The Enneads — trans. Stephen MacKenna
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en, Socrates the wisest” — you shall hear what a full and lofty oracle Apollo rendered upon Plotinus.
I raise an undying song, to the memory of a gentle friend, a hymn of praise woven to the honey-sweet tones of my lyre under the touch of the golden plectrum.
The Muses, too, I call to lift the voice with me in strains of many-toned exultation, in passion ranging over all the modes of song :
even as of old they raised the famous chant to the glory of Aeakides in the immortal ardours of the Homeric line.
Come, then. Sacred Chorus, let us intone with one great sound the utmost of all song, I Phoebus, Bathychaites, singing in the midst.
Celestial ! Man at first but now nearing the diviner ranks ! the bonds of human necessity are loosed for you and, strong of heart, you beat your eager way from out the roaring tumult of the fleshly life to the shores of that wave-washed coast free from the thronging of the guilty, thence to take the grateful path of the sinless soul :
where glows the splendour of God, where Right is throned in the stainless place, far from the wrong that mocks at law.
Oft-times as you strove to rise above the bitter waves of this blood-drenched life, above the sickening whirl, toiling in the midmost of the rushing flood and the unimaginable turmoil, oft-times.
PORPHYRY
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from the Ever-Blessed, there was shown to you the Term still close at hand :
Oft-times, when your mind thrust out awry and was like to be rapt down unsanctioned paths, the Immortals themselves prevented, guiding you on the straightgoing way to the celestial spheres, pouring down before you a dense shaft of light that your eyes might see from amid the mournful gloom.
Sleep never closed those eyes : high above the heavy murk of the mist you held them ; tossed in the welter, you still had vision ; still you saw sights many and fair not granted to all that labour in wisdom’s quest.
But now that you have cast the screen aside, quitted the tomb that held your lofty soul, you enter at once the heavenly consort : where fragrant breezes play, where all is unison and winning tenderness and guileless joy, and the place is lavish of the nectarstreams the unfailing Gods bestow, with the blandishments of the Loves, and delicious airs, and tranquil sky :
where Minos and Rhadamanthus dwell, great brethren of the golden race of mighty Zeus ; where dwells the just Aeacus, and Plato, consecrated power, and stately Pythagoras and all else that form the Choir of Immortal Love, there where the heart is ever lifted in joyous festival.
Rhadamanthus dwell, great brethren of the golden race of mighty Zeus ; where dwells the just Aeacus, and Plato, consecrated power, and stately Pythagoras and all else that form the Choir of Immortal Love, there where the heart is ever lifted in joyous festival.
O Blessed One, you have fought your many fights ; now, crowned with unfading life, your days are with the Ever-Holy.
Rejoicing Muses, let us stay our song and the subtle windings of our dance ; thus much I could but tell, to my golden lyre, of Plotinus, the hallowed soul.
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Good and kindly, singularly gentle and engaging : thus the oracle presents him, and so in fact we found him. Sleeplessly alert — Apollo tells — pure of soul, ever striving towards the divine which he loved with all his being, he laboured strenuously to free himself and rise above the bitter waves of this blood-drenched life : and this is why to Plotinus —
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PLOTINUS
God-like and lifting himself often, by the ways of meditation and by the methods Plato teaches in the Banquet, to the first and all-transcendent God — that God appeared, the God throned above the Intellectual- Principle and all the Intellectual-Sphere.
“ There was shown to Plotinus the Term ever near ” : for the Term, the one end, of his life was to become Uniate, to approach to the God over all : and four times, during the period I passed with him, he achieved this Term, by no mere latent fitness but by the ineffable Act.
To this God, I also declare, I Porphyry, that in my sixty-eighth year I too was once admitted and entered into Union.
We are told that often when he was leaving the way, the Gods set him on the true path again, pouring down before him a dense shaft of light ; here we are to understand that in his writing he was overlooked and guided by the divine powers.
“ In this sleepless vision within and without,” — the oracle says, — “ your eyes have beheld sights many and fair not vouchsafed to all that take the philosophic path ” : • contemplation in man may sometimes be more than human, but compare it with the True-Knowing of the Gods and, wonderful though it be, it can never plunge into the depths their divine vision fathoms.
Thus far the Oracle recounts what Plotinus accom*plished and to what heights he attained while stiU in the body : emancipated from the body, we are told how he entered the celestial circle where all is friendship, tender delight, happiness and loving union with God, where Minos and Rhadamanthus and Aeacus, the sons of God, are enthroned as judges of souls — not, however, to hold him to judgement but as welcoming him to ered the celestial circle where all is friendship, tender delight, happiness and loving union with God, where Minos and Rhadamanthus and Aeacus, the sons of God, are enthroned as judges of souls — not, however, to hold him to judgement but as welcoming him to their consort to which are bidden spirits pleasing to the Gods — Plato, Pythagoras and all the people of the Choir of Immortal Love, there where the blessed spirits have their birth-home and live in days made happy by the Gods.
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I have related Plotinus’ life ; something remains to tell of my revision and arrangement of his writings. This task he himself hadp. 25 imposed upon me during his lifetime and I had pledged myself to him and to the circle to carry it out.
I judged that in the case of treatises which, like these, had been issued without consideration of logical sequence it was best to disregard the time-order.
Apollodorus, the Athenian, edited in ten volumes the collected works of Epicharmus, the comedy writer ; Andronicus, the Peripatetic, classified the works of Aristotle and of Theophrastus according to subject, bringing together the discussions of related topics : I have adopted a similar plan.
I had fifty-four treatises before me : I divided them into six sets of nine, an arrangement which pleased me by the happy combination of the perfect number six with the nines : to each such ennead I assigned matter of one general nature, leading off with the themes presenting the least difficulty.
The First Ennead, on this method, contains the treatises of a more ethical tendency : —
1. On the Animate and the Man.
2. On the Virtues.
3. On Dialectic.
4. On Happiness.
5. Whether Happiness depends on Extension of Time.
6. On Beauty.
7. On the Primal Good and Secondary forms of Good.
8. On Evil.
9. On the Reasoned Withdrawal from Life.
The Second Ennead, following the more strictly ethical First, is physical, containing the disquisitions on the world and all that belongs to the world : —
1. On the World.
2. On the Circular Movement.
3. On the Stars.
4. On the Two Orders of Matter.
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PLOTINUS
5. On Potentiality and Actuality.
6. On Quality and Form.
7. On Coalescence.
8. Why Distant Objects appear Small.
9. Against those Declaring the Creator of the World, and the World itself, to be Evil.
The Third Ennead, still keeping to the World, discusses the philosophical implications of some of its features : —
1. On Fate.
2. The First Treatise on Providence.
3. The Second Treatise on Providence.
4. On Our Tutelary Spirit.
5. On Love.
6. On the Impassibility of the Bodiless.
7.