IAMBLICHUS

a Iamblichus in his commentary on the Timaeus The Timaeus is Plato's famous dialogue on the creation of the universe; Iamblichus wrote a significant, though now largely lost, commentary on it.

Therefore, they are neither changed along with these physical things, nor are they distributed according to the distribution of bodies. For they are not mere "habits" original: habitus; here meaning a state or disposition dependent on a physical subject of bodies, nor are they material forms; rather, they are self-subsisting and separable—indeed, they are already separate and live before the bodies ever exist.

Separate and separable substances These are entities that exist independently of physical matter, such as the higher parts of the soul or the intellect. do not become what they are because they have chosen or been allotted a certain "province" or lot in the world; rather, the reverse is true. According to the kind of life and form original: speciem that a soul has brought forth into action within itself before its entry into a body, it is allotted a corresponding organic body and a nature suited to it. This nature is then subjected to the more perfect life of the soul itself. The rational soul enters a body that is already alive, but only imperfectly so. b Plotinus, Enneads, Book 4, Library 3, Chapter 12.

Divine beings naturally produce within themselves their entire work, distinct and complete, before they bring it forth into the world. Among those things that have the character of a universal principle, inferior things are produced within superior ones, corporeal things within incorporeal ones original: corporea in corporeis; literally "bodies in bodies," but in this Neoplatonic context, it refers to the physical being contained within the higher, incorporeal principle (the Soul or Intellect) that organizes it., and works within their makers; they are directed by these higher causes which contain them in a circular fashion.

Therefore, the celestial circuits of the stars are traced back to the circuit of the celestial souls. Furthermore, the souls c Plotinus, Enneads, Book 4, Library 2, Chapter 1; Proclus, Elements of Theology, Proposition 31. of the worlds—that is, of the spheres and the stars—as they approach their own Intellect, are completely grasped by it and are first produced within it. The individual intellect is contained within the universal intellect, and that universal intellect is similarly contained within the higher principles. Since, therefore, the things that follow always turn back towards...