Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 1 In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four Periods
Part 1
PLOTINOS Complete Works
In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four Periods;
With BIOGRAPHY by PORPHYRY, EUNAPIUS, & SUIDAS, COMMENTARY by PORPHYRY, ILLUSTRATIONS by JAMBLICHUS & AMMONIUS, STUDIES in Sources, Development, Influence; INDEX of Subjects, Thoughts and Words.
by KENNETH SYLVAN GUTHRIE,
Professor in Extension, University of the South, Sewanee; A.M., Sewanee, and Harvard; Ph.D., Tulane, and Columbia. M.D., Medico-Chirurgical College, Philadelphia.
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE PRESS P. O. Box 42, ALPINE, N.J., U.S.A.
Copyright, 1918, by Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie. All Rights, including that of Translation, Reserved.
Entered at Stationers' Hall, by George Bell and Sons, Portugal Street, Lincoln's Inn, London.
PLOTINOS Complete Works
In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four Periods;
With BIOGRAPHY by PORPHYRY, EUNAPIUS, & SUIDAS, COMMENTARY by PORPHYRY, ILLUSTRATIONS by JAMBLICHUS & AMMONIUS, STUDIES in Sources, Development, Influence; INDEX of Subjects, Thoughts and Words.
by KENNETH SYLVAN GUTHRIE,
Professor in Extension, University of the South, Sewanee; A.M., Sewanee, and Harvard; Ph.D., Tulane, and Columbia. M.D., Medico-Chirurgical College, Philadelphia.
VOL. I Biographies; Amelian Books, 1-21.
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE PRESS P. O. Box 42, ALPINE, N.J., U.S.A.
FOREWORD
It is only with mixed feelings that such a work can be published. Overshadowing all is the supreme duty to the English-speaking world, and secondarily to the rest of humanity to restore to them in an accessible form their, till now, unexploited spiritual heritage, with its flood of light on the origins of their favorite philosophy. And then comes the contrast--the pitiful accomplishment. Nor could it be otherwise; for there are passages that never can be interpreted perfectly; moreover, the writer would gladly have devoted to it every other leisure moment of his life--but that was impossible. As a matter of fact, he would have made this translation at the beginning of his life, instead of at its end, had it not been for a mistaken sense of modesty; but as no one offered to do it, he had to do it himself. If he had done it earlier, his "Philosophy of Plotinos" would have been a far better work.
Indeed, if it was not for the difficulty and expense of putting it out, the writer would now add to the text an entirely new summary of Plotinos's views. The fairly complete concordance, however, should be of service to the student, and help to rectify the latest German summary of Plotinos, that by Drews, which in its effort to furnish a foundation for Hartmann's philosophy of the unconscious, neglected both origins and spiritual aspects. However, the present genetic insight of Plotinos's development should make forever impossible that theory of cast-iron coherence, which is neither historical nor human.
The writer, having no thesis such as Drews' to justify, will welcome all corrections and suggestions. He regrets the inevitable uncertainties of capitalization (as between the supreme One, Intelligence World-Soul and Daemon or guardian, and the lower one, intelligence, soul and demon or guardian); and any other inconsistencies of which he may have been guilty; and he beseeches the mantle of charity in view of the stupendousness of the undertaking, in which he practically could get no assistance of any kind, and also in view of the almost insuperable difficulties of his own career. He, however, begs to assure the reader that he did everything "ad majorem Dei gloriam."
INDEX.
PLOTINOS' COMPLETE WORKS.
Preface 1
Concordance of Enneads and Chronological Numbers 2
Concordance of Chronological Numbers and Enneads 3
Biography of Plotinos, by Porphyry 5
Biographies by Eunapius and Suidas 39
Amelian Books, 1-21 40
Amelio-Porphyrian Books, 22-23 283
Porphyrian Books, 34-45 641
Eustochian Books, 46-54 1017
PLOTINIC STUDIES
IN SOURCES, DEVELOPMENT AND INFLUENCE.
1. Development in the Teachings of Plotinos 1269
2. Platonism: Significance, Progress, and Results 1288
3. Plotinos' View of Matter 1296
4. Plotinos' Creation of the Trinity 1300
5. Resemblances to Christianity 1307
6. Indebtedness to Numenius 1313
7. Value of Plotinos 1327
Concordance to Plotinos i
An outline of the doctrines of Plotinos is published under the title "The Message of Plotinos."
CONCORDANCE OF ENNEADS AND CHRONOLOGICAL NUMBERS
i.1 53 iii.1 3 v.1 10
i.2 19 iii.2 47 v.2 11
i.3 20 iii.3 48 v.3 49
i.4 46 iii.4 15 v.4 7
i.5 36 iii.5 50 v.5 32
i.6 1 iii.6 26 v.6 24
i.7 54 iii.7 45 v.7 18
i.8 51 iii.8 30 v.8 31
i.9 16 iii.9 13 v.9 5
ii.1 40 iv.1 4 vi.1 42
ii.2 14 iv.2 21 vi.2 43
ii.3 52 iv.3 27 vi.3 44
ii.4 12 iv.4 28 vi.4 22
ii.5 25 iv.5 29 vi.5 23
ii.6 17 iv.6 41 vi.6 34
ii.7 37 iv.7 2 vi.7 38
ii.8 35 iv.8 6 vi.8 39
ii.9 33 iv.9 8 vi.9 9
CONCORDANCE OF CHRONOLOGICAL NUMBERS AND ENNEADS
1 i.6 19 i.2 37 ii.7
2 iv.7 20 i.3 38 vi.7
3 iii.1 21 iv.2 39 vi.8
4 iv.1 22 vi.4 40 ii.1
5 v.9 23 vi.5 41 iv.6
6 iv.8 24 v.6 42 vi.1
7 v.4 25 ii.5 43 vi.2
8 iv.9 26 iii.6 44 vi.3
9 vi.9 27 iv.3 45 iii.7
10 v.1 28 iv.4 46 i.4
11 v.2 29 iv.5 47 iii.2
12 ii.4 30 iii.8 48 iii.3
13 iii.9 31 v.8 49 v.3
14 ii.2 32 v.5 50 iii.5
15 iii.4 33 ii.9 51 i.8
16 i.9 34 vi.6 52 ii.3
17 ii.6 35 ii.8 53 i.1
18 v.7 36 i.5 54 i.7
Life of Plotinos And Order of his Writings
By PORPHYRY. (_Written when about 70 years of age, see 23._)
I. PLOTINOS, LIKE PORPHYRY, DESPISED HIS PHYSICAL NATURE, BUT A PICTURE OF HIM WAS SECURED.
Plotinos the philosopher, who lived recently, seemed ashamed of having a body. Consequently he never spoke of his family or home (Lycopolis, now Syout, in the Thebaid, in Egypt). He never would permit anybody to perpetuate him in a portrait or statue. One day that Amelius[1] begged him to allow a painting to be made of him, he said, "Is it not enough for me to have to carry around this image[2], in which nature has enclosed us? Must I besides transmit to posterity the image of this image as worthy of attention?" As Amelius never succeeded in getting Plotinos to reconsider his refusal, and to consent to give a sitting, Amelius begged his friend Carterius, the most famous painter of those times, to attend Plotinos's lectures, which were free to all. By dint of gazing at Plotinos, Carterius so filled his own imagination with Plotinos's features that he succeeded in painting them from memory. By his advice, Amelius directed Carterius in these labors, so that this portrait was a very good likeness. All this occurred without the knowledge of Plotinos.
II. SICKNESS AND DEATH OF PLOTINOS; HIS BIRTHDAY UNKNOWN.
Plotinos was subject to chronic digestive disorders; nevertheless, he never was willing to take any remedies, on the plea that it was unworthy of a man of his age to relieve himself by such means. Neither did he ever take any of the then popular "wild animal remedy," because, said he, he did not even eat the flesh of domestic animals, let alone that of savage ones. He never bathed, contenting himself, with daily massage at home. But when at the period of the plague, which was most virulent,[3] the man who rubbed him died of it, he gave up the massage. This interruption in his habits brought on him a chronic quinsy, which never became very noticeable, so long as I remained with him; but after I left him, it became aggravated to the point that his voice, formerly sonorous and powerful, became permanently hoarse; besides, his vision became disturbed, and ulcers appeared on his hands and feet. All this I learned on my return, from my friend Eustochius, who remained with him until his end. These inconveniences hindered his friends from seeing him as often as they used to do, though he persisted in his former custom of speaking to each one individually. The only solution of this difficulty was for him to leave Rome. He retired into Campania, on an estate that had belonged to Zethus, one of his friends who had died earlier. All he needed was furnished by the estate itself, or was brought to him from the estate at Minturnae, owned by Castricius (author of a Commentary on Plato's Parmenides, to whom Porphyry dedicated his treatise on Vegetarianism). Eustochius himself told me that he happened to be at Puzzoli at the time of Plotinos's death, and that he was slow in reaching the bedside of Plotinos. The latter then said to him, "I have been waiting for you; I am trying to unite what is divine in us[4] to that which is divine in the universe." Then a serpent, who happened to be under Plotinos's death-bed slipped into a hole in the wall (as happened at the death of Scipio Africanus, Pliny, Hist. Nat. xv. 44), and Plotinos breathed his last. At that time Plotinos was 66 years old (in 270, born in 205), according to the account of Eustochius. The emperor Claudius II was then finishing the second year of his reign. I was at Lilybaeum; Amelius was at Apamaea in Syria, Castricius in Rome, and Eustochius alone was with Plotinos. If we start from the second year of Claudius II and go back 66 years, we will find that Plotinos's birth falls in the 18th year of Septimus Severus (205). He never would tell the month or day of his birth, because he did not approve of celebrating his birth-day either by sacrifices, or banquets. Still he himself performed a sacrifice, and entertained his friends on the birth-days of Plato and Socrates; and on those days those who could do it had to write essays and read them to the assembled company.
III. PLOTINOS'S EARLY EDUCATION.
This is as much as we learned about him during various interviews with him. At eight years of age he was already under instruction by a grammarian, though the habit of uncovering his nurse's breast to suck her milk, with avidity, still clung to him. One day, however, she so complained of his importunity that he became ashamed of himself, and ceased doing so. At 28 years of age he devoted himself entirely to philosophy. He was introduced to the teachers who at that time were the most famous in Alexandria. He would return from their lectures sad and discouraged. He communicated the cause of this grief to one of his friends, who led him to Ammonius, with whom Plotinos was not acquainted. As soon as he heard this philosopher, he said to his friend, "This is the man I was looking for!" From that day forwards he remained close to Ammonius. So great a taste for philosophy did he develop, that he made up his mind to study that which was being taught among the Persians, and among the Hindus. When emperor Gordian prepared himself for his expedition against the Persians, Plotinos, then 39 years old, followed in the wake of the army. He had spent between 10 to 11 years near Ammonius. After Gordian was killed in Mesopotamia, Plotinos had considerable trouble saving himself at Antioch. He reached Rome while Philip was emperor, and when he himself was 50 years of age.
THE SCHOOL OF AMMONIUS.
Herennius, (the pagan) Origen, and Plotinos had agreed to keep secret the teachings they had received from Ammonius. Plotinos carried out his agreement. Herennius was the first one to break it, and Origen followed his example. The latter limited himself to writing a book entitled, "Of Daemons;" and, under the reign of Gallienus, he wrote another one to prove that "The Emperor alone is the Only Poet" (if the book was a flattery; which is not likely. Therefore it probably meant: "The King (of the universe, that is, the divine Intelligence), is the only 'demiurgic' Creator.")
PLOTINOS AN UNSYSTEMATIC TEACHER.
For a long period Plotinos did not write anything. He contented himself with teaching orally what he had learned from Ammonius. He thus passed ten whole years teaching a few pupils, without committing anything to writing. However, as he allowed his pupils to question him, it often happened that his school was disorderly, and that there were useless discussions, as I later heard from Amelius.
AMELIUS, PLOTINOS'S FIRST SECRETARY.
Amelius enrolled himself among the pupils of Plotinos during the third year of Plotinos's stay in Rome, which also was the third year of the reign of Claudius II, that is, 24 years. Amelius originally had been a disciple of the Stoic philosopher Lysimachus.[5] Amelius surpassed all his fellow-pupils by his systematic methods of study. He had copied, gathered, and almost knew by heart all the works of Numenius. He composed a hundred copy-books of notes taken at the courses of Plotinos, and he gave them as a present to his adopted son, Hostilianus Hesychius, of Apamea. (Fragments of Amelius's writings are found scattered in those of Proclus, Stobaeus, Olympiodorus, Damascius, and many of the Church Fathers.)
IV. HOW PORPHYRY CAME TO PLOTINOS FOR THE FIRST TIME, IN 253.
In the tenth year of the reign of Gallienus, I (then being twenty years of age), left Greece and went to Rome with Antonius of Rhodes. I found there Amelius, who had been following the courses of Plotinos for eighteen years. He had not yet dared to write anything, except a few books of notes, of which there were not yet as many as a hundred. In this tenth year of the reign of Gallienus, Plotinos was fifty-nine years old. When I (for the second, and more important time) joined him, I was thirty years of age. During the first year of Gallienus, Plotinos began to write upon some topics of passing interest, and in the tenth year of Gallienus, when I visited him for the first time, he had written twenty-one books, which had been circulated only among a very small number of friends. They were not given out freely, and it was not easy to go through them. They were communicated to students only under precautionary measures, and after the judgment of those who received them had been carefully tested.
PLOTINOS'S BOOKS OF THE FIRST PERIOD (THE AMELIAN PERIOD).
I shall mention the books that Plotinos had already written at that time. As he had prefixed no titles to them, several persons gave them different ones. Here are those that have asserted themselves:
1. Of the Beautiful. i. 6.
2. Of the Immortality of the Soul. iv. 7.
3. Of Fate. iii. 1.
4. Of the Nature of the Soul. iv. 1.
5. Of Intelligence, of Ideas, and of Existence. v. 9.
6. Of the Descent of the Soul into the Body. iv. 8.
7. How does that which is Posterior to the First Proceed from Him? Of the One. v. 4.
8. Do all the Souls form but a Single Soul? iv. 9.
9. Of the Good, or of the One. vi. 9.
10. Of the Three Principal Hypostatic Forms of Existence, v. 1.
11. Of Generation, and of the Order of Things after the First, v. 2.
12. (Of the Two) Matters, (the Sensible and Intelligible). ii. 4.
13. Various Considerations, iii. 9.
14. Of the (Circular) Motion of the Heavens. ii. 2.
15. Of the Daemon Allotted to Us, iii. 4.
16. Of (Reasonable) Suicide, i. 9.
17. Of Quality, ii. 6.
18. Are there Ideas of Individuals? v. 7.
19. Of Virtues. i. 2.
20. Of Dialectics. i. 3.
21. (How does the Soul keep the Mean between Indivisible Nature and Divisible Nature?) iv. 2.
These twenty-one books were already written when I visited Plotinos; he was then in the fifty-ninth year of his age.
V. HOW PORPHYRY CAME TO PLOTINOS FOR THE SECOND TIME (A. D. 263-269).
I remained with him this year, and the five following ones. I had already visited Rome ten years previously; but at that time Plotinos spent his summers in vacation, and contented himself with instructing his visitors orally.
During the above-mentioned six years, as several questions had been cleared up in the lectures of Plotinos, and at the urgent request of Amelius and myself that he write them down, he wrote two books to prove that
PLOTINOS'S BOOKS OF THE SECOND PERIOD (THE PORPHYRIAN PERIOD).
22. The One and Identical Existence is Everywhere Entire, I, vi. 4.
23. Second Part Thereof. vi. 5.
Then he wrote the book entitled:
24. The Superessential Transcendent Principle Does Not Think. Which is the First Thinking Principle? And Which is the Second? v. 6.
He also wrote the following books:
25. Of Potentiality and Actualization. ii. 5.
26. Of the Impassibility of Incorporeal Entities. iii. 6.
27. Of the Soul, First Part. iv. 3.
28. Of the Soul, Second Part. iv. 4.
29. (Of the Soul, Third; or, How do We See?) iv. 5.
30. Of Contemplation. iii. 8.
31. Of Intelligible Beauty. v. 8.
32. The Intelligible Entities are not Outside of Intelligence. Of Intelligence and of Soul. v. 5.
33. Against the Gnostics. ii. 9.
34. Of Numbers. vi. 6.
35. Why do Distant Objects Seem Small? ii. 8.
36. Does Happiness (Consist in Duration?) i. 5.
37. Of the Mixture with Total Penetration. ii. 7.
38. Of the Multitude of Ideas; Of the Good. vi. 7.
39. Of the Will. vi. 8.
40. (Of the World). ii. 1.
41. Of Sensation, and of Memory. iv. 6.
42. Of the Kinds of Existence, First. vi. 1.
43. Of the Kinds of Existence, Second. vi. 2.
44. Of the Kinds of Existence, Third. vi. 3.
45. Of Eternity and Time. iii. 7.
Plotinos wrote these twenty-four books during the six years I spent with him; as subjects he would take the problems that happened to come up, and which we have indicated by the titles of these books. These twenty-four books, joined to the twenty-one Plotinos had written before I came to him, make forty-five.
VI. PLOTINOS'S BOOKS OF THE THIRD PERIOD (THE EUSTOCHIAN PERIOD).
While I was in Sicily, where I went in the fifteenth year of the reign of Gallienus, he wrote five new books that he sent me:
46. Of Happiness. i. 4.
47. Of Providence, First. iii. 2.
48. Of Providence, Second. iii. 3.
49. Of the Hypostases that Act as Means of Knowledge, and of the Transcendent. v. 3.
50. Of Love. iii. 5.
These books he sent me in the last year of the reign of Claudius II, and at the beginning of the second.
Shortly before dying, he sent me the following four books:
51. Of the Nature of Evils. i. 8.
52. Of the Influence of the Stars. ii. 3.
53. What is the Animal? What is Man? i. 1.
54. Of the First Good (or, of Happiness). i. 7.
These nine books, with the forty-five previously written, make in all fifty-four.
Some were composed during the youth of the author, others when in his bloom, and finally the last, when his body was already seriously weakened; and they betray his condition while writing them. The twenty-one first books seem to indicate a spirit which does not yet possess all its vigor and firmness. Those that he wrote during the middle of his life, show that his genius was then in its full form. These twenty-four books may be considered to be perfect, with the exception of a few passages. The last nine are less powerful than the others; and of these nine, the last four are the weakest.
VII. VARIOUS DISCIPLES OF PLOTINOS.
Plotinos had a great number of auditors and disciples, who were attracted to his courses by love of philosophy.
Among this number was Amelius of Etruria, whose true name was Gentilianus. He did indeed insist that in his name the letter "l" should be replaced by "r," so that his name should read "Amerius," from "ameria" (meaning indivisibility, though Suidas states that it was derived from the town of Ameria, in the province of Umbria), and not Amelius, from "amellia" (negligence).
A very zealous disciple of Plotinos was a physician from Scythopolis (or, Bethshean, in Palestine), named Paulinus, whose mind was full of ill-digested information and whom Amelius used to call Mikkalos (the tiny).
Eustochius of Alexandria, also a physician, knew Plotinos at the end of his life, and remained with him until his death, to care for him. Exclusively occupied with the teachings of Plotinos, he himself became a genuine philosopher.
Zoticus, also, attached himself to Plotinos. He was both critic and poet; he corrected the works of Antimachus, and beautifully versified the fable of the Atlantidae. His sight gave out, however, and he died shortly before Plotinos. Paulinus also, died before Plotinos.
Zethus was one of the disciples of Plotinos. He was a native of Arabia, and had married the daughter of Theodosius, friend of Ammonius. He was a physician, and much beloved by Plotinos, who sought to lead him to withdraw from public affairs, for which he had considerable aptitude; and with which he occupied himself with zeal. Plotinos lived in very close relations with him; he even retired to the country estate of Zethus, distant six miles from Minturnae.
Castricius, surnamed Firmus, had once owned this estate. Nobody, in our times, loved virtue more than Firmus. He held Plotinos in the deepest veneration. He rendered Amelius the same services that might have been rendered by a good servant, he displayed for me the attentions natural towards a brother. Nevertheless this man, who was so attached to Plotinos, remained engaged in public affairs.
Several senators, also, came to listen to Plotinos. Marcellus, Orontius, Sabinillus and Rogatianus applied themselves, under Plotinos, to the study of philosophy.