First, in the mystery religions and famously among ad-
herents of the Pythagorean sects, the term sumbolon desig-
nates a particularly significant kind of authentication. It is
the secret password or short, enigmatic verbal formula that
verifies membership in a particular cult. These symbols car-
ried the added power to authenticate a cult member as he
or she ascended a ladder of spiritual wisdom. Knowledge of
the secret symbol allows a person to gain access to higher tiers
of enlightenment. In the deepest expression of this aspect,
the symbol can be used after death to give the deceased access
to the regions of the blessed, where souls live in splendor after
their separation from their bodies. These symbols are indeed
passports but ones that facilitate the movement of humans
toward the divine, and so set up conditions more congenial
to the later development of the idea. This background under-
lies the early Christian usage of the Latin symbolum for the
Apostle’s Creed.
The second important context for understanding the
symbol’s later history is in the field of divination. A different
Greek term, the masculine sumbolos, which emerges from a
different sense of the originating verb sumballein, applies
here. In addition to the idea of agreement, the verb carries
a meaning of “to meet.” Again, on philological parallels, the
masculine noun in omicron indicates a thing or person doing
the action of meeting, and so comes to indicate that which
one meets. In the field of divination, chance meetings of
many kinds played an important role, and sumbolos is the
most general term for these. Because of the prominence of
the neuter form (and of neuter forms in the language of divi-
nation more generally) the masculine term tends to become
assimilated to the neuter. By the classical period, it had out-
grown its specific use to describe an ominous chance meeting
and had become a general term for a divine sign of any kind.
The symbol as divine sign forms the second important back-
ground idea to the later development of the concept. In a
kind of mirror image of the symbol in the Mysteries, the di-
vine sign also facilitates movement of the divine toward the
human. In both contexts, human aspirations for the divine
are expressed in concrete form.
These early manifestations of the notion of the symbol
contain two important aspects. First, a current of secrecy is
present throughout. The symbol marks a form of sign that
brings something to light, and yet it means something that
is not apparent to the uninitiated. In other words, the symbol
has an esoteric or “closing” function, as well as an exoteric
or “disclosing” one. Later theories of the symbolic will tend
to preserve this esoteric dimension and draw on the power
that secrecy always bestows. In addition, the symbol in the
mystery context points to a performative dimension to sym-
bolic representation. It has the power to enact a change in
the one who wields it.
On these bases, the term symbol came into slightly
broader use around the Mediterranean in the wake of Alex-
andrian Hellenization after the third century BCE. In addi-
tion to divine omens of all kinds, as well as magico-religious
cultic formulas, the term designated allegorical representa-
tions of the divine in poetic texts, and cultic manifestations
of divinities with their traditional accoutrements, such as ac-
companying birds or distinctive dress. These two develop-
ments show the newfound usefulness of the notion of the
symbol in conceptualizing the ways in which divinities
(which in a Hellenistic context could make increasingly ex-
travagant claims to transcendence) might somehow be cap-
tured in more tangible forms. This use is an abrupt departure
from the classical practice and is surely due to the influence
of the usages in divination and in the mysteries. So the sym-
bol began to describe that particular mode of representation
through which, for example, Homer’s all-too-corporeal gods
or traditional cultic forms of anthropomorphic divinities
might relate to a transcendent divine principle as it was be-
ginning to be understood. It is perhaps not a surprise that
a parallel (and pivotal) context emerged in the Greek Magical
Papyri, in which a symbol meant a magical amulet or token.
It marked a divinely charged material object that had some
sort of numinous power to produce tangible effects here on
earth. It was intended to describe a reproduction of the di-
vine in material form rather than a representation per se.
SYMBOLS IN LATE ANTIQUITY. In late antiquity, the symbol
took on a new life, one that marked a crucial stage in its de-
velopment. The post-Plotinian Neoplatonists explicitly mar-
ried the Pythagorean password to enlightenment, the omen,
the material representation that renders the traditional god
in tangible form, the allegorical representations of the divini-
ties in poetic texts, and the amulet of the magicians in order
to produce a systematic theory of the symbol as a master de-
vice of representation. The first stage in this development be-
gins with the work of Iamblichus (c. 245–c. 325), who fol-
lowed Plotinus’ lead in making philosophy a soteriological
pursuit. Drawing on the Pythagoreans for inspiration, he
claimed that different levels of knowledge required different
forms of discourse. Scientific knowledge might be reached
adequately through likenesses and images, but esoteric wis-
dom of the divine superstructure of the cosmos required a
secret language of symbols. In his On the Mysteries, Iam-
blichus further develops this idea in relation to what he saw
as the secret symbolic language of the Egyptians. Knowledge
of the hieroglyphs was spotty in late antiquity, and ignorance
of this language contributed greatly to its perceived capacity
to carry the most profound wisdom. Iamblichus also devoted
a great deal of attention to justifying a form of ritual praxis,
part of his comprehensive philosophical-religious discipline,
in which symbols play a critical part. They are required to
activate the rituals; more specifically, they are the material
items or secret language that invokes the divine presence.
This notion implies that symbolic figuration relies not on
mimetic imitation but on the invocation of true presence.
These developments led to the work of the great follow-
er of Iamblichus, Proclus (d. 485). Proclus created a highly
developed symbol theory that played a central role in his
metaphysics, his theory of ritual, and his views on figuration
of the divine in language or in the arts. All the post-PlotinianSYMBOL AND SYMBOLISM 8907