Book 5 — VII. PLOTINOS'S INDEBTEDNESS TO NUMENIUS.
Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie translation
1. HISTORICAL RELATIONS BETWEEN NUMENIUS AND PLOTINOS.
We have, elsewhere, pointed out the historic connections between Numenius and Plotinos. Here, it may be sufficient to recall that Amelius, native of Numenius's home-town of Apamea, and who had copied and learned by heart all the works of Numenius, and who later returned to Apamea to spend his declining days, bequeathing his copy of Numenius's works to his adopted son Gentilianus Hesychius, was the companion and friend of Plotinos during his earliest period, editing all Plotinos's books, until displaced by Porphyry. We remember also that Porphyry was Amelius's disciple, before his spectacular quarrel with Amelius, later supplanting him as editor of the works of Plotinos. Plotinos also came from Alexandria, where Numenius had been carefully studied and quoted by Origen and Clement of Alexandria. Further, Porphyry records twice that accusations were popularly made against Plotinos, that he had plagiarized from Numenius. In view of all this historical background, we have the prima-facie right to consider Plotinos chiefly as a later re-stater of the views of Numenius, at least during his earlier or Amelian period. Such a conception of the state of affairs must have been in the mind of that monk who, in the Escoreal manuscript, substituted the name of Numenius for that of Plotinos on that fragment573 about matter, which begins directly with Numenius's name of the divinity, "being and essence."574
2. NUMENIUS AS FATHER OF NEO-PLATONISM.
Let us compare with this historical evidence, that which supports the universally admitted dependence of Plotinos on his teacher Ammonius. We have only two witnesses: Hierocles and Nemesius; and the latter attributes the argument for the immateriality of the soul to Ammonius and Numenius jointly. No doubt, Ammonius may have taught Plotinos in his youth; but so no doubt did other teachers; and of Ammonius the only survivals are a few pages preserved by Nemesius. The testimony for Plotinos's dependence on Numenius is therefore much more historical, as well as significant, in view of Numenius having left written records that were widely quoted. The title of "Father of Neo-platonism," therefore, if it must at all be awarded, should go to Numenius, who had written a "History of the Platonic Succession," wherein he attempts to restore "original" Platonism. This fits the title "Neo-platonism," whereas the philosophy of Ammonius, would be better described as an eclectic synthesis of Platonism and Aristotelianism.
3. CONTRAST BETWEEN THEM.
Of course we shall admit that there are differences between Plotinos and Numenius, at least during his Porphyrian period; this was inevitable while dismissing his Numenian secretary Amelius,575 a friend "who had become imbued with" such doctrines before becoming the friend of Plotinos, who persevered in them, and wrote in justification thereof. We find that the book chronologically preceding this one is v. 5, on the very subject at issue between Amelius and Porphyry. Plotinos took his stand with the latter, and therefore against the former, and through him, against Numenius; and indeed we find him opposing several Gnostic opinions which can be substantiated in Numenius: the creation by illumination or emanation,576 the threefoldness of the creator,577 and the pilot's forgetting himself in his work.578
But, after all, these points are not as important as they might seem; for in a very little while we find Plotinos himself admitting the substance of all of these ideas, except the verbiage; he himself uses the light and ray simile, the "light of light;"579 he himself distinguishes various phases of the allegedly single intelligence,580 and the soul, as pilot of the body incarnates by the very forgetfulness by which the creator created.581
Further, as we shall show, during his last or Eustochian period after Porphyry had taken a trip to Sicily to avoid suicide, he himself was to return to Numenian standpoints. This may be shown in a general way as follows. Of the nine Eustochian essays582 only two583 betray no similarities to Numenian ideas, while seven584 do. On the contrary, in the Amelio-Porphyrian period,585 written immediately on Amelius's dismissal, only six586 are Numenian, and six587 are non-Numenian. In the succeeding wholly Porphyrian period,588 we have the same equal number of Numenian589 and non-Numenian590 books. An explanation of this reversion to Numenian ideas has been attempted in the study of the development in Plotinos's views. On the whole, therefore, Plotinos's opposition to Numenius may be considered no more than episodic.
4. DIRECT INDEBTEDNESS OF PLOTINOS TO NUMENIUS.
As Plotinos was in the habit of not even putting his name to his own notes; as even in the times of Porphyry the actual authorship of much that he wrote was already disputed; as even Porphyry acknowledges principles and quotations were borrowed, we must discover Numenian passages by their content, rather than by any external indications. As the great majority of Numenius's works are irretrievably lost, we may never hope to arrive at a final solution of the matter; and we shall have to restrict ourselves to that which, in Plotinos, may be identified by what Numenian fragments remain. What little we can thus trace definitely will give us a right to draw the conclusion to much more, and to the opinion that, especially in his Amelian period, Plotinos was chiefly indebted to Numenian inspiration. We can consider591 the mention of Pythagoreans who had treated of the intelligible as applying to Numenius, whose chief work was "On the Good," and on the "Immateriality of the Soul."
The first class of passages will be such as bear explicit reference to quotation from an ancient source. Of such we have five: "That is why the Pythagoreans were, among each other, accustomed to refer to this principle in a symbolic manner, calling him 'A-pollo,' which name means a denial of manifoldness."592 "That is the reason of the saying, 'The ideas and numbers are born from the indefinite doubleness, and the One;' for this is intelligence."593 "That is why the ancients said that ideas are essences and beings."594 "Let us examine the (general) view that evils cannot be destroyed, but are necessary."595 "The Divinity is above being."596
A sixth case is, "How manifoldness is derived from the First."597 A seventh case is the whole passage on the triunity of the divinity, including the term "Father."598
Among doctrines said to be handed down from the ancient philosophers599 are the ascents and descents of souls600 and the migrations of souls into bodies other than human.601 The soul is a number.602
Moreover, Plotinos wrote a book on the Incorruptibility of the soul,603 as Numenius had done;604 and both authors discuss the incorporeity of qualities.605
Besides these passages where there is a definite expression of dependence on earlier sources, there are two in which the verbal similarity606 is striking enough to justify their being considered references: "Besides, no body could subsist without the power of the universal Soul." "Because bodies, according to their own nature, are changeable, inconstant, and infinitely divisible, and nothing unchangeable remains in them, there is evidently need of a principle that would lead them, gather them, and bind them fast together; and this we name soul."607 This similarity is so striking that it had already been observed and noted by Bouillet. Compare "We consider that all things called essences are composite, and that not a single one of them is simple," with "Numenius, who believes that everything is thoroughly mingled together, and that nothing is simple."608
5. UNCERTAIN INDEBTEDNESS OF PLOTINOS.
As Plotinos does not give exact quotations and references, it is difficult always to give their undoubted source. As probably Platonic we may mention the passage about the universal Soul taking care of all that is inanimate;609 and "When one has arrived at individuals, they must be abandoned to infinity."610 Also other quotations.611 The line "It might be said that virtues are actualizations,"612 might be Aristotelian. We also find:613 "Thus, according to the ancient maxim, 'Courage, temperance, all the virtues, even prudence, are but purifications.'" "That is the reason that it is right to say that the 'soul's welfare and beauty lie in assimilating herself to the divinity.'" This sounds Platonic, but might be Numenian.
In this connection it might not be uninteresting to note passages in Numenius which are attributed to Plato, but which are not to be identified: "O Men, the Mind which you dimly perceive is not the First Mind; but before this Mind is another one, which is older and diviner." "That the Good is One."614
We turn now to thoughts found identically in Plotinos and Numenius, although no textual identity is to be noted. We may group these according to the subject, the universe, and the soul.
6. PARTICULAR SIMILARITIES.
God is supreme king.615 Eternity is now, but neither past nor future.616 The King in heaven is surrounded by leisure.617 The Good is above Being;618 the divinity is the unity above the "Being and Essence;619 and connected with this is the unitary interpretation of the name A-pollo,620 following in the footsteps of Plutarch. Nevertheless, the inferior divinity traverses the heavens,621 in a circular motion.622 While Numenius does not specify this motion as circular,623 it is implied, inasmuch as the creator's passing through the heavens must have followed their circular course. With this perfect motion is connected the peculiar Numenian doctrine of inexhaustible giving,624 which gave a philosophical basis for the old simile of radiation of light,625 so that irradiation is the method of creation,626 and this is not far removed from emanationism. This process consists of the descent of the intelligible into the material, or, as Numenius puts it, that both the intelligible and the perceptible participate in the ideas.627 Thus intelligence is the uniting principle that holds together the bodies whose tendency is to split up, and scatter,628 making a leakage or waste,629 which process invades even the divinity.630 This uniting of scattering elements produces a mixture or mingling,608 of matter and reason,631 which, however, is limited to the energies of the existent, not to the existent itself.632 All things are in a flow,633 and the whole all is in all.634 The divinity creates by glancing at the intelligence above,635 as a pilot.636 The divinity is split by over-attention to its charges.637
This leads us over to consideration of the soul. The chief effort of Numenius is a polemic against the materialism of the Stoics, and to it Plotinos devotes a whole book.638 All souls, even the lowest, are immortal.639 Even qualities are incorporeal.640 The soul, therefore, remains incorporeal.641 The soul, however, is divisible.642 This explains the report that Numenius taught not various parts of the soul,643 but two souls, which would be opposed by Plotinos in his polemic against the Stoics,644 but taught in another place.645 Such divisibility is indeed implied in the formation of presentation as a by-product,646 or a "common part."647 Moreover, the soul has to choose its own demon, or guardian divinity.648 Salvation as a goal appears in Numenius,649 but not in Plotinos, who opposes the Gnostic idea of the "saved souls,"650 though elsewhere he speaks of the paths of the musician,651 lover652 and philosopher653 in reaching ecstasy.654 Still both Gnostics and Plotinos insisted on the need of a savior.655 Memory is actualization of the soul.656 In the highest ecstasy the soul is alone with the alone.657
7. SIMILARITIES APPLIED DIFFERENTLY.
This comparison of philosophy would have been much stronger had we added thereto the following points in which we find similar terms and ideas, but which are applied differently. The soul is indissolubly united to intelligence according to Plotinos, but to its source with Numenius.658 Plotinos makes discord the result of their fall, while with Numenius it is its cause.659 Guilt is the cause of the fall of souls, with Plotinos,660 but with Numenius it is impulsive passion. The great evolution or world-process is by Plotinos called the "eternal procession," while with Numenius it is progress.661 The simile of the pilot is by Plotinos applied to the soul within the body; while with Numenius, it refers to the logos, or creator in the universe,662 while in both cases the cause,—of creation for the creator,663 and incarnation for the soul664—is forgetfulness. There is practically no difference here, however. Doubleness is, by Plotinos, predicated of the sun and stars, but by Numenius, of the demiurge himself,665 which Plotinos opposes as a Gnostic teaching.666 The Philonic term "legislator" is, by Plotinos, applied to intelligence, while Numenius applies it to the third divinity, and not the second.667 Plotinos extends immortality to animals, but Numenius even to the inorganic realm, including everything.668 While Numenius seems to believe in the Serapistic and Gnostic demons,669 Plotinos opposes them,670 although in his biography671 he is represented as taking part in the evocation of his guardian spirit in a temple of Isis.
We thus find a tolerably complete body of philosophy shared by Plotinos and Numenius, out of the few fragments of the latter that have come down to us. It would therefore be reasonable to suppose that if Numenius's complete works had survived we could make out a still far stronger case for Plotinos's dependence on Numenius. At any rate, the Dominican scribe at the Escoreal who inserted the name of Numenius in the place of that of Plotinos in the heading of672 the fragment about matter, must have felt a strong confusion between the two authors.
8. PHILOSOPHICAL RELATIONS BETWEEN NUMENIUS AND PLOTINOS.
To begin with, we have the controversy with the Stoics, which, though it appears in the works of both, bears in each a different significance. While with Numenius it absorbed his chief controversial efforts,673 with Plotinos674 it occupied only one of his many spheres of interest; and indeed, he had borrowed from them many terms, such as "pneuma," the spiritual body, and others, set forth elsewhere. Notable, however, was the term "hexis," habituation, or form of inorganic objects,675 and the "phantasia," or sense-presentation.676 Like, them, the name A-pollo is interpreted as a denial of manifoldness.677
Next in importance, as a landmark, is Numenius's chief secret, the name of the divinity, as "being and essence," which reappears in Plotinos in numberless places.678 Connected with this is the idea that essence is intelligence.679
9. PYTHAGOREAN SIMILARITIES.
It is a common-place that Numenius was a Pythagorean, or at least was known as such, for though he reverenced Pythagoras, he conceived of himself as a restorer of true Platonism. It will, therefore, be all the more interesting to observe what part numbers play in their system, especially in that of Plotinos, who made no special claim to be a Pythagorean disciple. First, we find that numbers and the divine ideas are closely related.680 Numbers actually split the unity of the divinity.681 The soul also is considered as a number,682 and in connection with this we find the Pythagorean sacred "tetraktys."683 Thus numbers split up the divinity,684 though it is no more than fair to add that elsewhere Plotinos contradicts this, and states that the multiplicity of the divinity is not attained by division;685 still, this is not the only case in which we will be forced to array Plotinos against himself.
The first effect of the splitting influence of numbers will be doubleness,686 which, though present in intelligence,687 nevertheless chiefly appears in matter,688 as the Pythagorean "indefinite dyad."689 Still, even the Supreme is double.690 So we must not be surprised if He is constituted by a trinity,691 in connection with which the Supreme appears as grandfather.692
If then both Numenius and Plotinos are really under the spell of Pythagoras, it is pretty sure they will not be materialist, they will believe in the incorporeality of the divinity,693 of qualities;694 and of the soul695 which will be invisible696 and possess no extension.697 A result of this will be that the soul will not be located in the body, or in space, but rather the body in the soul.698
From this incorporeal existence,699 there is only a short step to unchangeable existence,700 or eternity.701 This, to the soul, means immortality,702 one theory of which is reincarnation.703 To the universe, however, this means harmony.704
There are still other Pythagorean traces in common between Numenius and Plotinos. The cause that the indeterminate dyad split off from the divinity is "tolma," rashness, or boldness.705 Everything outside of the divinity is in a continual state of flux.706 Evil is then that which is opposed to good.707 It also is therefore unavoidable, inasmuch as suppression of its cosmic function would entail cosmic collapse.708 The world stands thus as an inseparable combination of intelligence and necessity, or chance.709
10. PLATONIC TRACES.
Platonic traces, there would naturally be; but it will be noticed that they are far less numerous than the Pythagorean. To begin with, we find the reverent spirit towards the divinities, which prays for their blessing at the inception of all tasks.710 To us who live in these latter days, such a prayer seems out of place in philosophy; but that is only because we have divorced philosophy from theology; in other words, because our theology has left the realm of living thought, and, being fixed once for all, we are allowed to pursue any theory of existence we please as if it had nothing whatever to do with any reality; in other words, we are deceiving ourselves. On the contrary, in those days, every philosophical speculation was a genuine adventure in the spiritual world, a magical operation that might unexpectedly lead to the threshold of the cosmic sanctuary. Wise, indeed, therefore, was he who began it by prayer.
Of other technical Platonic terms there are quite a few. The lower is always the image of the higher.711 So the world might be considered the statue of the Divinity.712 The ideas are in a realm above the world.713 The soul here below is as in a prison.714 There is a divinity higher than the one generally known.715 The divinity is in a stability resultant of firmness and perfect motion.716 The perfect movement, therefore, is circular.717 This inter-communion of the universe therefore results in matter appearing in the intelligible world as "intelligible matter."718 By dialectics, also called "bastard reasoning,"719 we abstract everything720 till we reach the thing-in-itself,721 or, in other words, matter as a substrate of the world.722 Thus we metaphysically reach ineffable solitude.723
The same goal is reached psychologically, however, in the ecstasy.724 This idea occurred in Plato only as a poetic expression of metaphysical attainment; and in the case of Plotinos at least may have been used as a practical experience chiefly to explain his epileptic attacks; and this would be all the more likely as this disease was generally called the "sacred disease." Whether Numenius also was an epileptic, we are not told; it is more likely he took the idea from Philo, or Philo's oriental sources; at least Numenius seems to claim no personal ecstatic experiences such as those of Plotinos.
We have entered the realm of psychology; and this teaches us that that in which Numenius and Plotinos differ from Plato and Philo is chiefly their psychological or experimental application of pure philosophy. No body could subsist without the soul to keep it together.725 Various attempts are made to describe the nature of the soul; it is the extent or relation of circumference to circle.726 Or it is like a line and its divergence.727 In any case, the divinity and the soul move around the heavens,728 and this may explain the otherwise problematical progress or evolution ("prosodos" or "stolos") of ours.729
11. VARIOUS SIMILARITIES.
There are many other unclassifiable Numenian traces in Plotinos. Two of them, however, are comparatively important. First, is a reaffirmation of the ancient Greek connection between generation, fertility of birth of souls and wetness,730 which is later reaffirmed by Porphyry in his "Cave of the Nymphs." Plotinos, however, later denies this.731 Then we come to a genuine innovation of Numenius's; his theory of divine or intelligible giving. Plato had, of course, in his genial, casual way, sketched out a whole organic system of divine creation and administration of this world. The conceptions he needed he had cheerfully borrowed from earlier Greek philosophy without any rigid systematization, so that he never noticed that the hinge on which all was supposed to turn was merely the makeshift of an assumption. This capital error was noticed by Numenius, who sought to supply it by a psychological observation, namely, that knowledge may be imparted without diminution. Plotinos, with his winning way of dispensing with quotation-marks, appropriated this,732 as also the idea that life streams out upon the world in the glance of the divinity, and as quickly leaves it, when the Divinity turns away His glance.733