§5.1.1. What can it be, therefore,1 that has made the souls forget the god who is their father2 and be ignorant of themselves and him even though they are parts of the intelligible world and completely belong to it?
The starting point for their evil3 is, then, audacity, generation, primary difference,4 and their willing that they belong to themselves.55 Since they appeared actually to take pleasure in their autonomy, and to have made much use of their self-motion, running in the opposite direction and getting as far away from home as possible, they came not to know even that they themselves were from the intelligible world. They were like children who at birth are separated from their fathers 10and, being raised for a long time far away, are ignorant both of themselves and of their fathers. They can, then, no longer see their father or themselves, and they dishonour themselves, due to their ignorance of their lineage, honouring instead other things, in fact, everything more than themselves. They marvel at these things and are awestruck by them; they love them and are dependent on them; they severed themselves 15as much as possible from the things from which they turned away and which they dishonoured.
So, it follows that it is honouring these things and dishonouring themselves that is the cause of their absolute ignorance of god. For to pursue and marvel at something is at the same time to accept that one is inferior to that which one is pursuing and to that at which one is marvelling. If one supposes oneself inferior to things that come to be20 and perish and assumes oneself to be the most dishonoured and mortal of the things one does honour, neither the nature nor the power of god could ever ‘be impressed in one’s heart’.6
For this reason, the way of arguing with those so disposed should be twofold – that is, if one is indeed going to turn them around in the opposite direction and towards the things that are primary and lead them up to that which is highest or first, that is, the One. What, then, are 25the two ways?
The first is to show how the things now honoured by the soul are in fact dishonourable; we will discuss this further elsewhere.7 The second is to teach the soul to remember the sort of lineage it has and what its worth is – a line of reasoning that is prior to the other one and, once it is clear, makes that other one evident, too. This is what needs to be spoken of now; it is close to what we are seeking and provides the groundwork 30for it. For what is doing the seeking is a soul, and it ought to know what it is that is doing the seeking, so that it should first of all learn about itself; whether it has the ability for seeking such things, whether it has the right sort of ‘eye’ that is able to see,8 and whether it is fitting for it to seek these things. For if the things sought are alien to it, why should it seek them? But if they are of the same lineage, it is fitting for it to seek 35them, and it is possible to find that which it is seeking.9
§5.1.2. So, let every soul first consider that soul itself10 made all living beings by breathing life into them, those that are nourished by the earth and the sea, those in the air, and the divine stars in heaven. Soul itself made the sun and this great heaven, and it ordered it, and makes it 5circulate in a regular way, being a nature different from that which it orders, from that which it moves, and from that which it makes to be alive.11 And it is necessarily more honourable than these, since while these are generated and destroyed whenever soul departs from them or supplies them with life, soul itself exists forever by ‘not departing from itself’.12
As for the actual manner in which it supplies life to the whole 10universe13 and to each individual, this is how soul should reckon the matter: let it consider the great soul,14 as being itself another soul of no small value having already been released from deception, and from the things that have enchanted other souls, and that it is in a state of tranquillity. Let not only its encompassing body and its surging waves 15be tranquil, but all that surrounds it;15 let the earth be tranquil, the sea and the air be tranquil, and heaven itself, its better part.16 Let this soul, then, think of the great soul as, in a way, flowing or pouring everywhere into immobile17 heaven from ‘outside’,18 inhabiting and completely illuminating it. Just as rays from the sun light up a dark cloud, make it 20shine, and give it a golden appearance, so soul entered into the body of heaven and gave it life, gave it immortality, and wakened it from sleep.
And heaven, moved with an everlasting motion by the ‘wise guidance’19 of soul, became ‘a happy living being’,20 and acquired its25 value from soul’s dwelling within it, before which it was a dead body, mere earth and water, or rather the darkness of matter or non-being21 and ‘that which the gods hate’, as the poet says.22 The power and nature of soul would be more apparent, or clearer, if one were to reflect here on how soul encompasses and directs heaven by its own acts of will. For 30soul has given itself to the entire extent of heaven, however much that is, and every interval both great and small is ensouled, even as one body lies apart from another, one here and one there, some separated by the contraries of which they are composed, and some separated in other ways.
The soul is, however, not like that, and it does not make something 35alive by a part of itself being broken up and put into each individual, but all things are alive by the whole of it, and all soul, being the same as the father who begat it,23 is present everywhere in each thing and in everything. And though heaven is multiple and diverse, it is one by the power 40of soul, and this cosmos is a god due to this.24 The sun is also a god – because it is ensouled – and the other stars; as, for this reason are we, if indeed anything [is a god], ‘for corpses are more apt for disposal than dung’.25
But the explanation for gods, being gods, must necessarily be a god older than they. Our soul is of the same kind, and when you examine it without the accretions, taking it in its ‘purified condition’,26 you will 45find that it has the identical value that soul was found to have, more valuable than everything that is corporeal. For all corporeal things are earth. But even if they were fire, what would be the cause of its burning? And so, too, for everything composed of these, even if you add water and air. But if the body is worth pursuing just because it is ensouled, why 50would one27 ignore oneself to pursue another? If you love the soul in another, then love yourself.
§5.1.3. Since the soul is indeed such an honourable and divine thing, you should by now already be confident in your pursuit of a god like this, and with this explanation in mind, ascend to him. You will certainly not have to cast far, ‘nor are the intermediary steps many’.28 So, understand soul’s higher ‘neighbouring region’,29 which is more divine than the 5divine soul, after which and from which the soul comes. For even though soul is the kind of thing shown by the argument, it is an image of Intellect.30 Just as spoken words are an expressed principle of thinking, so, too, Soul is an expressed principle of Intellect,31 and its whole activity, and the life which it sends forth to make something else really exist.32 It is just like fire that has both internal heat and radiant heat.33 10But in the intelligible world, one should understand that the internal activity does not flow out of it; rather, one activity remains in it, and the other is that which comes into existence.34
Since, then, Soul is derived from Intellect, it is intellectual, and its own intellect is found in its acts of calculative reasoning,35 and its perfection, too, comes from Intellect, like a father raising a child whom he begat as imperfect in relation to himself. Its real existence, 15then, comes from Intellect, and its actuality as an expressed principle derived from Intellect occurs when Intellect is seen in it. For whenever Soul looks into Intellect, what it thinks and actualizes are objects that belong to it and come from within itself. And these alone should be called activities of Soul, namely, those that are intellectual and those that belong to it. The inferior activities come from elsewhere, and are states of an inferior soul.3620
Intellect, then, makes Soul even more divine by being its father and by being present to it. For there is nothing in between them but the fact of their being different, Soul as next in order and as receptive, and Intellect as form. Even the matter of Intellect is beautiful,37 since it is like Intellect and simple.38 What Intellect is like, then, is clear from the above, namely, that it is superior to Soul thus described.25
§5.1.4. One could also see this from the following. Take someone who starts by marvelling at this sensible cosmos, looking at its expanse and its beauty and its everlasting motion and the gods in it, both the visible and the invisible ones, and the daemons, and all the animals and plants; let 5him then ascend to the archetype of this cosmos and the truer reality, and in the intelligible world let him see all that is intelligible and eternal in it with its own comprehension and life,39 and ‘pure Intellect’ presiding over these, and indescribable wisdom, and the life that is truly that under the reign of Kronos, a god of ‘fullness’ and intellect.40 For it 10encompasses every immortal within itself, that is, every intellect, every god, every soul, and is always stable. For why should it seek to change from its happy condition?41 Where could it go, when it has all things within itself? It does not even seek to enlarge itself, since it is absolutely perfect.
For this reason, in addition, all the things in it are perfect so as to be15 perfect in every way, having nothing which is not like this, nothing in it that it does not think and it thinks not by way of enquiring but by having what it thinks.42 Its blessedness is not acquired; rather, everything is in it eternally, and it is true eternity, which time imitates, moving around it43 along with Soul, dropping some things and picking up others. For at the level of Soul, thoughts are always changing; now it thinks of Socrates, 20now of a horse – always some particular being – whereas Intellect just is everything. It has, then, all Beings stable in it,44 and it alone is, and the ‘is’ is always,45 and the future is nothing to it – for it ‘is’ then, too – nor is there a past for it – for nothing in the intelligible world has passed away – but all Beings are set within it always inasmuch as they are identical and 25in a way pleased to be in this condition.
Each of them is Intellect and Being,46 that is, the totality consists of all Intellect and all Being – Intellect, insofar as it thinks, making Being come to exist, and Being, by its being thought, giving to Intellect its thinking, which is its existence.47 But the cause of thinking is something else, something that is also the cause of Being:48 in other words, the cause of both is something else. For those coexist simultaneously and do 30not abandon each other, but this one thing is nevertheless two: Intellect and Being, thinking and what is being thought – Intellect, insofar as it is thinking, Being insofar as it is what is being thought.49 For thinking could not occur if there was not Difference as well as Identity.
The first things that occur, then, are Intellect, Being, Difference, and 35Identity. And one should include Motion and Stability – Motion if Intellect is thinking, and Stability so that it remains the identical thing.50 There must be Difference, so that there can be both thinking and what is being thought; in fact, if you were to remove Difference, it would become one and fall silent. It also must be that things that are thought are different from each other.51 There must also be Identity, 40since Intellect is one with itself, that is, there is a certain commonality in52 all its objects, but ‘differentiation is Difference’.53 And in becoming many, they produce Number and quantity, and quality is the unique character of each of these, and from these as principles all the other things arise.54
§5.1.5. The god, then, who is above Soul is multiple, and it is possible for Soul to exist within this, connected to it, so long as it does not want to be ‘separated’ from it.55 When it, then, approaches Intellect and in a way becomes one with it, it seeks to know who it is that produced it.56 It is that which is simple and prior to this multiplicity, which is the cause 5of this god’s existence and its being multiple;57 it is the producer of Number. For Number is not primary.
Before the Dyad is the One; the Dyad is second and, having come from the One, the One imposes definiteness on it, whereas it is in itself indefinite.58 When it has been made definite, it is henceforth Number, Number as Substance.59 Soul, too, is Number;60 for the first things are 10neither masses nor magnitudes. The things that have thickness, those things that sense-perception takes to be beings, come later. Nor is it the moist part in seeds that is valuable, but the part that is not seen. This is number and an expressed principle.61 What are, then, called Number and the Dyad in the intelligible world are expressed principles and Intellect. But whereas the Dyad, understood as a sort of substrate, is 15indefinite,62 each Number that comes from it and the One is a Form, Intellect in a way having been shaped by the Forms that come to be in it.63 In one manner, it is shaped by the One, and in another by itself, as in the way the power of sight is actualized.64 For intellection is a vision in which seeing and what is seen are one.65
§5.1.6. How, then, does Intellect see, and what does it see, and how in general did it get to exist or come to be from the One in such a way that it can see? For the soul now grasps that these things must of necessity be, but in addition it longs to grasp the answer to the question much discussed indeed among the ancient wise men, too, of how from a unity, such as we say the One is, anything acquired real existence, 5whether multiplicity or duality or number;66 why it did not remain by itself, but why instead such a multiplicity flowed from it – a multiplicity which, though seen among Beings, we judge appropriate to refer back to it.
Let us speak of this matter, then, in the following manner, calling to god himself, not with spoken words, but by stretching our arms in 10prayer to him in our soul, in this way being able to pray alone to him who is alone.67 So, since god is by himself, as if inside a temple, remaining tranquil while transcending everything,68 the contemplator should contemplate the statues which are in a way fixed outside the temple already – or rather the first statue displayed, revealed to sight in the 15following manner.
It must be that for everything in motion there is something towards which it moves.69 Since the One has nothing towards which it moves, let us not suppose that it is moving. But if something comes to be after it, it has necessarily come to be by being eternally turned towards it [the One].70 Let the sort of coming to be that is in time not get in our way, 20since our discussion is concerned with things that are eternal. When in our discussion we attribute ‘coming to be’ to them, we are doing so in order to give their causal order.71 We should say, then, that that which comes to be from the One in the intelligible world does so without the One being moved. For if something came to be as a result of its having moved, then that which came to be would be third in line from it, after 25the motion, and not second. It must be, then, that if something was second in line from it, that thing came to exist while the One was unmoved, neither inclining, nor having willed anything, nor moving in any way.72
How, then, does this happen, and what should we think about what is near to the One while it reposes? A radiation of light comes from it, though it reposes, like the light from the sun, in a way encircling it, 30eternally coming from it while it reposes. And all beings, so long as they persist, necessarily, due to the power present in them, produce from their own substantiality a real, though dependent, existent around themselves directed to their exterior, a sort of image of the archetypes from which it was generated.73 Fire produces the heat that comes from it, and snow does not only hold its coldness inside itself. Perfumes 35especially witness to this, for so long as they exist, something flows from them around them, the existence of which a bystander enjoys. Further, all things, as soon as they are perfected, generate.74 That which is always perfect always generates something everlasting, and it generates something inferior to itself.
What, then, must we say about that which is most perfect? Nothing 40can come from it except what is next greatest after it. And the greatest thing after it, the second greatest thing, is Intellect. For Intellect sees the One and is in need of it alone. But the One has no need of Intellect. And that which is generated from something greater than Intellect is Intellect;75 and Intellect is greater than all other things, because other things come after it. For example, Soul is an expressed principle derived 45from Intellect and a certain activity, just as Intellect is an activity of the One. But Soul’s expressed principle is murky, for it is a reflection of Intellect and, due to this, it must look to Intellect. Similarly, Intellect has to look to the One, so that it can be Intellect. It sees it not as having been separated from it, but because it comes after it and there is nothing in between, as there is nothing in between Soul and Intellect. Everything longs for that which generated it and loves this, especially 50when there is just generator and that which is generated. And ‘whenever what is best is the generator’,76 that which is generated must necessarily be found with it, since they are only separated by being different.
§5.1.7. We are saying that Intellect is an image of the One,77 first – for we should express ourselves more clearly – because that which is produced must somehow be the One and preserve many of its properties, that is, be the same as it, just like the light that comes from the sun. But the One is not Intellect. How, then, does it generate Intellect?5
In fact, by its reversion to it, Intellect saw the One, and this seeing is Intellect.78 For that which grasps anything other than itself is either79 sense-perception or intellect. Sense-perception is a line, etc.80 But the circle is the sort of thing that can be divided, and Intellect is not like that.
In fact, there is unity here, but the One is the productive power of 10all things.81 Intellection observes those things of which the One is the productive power, in a way cutting itself off from that power. Otherwise, it would not have become Intellect – since as soon as it is generated, it has from itself, in a way, its self-awareness of this power, the power to produce Substance. For Intellect, by means of itself, also defines its own existence by the power that comes from the One.82
And, because it is, in a way, a unitary part of what belongs to the One 15and is the Substance that comes from it, it is strengthened by it and brought to perfection as Substance by it and as derived from it. It sees what is in the intelligible world within itself, a sort of division of the indivisible, and is life and thinking and all things, none of which the One is.83
For in this way everything comes from it, because it is not constrained by some shape, for it is one alone. If it were everything, it 20would be among the Beings. This is why the One is none of the Beings in Intellect, although everything comes from it.84 For this reason, these things are Substances, for each has already been defined, and each has a sort of shape. Being should not be suspended, in a way, in the indefinite, but fixed by definition and stability. Stability among intelligibles 25is definition and shape, by means of which they acquire real existence.85
‘This is the lineage’86 of this Intellect, worthy of the purest Intellect, born from nowhere else than from the first principle, and, having been generated, at once generating all Beings which are with itself, both all the beauty of the Ideas and all the intelligible gods. And 30it is full of the Beings it has generated and, in a way, swallows them again by having them in itself and neither letting them fall into matter nor be reared by Rhea87 – as the mysteries and myths about the gods enigmatically say that Kronos, the wisest god, before the birth of Zeus,35 holds back in himself what he generates, so that he is full and is like Intellect in satiety.
After this, so they say, being already sated, he generates Zeus, for Intellect, being perfect, generates Soul. For since it is perfect, it had to generate and since it was such a great power, it could not be barren. That which was generated by it could, in this case as well, not be superior to it but had to be an inferior reflection of it, first similarly 40undefined, and then defined and made a kind of image by that which generated it. The offspring of Intellect is an expressed principle and a real existent, that which thinks discursively.88 This is what moves around Intellect and is a light and trace of Intellect,89 dependent on it, on one side attached to Intellect and filled up with it and enjoying it and 45sharing in it and thinking, and on the other side, attached to the things that came after it, or rather itself generating what is necessarily inferior to Soul. These matters should be discussed later.90 This is as far as the divine Beings go.
§5.1.8. And it is also because of this that we get Plato’s threefold division: the things ‘around the king of all’ – he says this, meaning the primary things – ‘second around the secondary things’, and ‘third around the tertiary things’.91 And he says ‘father of the cause’92 meaning 5by ‘cause’ Intellect.93 For the Intellect is his Demiurge. And he says that the Demiurge makes the Soul in that ‘mixing-bowl’.94 And since the Intellect is cause, he means by ‘father’ the Good, or that which transcends Intellect and ‘transcends Substantiality’.95 Often he calls Being and the Intellect ‘Idea’,96 which shows that Plato understood that the Intellect comes from the 10Good, and the Soul comes from the Intellect. And these statements of ours are not new nor even recent, but rather were made a long time ago, though not explicitly. The things we are saying now comprise exegeses of those, relying on the writings of Plato himself as evidence that these are ancient views.97
Parmenides previously touched on this doctrine to the extent that he 15identified Being and Intellect, that is, he did not place Being among sensibles, saying ‘for thinking and Being are identical’.98 And he says that Being is ‘immobile’,99 though he does attach thinking to it, eliminating all corporeal motion from it so that it would remain as it is, 20likening it to a ‘spherical mass’,100 because it encompasses all things and because thinking is not external to it, but rather within itself. Saying that it was ‘one’ in his own writings,101 he got blamed for saying that this one thing was found to be many.102
Plato’s Parmenides speaks more accurately when he distinguishes25 from among each other the primary One, which is one in a more proper sense, a second one, which he calls ‘one-many’, and a third one, ‘one and many’.103 In this way, too, he is in harmony with our account of the three natures.
§5.1.9. Anaxagoras, too, in saying that ‘Intellect is pure and unmixed’, is himself positing the first principle as simple and the One as separate, although he neglects to give an accurate account due to his antiquity.104 In addition, Heraclitus knew the One to be everlasting and intelligible, since bodies are always coming into being and are ‘in flux’.105 And for 5Empedocles, ‘Strife’ divides and ‘Love’ is the One – he himself makes this incorporeal, too – and the elements are posited as matter.106
Aristotle later said that the first principle was ‘separate’107 and ‘intelligible’,108 but when he says that ‘it thinks itself’,109 he no longer makes it the first principle.110 Further, he makes many other things 10intelligible – as many as there are spheres in heaven, so that each intelligible moves each sphere111 – but by doing so he describes intelligibles in a way different from Plato, proposing an argument from plausibility, since he did not have an argument from necessity. One might pause to consider whether it is even plausible, for it is more plausible that all the spheres, contributing to one system, should look to one thing that is the first principle.
And one might enquire if the many intelligibles are, according to 15him, derived from one first principle, or whether he holds that there are many principles among the intelligibles.112 And if they are derived from one, it will be clear that it is analogous to the way that, among sensibles, one sphere encompasses another until you reach the outermost one that is dominant. So, in the intelligible world what is first will also encompass everything, that is, there will be an intelligible cosmos. And just as in the 20sensible world the spheres are not empty, but the first is full of stars, and the others also have stars, so, too, in the intelligible world the movers will have many things within themselves, and the truer Beings will be there. But if each one is a principle, the principles will be an arbitrary collection.
And what will be the explanation for their functioning together113 and agreeing on a single task, namely, the concord of the entire 25universe? How can there be equality in number of the sensible spheres in heaven in relation to the intelligibles or movers? And how can these incorporeals be many in this way, without matter to separate them?114
So, among the ancients, those who adhered most closely to the doctrines of Pythagoras and his followers, and to those of Pherecydes,30 held to this account of the nature of things. But some of them worked out this view among themselves in their own writings, while some did not do so in writings but demonstrated it in unwritten discussions115 or altogether left it alone.
§5.1.10. It has already been shown that it is necessary to believe that things are this way: that there is the One which transcends Being, which is such as the argument strove to show to the extent that it is possible to demonstrate anything about these matters; that next in line is Being and Intellect; and that third is the nature that is Soul.116
And just as in nature these aforementioned three are found, so it is 5necessary to believe as well that these are in us. I do not mean that they are among sensibles – for these three are separate from sensibles – but that they are in things that are outside the sensible order, using the term ‘outside ’ in the same manner in which it is used to refer to those things that are outside the whole of heaven. In saying that they belong to a human being, I mean exactly what Plato means by ‘the inner human 10being’.117
So, our soul is something divine and of another nature [i.e., other than sensibles], like the nature of all soul; it is perfect by having intellect. One part of intellect is that which engages in calculative reasoning and one part is that which makes calculative reasoning possible.118 The calculative reasoning part of soul is actually in need of no corporeal 15organ for its calculative reasoning,119 having its own activity in purity in order that it also be possible for it to reason purely. Someone who supposed it to be separate and not mixed with body and in the primary intelligible world would not be mistaken. For we should not search for a place in which to situate it; rather, we should make it outside all place. For this is how it is for that which is by itself, outside and immaterial, 20whenever it is alone, retaining nothing from the nature of the body. Because of this, Plato says that the Demiurge ‘in addition’ encircled the soul of the universe from ‘outside’, pointing to the part of the soul that abides in the intelligible world.120 In our case, he hid his meaning when he said that it is ‘at the top of our head’.121
And his exhortation ‘to be separate’122 is not meant spatially – for our 25intellect is separate by nature – but is an exhortation not to incline to the body even by acts of imagination, and to alienate ourselves from the body, if somehow one could lead the remaining part of the soul upwards, or even carry upward that which is situated in the sensible world, that part that alone acts demiurgically on the body and has the 30job of shaping it and caring for it.123
§5.1.11. Since, then, there is soul that engages in calculative reasoning about just and beautiful things, that is, calculative reasoning that seeks to know if this is just or if this is beautiful, it is necessary that there exists permanently something that is just, from which the calculative reasoning in the soul arises.124 How else could it engage in calculative reasoning? And if soul sometimes engages in calculative reasoning about these 5things and sometimes does not, there must be Intellect that does not engage in calculative reasoning, but always possesses Justice, and there must be also the principle of Intellect and its cause and god.125 And it must be indivisible and unchanging; and while not changing place, it is seen in each of the many things that can receive it, in a way, as something 10other.126 Just as the centre of the circle exists in its own right, but each of the points on the circle contains it in itself, the radii add their unique character to it. For it is by something like this in ourselves that we are in contact with [the One] and are with it and depend on it. And if we converge on it, we would be settled in the intelligible world.12715
§5.1.12. How, then, given that we have such great things in us, do we not grasp them, but rather are mostly inactive with respect to these activities; indeed, some people are altogether inactive?
They are always involved with their own activities – I mean, Intellect and that which is prior to Intellect and eternally in itself, and Soul as 5well, which is thus ‘always moving’.128 For not everything in soul is immediately sensible, but it comes to us whenever it comes to our sense-perception.129 But whenever there is activity that is not being transmitted to the faculty of sense-perception, it has not yet reached the entire soul. We do not yet know it, then, inasmuch as we are the whole soul, including the faculty of sense-perception, not just a part of10 it. Further, each of the parts of the soul, always alive, is always acting by itself with its own object. But cognizing occurs whenever transmission, that is, apprehension, occurs.
So, if there is going to be apprehension of things present in this way, then that which is to apprehend must revert inward, and focus its 15attention there.130 Just as if someone were waiting to hear a voice that he wanted to hear, and, distancing himself from other voices, were to prick up his ears to hear the best of sounds, waiting for the time when it will come – so, too, in this case one must let go of sensible sounds, except insofar as they are necessary, and guard the soul’s pure power of apprehension and be ready to listen to the sounds from above.
1 Indicating a continuation of the line of thought in the previous treatise, 6.9 (9).
2 Probably a reference to Intellect, not to the One. Cf. 6.9.5.10–15.
3 The word κακόν, translated throughout as evil, here has a connotation that extends beyond the moral to include all ‘badness’.
4 I.e., the difference from the ‘father’ that results from ‘willing that they belong to themselves’. Cf. 3.7.11.15; 4.8.4.11.
5 Cf. 4.4.3.1–3; 4.7.13.9–13; 4.8.4.13–18, 5.28; 6.9.8.31–32. See Pl., Phdr. 248D1–2; Tim. 41E3.
6 See Homer, Il. 15.566.
7 It is difficult to know exactly what, if any, texts Plotinus is alluding to. 2.4, 3.4, 3.6, and 6.4 have all been suggested.
8 Pl. [?], Alc. 1 133B–C; Rep. 533D2; Soph. 254A10.
9 See Pl., Tim. 35Aff. See also Phd. 79D3; Rep. 409B4, 611E1ff.; Lg. 899D7.
10 See Pl., Tim. 39E10–40A2. The soul of the cosmos is meant.
11 See Pl., Phdr. 246B6–7; Lg. 896E8–897A1.
12 Cf. 4.7.9.6–13. See Phdr. 245C5–246A2; Phd. 105C9–107A1.
13 See Pl., Tim. 30B5, 31B2–3.
14 I.e., the soul of the cosmos.
15 See Pl., Tim. 43B5.
16 Presumably, ‘the better part’ is the soul.
17 Correcting ἑστῶσα to ἑστῶτα as per HS4.
18 See Pl., Tim. 36E3.
19 Cf. 5.9.3.30–32. See Pl., Tim. 36E4.
20 See Pl., Tim. 34B8.
21 Cf. 1.8.3–5; 2.4.16.3.
22 Homer Il. 20.65, said of Hades.
23 Father, Demiurge, and Intellect are here identified. Cf. infra 8.5; 2.1.5.5; 2.3.18.15; 5.9.3.26. See Pl., Tim. 37C7.
24 Cf. 3.5.6.14–24. See Pl., Tim. 92C6–7.
25 See Heraclitus, fr. 22 B 96 DK.
26 See Pl., Rep. 611C3–4.
27 Reading τις with HS5.
28 See Homer Il. I. 156.
29 This is Intellect. See Pl., Lg. 705A4.
30 Cf. infra 7.1; also, 2.9.4.25; 5.3.4.15–21, 8.46ff.; 5.9.3.30–37.
31 Λόγος (‘expressed principle’) is the manifestation or expression of that which is hierarchically inferior in relation to that which is superior. The intelligible content of the higher is maintained in the lower.
32 The discursive intellectual part of the embodied soul. Cf. 5.3.4.15–21. See Pl., Tht. 189E6–7; Soph. 263E3–9; Ar., AP 1.10.76b24–25.
33 Ar., Meta. 2.1.993b25.
34 Cf. 4.7.10.19–21, 32–37, 13.1–3.
35 Soul will include both individual souls and the soul of the cosmos. The intellectual activity of these is discursive; that of Intellect itself (and undescended intellects) will be non-discursive. Cf. 4.7.10.32–37.
36 Referring to embodied souls or to their lower parts. Cf. 3.6.4.30–38.
37 I.e., intelligible matter. Cf. infra 5.6–9, 13–17; 2.4.2–5; 3.8.11.4; 5.3.8.48.
38 See Ar., DA 3.5.430a10–15.
39 Cf. 3.7.3.9–17; 5.3.5.31–37; 6.7.17.12–26. See Pl., Tim. 37D1, 39E1; Soph. 248E6–249A2; Ar., Meta. 12.7.1072a26, 1072b20–31; 12.9.1074b34–35.
40 The fanciful etymology of Κρόνος, κόρος (‘fullness’) plus νοῦς (‘intellect’), comes from Pl., Crat. 396B6–7.
41 See Ar., Meta.12.7.1072b22–24, 9.1074b25–27.
42 See Pl., Tht. 197B8–10; Ar., Meta.12.7. 1072b23.
43 Reading παραθεών with Atkinson. HS5 suggests deleting ψυχὴν. Cf. 3.7.11.35–59. See Pl., Tim. 37D1–7.
44 Reading in lines 21–22: ἐν [τῷ] αὐτῷ ἐν τῷ <αἰῶνι> with Atkinson. The whole line is then: ἔχει οὖν ἐν αὐτῷ πάντα ἑστῶτα ἐν τῷ αἰῶνι.
45 See Pl., Tim. 37E6.
46 ‘Being’ refers to the μέγιστον γένος Being and all the intelligibles that share in it as seen from the following lines. Cf. 5.3.5.26ff.; 5.5.3.1; 5.9.5.13, 8.2–4; 6.7.41.12. See Pl., Soph. 254B–D.
47 Cf. 5.9.5.12–13.
48 I.e., the One. Cf. 6.7.16.22–31.
49 Cf. 5.3.1.1–12, 5.1–3; 6.7.1.7–9, 12–13, 39.12–13.
50 Cf. 6.2.7–8. See Pl., Soph. 254D4–5, 254E5–255A1; Parm. 145E.
51 Cf. 5.3.10.30–32, 40–42.
52 Reading ἐν in l. 40 with Kirchhoff.
53 See Ar., Meta. 4.2.1004a21, 9.1018a12–13.
54 Cf. 6.2.21.11–32. See Pl., Parm. 142D1–143A3.
55 See Pl., Parm. 144B2.
56 Reading ζητεῖ in l. 3 with the mss followed by a comma with HS5.
57 Cf. 5.3.16.10–16.
58 Cf. 5.4.2.4–10; 6.6.3.12–15 for the identification of the Indefinite Dyad with Intellect. That the One imposes definiteness does not mean that it itself is definite. Cf. 5.3.11.1–12; 6.7.17.15–16.
59 Cf. 5.4.2.7–8; 5.5.4.16–17; 6.6.1.1–2. See Ar., Meta. 1.6.987b14; 13.7.1081a14; Alex. Aphr., In Meta. 55.20–56.35.
60 Cf. 6.6.16.45ff. See Xenocrates, fr. 60 Heinze.
61 Cf. 3.8.2.20–30; 6.7.11.17–28.
62 Cf. 2.4.5.22–23; 5.4.2.7–8. See Ar., Meta. 13.7.1081a14–15.
63 Cf. infra 7.5–18.
64 Cf. 3.8.11.1–8; 5.2.1.7–13; 5.3.11.4–6; 6.7.15.21–22, 16.10–13. See Ar., DA 3.2.426a13–14, 3.3.428a6–7.
65 See Ar., Meta. 12.9.1074b29–1075a10.
66 Cf. 5.2.1.3–5; 5.9.14.2–6.
67 Cf. 1.6.7.9; 6.7.34.7–8; 6.9.11.51.
68 See Pl., Rep. 509B9.
69 See Ar., Phys. 4.11.219a10–11; 5.1. 224b1–10.
70 Reading αὐτὸ with Atkinson instead of αὑτὸ (‘itself’) in HS. With the latter, the end of the sentence reads ‘while that [the One] is always turned towards itself’. In support of the former, cf. supra 5.17–19 and infra 7.5–18; for the latter, cf. 6.8.8.11–13, 15.1.
71 Reading αἰτίας <τι> τάξεως αὐτοῖς ἀποδώσειν with Atkinson thus enabling us to understand αἰτίας as genitive singular.
72 Cf. 5.3.12.28–31.
73 Cf. 4.6.8.8–12; 5.3.7.23–24; 5.4.2.27–33; 6.7.18.5–6; 6.7.21.4–6; 6.7.40.21–24.
74 See Ar., DA 2.4.415a26–28.
75 Cf. 5.3.16.10–16; 5.5.9.9–10; 6.8.18.3.
76 See Ar., Meta. 14.4.1091b10.
77 Cf. supra 6.30–34, 43–46; 5.4.2.25–26.
78 Cf. 5.3.11.1–5, 9–13; 6.7.15.12–14.
79 Reading ἢ with HS4.
80 I.e., sense-perception is comparable to a line, Intellect to a circle, and the One to the centre of the circle. The text of this line, αἴσθησιν γραμμὴν καὶ τὰ ἄλλα is taken by HS2 as corrupt.
81 Cf. 5.3.15.31; 5.4.2.38; 6.9.5.36–37.
82 With the punctuation from HS5. Cf. 6.7.15.18–22.
83 Cf. 5.2.1.5–7; 6.9.3.36–40.
84 Cf. 3.8.9.40; 6.9.2.44–45.
85 Cf. 5.5.6.1–13. See Pl., Parm. 142B5–6.
86 See Pl., Rep. 547A4–5, quoting Homer, Il. 6.211.
87 The wife of Kronos.
88 Referring to Soul and individual souls. Cf. 4.3.5.9–11.
89 Cf. 5.5.5.14; 6.8.18.15, 23.
90 No particular treatise is clearly indicated here. 2.4 is the most likely possibility.
91 See Pl. [?], 2nd Ep. 312E1–4.
92 Cf. 6.8.14.37–38. See Pl. [?], 6th Ep. 323D4.
93 See Pl., Phd. 97C1–2, quoting Anaxagoras, fr. 59 B 12 DK. Also, Tim. 39B7, 47E4; Phil. 30C6–D8; Rep. 507C7–8, 530A6; Soph. 265C4; Sts. 270A5.
94 See Pl., Tim. 34B3–35B7, 41D4–5.
95 Cf. 5.3.17.13–14; 5.4.1.10; 5.6.6.30; 6.7.40.26; 6.9.11.42. See Pl., Rep. 509B8–9; Aristotle apud Simplicius, In DC 485.22 (= fr 1, p.57 Ross).
96 See Pl., Rep. 507B5–10; Soph. 246B6–7.
97 Cf. 3.7.1.8–16.
98 Cf. 1.4.10.6; 3.8.8.8; 5.1.8.17–18; 5.6.6.22–23; 5.9.5.29–30; 6.7.41.18. See Parmenides, fr. 28 B 3 DK: τὸ γὰρ αὐτὸ νοεῖν ἐστίν τε καὶ εἶναι.
99 See Parmenides, fr. 28 B 8, 26 DK.
100 Parmenides, fr.28 B 8, 43 DK.
101 Parmenides, fr. 28 B 8, 6 DK.
102 See Pl., Soph. 245A5–B1.
103 Cf. 4.8.3.10; 5.3.15.10–22; 5.4.1.20–21; 6.7.14.1–18 on Intellect as one-many. See Pl., Parm. 137C–142A, 144E5, 155E5.
104 See Anaxagoras, fr. 59 B 12 DK, which Plotinus is quoting inexactly; Pl., Phd. 97B8–C2; Ar., Meta. 1.3.984B15–19.
105 See Heraclitus, fr. 22 A 1 DK; Pl., Tht. 152D2–E9, 179D6–183B5; Crat. 402A4–C3, 439B10–440E2; Ar., Meta. 1.6.987a33–34.
106 Cf. 4.4.40.5–6; 6.7.14.19–20. See Empedocles, fr. 31 B 17. 7–8 DK (= 26.5–6); Ar., Meta. 1.8.989a20–21; 12.10.1075B3.
107 See Ar., DA 3.430a17; Meta. 12.7.1073a4.
108 See Ar., Meta. 12.7.1072a26.
109 See Ar., Meta. 12.7.1072b20.
110 Supplying the negative οὐ, which is missing from HS2. Cf. supra 4.31–33, 37–39; 5.6; 6.7.37–41.
111 See Ar., Meta. 12.8.1073a28–b1.
112 See Ar., Meta. 12.7.1072a23–26, 1072b14, 1074a36–38, 10.1074a36–38.
113 Reading συνεργήσει in l. 24 with Harder.
114 Cf. 2.4.4.2–7, 14–17. See Ar., Meta. 12.8.1074a31; 14.2.1088b14–28.
115 Probably a reference to Plato’s ‘unwritten teachings’. See Ar., Phys. 4.2.209b11–17, the only explicit reference to such teachings.
116 Cf. supra 3.1–16; 4.26–30; 6.12–41.
117 Cf. 4.8.1.1–11. See Pl., Rep. 589A7–B1.
118 Cf. supra 3.13. The distinction is between intellect in us and Intellect.
119 See Ar., DA 3.4.429a24–27; Alex. Aphr., De an. 84.10–12.
120 Cf. 4.8.8.2–3. See Pl., Tim. 34B4, 36D9–E1.
121 See Pl., Tim. 90A5.
122 Cf. 1.8.6.10–12. See Pl., Phd. 67C6.
123 Cf. 1.1.3.21–25. See Pl. [?], Epin. 981B7–8.
124 See Pl., Parm. 132A1–4.
125 See Ar., DA 3.5.430a22.
126 Cf. 3.8.9.23–26.
127 Cf. 1.6.11.10–12; 5.6.5.1–2; 6.9.8.18–22.
128 See Pl., Phdr. 245C5.
129 Cf.1.1.11.2–8; 4.3.30.15–16; 4.8.8.6–7; 4.9.2.13–22.
130 I.e., to our undescended intellects. Cf. 3.4.3.24; 4.3.5.6, 12.3–4; 4.7.10.32–33, 13.1–3; 4.8.4.31–35, 8.8; 6.4.14.16–22; 6.7.5.26–29, 17.26–27; 6.8.6.41–43.