c. 1150
Fons Vitae
A dialogue on matter and form in which a divine Will stands between an unknowable God and everything that proceeds from him. Written in Arabic, lost in the original, and...
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first half of the 13th century
Commentary on the Ten Sefirot
Thirteen questions and answers, written to defend the sefirot against the objection that a perfectly simple God can have no parts. The defence is Neoplatonic and the vocabulary...
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completed 1474; printed 1482
Platonic Theology
A massive defence of the immortality of the soul and a Christianised Platonic metaphysics.
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2014
Divination and Theurgy in Neoplatonism: Oracles of the Gods
A study of oracles, divination and theurgy in Porphyry and Iamblichus, set within the religious and philosophical debates of late antiquity.