Plotinus' Trinity are the One or the Good, who is above existence,
God as the Absolute; the Intelligence, who occupies the sphere of real
existence, organic unity comprehending multiplicity--the One-Many, as
he calls it, or, as we might call it, God as thought, God existing in
and for Himself; and the Soul, the One and Many, occupying the sphere
of appearance or imperfect reality--God as action. Soulless matter,
which only exists as a logical abstraction, is arrived at by looking
at things "in disconnexion, dull and spiritless." It is the sphere of
the "merely many," and is zero, as "the One who is not" is Infinity.
The Intelligible World is timeless and spaceless, and contains the
archetypes of the Sensible World. The Sensible World is _our_ view of
the Intelligible World. When we say it does not exist, we mean that we
shall not always see it in this form. The "Ideas" are the ultimate
form in which things are regarded by Intelligence, or by God. [Greek:
Nous] is described as at once [Greek: stasis] and [Greek:
kinêsis], that is, it is unchanging itself, but the whole cosmic
process, which is ever in flux, is eternally present to it as a
process.
Evil is disintegration.[139] In its essence it is not merely unreal,
but unreality as such. It can only _appear_ in conjunction with some
low degree of goodness which suggests to Plotinus the fine saying that
"vice at its worst is still human, being mixed with something
opposite to itself.[140]"
The "lower virtues," as he calls the duties of the average
citizen,[141] are not only purgative, but teach us the principles of
_measure_ and _rule_, which are Divine characteristics. This is
immensely important, for it is the point where Platonism and Asiatic
Mysticism finally part company.[142]
But in Plotinus, as in his Christian imitators, they do _not_ part
company. The "marching orders" of the true mystic are those given by
God to Moses on Sinai, "See that thou make all things according to the
pattern showed thee in the mount.[143]" But Plotinus teaches that, as
the sensible world is a shadow of the intelligible, so is action a
shadow of contemplation, suited to weak-minded persons.[144] This is
turning the tables on the "man of action" in good earnest; but it is
false Platonism and false Mysticism. It leads to the heartless
doctrine, quite unworthy of the man, that public calamities are to the
wise man only stage tragedies--or even stage comedies.[145] The moral
results of this self-centred individualism are exemplified by the
mediæval saint and visionary, Angela of Foligno, who congratulates
herself on the deaths of her mother, husband, and children, "who were
great obstacles in the way of God."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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