On the Mysteries (De Mysteriis)

Iamblichus's reply to Porphyry's sceptical letter, and the founding defence of ritual as a path to the divine. The argument that matters here: rites work not because they persuade or compel the gods — that would be magic, and coercion — but because the gods themselves seeded matter with tokens of their own nature, so the rite is the divine reaching down, not the human reaching up. The distinction between theurgy and coercive magic is precisely the distinction this app draws between a blessing and a working, and Iamblichus drew it first.