27 Cf. Kobusch (1976), 188-91; Aujoulat (1986), 122-38; and especially I. Hadot (1979), who provides extensive references.

Before doing this, however, Hierocles refers to the Sacred Discourse attributed to Pythagoras which he reports as praising the demiurge god as the 'number of numbers' (87, 20-1). A brief interpretation is provided: since the demiurge god made all things,

The number in the form of each thing is dependent on the cause in him, and the first number is there [ κει , i.e. in god], for it is from there that number comes here. (87, 21-5)

The passage is too brief to allow us to conclude, for example, that the Iamblichean idea of 'physical number' is implied. But it could well be considered as yielding a brief glimpse into the sort of interpretation Iamblichus might have provided for the Sacred Discourse.

Mathematics is not the only intermediary for Hierocles in the ascent to god. 'Hieratic' purifications are required by the 'pneumatic vehicle' of the soul (116, 27-117, 4). The reference, it has been noted, is to the 'Chaldaean Oracles', which are quoted earlier in the same connection. ²⁸ 

²⁸ I. Hadot (1978), 71; cf. 111, 20 (= Or. Chald. 119); 112, 9 (= Or. Chald. 120).

Thus not only does Hierocles appropriate Plato for Pythagoreanism, in this sense 'harmonizing' them (σ μ ωνος, 98,

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20), but Pythagoreanism is also combined with the 'Chaldaean Oracles'. All that is missing for this Iamblichean view of philosophy to be complete is Orpheus, yet he also is present, implicitly, as the alleged revelatory source of the Pythagorean Sacred Discourse. ²⁹ 

²⁹ Cf. above, Ch. 4 n. 13.

4. Conclusion

Hierocles' theories about providence and free will, about the structure of reality and man's relation to it, deserve and have received separate treatment. ³⁰ 

³⁰ Kobusch (1976); I. Hadot (1978); Aujoulat (1986).

It has been the purpose of this chapter to show that Hierocles' attitude to the nature and history of philosophy can be related at many points to Iamblichus' views and in particular to his interpretation of Pythagorean philosophy. There appear to be some differences on the subject of Aristotle and (possibly) of Ammonius. There is also the contrast between the absence of Pythagoras in Photius' précis of On Providence and the centrality of Pythagoreanism for philosophy in the Commentary on the Golden Verses. Yet we may here be the victim of Photius' procedures. Detailed doctrinal comparisons between the reports on On Providence and the Commentary do not suggest that Hierocles held divergent theories in these works. ³¹ 

³¹ Cf. especially I. Hadot (1978), ch. V.

Both works presuppose an Iamblichean mixing of Platonic (or Pythagorean) philosophy with barbarian revelation. For both works philosophy is itself a revelation which, as Photius' report seems to suggest and as the Commentary explains, is communicated to man for his benefit by souls less emprisoned by the body and privy to the transcendent vision of Plato's Phaedrus. The Commentary corresponds in fact in many respects—in intention, level, approach—to the first books of Iamblichus' On Pythagoreanism. If the Commentary, however, does not depend on On Pythagoreanism as its immediate source, it remains that Iamblichean Pythagoreanism provides a context for explaining why a Neoplatonic teacher of the late fourth/early fifth century would choose, as a way of initiating beginners to philosophy, to comment on the Pythagorean Golden Verses. And, as noted above, Hierocles' position on the nature and history of philosophy in his Commentary represents the essential points of Iamblichus' Pythagoreanizing programme.

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