Iamblichus sits at a stone table between sunlit columns.

What can stir in a motionless thing

Iamblichus (c. 245–c. 325) was a Greek-speaking philosopher from Syria. In his work on the mysteries he considers a difficulty raised by divination. People see something move in the course of a rite, or hear an answer given through an object. A further question follows. To whom should such an event be attributed when the thing through which it becomes perceptible has, of its own accord, no means of speaking or acting?

A question about the source of movement

[…] it imparts soul to things inanimate, motion to things immoveable […]

– Iamblichus, On the Mysteries, 1895, p. 161.[1]

The brief formulation brings together two events. Soul comes to something inanimate, and movement to something motionless. The second pair is accessible to the eye. Even somebody ignorant of the cause can see whether a resting object has changed position. The first goes further. To attribute soul to something is to make a claim about the source of its activity. Iamblichus puts the two cases side by side so that a visible alteration leads to a question that sight alone cannot settle.

Why the examples come in pairs

The direction in which the gift is made matters to the argument. The thing under consideration owes the power described here to a higher cause. Iamblichus names pebbles, rods and grains of wheat. Each is, in the first instance, the place where something happens. Its shape or sparkle could hold one's attention and easily distract from the question of agency. The sentence gives its reader a way of distinguishing between the visible scene of an event and the source from which its efficacy is understood to come.