Spiritual Taxonomies and Ritual Authority: Platonists, Priests, and Gnostics in the Third Century C.E. by Heidi Marx-Wolf (review)

Heidi Marx-Wolf's point of departure in this intriguing monograph is that, in the second century c.e., "spirits were not ordered according to a clear and stable ontological or moral taxonomy" (1). In the following century, this changed: Origen, Porphyry, and Iamblichus "made claims to ritual expertise and called themselves high priests of the highest god . . . add[ing] a new, hieratic dimension to their identity. . . . These philosophers also asserted that they were in a unique position as experts to broker salvation for others" (2). A holistic evaluation of the spiritual taxonomies developed from this competition, then, shows us that all these individuals "were much closer—far more interconnected socially, educationally, and intellectually—than previously recognized" (3).

Chapter One provides a fascinating, bird's-eye view of demonology in Origen, Porphyry, and Iamblichus. Marx-Wolf follows Elizabeth DePalma Digeser in taking Origen—the author of On Demons, mentioned by Porphyry in the Vita Plotini and Proclus in his Timaeus commentary—to be the Christian theologian Origen of Alexandria (4–5, 21–23, 40). Many readers will protest on chronological grounds, but, as, Marx-Wolf states (142n58), the issue is not essential to the argument that Porphyry's rejection of blood sacrifice in his De abstinentia is plausibly inspired by Christian polemics against sacrifice (28). Iamblichus, meanwhile, agreed with Porphyry that "it was not possible for everyone to be a philosopher and to achieve complete release from corporeality and generation" (36), and for this reason disagreed with Porphyry regarding traditional sacrifices, taking them to be necessary means of purification available to οἱ πολλοί.

Chapter Two argues that the demonological taxonomies of Origen, Porphyry, and Iamblichus contain significant ambiguities and inconsistencies that result from engagement with traditional beliefs and practices concerned with demons (39–40). Again, Origen of Alexandria is taken to be the author of the work On Demons known to Porphyry (41–42), yet the ensuing discussion of Princ. and Hom. 1 Reg. makes no effort to synthesize the demonologies of these works with On Demons. Why bother to conflate the two Origens if one is to treat their works in isolation? In any event, Marx-Wolf shows how the demonological taxonomies of Origen and Porphyry are hardly coherent: souls, demons, and angels become overlapping or even exchangeable categories (52–54). Iamblichus, meanwhile, leaves the confines of traditional Platonism by incorporating archons and a plethora of contemporary ritual practices into his theurgic system (62).

Inspired by recent scholarship highlighting possible "Gnostic" contributions to Neoplatonism, Chapter Three examines Origen's discussion of "Gnosticism" and the demonology of two works extant from Nag Hammadi. Wary of critiques of the term "Gnostic(ism)," Marx-Wolf uses it freely in scare quotes. She presents an Iamblichaean reading of the Apocryphon of John, wherein the 365 beings governing the psychic human body are taken to be helpers in "purifying the body and providing for . . . eventual release of the spirit" (90—NHC II, 1.18.31–32 is not cited, but seems to support this view). Marx-Wolf also identifies a parallel between the teaching on postmortem souls found in Porphyry's On the Styx and a passage in Zostrianos, although it is a bit strong to state simply that the former "borrowed" from the latter (96).

Chapter Four examines the adoption of hieratic rhetoric by Origen, Porphyry, and Iamblichus. They employed this terminology to "demote and discredit other ritual experts who were attempting to overcome marginalization," namely the authors of "so-called magical" texts (101; another rejected term in scare quotes). Marx-Wolf slyly observes how funny it is that Iamblichus slanders these Egyptian ritual experts in Myst., "because at the same time he was posing as one of them" (119). He, like Porphyry and Origen, "felt the need to assert their authority and expertise in idioms represented by their competitors."

Spiritual Taxonomies is clearly written and well-timed, tackling...