|
Neoplatonism is a modern term used to designate the period of Platonic
philosophy beginning with the work of Plotinus
and ending with the closing of the Platonic Academy by the Emperor Justinian
in 529 CE. This brand of Platonism, which is often described as 'mystical'
or religious in nature, developed outside the mainstream of Academic Platonism.
The origins of Neoplatonism can be traced back to the era of Hellenistic
syncretism which spawned such movements and schools of thought as Gnosticism
and the Hermetic tradition. A major factor in this syncretism, and one
which had an immense influence on the development of Platonic thought,
was the introduction of the Jewish Scriptures into Greek intellectual circles
via the translation known as the Septuagint. The encounter between
the creation narrative of Genesis and the cosmology of Plato's Timaeus
set in motion a long tradition of cosmological theorizing that finally
culminated in the grand schema of Plotinus' Enneads. Plotinus' two
major successors, Porphyry and Iamblichus, each developed, in their own
way, certain isolated aspects of Plotinus' thought, but neither of them
developed a rigorous philosophy to match that of their master. It was Proclus
who, shortly before the closing of the Academy, bequeathed a systematic
Platonic philosophy upon the world that in certain ways approached the
sophistication of Plotinus. Finally, in the work of the so-called Pseudo-Dionysius,
we find a grand synthesis of Platonic philosophy and Christian theology
that was to exercise an immense influence on mediaeval mysticism and Renaissance
Humanism.
Table of Contents (Clicking on the links below will take you to those parts of this article)
1. What is Neoplatonism?
The term 'Neoplatonism' is a modern construction. Plotinus,
who is often considered the 'founder' of Neoplatonism, would not have
considered himself a "new" Platonist in any sense, but simply an expositor
of the doctrines of Plato. That this required him to formulate an entirely
new philosophical system would not have been viewed by him as a problem,
for it was, in his eyes, precisely what the Platonic doctrine required.
In a sense, this is true, for as early as the Old Academy we find Plato's
successors struggling with the proper interpretation of his thought, and
arriving at strikingly different conclusions. Also, in the Hellenistic
era, certain Platonic ideas were taken up by thinkers of various loyalties
-- Jewish, Gnostic, Christian -- and worked up into new forms of expression
that varied quite considerably from what Plato actually wrote in his Dialogues.
Should this lead us to the conclusion that these thinkers were any less
'loyal' to Plato than were the members of the Academy (in its various forms
throughout the centuries preceding Plotinus)? No; for the multiple and
often contradictory uses made of Platonic ideas is a testament to the universality
of Plato's thought -- that is, its ability to admit of a wide variety of
interpretations and applications. In this sense, Neo-Platonism may
be said to have begun immediately after Plato's death, when new approaches
to his philosophy were being broached. Indeed, we already see a hint, in
the doctrines of Xenocrates (the second head of the Old Academy) of a type
of salvation theory involving the unification of the two parts of the human
soul -- the "Olympian" or heavenly, and the "Titanic" or earthly (Dillon
1977, p. 27). If we accept Frederick Copleston's description of Neoplatonism
as "the intellectualist reply to the ... yearning for personal salvation"
(Copleston 1962, p. 216) we can already locate the beginning of this reply
as far back as the Old Academy, and Neoplatonism would then not have begun
with Plotinus. However, it is not clear that Xenocrates' idea of salvation
involved the individual; it is quite possible that he was referring to
a unified human nature in an abstract sense. In any case, the early Hermetic-Gnostic
tradition is certainly to an extent Platonic, and later Gnosticism
and Christian Logos theology markedly so. If an intellectual reply
to a general yearning for personal salvation is what characterizes Neoplatonism,
then the highly intellectual Gnostics and Christians of the Late Hellenistic
era must be given the title of Neoplatonists. However, if we are to be
rigorous and define Neoplatonism as the synthesis of various more or less
'Platonistic' ideas into a grand expression of Platonic philosophy, then
Plotinus must be considered the founder of Neoplatonism. Yet we must not
forget that these Platonizing Christian, Gnostic, Jewish, and other 'pagan'
thinkers provided the necessary speculative material to make this synthesis
possible.
2. Plotinian Neoplatonism
The great third century thinker and 'founder' of Neoplatonism,
Plotinus,
is responsible for the grand synthesis of progressive Christian and Gnostic
ideas with the traditional Platonic philosophy. He answered the challenge
of accounting for the emergence of a seemingly inferior and flawed cosmos
from the perfect mind of the divinity by declaring outright that all objective
existence is but the external self-expression of an inherently contemplative
deity known as the One (to hen), or the Good (ta kalon).
Plotinus compares the expression of the superior godhead with the self-expression
of the individual soul, which proceeds from the perfect conception of a
Form (eidos), to the always flawed expression of this Form in the
manner of a materially derived 'personality' that risks succumbing to the
demands of divisive discursivity, and so becomes something less than divine.
This diminution of the divine essence in temporality is but a necessary
moment of the complete expression of the One. By elevating the experience
of the individual soul to the status of an actualization of a divine Form,
Plotinus succeeded, also, in preserving, if not the autonomy, at least
the dignity and ontological necessity of personality. The Cosmos,
according to Plotinus, is not a created order, planned by a deity on whom
we can pass the charge of begetting evil; for the Cosmos is the self-expression
of the Soul, which corresponds, roughly, to Philo's logos
prophorikos, the logos endiathetos of which is the Intelligence
(nous). Rather, the Cosmos, in Plotinian terms, is to be understood
as the concrete result or 'product' of the Soul's experience of its own
Mind (nous). Ideally, this concrete expression should serve the
Soul as a reference-point for its own self-conscious existence; however,
the Soul all too easily falls into the error of valuing the expression
over the principle (arkhê), which is the contemplation of
the divine Forms. This error gives rise to evil, which is the purely subjective
relation of the Soul (now divided) to the manifold and concrete forms of
its expressive act. When the Soul, in the form of individual existents,
becomes thus preoccupied with its experience, Nature comes into being,
and the Cosmos takes on concrete form as the locus of personality.
a. Contemplation and Creation
Hearkening back, whether consciously or not, to the doctrine of Speusippus
(Plato's successor in the Academy) that the One is utterly transcendent
and "beyond being," and that the Dyad is the true first principle (Dillon
1977, p. 12), Plotinus declares that the One is "alone with itself" and
ineffable (cf. Enneads VI.9.6 and V.2.1). The One does not act to
produce a cosmos or a spiritual order, but simply generates from itself,
effortlessly, a power (dunamis) which is at once the Intellect (nous)
and the object of contemplation (theôria) of this Intellect.
While Plotinus suggests that the One subsists by thinking itself as itself,
the Intellect subsists through thinking itself as other, and therefore
becomes divided within itself: this act of division within the Intellect
is the production of Being, which is the very principle of expression or
discursivity (Ennead V.1.7). For this reason, the Intellect stands
as Plotinus' sole First Principle. At this point, the thinking or contemplation
of the Intellect is divided up and ordered into thoughts, each of them
subsisting in and for themselves, as autonomous reflections of the dunamis
of the One. These are the Forms (eidê), and out of their inert
unity there arises the Soul, whose task it is to think these Forms discursively
and creatively, and to thereby produce or create a concrete, living expression
of the divine Intellect. This activity of the Soul results in the production
of numerous individual souls: living actualizations of the possibilities
inherent in the Forms. Whereas the Intellect became divided within itself
through contemplation, the Soul becomes divided outside of itself, through
action (which is still contemplation, according to Plotinus, albeit the
lowest type; cf. Ennead III.8.4), and this division constitutes
the Cosmos, which is the expressive or creative act of the Soul, also referred
to as Nature. When the individual soul reflects upon Nature as its own
act, this soul is capable of attaining insight (gnôsis) into
the essence of Intellect; however, when the soul views nature as something
objective and external -- that is, as something to be experienced or undergone,
while forgetting that the soul itself is the creator of this Nature --
evil and suffering ensue. Let us now examine the manner in which Plotinus
explains Nature as the locus of personality.
b. Nature and Personality
Contemplation, at the level of the Soul, is for Plotinus a two-way street.
The Soul both contemplates, passively, the Intellect, and reflects upon
its own contemplative act by producing Nature and the Cosmos. The individual
souls that become immersed in Nature, as moments of the Soul's eternal
act, will, ideally, gain a complete knowledge of the Soul in its unity,
and even of the Intellect, by reflecting upon the concrete results of the
Soul's act -- that is, upon the externalized, sensible entities that comprise
the physical Cosmos. This reflection, if carried by the individual soul
with a memory of its provenance always in the foreground, will lead to
a just governing of the physical Cosmos, which will make of it a perfect
material image of the Intellectual Cosmos, i.e., the realm of the Forms
(cf. Enneads IV.3.7 and IV.8.6). However, things don't always turn
out so well, for individual souls often "go lower than is needful ... in
order to light the lower regions, but it is not good for them to go so
far" (Ennead IV.3.17, tr. O'Brien 1964). For when the soul extends
itself ever farther into the indeterminacy of materiality, it gradually
loses memory of its divine origin, and comes to identify itself more and
more with its surroundings -- that is to say: the soul identifies itself
with the results of the Soul's act, and forgets that it is, as part
of this Soul, itself an agent of the act. This is tantamount to a relinquishing,
by the soul, of its divine nature. When the soul has thus abandoned itself,
it begins to accrue many alien encrustations, if you will, that make of
it something less than divine. These encrustations are the 'accidents'
(in the Aristotelian sense) of personality. And yet the soul is never completely
lost, for, as Plotinus insists, the soul need simply "think upon essential
being" in order to return to itself, and continue to exist authentically
as a governor of the Cosmos (Ennead IV.8.4-6). The memory of the
personality that this wandering soul possessed must be forgotten in order
for it to return completely to its divine nature; for if it were remembered,
we would have to say, contradictorily, that the soul holds a memory of
what occurred during its state of forgetfulness! So in a sense, Plotinus
holds that individual personalities are not maintained at the level of
Soul. However, if we understand personality as more than just a particular
attitude attached to a concrete mode of existence, and rather view it as
the sum total of experiences reflected upon in intellect, then souls most
certainly retain their personalities, even at the highest level, for they
persist as thoughts within the divine Mind (cp. Ennead IV.8.5).
The personality that one acquires in action (the lowest type of contemplation)
is indeed forgotten and dissolved, but the 'personality' or persistence
in intellect that one achieves through virtuous acts most definitely
endures (Ennead IV.3.32).
c. Salvation and the Cosmic Process
Plotinus, like his older contemporary, the Christian philosopher Origen
of Alexandria, views the descent of the soul into the material realm as
a necessary moment in the unfolding of the divine Intellect, or God. For
this reason, the descent itself is not an evil, for it is a reflection
of God's essence. Both Origen and Plotinus place the blame for experiencing
this descent as an evil squarely upon the individual soul. Of course, these
thinkers held, respectively, quite different views as to why and how the
soul experiences the descent as an evil; but they held one thing in common:
that the rational soul will naturally choose the Good, and that any failure
to do so is the result of forgetfulness or acquired ignorance. But whence
this failure? Origen gave what, to Plotinus' mind, must have been a quite
unsatisfactory answer: that souls pre-existed as spiritual beings, and
when they desired to create or 'beget' independently of God, they all fell
into error, and languished there until the coming of Logos Incarnate. This
view has more than a little Gnostic flavor to it, which would have sat
ill with Plotinus, who was a great opponent of Gnosticism.
The fall of the soul Plotinus refers, quite simply, to the tension between
pure contemplation and divisive action -- a tension that constitutes the
natural mode of existence of the soul (cf. Ennead IV.8.6-7). Plotinus
tells us that a thought is only completed or fully comprehended after it
has been expressed, for only then can the thought be said to have passed
from potentiality to actuality (Ennead IV.3.30). The question of
whether Plotinus places more value on the potential or the actual is really
of no consequence, for in the Plotinian plêrôma every
potentiality generates an activity, and every activity becomes itself a
potential for new activity (cf. Ennead III.8.8); and since the One,
which is the goal or object of desire of all existents, is neither potentiality
nor actuality, but "beyond being" (epekeina ousias), it is impossible
to say whether the striving of existents, in Plotinus' schema, will result
in full and complete actualization, or in a repose of potentiality that
will make them like their source. "Likeness to God as far as possible,"
for Plotinus, is really likeness to oneself -- authentic existence.
Plotinus leaves it up to the individual to determine what this means.
i. Plotinus' Last Words
In his biography of Plotinus, Porphyry records the last words of his
teacher to his students as follows: "Strive to bring back the god in yourselves
to the God in the All" (Porphyry, Life of Plotinus 2, my translation).
After uttering these words, Plotinus, one of the greatest philosophers
the world has ever known, passed away. The simplicity of this final statement
seems to be at odds with the intellectual rigors of Plotinus' treatises,
which challenge -- and more often than not vanquish -- just about every
prominent philosophical view of the era. But this is only if we take this
remark in a mystical or ecstatic religious sense. Plotinus demanded the
utmost level of intellectual clarity in dealing with the problem of humankind's
relation to the highest principle of existence. Striving for or desiring
salvation was not, for Plotinus, an excuse for simply abandoning oneself
to faith or prayer or unreflective religious rituals; rather, salvation
was to be achieved through the practice of philosophical investigation,
of dialectic. The fact that Plotinus, at the end of his life, had arrived
at this very simple formulation, serves to show that his dialectical quest
was successful. In his last treatise, "On the Primal Good" (Ennead
I.7), Plotinus is able to assert, in the same breath, that both life and
death are good. He says this because life is the moment in which the soul
expresses itself and revels in the autonomy of the creative act. However,
this life, since it is characterized by action, eventually leads to exhaustion,
and the desire, not for autonomous action, but for reposeful contemplation
-- of a fulfillment that is purely intellectual and eternal. Death is the
relief of this exhaustion, and the return to a state of contemplative repose.
Is this return to the Intellect a return to potentiality? It is hard to
say. Perhaps it is a synthesis of potentiality and actuality: the moment
at which the soul is both one and many, both human and divine. This would
constitute Plotinian salvation -- the fulfillment of the exhortation of
the dying sage.
d. The Achievement of Plotinus
In the last analysis, what stands as the most important and impressive
accomplishment of Plotinus is the manner in which he synthesized the pure,
'semi-mythical' expression of Plato with the logical rigors of the Peripatetic
and Stoic schools, yet without losing sight of philosophy's most important
task: of rendering the human experience in intelligible and analyzable
terms. That Plotinus' thought had to take the 'detour' through such wildly
mystical and speculative paths as Gnosticism
and Christian salvation theology is only proof of his clear-sightedness,
thoroughness, and admirable humanism. For all of his dialectical difficulties
and perambulations, Plotinus' sole concern is with the well-being (eudaimonia)
of the human soul. This is, of course, to be understood as an intellectual,
as opposed to a merely physical or even emotional well-being, for Plotinus
was not concerned with the temporary or the temporal. The striving of the
human mind for a mode of existence more suited to its intuited potential
than the ephemeral possibilities of this material realm, while admittedly
a striving born of temporality, is nonetheless directed toward atemporal
and divine perfection. This is a striving or desire rendered all the more
poignant and worthy of philosophy precisely because it is born in the depths
of existential angst, and not in the primitive ecstasies of unreflective
ritual. As the last true representative of the Greek philosophical spirit,
Plotinus is Apollonian, not Dionysian. His concern is with the intellectual
beautification of the human soul, and for this reason his notion of salvation
does not, like Origen's,
imply an eternal state of objective contemplation of the divinity -- for
Plotinus, the separation between human and god breaks down, so that when
the perfected soul contemplates itself, it is also contemplating the Supreme.
i. The Plotinian Synthesis
Plotinus was faced with the task of defending the true Platonic philosophy,
as he understood it, against the inroads being made, in his time, most
of all by Gnostics, but also by orthodox Christianity. Instead of launching
an all-out attack on these new ideas, Plotinus took what was best from
them, in his eyes, and brought these ideas into concert with his own brand
of Platonism. For this reason, we are sometimes surprised to see Plotinus,
in one treatise, speaking of the cosmos as a realm of forgetfulness and
error, while in another, speaking of the cosmos as the most perfect expression
of the godhead. Once we realize the extent to which certain Gnostic sects
went
in order to brand this world as a product of an evil and malignant Demiurge,
to whom we owe absolutely no allegiance, it becomes clear that Plotinus
was simply trying to temper the extreme form of an idea which he himself
shared, though in a less radical sense. The feeling of being thrown into
a hostile and alien world is a philosophically valid position from which
to begin a critique and investigation of human existence; indeed, modern
existentialist philosophers have often started from this same premise.
However, Plotinus realized that it is not the nature of the human soul
to simply escape from a realm of active engagement with external reality
(the cosmos) to a passive receptance of divine form (within the plêrôma).
The Soul, as Plotinus understands it, is an essentially creative being,
and one which understands existence on its own terms. One of the beauties
of Plotinus' system is that everything he says concerning the nature of
the Cosmos (spiritual and physical) can equally be held of the Soul. Now
while it would be false to charge Plotinus with solipsism (or even narcissism,
as one prominent commentator has done; cf. Julia Kristeva in Hadot 1993,
p. 11), it would be correct to say that the entire Cosmos is an analogue
of the experience of the Soul, which results in the attainment of full
self-consciousness. The form of Plotinus' system is the very form by which
the Soul naturally comes to know itself in relation to its acts; and the
expression of the Soul will always, therefore, be a philosophical expression.
When we speak of the Plotinian synthesis, then, what we are speaking of
is a natural dialectic of the Soul, which takes its own expressions into
account, no matter how faulty or incomplete they may appear in retrospect,
and weaves them into a cosmic tapestry of noetic images.
3. Porphyry and Iamblichus
Porphyry of Tyre (ca. 233-305 CE) is the most famous pupil of Plotinus.
In addition to writing an introductory summary of his master's theories
(the treatise entitled Launching-Points to the Realm of Mind), Porphyry
also composed the famous Isagoge, an introduction to the Categories
of Aristotle, which came to exercise an immense influence on Mediaeval
Scholasticism. The extent of Porphyry's investigative interests exceeded
that of his teacher, and his so-called "scientific" works, which survive
to this day, include a treatise on music (On Prosody), and two studies
of the astronomical and astrological theories of Claudius Ptolemy (ca.
70-140 CE), On the Harmonics, and an Introduction to The
Astronomy of Ptolemy. He wrote biographies of Pythagoras and Plotinus,
and edited and compiled the latter's essays into six books, each containing
nine treatises, giving them the title Enneads. Unlike Plotinus,
Porphyry was interested primarily in the practical aspect of salvific striving,
and the manner in which the soul could most effectively bring about its
transference to ever higher realms of existence. This led Porphyry to develop
a doctrine of ascent to the Intellect by way of the exercise of virtue
(aretê) in the form of 'good works'. This doctrine may owe
its genesis to Porphyry's supposed early adherence to Christianity, as
attested by the historian Socrates, and suggested by St. Augustine (cf.
Copleston 1962, p. 218). If Porphyry had, at some point, been a Christian,
this would account for his belief in the soul's objective relation to the
divine Mind -- an idea shared by Origen, whom Porphyry knew as a youth
(cf. Eusebius, The History of the Church, p. 195) -- and would explain
his quite un-Plotinian belief in a gradual progress toward perfection,
as opposed to the 'instant salvation' proposed by Plotinus (cf. Ennead
IV.8.4).
Iamblichus of Apamea (d. ca. 330 CE) was a student of Porphyry.
He departed from his teacher on more than a few points, most notably in
his insistence on demoting Plotinus' One (which Porphyry left unscathed,
as it were) to the level of kosmos noêtos, which according
to Iamblichus generates the intellectual realm (kosmos noêros).
In this regard, Iamblichus can be said to have either severely misunderstood,
or neglected to even attempt to understand, Plotinus on the important doctrine
of contemplation (see above).
This view led Iamblichus to posit a Supreme One even higher than the One
of Plotinus, which generates the Intellectual Cosmos, and yet remains beyond
all predication and determinacy. Iamblichus also made a tripartite division
of Soul, positing a cosmic or All-Soul, and two lesser souls, corresponding
to the rational and irrational faculties, respectively. This somewhat gratuitous
skewing of the Plotinian noetic realm also led Iamblichus to posit an array
of intermediate spiritual beings between the lower souls and the intelligible
realm -- daemons, the souls of heroes, and angels of all sorts.
By placing so much distance between the earthly soul and the intelligible
realm, Iamblichus made it difficult for the would-be philosopher to gain
an intuitive knowledge of the higher Soul, although he insisted that everyone
possesses such knowledge, coupled with an innate desire for the Good. In
place of the vivid dialectic of Plotinus, Iamblichus established the practice
of theurgy (theourgia), which he insists does not draw the gods
down to man, but rather renders humankind, "who through generation are
born subject to passion, pure and unchangeable" (On the Mysteries
I.12.42; in Fowden 1986, p. 133). Whereas "likeness to God" had meant,
for Plotinus, a recollection and perfection of one's own divine nature
(which is, in the last analysis, identical to
nous; cf. Ennead
III.4), for Iamblichus the relation of humankind to the divine is one of
subordinate to superior, and so the pagan religious piety that Plotinus
had scorned -- "Let the gods come to me, and not I to them," he had once
said (cf. Porphyry, Life of Plotinus 10) -- returns to philosophy
with a vengeance. Iamblichus is best known for his lengthy treatise On
the Mysteries. Like Porphyry, he also wrote a biography of Pythagoras.
a. The Nature of the Soul
In his introduction to the philosophy of Plotinus, entitled Launching-Points
to the Realm of Mind, Porphyry remarks that the inclination of the
incorporeal Soul toward corporeality "constitutes a second nature [the
irrational soul], which unites with the body" (Launching-Points
18 [1]). This remark is supposedly a commentary on Ennead IV.2,
where Plotinus discusses the relation of the individual soul to the All-Soul.
While it is true that Plotinus often speaks of the individual soul as being
independent of the highest Soul, he does this for illustrative purposes,
in order to show how far into forgetfulness the soul that has become enamored
of its act may fall. Yet Plotinus insists time and again that the individual
soul and the All-Soul are one (cf. esp.
Ennead IV.1), and that Nature
is the Soul's expressive act (see
above). Irrationality does not constitute, for Plotinus, a "second
nature," but is merely a flawed exercise of rationality -- that is, doxa
untempered
by epistêmê -- on the part of the individual soul. Furthermore,
the individual soul, which comes to unite with corporeality, governs and
controls the body, making possible discursive knowledge as well as sense-perception.
Uncontrolled pathos is what Plotinus calls irrationality; the soul
brings aisthêsis (perceptive judgment) to corporeality, and
so prevents it from sinking into irrational passivity. So what led Porphyry
to make such an interpretative error, if error it was? It is quite possible
that Porphyry had arrived at his own conclusions about the Soul, and tried
to square his own theory with what Plotinus actually taught. One clue to
the reason for the 'misunderstanding' may possibly lie in Porphyry's early
involvement with Christianity. While Porphyry himself never tells us that
he had been a Christian, Augustine speaks of him as if he were an apostate,
and the historian Socrates states outright that Porphyry had once been
of the Christian faith, telling us that he left the fold in disgust after
being assaulted by a rowdy band of Christians in Caesarea (Copleston 1962,
p. 218). In any case, it is certain that he was acquainted with Plotinus'
older contemporary, the Christian Origen, and that he had been exposed
to Christian doctrine. Indeed, his own spirited attack on Christianity
("Fifteen Arguments Against the Christians," now preserved only in fragments)
shows him to have possessed a wide knowledge of Holy Scripture, remarkable
for a 'pagan' philosopher of that era. Porphyry's exposure to Christian
doctrine, then, would have left him with a view of salvation quite different
from that of Plotinus, who seems never to have paid Christianity much mind.
The best evidence we have for this explanation is Porphyry's own theory
of salvation -- and it is remarkably similar to what we find in Origen!
Porphyry's salvation theory is dependent, like Origen's, on a notion of
the soul's objective relation to God, and its consequent striving, not
to actualize its own divine potentiality, but to attain a level of virtue
that makes it capable of partaking fully of the divine essence. This is
accomplished through the exercise of virtue, which sets the soul on a gradual
course of progress toward the highest Good. Beginning with simple 'practical
virtues' (politikai arêtai) the soul gradually rises to higher
levels, eventually attaining what Porphyry calls the paradeigmatikai
arêtai
or 'exemplary virtues' which make of the soul a living
expression of the divine Mind (cf. Porphyry, Letter to Marcella
29). Note that Porphyry stops the soul's ascent at nous, and presumably
holds that the 'saved' soul will eternally contemplate the infinite power
of the One. If Porphyry's concern had been with the preservation of personality,
then this explanation makes some sense. However, it is more likely that
the true reason for Porphyry's rejection of the radically 'hubristic' theory
(at least to pietistic pagans) of the nature of the individual soul held
by Plotinus was a result of his intention to restore dignity to the traditional
religion of the Greeks (which had come under attack not only by Plotinus,
but by Christians as well). Evidence of such a program resides in Porphyry's
allegorical interpretations of Homer and traditional cultic practice, as
well as his possibly apologetic work on Philosophy from Oracles
(now lost). Compared to Plotinus, then, Porphyry was quite the conservative,
concerned as he was with maintaining the ancient view of humankind's relatively
humble position in the cosmic hierarchy, over against Plotinus' view that
the soul is a god, owing little more than a passing nod to its 'noble brethren'
in the heavens.
i. The (re)turn to Astrology
One of the results of Porphyry's conservative position toward traditional
religious practice and belief was the 'return' to
the doctrine that the stars and planets are capable of affecting and ordering human life. Plotinus
argued that since the individual soul is one with the All-Soul, it is in
essence a co-creator of the Cosmos, and therefore not really subject to
the laws governing the Cosmos -- for the soul is the source and agent of
those laws! Therefore, a belief in astrology was, for Plotinus, absurd,
since if the soul turned to beings dependent upon its own law -- i.e.,
the stars and planets -- in order to know itself, then it would only end
up knowing aspects of its own act, and would never return to itself in
full self-consciousness. Furthermore, as we have seen, Plotinian salvation
was instantly available to the soul, if only it would turn its mind to
"essential being" (see above); because
of this, Plotinus saw no reason to bring the stars and planets into the
picture. For Porphyry, however, who believed that the soul must gradually
work toward salvation, a knowledge of the operations of the heavenly bodies
and their relation to humankind would have been an important tool in gaining
ever higher levels of virtue. In fact, Porphyry seems to have held the
view that the soul receives certain "powers" from each of the planets --
right judgment from Saturn, proper exercise of the will from Jupiter, impulse
from Mars, opinion and imagination from the Sun, and (what else?) sensuous
desire from Venus; from the Moon the soul receives the power of physical
production (cf. Hegel, p. 430) -- and that these powers enable to the soul
to know things both earthly and heavenly. This theoretical knowledge of
the powers of the planets, then, would have made the more practical knowledge
of astrology quite useful and meaningful for an individual soul seeking
to know itself as such. The usefulness of astrology for Porphyry, in this
regard, probably resided in its ability to permit an individual, through
an analysis of his birth chart, to know which planet -- and therefore which
"power" -- exercised the dominant influence on his life. In keeping with
the ancient Greek doctrine of the "golden mean," the task of the individual
would then be to work to bring to the fore those other "powers" -- each
present to a lesser degree in the soul, but still active -- and thereby
achieve a balance or sôphrosunê that would render the
soul more capable of sharing in the divine Mind. The art of astrology,
it must be remembered, was in wide practice in the Hellenistic world, and
Plotinus' rejection of it was an exception that was by no means the rule.
Plotinus' views on astrology apparently found few adherents, even among
Platonists, for we see not only Porphyry, but also (to an extent) Iamblichus
and even Proclus declaring its value -- the latter being responsible for
a paraphrase of Claudius Ptolemy's astrological compendium known as the
Tetrabiblos
or
sometimes simply as The Astronomy. In addition to penning a commentary
on Ptolemy's tome, Porphyry also wrote his own
Introduction to Astronomy
(by which is apparently meant "Astrology," the modern distinction not holding
in Hellenistic times). Unfortunately, this work no longer survives intact.
(For more on this topic, see Hellenistic Astrology.)
b. The Quest for Transcendence
The philosophy of Plotinus was highly discursive, meaning that it operated
on the assumption that the highest meaning, the most profound truth (even
a so-called mystical truth) is translatable, necessarily, into language;
and furthermore, that any and every experience only attains its full value
as meaning when it has reached expression in the form of language.
This idea, of course, placed the One always beyond the discursive understanding
of the human soul, since the One was proclaimed, by Plotinus, to be not
only beyond discursive knowledge, but also the very source and possibility
of such knowledge. According to Plotinus, then, any time the individual
soul expresses a certain truth in language, this very act is representative
of the power of the One. This notion of the simultaneous intimate proximity
of the One to the soul, and, paradoxically, its extreme transcendence and
ineffability, is possible only within the confines of a purely subjective
and introspective philosophy like that of Plotinus; and since such a philosophy,
by its very nature, cannot appeal to common, external perceptions, it is
destined to remain the sole provenance of the sensitive and enlightened
few. Porphyry did not want to admit this, and so he found himself seeking,
as St. Augustine tells us, "a universal way (universalem viam) for
the liberation of the soul" (City of God 10.32, in Fowden, p. 132),
believing, as he did, that no such way had yet been discovered by or within
philosophy. This did not imply, for Porphyry, a wholesale rejection of
the Plotinian dialectic in favor of a more esoteric process of salvation;
but it did lead Porphyry (see above)
to look to astrology as a means of orienting the soul toward its place
in the cosmos, and thereby allowing it to achieve the desired salvation
in the most efficacious manner possible. Iamblichus, on the other hand,
rejected even Porphyry's approach, in favor of a path toward the divinity
that is more worthy of priests (hieratikoi) than philosophers; for
Iamblichus believed that not only the One, but all the gods and demi-gods,
exceed and transcend the individual soul, making it necessary for the soul
seeking salvation to call upon the superior beings to aid it in its progress.
This is accomplished, Iamblichus tells us, by "the perfective operation
of unspeakable acts (erga) correctly performed ... acts which are
beyond all understanding (huper pasan noêsin)" and which are
"intelligible only to the gods" (On the Mysteries II.11.96-7, in
Fowden, p. 132). These ritualistic acts, and the 'logic' underlying them,
Iamblichus terms "theurgy" (theourgia). These theurgic acts are
necessary, for Iamblichus, because he is convinced that philosophy, which
is based solely upon thought (ennoia) -- and thought, we must remember,
is always an accomplishment of the individual mind, and hence discursive
-- is unable to reach that which is beyond thought. The practice
of theurgy, then, becomes a way for the soul to experience the presence
of the divinity, instead of merely thinking or conceptualizing the godhead.
Porphyry took issue with this view, in his Letter to Anebo, which
is really a criticism of the ideas of his pupil, Iamblichus, where he stated
that, since theurgy is a physical process, it cannot possibly translate
into a spiritual effect. Iamblichus' On the Mysteries was written
as a reply to Porphyry's criticisms, but the defense of the pupil did not
succeed in vanquishing the persistent attacks of the master. While both
Porphyry and Iamblichus recognized, to a lesser and greater extent, respectively,
the limitations of the Plotinian dialectic, Porphyry held firm to the idea
that since the divinity is immaterial it can only be grasped in a noetic
fashion -- i.e., discursively (and even astrology, in spite of its mediative
capacity, is still an intellectual exercise, open to dialectic and narratization);
Iamblichus, adhering roughly to the same view, nevertheless argued that
the human soul must not think god on its own terms, but must allow itself
to be transformed by the penetrating essence of god, of which the soul
partakes through rituals intended to transform the particularized, fragmented
soul into a being that is "pure and unchangeable" (cf. On the Mysteries
I.12.42; Fowden, p. 133).
i. Theurgy and the Distrust of Dialectic
According to the schema of Plotinian dialectic, the 'stance' of the
individual soul is the sole source of truth certainty, being a judging
faculty dependent always upon the higher Soul. From the perspective of
one who believes that the soul is immersed in Nature, instead of recognizing,
as Plotinus did, the soul's status as an intimate governor of Nature (which
is the Soul's own act), dialectic may very well appear as a solipsistic
(and therefore faulty) attempt on the part of an individual mind to know
its reality by imposing conceptual structures and strictures upon the phenomena
that constitute this reality. Iamblichus believed that since every individual
soul is immersed in the 'bodily element,' no soul is capable of understanding
the divine nature through the pure exercise of human reason -- for reason
itself, at the level of the human soul-body composite, is tainted by the
changeable nature of matter, and therefore incapable of rising to that
perfect knowledge that is beyond all change (cp. Plato, Phaedrus
247e). Dialectic, then, as the soul's attempt to know reality, is seen
by Iamblichus as an attempt by an already fallen being to lead itself up
out of the very locus of its own forgetfulness. Now Iamblichus does not
completely reject dialectical reason; he simply requests that it be tempered
by an appeal to intermediate divinities, who will aid the fallen soul in
its ascent back towards the Supreme Good. The practice of ritualistic theurgy
is the medium by which the fallen soul ascends to a point at which it becomes
capable of engaging in a meaningful dialectic with the divinity. This dependence
upon higher powers nevertheless negates the soul's own innate ability to
think itself as god, and so we may say that Iamblichus' ideas represent
a decisive break with the philosophy of Plotinus.
4. Proclus and Pseudo-Dionysius
Proclus (410-485 CE) is, next to Plotinus, the most accomplished
and rigorous of the Neoplatonists. Born in Constantinople, he studied
philosophy in Athens, and through diligent effort rose to the rank of head
teacher or 'scholarch' of that great school. In addition to his accomplishments
in philosophy, Proclus was also a religious universalist, who had himself
initiated into all the mystery religions being practiced during his time.
This was doubtless due to the influence of Iamblichus, whom Proclus held
in high esteem (cf. Proclus, Theology of Plato III; in Hegel, p.
432). The philosophical expression of Proclus is more precise and logically
ordered than that of Plotinus. Indeed, Proclus posits the Intellect (nous)
as the culmination of the productive act (paragein) of the One;
this is in opposition to Plotinus, who described the Intellect as proceeding
directly from the One, thereby placing Mind before Thought, and so making
thought the process by which the Intellect becomes alienated from itself,
thus requiring the salvific act in order to attain the fulfillment of Being,
which is, for Plotinus, the return of Intellect to itself. Proclus understands
the movement of existence as a tripartite progression beginning with an
abstract unity, passing into a multiplicity that is identified with Life,
and returning again to a unity that is no longer merely abstract, but now
actualized as an eternal manifestation of the godhead. What constituted,
for Plotinus, the salvific drama of human existence is, for Proclus, simply
the logical, natural order of things. However, by thus removing the yearning
for salvation from human existence, as something to be accomplished, positively,
Proclus is ignoring or overly intellectualizing, if you will, an existential
aspect of human existence that is as real as it is powerful. Plotinus recognized
the importance of the salvific drive for the realization of true philosophy,
making philosophy a means to an end; Proclus utilizes philosophy, rather,
more in the manner of a useful, descriptive language by which a thinker
may describe the essential realities of a merely contingent existence.
In this sense, Proclus is more faithful to the 'letter' of Plato's Dialogues;
but for this same reason he fails to rise to the 'spirit' of the Platonic
philosophy. Proclus' major works include commentaries on Plato's Timaeus,
Republic,
Parmenides,
Alcibiades
I, and the Cratylus. He also wrote treatises on the Theology
of Plato, On Providence, and On the Subsistence of Evil.
His most important work is undoubtedly the Elements of Theology,
which contains the clearest exposition of his ideas.
a. Being -- Becoming -- Being
We found, in Plotinus, an explanation and expression of a cosmos that
involved a gradual development from all but static unity toward eventual
alienation
-- a moment at which the active soul must make the profound decision to
renounce autonomous existence and re-merge with the source of all Being,
or else remain forever in the darkness of forgetfulness and error. Salvation,
for Plotinus, was relatively easy to accomplish, but never guaranteed.
For Proclus, on the other hand, the arkhê or 'ruling beginning'
of all Life is the 'One-in-itself' (to auto hen), or that which
is responsible for the ordering of all existents, insofar as existence
is, in the last analysis, the sovereign act or expression of this primordial
unity or monad. The expression of this One is perfectly balanced,
being a trinity containing, as distinct expressions, each moment of self-realization
of this One; and each of these moments, according to Proclus, have the
structure of yet another trinity. The first trinity corresponds to the
limit, which is the guide and reference-point of all further manifestations;
the second to the unlimited, which is also Life or the productive
power (dunamis); and the third, finally, to the 'mixture' (mikton,
diakosmos), which is the self-reflective
moment of return during
which the soul realizes itself as a thinking -- i.e., living --
entity. Thought is, therefore, the culmination of Life and the fulfillment
of Being. Thought is also the reason (logos) that binds these triadic
unities together in a grand harmonious plêrôma, if you
will. Being, for Proclus, is that divine self-presence, "shut up without
development and maintained in strict isolation" (Hegel, p. 446) which is
the object of Life's thinking; this 'object' gives rise to that thinking
which leads, eventually, to understanding (nous), which is the thought
of being, and appears (ekphanôs), always, as 'being's begetter'.
When the circle is completed, and reflected upon, logically, we are met
with the following onto-cosmological schema: thought (noêtos,
also known as 'Being') giving rise to its "negative" which is thinking
(Hegel, p. 393) and the thought 'it is' (noêtos kai noêros),
produces its own precise reflection -- 'pure thinking' -- and this reflection
is the very manifestation (phanerôsis) of the deity within
the fluctuating arena of individual souls. Being is eternal and static
precisely because it always returns to itself as Being; and 'Becoming'is
the conceptual term for this process, which involves the cyclical play
between that which is and is not, at any given time. "[T]he thought of
every man is identical with the existence of every man, and each is both
the thought and the existence" (Proclus, Platonic Theology III.,
in Hegel, p. 449). The autonomous drive toward dissolution, which is so
germane to the soul as such, is wiped away by Proclus, for his dialectic
is impeccably clean. However, he does not account for the yearning for
the infinite (as does Plotinus) and the consequent existential desire for
productive power falls on its face before the supreme god of autonomous
creation -- which draws all existents into its primeval web of dissolution.
b. The God Beyond Being
Very little is known about the life of the so-called Pseudo-Dionysius.
For many centuries, the writings of this mystical philosopher were believed
to have been from the pen of none other Dionysius, the disciple of St.
Paul. Later scholarship has shed considerable doubt on this claim, and
most modern scholars believe this author to have been active during the
late fifth century CE. Indeed, the earliest reference to the Dionysian
Corpus that we possess is from 533 CE. There is no mention of this author's
work before this date. Careful study of the Pseudo-Dionysian writings has
uncovered many parallels between the theurgical doctrines of Iamblichus,
and the triadic metaphysical schema of Proclus. Yet what we witness in
these writings is the attempt by a thinker who is at once religiously sensitive
and philosophically engaged to bring the highly developed Platonism of
his time into line with a Christian theological tradition that was apparently
persisting on the fringes of orthodoxy. To this extent, we may refer to
the Pseudo-Dionysius as a 'decadent,' for he (or she?) was writing at a
time when the heyday of Platonism had attained the status of a palaios
logos ('ancient teaching') to be, not merely commented upon, but savored
as an aesthetic monument to an era already long past. It is important to
note, in this regard, that the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius do not contain
any theoretical arguments or dialectical moments, but simply many subtle
variations on the apophatic/kataphatic theology for which our writer is
renowned. Indeed, he writes as if his readers already know, and
are merely in need of clarification. His message is quite simple, and is
manifestly distilled from the often cumbersome doctrines of earlier thinkers
(especially Iamblichus and Proclus). Pseudo-Dionysius professes a God who
is beyond all distinctions, and who even transcends the means utilized
by human beings to reach Him. For Pseudo-Dionysius, the Holy Trinity (which
is probably analogous to Proclus' highest trinity, see
above) serves as a "guide" to the human being who seeks not only to
know but to unite with "him who is beyond all being and knowledge"
(Pseudo-Dionysius, The Mystical Theology 997A-1000A, tr.
C. Luibheid 1987). In the expression of the Pseudo-Dionysius the yearning
for the infinite reaches a poetical form that at once fulfills and exceeds
philosophy.
5. Appendix:`The Renaissance Platonists
After the closing of the Neoplatonic Academy in Athens by the Emperor
Justinian in 529 CE, Platonism ceased to be a living philosophy. Due to
the efforts of the Christian philosopher Boethius (480-525 CE),
who translated Porphyry's Isagoge, and composed numerous original
works as well, the Middle Ages received a faint glimmer of the ancient
glories of the Platonic philosophy. St. Augustine, also, was responsible
for imparting a sense of Neoplatonic doctrine to the Latin West, but this
was by way of commentary and critique, and not in any way a systematic
exposition of the philosophy. Generally speaking, it is safe to say that
the European Middle Ages remained in the grip of Aristotelianism until
the early Renaissance, when certain brilliant Italian thinkers began to
rediscover, translate, and expound upon the original texts of Platonism.
Chief among these thinkers were Marsilio Ficino (1433-1492) and
Pico
della Mirandola (1463-1494). Ficino produced fine Latin translations
of Plato's Dialogues, the Enneads of Plotinus, and numerous
works by Porphyry, Iamblichus, Proclus,
Pseudo-Dionysius,
and many others. In addition to his scholarly ability, Ficino was also
a fine commentator and philosopher in his own right. His brilliant essay
on Five Questions Concerning The Mind is a concise summary of general
Neoplatonic doctrine, based upon Ficino's own view that the lot of the
human soul is to inquire into its own nature, and that since this inquiry
causes the human soul to experience misery, the soul must do everything
it can to transcend the physical body and live a life worthy of the blessed
angels (cf. Cassirer, et. al. (ed) 1948, p. 211-212). Giovanni Pico, the
Count of Mirandola, was a colorful figure who lived a short life, fraught
with strife. He roused the ire of the papacy by composing a voluminous
work defending nine-hundred theses drawn from his vast reading of the Ancients;
thirteen of these theses were deemed heretical by the papacy, and yet Pico
refused to change or withdraw a single one. Like his friend Ficino, Pico
was a devotee of ancient wisdom, drawing not only upon the Platonic canon,
but also upon the Pre-Socratic literature and the Hermetic Corpus, especially
the Poimandres. Pico's most famous work is the Oration on the
Dignity of Man, in which he eloquently states his learned view that
humankind was created by God "as a creature of indeterminate nature," possessed
of the unique ability to ascend or descend on the scale of Being through
the autonomous exercise of free will (Oration 3, in Cassirer, et.
al. (ed) 1948, p. 224). Pico's view of free will was quite different from
that expressed by Plotinus, and indeed most other Neoplatonists, and it
came as no surprise when Pico composed a treatise On Being and the One
which ended on Aristotelian terms, declaring the One to be coincident with
or persisting amidst Being -- a wholly un-Platonic doctrine. With Ficino,
then, we may say that Platonism achieved a brief moment of archaic glory,
while with Pico, it was plunged once again into the quagmire of self-referential
empiricism.
6. Sources
Cassirer, Ernst; Kristeller, Paul Oskar; Randall, John Herman Jr. (editors)
The
Renaissance Philosophy of Man (University of Chicago Press 1948).
Cooper, John M. (ed.), Plato: Complete Works (Hackett Publishing
1997).
Copleston S.J., Frederick, A History of Philosophy (vol. I, part
II): Greece and Rome (Image Books 1962).
Dillon, John (1977), The Middle Platonists (Cornell University
Press).
Eusebius (tr. G.A. Williamson 1965), The History of the Church
(Penguin Books).
Fowden, Garth, The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach To The
Late Pagan Mind (Cambridge University Press 1986).
Hadot, Pierre (tr. M. Chase), Plotinus, or The Simplicity of Vision
(University of Chicago Press 1993).
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (tr. E.S. Haldane and Frances H. Simson),
Lectures
on the History of Philosophy (vol. II): Plato And The Platonists
(Bison Books 1995).
Jaeger, Werner, Early Christianity and Greek Paideia (Harvard
University Press 1961).
Layton, Bentley (1987), The Gnostic Scriptures (Doubleday: The
Anchor Bible Reference Library).
O'Brien S.J., Elmer (1964), The Essential Plotinus: Representative
Treatises From The Enneads (Hackett Publishing).
Origen of Alexandria, Commentary on John, tr. in The
Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. X. (Eerdmans 1979, reprint).
Origen of Alexandria, On First Principles [De Principiis], tr.
in
The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. IV. (Eerdmans 1979, reprint).
Philo of Alexandria (tr. F.H. Colson and G.H. Whitaker), On the Creation
of the World [De Opificio Mundi], in vol. 1 of The Loeb Classical Library
edition of Philo (Harvard University Press 1929).
Plotinus (tr. A.H. Armstrong), The Enneads, in seven volumes
(Loeb Classical Library: Harvard University Press 1966).
Porphyry (tr. K. Guthrie), Launching-Points to the Realm of Mind
[Pros
ta noeta aphorismoi] (Phanes Press 1988).
Porphyry (tr. A. Zimmern), Porphyry's Letter to His Wife Marcella
Concerning the Life of Philosophy and the Ascent to the Gods (Phanes
Press 1986).
Porphyry (tr. A.H. Armstrong), Life of Plotinus [Vita Plotini],
in volume one of the Loeb Classical Library edition of Plotinus (Harvard
University Press 1966).
Proclus (tr. T. Taylor), Lost Fragments of Proclus (Wizards Bookshelf
1988).
Proclus (tr. T. Taylor), Ten Doubts Concerning Providence, and
On
the Subsistence of Evil (Ares Publishers 1980).
Pseudo-Dionysius (tr. C. Luibheid 1987), Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete
Works (Paulist Press).
|
