According to Eunapius, he differed from Iamblichus on certain points connected with magic. He taught at Pergamum, his chief disciples being Eusebius and Maximus.
He is mentioned both by Diogenes Laertius and by Iamblichus, but nothing is known of his life.
He migrated to Syria, attracted by the lectures of Iamblichus, whose follower he became.
He was perhaps the most important of the followers of Iamblichus.
In logic he is reported to have agreed with Eusebius, Iamblichus and Porphyry in asserting the validity of the second and third figures of the syllogism.
In the hands of Iamblichus (q.v.), the pupil of Porphyry, Neoplatonism is changed " from a philosophical theory to a theological doctrine."
It indoctrinated the church with all its mysticism, its mystic exercises and even its magical cultus as taught by Iamblichus.
Little is known of her philosophical opinions, but she appears to have embraced the intellectual rather than the mystical side of Neoplatonism, and to have been a follower of Plotinus rather than of Porphyry and Iamblichus.
Moreover, in the unbridled exercise of speculation, the number of divine beings was increased indefinitely; and these fantastic accessions to l Olympus in the system of Iamblichus show that Greek philosophy 'is returning to mythology, and that nature-religion is still a power in the world.
On certain points of doctrine, too, the dogmatic of Iamblichus indicates a real advance.
The distinctive tenets of Iamblichus cannot be accounted for from scientific but only from practical considerations.
The numerous followers of Iamblichus - Aedesius, Chrysanthius, Eusebius, Priscus, Sopater, Sallust, and, most famous of all, Maximus, rendered little service to speculation.
The system culminates in a mystical act, and in the sequel, especially with Iamblichus and the Syrian Neoplatonists, mystical practice tended more and more to overshadow the theoretical groundwork.
The works of the pseudoDionysius contain a gnosis in which, by means of the teaching of Iamblichus and Proclus, the church's theology is turned into a scholastic mysticism with directions on matters of practice and ritual.
There is a curious reference to Iamblichus, apparently the neo-platonist philosopher, whose name Jordanes, being, as he says himself, agrammatus, inserts by way of a flourish.
There is more than one meaning of Iamblichus discussed in the 1911 Encyclopedia.
Thus in the history of science Neoplatonism has played a part and rendered services of which Plotinus or Iamblichus or Proclus never dreamt.
We cannot take the Platonic speculations of Iamblichus about the nature and manifestations of Egyptian godhead as evidence for the belief of the peoples who first worshipped the Egyptian gods an innumerable series of ages before Iamblichus and Plutarch.
We have to come down to Iamblichus and his school before we find complete correspondence with the Christian Gnosticism of the and century; that is to say, it is only in the 4th century that Greek philosophy in its proper development reaches the stage at which certain Greek philosophers who had embraced Christianity had arrived in the and century.