the soul of Plotinus had migrated, answered as follows :
To strains immortal full of heavenly fire.
My harp I tune well strung with vocal wire ;
Dear to divinity a friend I praise.
Who claims those notes a God alone can raise.
For him a God in verse mellifluous sings.
And beats with golden rod the warbling strings.
Be present Muses, and with general voice And all the powers of harmony rejoice ;
* In the original :
Oiha h' εγω ψάμμου r αριΘμον, και μέτρα Θαλασσής,
Και κωφού ξννιημι , και ου XaXeovros ακούω .
And this is the first part of the celebrated oracle given to Croesus, as related by Herodotus.
Let all the measures of your art be try'd In rapt'rous sounds* as when Achilles dy*d.
When Homer's melody the band inspir'd*
And god-like furies every bosom fir'd.
And lo ! the sacred choir of Muses join*
And in one general hymn their notes combine.
I Phoebus in the midst* to whom belong The sacred pow'rs of verse, begin the song.
Genius sublime ! once bound in mortal tics,
A daemon now and more than mortals wise.
Freed from those members that with deadly weight And stormy whirl enchain'd thy soul of late ;
O'er Life's rough ocean thou hast gain'd that shore. Where storms molest and change impairs no more ; And struggling thro' its deeps with vig’rous mind. Pass'd the dark stream, and left base souls behind. Plac'd where no darkness ever can obscure.
Where nothing enters sensual and impure ;
Where shines eternal God's unclouded ray.
And gilds the realms of intellectual day.
Oft merg'd in matter, by strong leaps you try'd To bound aloft, and cast its folds aside ;
To shun the bitter stream of sanguine life,
.Its whirls of sorrow, and its storms of strife.
While in the middle of its boist'rous waves Thy soul robust, the deep's deaf tumult braves ;
Oft beaming from the God* thy piercing sight
Beheld in paths oblique a sacred light :
Whence rapt from sense with energy divine.
Before thine eyes immortal splendors shine ;
Whose plenteous rays in darkness most profound. Thy steps directed and illumin'd round.
Nor was the vision like the dreams of sleep,
But seen while vigilant you brave the deep ;
While from your eyes you shake the gloom of night,
The glorious prospects burst upon your sight ;
Prospects beheld but rarely by the wise,
Tho' men divine and fav’rites of the skies.
But now set free from the lethargic folds,
By which th' indignant soul dark matter holds ;
The natal bonds deserted, now you soar,
And rank with daemon forms a man no more.
In that blest realm where love and friendship reign, And pleasures ever dwell unmixt with pain ;
Where streams ambrosial in immortal course Irriguous flow, from deity their source.
No darkening clouds those happy skies assail,
And the calm aether knows no stormy gale. Supremely blest thy lofty soul abides.
Where Minos and his brother judge presides ;
Just iEacus and Plato the divine.
And fair Pythag'ras there exalted shine ;
With other souls who form the general choir Of love immortal, and of pure desire ;
And who one common station are assign'd.
With genii of the most exalted kind.
Thrice happy thou ! who, lifers long labors past* With holy daemons dost reside at last ;
From body loosen'd and from cares at rest,
Thy life most stable, and divine thy feast»
Now evTy Muse who for Plotinus sings,
Here cease with me to tune the vocal strings ; For thus my golden harp, with art divine,
Has told— Plotinus ! endless bliss is thine.
According to this oracle then/'says
Porphyry, 66 Plotinus was worthy and mild*
gentle and endearing, and such as we truly
found him to be. It also asserts that he
was vigilant, that he had a pure soul, and
that he was always tending to divinity,
which he most ardently loved. Likewise
that he endeavoured with all his might to
emerge from the bitter waters of this san¬
guine life. Hence, when by the assistance
of this divine light he had frequently
Ixviii INTRODUCTION,
raised himself by his conceptions to the
first God who is beyond intellect/ and by
employing for this purpose the paths
narrated by Plato in the Banquet, the
supreme divinity appeared to him, who has
neither any form nor idea, but is established
above intellect and every intelligible ; to
whom also I Porphyry say that I once
approached, and was united, when 1 was
sixty-eight years of age* The mark, there¬
fore, at which all his endeavours aimed,
appeared to Plotinus to be near. For the
end and scope with him consisted in ap¬
proximating and being united to the God
who is above all things. But he four times
obtained this end while I was with him,
8 του vov is omitted in the original ; but both the sense and the version of Fieinus render the insertion nf it neces¬ sary.
INTRODUCTION. Ixix
and this by an ineffable energy, and not in
capacity. The oracle also adds, that while
Plotinus was wandering [on the sea of life]
the Gods frequently directed him into the
right path, by benignantly extending to him
abundant rays of divine light; so that he
may be said to have composed his works
from the contemplation and intuition of
divinity. But from a vigilant internal and
external contemplation, he is said by the
oracle to have seen many beautiful specta¬
cles, which no other philosopher has easily
beheld. For merely human contemplation
may indeed have various degrees of excel¬
lence, but when compared with divine
knowledge, though it may be elegant and
pleasing, yet cannot fathom a depth, such
as is penetrated by the Gods. Hitherto
the oracle has shown what were the energies
Plot . . f
of Plotinus, and what he obtained, while
surrounded with body. But after his libe¬
ration from body, it declares that he arrived
at the divine society, where friendship, pure
desire, joy and love, suspended from deity,
perpetually reign. Besides this, it also
says that the sons of God, Minos, Rhada-
manthus, and iEacus, are the judges of
souls ; and that Plotinus departed to these,
not for the purpose of receiving their
decisions of his conduct, but to enjoy their
conversation, with whom also other Gods
of the most excellent kind associate. It
further says that Plato and Pythagoras
likewise reside here, together with such
other souls as stably form the choir of
immortal love ; and that the most blessed
daemons have here fixed their abode. And
in the last place it adds, that the life of this
INTRODUCTION® Ixxi
divine society is ever flourishing, and full of
joy, and perseveres in perpetuity of bliss
through the beneficent communications of
the Gods/'
And thus much for the life of Plotinus,
who was a philosopher pre-eminently distin¬
guished for the strength and profundity of
his intellect, and the purity and elevation
of his life. He was a being wise without
the usual mixture of human darkness, and
great without the general combination of
human weakness and imperfection. He
seems to have left the orb of light solely for
the benefit of mankind ; that he might
teach them how to repair the ruin contract¬
ed by their exile from good, and how to
return to their true country, and legitimate
kindred and allies. I do not mean that he
lKTKOi)UCTl0Ne
descended into mortality, for the purpose
of unfolding the sublimest truths to the
vulgar part of mankind ; for this would
have been a vain and ridiculous attempt ; 1
1 In every class of beings in the universe (as I have else¬ where observed) there is a first, a middle, and a last, in order that the progression of things may form one unbroken chain, originating from deity, and terminating in matter. In con¬ sequence of this connexion, one part of the human species naturally coalesces, through transcendency, with beings of an order superior to man ; another part, through diminution, unites with the brutal species ; and a third part, which sub¬ sists as the connecting medium between the other two, possesses those properties which characterize human nature in a manner not exceeding but exactly commensurate to the condition of humanity. The first of these parts, from its surpassing excellence, consists of a small number of mankind. That which subsists as the middle, is numerous. But that which ranks as the last in gradation, is composed of a count¬ less multitude,
“ Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks
In Vallombrosa.,'
In consequence of this beautiful gradation, the most subor¬ dinate part of mankind arc only to be benefited by good
ke ο β
since the eyes of the multitude, as Plato justly observes, are not strong enough to
look to truth. But he came as a guide to
the few who are born with a divine destiny;
gain the
lost region of light, but know not how to
break the fetters by which they are detained :
who are impatient to leave the obscure
cavern of sense, where all is delusion and
rulers, laws, and customs, through which they become peace» able members of the communities in which they live, and make a proficiency, as Maximus Tyrius well observes, not by any accession of good, but by a diminution of evil. Hence the present efforts to enlighten by education the lowest class of mankind is an attempt to break the golden chain of beings, to disorganise society, and to render the vulgar dis¬ satisfied with the servile situations in which God and nature intended them to be placed. In short, it is an attempt cal¬ culated to render life intolerable, and knowledge contemp¬ tible, to subvert all order, introduce anarchy, render super¬ stition triumphant, and restore, in the language of Pope, the throne of
— u Night primaeval and of Chaos o
Introductions
shadow, and to ascend to the realms of intellect, where all is substance and reality.
This very extraordinary man also appears
to have been the first of the Platonic
philosophers, who clearly and distinctly
asserted the subsistence of the three hypos¬
tases that rank as principles ( αρχικοα υποσ-τα-
(rsig) viz. the good9 intellect , and soul , and
who demonstrated that there can be neither
more nor less than these. But these three
are thus denominated, because they are not
consubsistent ; and they are not consub-
sistent, because they are essentially different
from each other. For according to Plato
the good is superessential ; intellect is an
impartible , immoveable essence ; and soul
is a self-motive essence, and subsists as a
medium between intellect and the nature
which is distributed about bodies.1 By no
means therefore is the Platonic the same
with the Christian trinity, as the advocates
for the latter have ignorantly and idly
supposed. For the good or the highest God
according to Plato being so perfectly
exempt from all multitude, that he is even
beyond essence, is not to be cormumerated
with any thing, or to be co-arranged with
the second and third principles in the above-
mentioned or any other triad. Indeed,
according to the philosophy of Plato, as I
have elsewhere shown, in every order of
1 See my translation of Proclus' Elements of Theology, where all this is shown by geometrical necessities to be true. See also the bth book of the Republic of Plato, in which Socrates clearly asserts that the good is superessential ; and the Timaeus, in which the difference between intellect and soul is most clearly indicated. See likewise the notes on the 3d Epistle of Plato in Vol, V. of my translation of hijg works.
things a triad is the immediate progeny
of a monad. Hence the intelligible triad
proceeds immediately from the ineffable
principle of things. Phanes, or intelligible
intellect, who is the last of the intelligible
order, is the monad, leader, and producing
cause of a triad, which is denominated
νοητός και vospog, i. e. intelligible , and at the
same time intellectual . In like manner the
extremity of this order produces immedi¬
ately from itself the intellectual triad,
Saturn, Rhea, and Jupiter. Again, Jupiter,
who is also the demiurgus, is the monad of
the supermundane triad. Apollo, who
subsists at the extremity of the supermun¬
dane order, produces a triad of liberated
Gods. (Seoi απόλυτό*.) And the extremity
of the liberated order becomes the monad
of a triad of mundane Gods.1 This theory
too, which is the progeny of the most con¬
summate science, is in perfect conformity
with the theology of the Chaldaeans. And
hence it is said in one of their oracles,
“ In every world a triad shines forth , of
which a monad is the ruling principle Γ
( παντι yap εν κοσμώ 7\αμπει τριας , rjg μονας άρχει.)
This likewise appears to be the peculi¬
arity of the philosophy of Plotinus, that it
considered all the above-mentioned orders,
all true beings that are superior to soul, and
the multiform variety of ideas, or paradigms
of things, as comprehended in one supreme
intellect, which it denominates the intelli¬
gible world, and as there subsisting in
impartible union, without any specific