Iamblichus was highly influential on Julian the Apostate (Emperor 361-363) who relapsed into paganism. Julian was the last pagan emperor of the empire & tried to organize a new pagan religion that would be a synthesis of Neo-Platonism and a replacement for Christianity.
Part of this Neo-Platonic movement by Iamblichus centered on the "soul". It was focused the ascent of the "soul" at death. Throughout even the middle ages, Neo-Platonic thinking had a major impact on Christian thought. It stretches clear back to Julian the Apostate. Iamblichus just didn't form a new pagan religion-it was modeled after competing Christianity with a sacramental structure.
---Back up a few years into the first "Christian" emperor, Constantine, and the mixing of Christianity & paganism.
Part of this Neo-Platonic movement by Iamblichus centered on the "soul". It was focused the ascent of the "soul" at death. Throughout even the middle ages, Neo-Platonic thinking had a major impact on Christian thought. It stretches clear back to Julian the Apostate. Iamblichus just didn't form a new pagan religion-it was modeled after competing Christianity with a sacramental structure.
---Back up a few years into the first "Christian" emperor, Constantine, and the mixing of Christianity & paganism.
---Now bring in a few years later Julian the Apostate & the synthesis of Iamblichus.
---Then move forward. The "Christian" Church has been severely hammered by compromise that it has never fully shaken off.....
So for those who were already following both Platonic thought on the state-of-the-dead (immortality of the soul) as the influential church father Tertullian (160-225 AD) did, it was one more push by the blending under Julian the Apostate.
Iamblichus main theme was the immortality of the soul by blending Chaldean, Hermetic & Orphic writings. From the Hermetic writings one can see it's influence over Iamblichus with the following Platonic view "O son, how many bodies have we to pass through, how many bands of demons, through how many series of repetitions and cycles of the stars, before we hasten to the One alone? The Way Of Hermes p.33.
You can see what was creeping into Christianity as it relates to the state-of-the-dead. During Constantine there was the organizing of the realm and its religion by Lactantius (whose job was to find a way to make Christianity more appealing to pagans) where Platonism had crept in. Then under Julian the Apostate & the blending of ideas of Iamblichus (whose thought was influential in the attempt to make a paganism that resembled Christianity) you can see what emerged-a paganistic Christianity.
Here you can read some of this synthesis and psycho-babel of Iamblichus
http://www.esotericarchives.com/oracle/iambl_th.htm
The dead are sleeping, as it were, in the dust. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Daniel 12:2
When do the dead make their ascent to Heaven? For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 1Thessalonians 4:16
So for those who were already following both Platonic thought on the state-of-the-dead (immortality of the soul) as the influential church father Tertullian (160-225 AD) did, it was one more push by the blending under Julian the Apostate.
Iamblichus main theme was the immortality of the soul by blending Chaldean, Hermetic & Orphic writings. From the Hermetic writings one can see it's influence over Iamblichus with the following Platonic view "O son, how many bodies have we to pass through, how many bands of demons, through how many series of repetitions and cycles of the stars, before we hasten to the One alone? The Way Of Hermes p.33.
You can see what was creeping into Christianity as it relates to the state-of-the-dead. During Constantine there was the organizing of the realm and its religion by Lactantius (whose job was to find a way to make Christianity more appealing to pagans) where Platonism had crept in. Then under Julian the Apostate & the blending of ideas of Iamblichus (whose thought was influential in the attempt to make a paganism that resembled Christianity) you can see what emerged-a paganistic Christianity.
Here you can read some of this synthesis and psycho-babel of Iamblichus
http://www.esotericarchives.com/oracle/iambl_th.htm
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But what is the clear teaching of Scripture on the state-of-the-dead? For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, Ecclesiastes 9:5The dead are sleeping, as it were, in the dust. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Daniel 12:2
When do the dead make their ascent to Heaven? For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 1Thessalonians 4:16
