Enneads III 5: On Love

III 5: On Love

Love is simply the action of the soul: when we say that soul moves in orbits, the soul is the lover, the focus of the orbit the beloved, and the gravitational attraction binding one to the other is desire.

This is what is meant when the Theologists speak of Aphrodite: Aphrodite Ourania is the highest divine Soul itself, being the daughter of Kronos, the highest divine Mind. Aphrodite Pandemos is a lower divine soul, being the daughter of Zeus, the demiurge. Eros, said to be Aphrodite's son, is the desire that prompts Her motion.

Lower souls act in imitation of these higher ones: we have spoken of this process already, and this is why Eros is said by Plato to be a dæmon: He is the production of a soul, and a production must be of a lower category. In this sense, Eros is not one but many: just as superdivine Aphrodite begets a divine Eros, so too does a divine soul—like our own—beget a dæmonic Eros in imitation of Her.

So too does Plato speak of Poverty and Plenty and the garden of Zeus and so on: these are not meant literally, but as metaphors for this process by which the soul imitates and strives toward the Good.

I think it's elegant how Plotinus makes Ouranos to be that which is beyond, Kronos to be the definition of Beauty, Aphrodite Ourania is the most beautiful thing so defined, and Eros to be the mediator by which She operates, weaving all the while a fractal universe out of this. (The above is the hypercosmic order; the same process repeats a level down to produce the cosmic; the same process repeats a level down to produce the microcosmic; etc.) In a sense, Plotinus' whole philosophy is a philosophy of Love. Plotinus' own discussion of this is in §§2–4.

As for Plato, well, Diotima did say that she was speaking of the "higher mysteries" of Love, so I guess Plotinus is justified in taking her words to be veiled. Still, as an open and frank person, I rather dislike it. Plotinus' unpacking of Plato begins in §5.