Enneads I 2: On Virtue

[sdi]

I 2: On Virtue

We exercise virtue in order to move into similitude with the Gods and away from similitude with the body. But this does not mean that the Gods are virtuous: they exist in a sinless environment and thus have no need of virtue. No, the Gods are virtue, or rather the True Forms of which the virtues are a mere facsimile, and by exercising virtue we become a sort of echo of Them.

Remember that the soul is without sin: it is the man (the fusion of the body and soul) which sins. So exercising virtue doesn't make the soul good: rather, the soul already has goodness within it, and the exercise of virtue illuminates more of those parts of the soul through the man, just like opening a shutter illuminates more of a room.

By opening all of the shutters and illuminating the whole of the room, we become unified; and since Unity is the highest of all, above even the Gods, we ourselves become like unto a God.

I give my own summary above, but I really recommend reading the original. Sections five and seven are great.

In reading all this, I have the half-formed thought that what the Platonists call intellection and reason is not what we moderns mean by those same terms. It seems to me that when Plotinus refers to reason, he is not talking about detached calculation, like what Sherlock Holmes might engage in. No, he seems to mean something more akin to what I might call the slavish devotion to some God or Gods, subordinating all purposes beneath that which brings one closer to similitude to Them.

So our Holmes is not reasoning, since in some sense he is unable to help his calculative ability: exercising it is not a conscious choice for him. (Indeed, his conscious choice is to drown calculation in a sea of cocaine; in Plotinus terms, drawing himself away from the soul and into the body. This is quite the opposite of Plotinus' reason, and indeed a thing much to be pitied!)

Thus one starts to see where the man ends and the soul begins. The man, subject to the stars, may have (for example) a good or a bad Venus. But if the man chooses to exercise his or her capacity for love in benefit of or in spite of the Venus, then the repeated conscious choice brings the man more and more in alignment with the soul: and since the soul exists above the stars, the dignity of Venus matters less and less.

Or something like that. As I said, the thought is half-formed, and I have much meditation ahead of me.

Comments

[boccaderlupo]

Interesting thoughts, and well-worth considering. I believe one of the "controversies" between the Plotinian view and Iamblichus revolved around whether the soul fully descends into the body--in Plotinus it seems the soul at some level is yet apart from the body, whereas (if I understand correctly) for Iamblichus, the full descent of the soul is essential for the reascent. (I acknowledge that I may be entirely off base with this...)

These disagreements among the Platonists, though, shouldn't obscure their agreements elsewhere. And in all events, may the Divine Light illuminate the way...

[sdi]

You jogged my memory that Sallustius had a dog in that fight as well. If your memory of the controversy is correct, it implies there are significant doctrinal differences between Plotinus and the later Neoplatonists over the scope and possibilities entailed with respect to reincarnation. (For example, if the soul is distinct from the man, then there seems no reason to refuse Orpheus reincarnating as a swan, or Thamyras a nightingale, as mentioned in the Republic.)

[sdi]

I dug this up in Nock's commentary on Sallustius: "Sallustius, like Iamblichus, denied that souls entered animals. [On the other hand, Plotin., Enn. III. 4. 2, teaches plain transmigration into animals and plants for those who have deserved it. [...] According to St. Augustine, Ciu. D. X 30, Porphyry rejected this view.]"

[sdi]

I have revised my summary of this essay here.