2.2 (14) On the Motion of Heaven¹

§2.2.1. Why does it ‘move in a circle’?² Because it is imitating Intellect. And what does this motion belong to – soul or body? Is it, then, that soul is in and related to motion? Does soul strive to be in motion? Is soul in motion without being in continuous motion? Or is it that, as soul is borne along, it bears [body] along with itself? But if the soul is bearing5 [body] along with itself, it should no longer be bearing it but instead should have borne it, that is, it should rather have made it come to a stop and not always go in a circle, just as³ soul itself will have stopped. Or if the soul is in motion, it is certainly not in motion in a spatial manner. How, then, does soul move body in a spatial manner, if it itself is in some other kind of motion?⁴

Perhaps the circular motion in question is also not spatial, or if it is, then only accidentally. What, then, is this motion like? It is directed to10 itself, involves both perceptual and intellectual self-awareness, is vital,⁵ and is nowhere outside itself or anywhere else⁶ on account of its having to encompass all things. For the sovereign part of the living being is encompassing and what makes it one. But if it remained still, it will not encompass it in a vital manner, nor will it, since it has a body, preserve the things within it. For the life of the body is motion.⁷ If, then, this motion is also spatial, it will be in motion as it is able and not only as15 a soul but as an ensouled body⁸ and as a living being. As a result, the motion will be mixed from corporeal motion and soul-motion; body being borne by nature straight ahead and soul containing it, and what results from these two is both borne and remains still.⁹

If the circular motion is said to belong to body, how could this be the20 case, given that every body and especially fire moves in a straight line?¹⁰ Either fire moves in a straight line until it reaches the place where it was ordered to be; for fire appears both to come to a natural stop just as it was ordered to do, and to be borne to where it was ordered to be.¹¹ Why, then, does it not remain still once it has got there? Is it because fire’s nature is to be in motion? If it does not, then, move in a circle, it will be dispersed¹² in a series of straight lines. It must, therefore, move in a circle. But this is [the25 work] of providence, yet it exists in the fire from providence. As a result, if fire comes to be there, it moves in a circle of its own accord. Or else, fire desires to go straight on but does not have any more place to go, so it turns back – slipping around, in a way – within the places it is able to move. For it has no place beyond itself, since this is the outermost place.¹³

It runs,¹⁴ then, in the place that it has – and heaven is itself this place –30 not in order that, having come to be there, it might remain still, but that it might be borne in motion. The centre of the circle naturally remains at rest, but if the outer periphery should remain at rest, it would just end up being a big centre. It will be more appropriate, then, for a body that is alive and in its natural state to be moving around the centre [at the periphery]. For this is its manner of contracting to the centre, not by35 collapsing into the centre – for this would destroy the circle – but rather, since collapsing isn’t an option, by rotation. For this is the only way for it to satisfy its desire.

But if soul is leading it around, it does not involve any toil on its part.¹⁵ For it does not drag it, nor is this motion contrary to its nature. For nature is simply what has been ordered by the soul of the cosmos.

Further, as soul is everywhere as a whole and as the soul of the40 universe is not divided part by part, it allows heaven, too, to be everywhere to the extent that this is possible, and it is possible for it by passing through or traversing all things. For if the soul had come to a stop at any point, heaven, having come to that point, would come to a stop there, too. But as it is, since the soul is of the entire cosmos, fire will desire it everywhere.¹⁶ And so? Will it never attain it?45

In fact, this way it is always attaining it, or rather the soul is always leading it to soul and by always leading it is always moving it, and soul is not moving it to another place but to itself in the identical place, and by leading it not in a straight line but in a circle, soul gives it possession of soul wherever it happens to be. But if soul remained still, as if occupying in heaven only the place where each heavenly body remains, heaven50 would come to a stop. If, then, soul is not only at some particular place in heaven, the heaven will be borne in motion everywhere and not outside. Therefore, it goes in a circle.

§2.2.2. What about the other [heavenly bodies], then?

In fact, each one is not a whole but a part contained in a particular place, whereas heaven is a whole and is place, in a way, and there is nothing to stand in its way. For it is the universe. What about human beings, then?

In fact, insofar as they derive from the universe, each is a part, but insofar as they are themselves, each is its own whole.5

If, then, [the heavenly bodies]¹⁷ have soul wherever they are, why must [they] move around? Because they do not only have it there. If the power of this soul is directed towards the middle, this would also explain the circular motion. But ‘middle’ must not be understood to mean the same thing when used of body and of soul; in the case of soul, the middle is that from which the rest of the soul derives, whereas a body’s middle is to be understood spatially. ‘Middle’, then, must be understood analogously.10 For just as in the former case, so, too, must there be a middle in the latter case, which alone is the middle of body, that is, of spherical body. For just as the former is around its middle, so, too, is the latter. If there is indeed a middle of soul, soul, by running around god, is embracing him with love¹⁸ and surrounding him to whatever extent it can do so. For all things depend on him.¹⁹ Since, then, it is not possible15 to go to him, it goes around him.

How, then, is it that all souls do not move in this manner?

In fact, each moves in this manner wherever it is. Why, then, do not our bodies also move in this manner? Because the kind of body that is attached to our souls moves in straight lines, and because our impulses are directed at other objects, and because our spherical part [the head] is not set to run smoothly.²⁰ For it is earthy. But in heaven [the body of fire], being light²¹ and easily moved, follows along with the soul’s motion. For20 why would it ever bring any motion of the soul to a stop? But perhaps even in our case there is a body that does this [viz. follows along with the soul’s motion], namely, the breath surrounding the soul.²² For if god is in all things,²³ the soul that wants to be with him must come to be around him. For he is not in any place. And Plato not only attributes to the stars the spherical motion that they share with the whole heaven; he also grants25 each star the motion around its own centre.²⁴ For each, right where it is, encompasses god and gives praise, not as the result of an act of calculative reasoning, but by the necessities of nature.

§2.2.3. And let us assume that things are as follows: there is a certain faculty²⁵ of the soul that is the ultimate faculty²⁶ and that begins from the earth and is ‘woven’ throughout the whole;²⁷ and there is the natural faculty of sense-perception and that of rational belief,²⁸ and this faculty keeps itself directed to what is above in the spheres, riding upon the5 former faculty and giving it from itself a more vital faculty for production.

The lower faculty, then, is moved by the higher faculty, which encompasses it in a sphere and is seated upon however much of the lower faculty has run up into the spheres. While the higher faculty, then, encompasses the lower one in a sphere, the lower one converges and reverts towards the higher, and its reversion leads the body around in which it is interwoven.²⁹10 For if an individual part of the sphere is moved at all, and if it remains in the sphere as it is moved,³⁰ then it shakes the whole of which it is a part and motion results for the sphere. For in the case of our bodies, too, while the soul is moved in some other mode – in joy, for example, or in something’s appearing to be good – the motion of the body that results is spatial. And15 especially, when [the lower] soul comes to be up there, in a good [place], and has become more perceptive, it is moved towards the Good and shakes the body in the spatial manner that is natural to it there. And the faculty of sense-perception also receives the Good in turn from what is above it, and it delights in its own delights, and by pursuing the Good that is in all places, it is borne along to all places. And this is the manner of the Intellect’s20 motion. For it is at rest and in motion. For it is moving around the Good.³¹ In this way, then, the universe, too, is moving in a circle and at rest.³²

¹ In his VP Porphyry twice gives the title of this treatise as On the Circular Motion (4.49 and 24.42).

² Cf. 3.2.3.30; 6.9.8.1–8. See Pl., Tim. 34A4; Lg. 898A5–B3; Ar., DA 1.3.406b26–407b11; Alex. Aphr., Quaestiones 40.18–21, 63.1–2, 63.20–21.

³ Reading ᾗ with Harder in line 6 and removing the full stop after κύκλῳ.

⁴ See Ar., DA 1.4.408a28–35.

⁵ Cf. 4.4.8.42–45.

⁶ Reading ἄλλοθι κατὰ with HS⁴, and following HS⁴ in changing the question mark after περιλαμβάνειν to a raised dot.

⁷ Cf. 3.2.4.12–13.

⁸ See Pl., Tim. 30B9.

⁹ Cf. 6.3.24.11–13.

¹⁰ See Ar., DC 1.2.268b20–269a7, 269a17–18.

¹¹ See Ar., Phys. 4.4.211a4–5, 5.212b33–34.

¹² I.e., lose its unity.

¹³ Cf. 2.1.3.14–17. See Ar., DC 1.9.279a17–18.

¹⁴ See Pl., Crat. 398C1–7.

¹⁵ Cf. 2.1.3.18–20; 2.1.4.31–32. See Ar., DA 1.3.407b1–2; DC 2.1.284a27–35.

¹⁶ I.e., fire has a propensity to be where the soul is, namely, everywhere. Reading πᾶσά ἐστιν, αὐτῆς πάντη ἐφίεται with HS⁴. Cf. 5.1.2.29–39; 6.4.2.39–43.

¹⁷ The subject is unclear, but it appears to refer to any and all heavenly bodies. One alternative would be ‘heaven’; another would be ‘fire’.

¹⁸ See Homer, Il. 16.192.

¹⁹ This is the Good, here referred to as a god, but often referred to impersonally. Cf. 1.6.7.10–12; 1.7.1.20–22; 3.2.3.33–36; 6.8.7.8–9. See Ar., Meta. 12.7.1072b13–14, 19–24 for whom the first principle of all is the Unmoved Mover.

²⁰ Cf. 4.4.26.23–27. See Ar., GA 2.3.736a30–737a1.

²¹ Reading λεπτὸν <ὂν> καὶ with HS⁵. Cf. 4.4.26.26–27.

²² The pneumatic or astral or ethereal body. See Pl., Phdr. 246B2, 247B2; Tim. 41E1–2, 75A5–E9.

²³ See Thales apud Ar., DA 1.5.411a7.

²⁴ See Pl., Tim. 40A8–B2.

²⁵ Or: ‘power’ (δύναμις). Plotinus here seems to be applying the Aristotelian faculty psychology to the soul of the cosmos.

²⁶ The growth faculty, including reproduction, nourishment, and increase in size.

²⁷ See Pl., Tim. 36E2.

²⁸ See Pl., Tim. 37A2–C3.

²⁹ Cf. 2.1.5.5–8; 2.3.18.10–13; 3.8.4.15–16, 5.1–16; 4.4.13.1–11; 5.9.6.19; 6.2.22.29–35.

³⁰ Retaining the εἰ μένον κινοῖτο of the mss.

³¹ Cf. 1.7.1.23–24; 3.9.7.2–3; 4.4.16.23–31.

³² Cf. supra 1.8–19; 5.1.4.35–37. See Pl., Parm. 146A7.