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
The Christian origins in Numenius are quite explicit; mention of the
Hebrews as among the races whose scriptures are important, of Moses
among the great religious teachers, of the Spirit hovering over the
waters, of the names of the Egyptian magicians which, together with
Pliny, he hands down to posterity. He also was said to have told many
stories about Jesus, in an allegorical manner.
The Christian origins in Stoicism have been widely discussed;
for instance, by Chaignet. But it is likely that this influence
affected Christianity indirectly through Plotinos, along with the
other Christian ideas we shall later find. At any rate Plotinos is
the philosopher who uses the term "spiritual body" most like the
Christians.[510] The soul is a slave to the body,[511] and has a
celestial body[512] as well as a spiritual body.[513] Within us are two
men opposing each other,[514] the better part often being mastered by
the worse part, as thought St. Paul,[515] in the struggle between the
inner and outer man.[516]
With Plotinos the idea of "procession" is not only cosmic but
psychological. In other words, when Plotinos speaks of the "procession"
of the God-head, he is not, as in Christian doctrine, depicting
something unique, which has no connection with the world. He is only
referring to the cosmic aspect of an evolution which, in the soul,
appears as educational development.[517] As the opposite of the soul's
procession upwards, there is the soul's descent into hell,[518] or, in
other words, the soul's descent and ascension.[519] This double aspect
of man's fate upward or downward is referred to by Plotinos in the
regular Christian term "sin," as consisting in missing one's aim.[520]
The soul repents,[521] and its duty is conversion.[522] As a result of
this conversion comes forgiveness.[523]
OLD TESTAMENT REFERENCES.
The famous "terrors of Jeremiah"[524] might have come mediately
through the Gnostics, who indeed may have been the persons referred
to as Christians.[525] More direct no doubt was God admiring his
handiwork[526] and the soul breathing the spirit of life into
animals.[527] God is called both the "I am what I am"[528] and "He is
what He ought to be."[528] He sits above the world,[529] as the king of
kings.[530]
NEW TESTAMENT REFERENCES.
Plotinos says that it would be a poor artist who would conceive of
an animal as all covered with eyes. There is hardly such a reference
outside of Revelations,[531] to which we must also look for a new
heaven and a new earth.[532] Then we have practically a quotation of
the Johannine prologue "In the beginning was the Logos," and by him
were all things made.[533] Light was in the beginning.[534] We are told
not to leave the world, but not to be of it.[535] The divinity prepares
mansions in heaven for good souls.[536]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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