Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 4: In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four PeriodsPlotinus
Philosophy
Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 4: In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four Periods
Plotinus
Plotinus
b. Plato's idea of participation, useless to monistic Stoics, is
repeatedly used.[409] Numenius had gone so far as to assert a
participation, even in the intelligibles.[410]
c. Matter appears as the curse of all existent objects.[411] It also
appears as mother.[412]
d. Try as he may, the author of this section cannot escape the dualism
so prominent in Numenius;[413] the acrobatic nature of his efforts in
this direction are pointed out elsewhere. We find here a thoroughgoing
distinction between soul and body, which is quite Numenian, and
dualistic.[414]
e. Matter is passive, possessing no resiliency.[415]
f. We find an argument directed[416] against those who "posit being in
matter." These must be the Stoics, with whom Numenius is ever in feud.
g. Of Numenian terms, we find "sôteria,"[417] God the Father.[418] Also
the double Numenian name for the Divinity, Being and Essence.[419]
Against Numenius as author, we note:
a. The general form of the section, which is that of the Enneads, not
the dialogue of Numenius's Treatise on the Good. We find also the usual
Plotinic interjected questions.
b. Un-Numenian, at least, is matter as a mirror,[420] and evil as
merely negative, merely unaffectability to good.[421] While Numenius
speaks of matter as nurse and feeder, here we read nurse and receptacle.
c. Stoic, is the chief subject of the section, namely the affectibility
of matter. Also, the allegoric interpretation of the myths, of the
ithyphallic Hermes, and the Universal Mother, which are like the other
Plotinic myths, of the double Hercules, Poros, Penia, and Koros. We
find[422] the Stoic idea of passibility and impassibility, although not
exactly that of passion and action. We find[423] connected the terms
"nous" and "phronêsis," also "anastasis." The term hypostasis, though
used undogmatically, as mere explanation of thought, is found.[424]
Frequent[425] are the conceptual logoi of the divine Mind (the seminal
logoi) which enter into matter to clothe themselves with it, to produce
objects. We also have the Stoic category "heterotês,"[426] and the
application of sex as explanation of the differences of the world.[427]
d. Aristotelian, are the "energeia" and "dunamis."[428]
e. Plotinic, are the latter ideas, for they are used in the same
connection.[429] Also the myths of Poros, Penia and Koros, which are
found elsewhere in similar relations.[430]
On the whole, therefore, the Plotinic authorship is much more strongly
indicated than the Numenian.
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