Vita Plotini Research Articles

Philosophical renovation in the 3rd century: The polemical component of Porphyry’s Vita Plotini in relation to Gregory of Neocaesaria’s Oratio Panegyrica

This paper offers an analysis of similar and parallel developing projects of creating a true philosophy by the disciples and followers of Origen and Plotinus. Two texts permeated by the eulogy of the scholarch are analysed: Gregory the Wonderworker’s The Address of Thanksgiving to Origen and the Life of Plotinus by Porphyry. Gregory was a student of Origen, while Porphyry attended his school long enough to become familiar with the doctrine, teaching methods and personality of the scholarch. The author establishes the structural, thematic and lexical similarity of both texts. The text by Gregory the Wonderworker, chronologically earlier, was a pushing away point for Porphyry in creating an image of the ideal scholarch in the person of Plotinus. This is confirmed by the structural and lexical contrast in the portrayal of Plotinus in Vita Plotini and Origen in the passage preserved by Proclus (Procl. In Tim. I.63. 29–33). In particular, the negative image of Origen in Vita Plotini 13. 10–17 is echoed by the figure of Thaumasius, dissatisfied with the protracted dispute between Plotinus and Porphyry, which rarely draws the scholars’ attention. Nowhere else mentioned, Thaumasius appears as a marginal figure: either he himself was interested in general statements and wanted to hear Plotinus speaking in the manner of a set treatise (trans. Armstrong), or he wanted Plotinus to “faire une conférence suivie et propre à être écrite” (trans. Bréhier). The author hypothesises that it is not a proper name but a nickname. The author suggests that Thaumasius is not an accidental participant in a specific episode of the Neoplatonists’ school life but the philosophical rival of the Neoplatonists, theologian Origen, ironically presented in an unattractive manner. Thus, the deliberately constructed episode with Plotinus and Thaumasius is a polemical jab at Origen’s followers, who put forward a programme of philosophical renovation alternative to the Platonic, and the very depiction of Plotinus as a ‘divine man’ (θεῖος ἀνήρ) responds to the image of Origen painted by his followers. The supposed allusions in Vita Plotini 13. 5–17 testify to the openness of the Roman Neoplatonic school to the already-formed Christian version of philosophy. For this reason, Porphyry chose to portray a situation in which Plotinus showed attention and patience in interpreting difficult philosophical questions for three days. In contrast, Origen, in a similar situation, showed impatience and irritability.

Жанровые особенности Vita Plotini: на кого равнялся Порфирий

The article presents the analysis of genre dominants of "The Life of Plotinus" by Porphyry and analyses the polemical sources of the text. Having established the lack of research on the genre of the text in the modern bibliography, the author places the Life of Plotinus into the range of the late antique biographies, and determines the main characteristics of the analyzed text. The title of the text indicates Porphyry's dual purpose: to introduce the reader to the personality of Plotinus, whom Porphyry deliberately presents as theios aner, and also to present Plotinus' 54 treatises within the coherent system of the Enneads. The dual task is also reflected in the structure of the Life. Reconstructing the image of Porphyry in the text, the author of the article highlights the techniques that create the image of the author of Plotinus' Life. Emphasizing his own place in the hierarchy of the school is caused by the polemic both within the Neoplatonic school (with the earlier edition of Plotinus' treatises by Amelius; this is shown through the analysis of the introduction of the Life of Plotinus) and outside it. The author establishes the pragmatics of the key episodes of the text and shows that the text is built around a constructed hierarchy of testimonies: from the fellow student, Amelius, to the Oracle of Apollo. By highlighting the essential attributes of the hero of the biography, the author illustrates the dynamism of Porphyry's conception: Vita Plotini is not only an introduction to the edition, but also a didactic text, depicting a contemporary who has achieved the goal of human life. In the final part of the article, the author analyses the approaches to the identification of the opponents of Porphyry in the literature and sets forth his own hypothesis: the text was created in opposition to the school of Origen and to the image of the scholarch, which was drawn by Gregory the Wonderworker and Eusebius of Caesarea. The hypothesis of Porphyry's response to the Christian texts is grounded by the new lexical similarities with Origen.

Plotinus on Beauty (Enneads 1.6 and 5.8.1–2): The Greek Text with Notes by Andrew Smith

Reviewed by: Plotinus on Beauty (Enneads 1.6 and 5.8.1–2): The Greek Text with Notes by Andrew Smith Daniel Regnier andrew smith, Plotinus on Beauty (Enneads 1.6 and 5.8.1–2): The Greek Text with Notes (WGRW 64; Atlanta: SBL Press, 2019). Pp. x + 109. Paper $25. This slim and elegant volume is an anomaly in the recent wave of publications on Plotinus. New and complete translations of Plotinus’s Enneads have been published in various modern languages including both English and French over the past couple of decades (it is worth citing in this context the very comprehensive commentary on Plotinus’s Enneads translated from the Modern Greek of Paul Kalligas that is currently being published by Princeton University Press). These new translations and commentaries reflect a growing interest in Plotinus among faculty in mainstream philosophy departments. That old quip that only retired classics professors read Plotinus is no longer really intelligible. Andrew Smith, professor emeritus in classics at University College Dublin (who, to be sure, read for his entire career!) does not provide us with another translation of Plotinus. Indeed, that would probably be superfluous at this point. Rather, he offers a Greek text of what is perhaps Plotinus’s most well known—and thanks to its impact on Renaissance art—influential work 1.6 [1] On Beauty with a commentary (Stellenkommentar) guiding the reader through both Plotinus’s idiomatic and difficult Greek and his philosophical argument. Although the volume certainly does represent original scholarly work, it is clear that S. did not write it with a view to academic advancement. Rather the book very competently does what so many books claim to wish to do: support the reader in understanding the primary text. The introduction is a gem of precision and a very true representation of Plotinian thought. The short inventory of the particularities of Plotinus’s Greek (pp. 17–19) is extraordinarily useful. The notes to the Greek text are both thorough and economical. S. has achieved a remarkable balance here between elucidating the text from both philosophical and philological points of view. He refers the reader to both recent and important older secondary literature, and he cites translation variants ranging from Willy Theiler (German), J. Igal (Spanish), Jérôme Laurent (French) to Kalligas (Modern Greek). In addition to the complete text of 1.6 [1] On Beauty, S. includes the first two chapters 5.8 [31] On Intelligible Beauty. This is a slightly curious choice but is justifiable in terms of nature of the project, which is a to provide readers with the means to engage with Plotinus’s thought directly in the original Greek. I have two minor criticisms. First, there is some ambiguity concerning the Greek text. The book attributes to S. only the introduction and commentary. It would be useful to know a little bit more about the Greek text. A note on 3.3 (p. 40) suggests that Smith follows the one edited by P. Henry and H.-R. Schywzer (Plotinus, Opera, vol. 1, Porphyril Vita Plotini. Enneades i–iii [Oxford: Clarendon, 1964]), but even they established two slightly different texts. Second, the chronological positions of Ennead 1.6 [1] and 5.8 [31] are not indicated anywhere in the work—at least as far as I could tell (there is no indication of this on the cover, in the introduction or in the headings surrounding the Greek text). According to contemporary conventions of English-language publications on Plotinus, the position of his works in the chronological order of their composition is indicated in brackets or square brackets after the number of the Ennead. The only reference to the chronological order of the works of Plotinus that I found was on p. 7, but in relation to another Ennead (i.e., Ennead 3.5 [50] On Love). Given that there are various systems for citing the Enneads—some [End Page 525] involving Roman numerals, points or commas, brackets—citing his works in publication is indeed somewhat problematic. But the chronological order of Plotinus’s writings can be very important in the context of certain arguments. In fact, certain national schools (like the French) tend to...

Plotinus' seminar on the Symposium

The evidence of the Vita Plotini is that Plotinus held a seminar on Plato’s dialogue the Symposium in Rome in the third century. Although he was not himself a speaker at the seminar he owed much to the dialogue in his Enneads , most notably to the speech of Diotima. Ennead 3.5 is his exegesis of Diotima’s myth of the union of Poverty and the drunken Plenty, and it displays his typical inconsistency and brilliance. Elsewhere in the Enneads he treats Diotima’s final mysteries, largely agreeing with her except for his insistence that the final vision is not of the Form Beauty but of the dwellingplace of the Forms that is the Nous.

Spiritual Taxonomies and Ritual Authority: Platonists, Priests, and Gnostics in the Third Century C.E. by Heidi Marx-Wolf

Reviewed by: Spiritual Taxonomies and Ritual Authority: Platonists, Priests, and Gnostics in the Third Century C.E. by Heidi Marx-Wolf Dylan M. Burns Heidi Marx-Wolf Spiritual Taxonomies and Ritual Authority: Platonists, Priests, and Gnostics in the Third Century C.E. Divinations Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016 Pp. 216. $55.00. Heidi Marx-Wolf's point of departure in this intriguing monograph is that, in the second century c.e., "spirits were not ordered according to a clear and stable ontological or moral taxonomy" (1). In the following century, this changed: Origen, Porphyry, and Iamblichus "made claims to ritual expertise and called themselves high priests of the highest god . . . add[ing] a new, hieratic dimension to their identity. . . . These philosophers also asserted that they were in a unique position as experts to broker salvation for others" (2). A holistic evaluation of the spiritual taxonomies developed from this competition, then, shows us that all these individuals "were much closer—far more interconnected socially, educationally, and intellectually—than previously recognized" (3). Chapter One provides a fascinating, bird's-eye view of demonology in Origen, Porphyry, and Iamblichus. Marx-Wolf follows Elizabeth DePalma Digeser in taking Origen—the author of On Demons, mentioned by Porphyry in the Vita Plotini and Proclus in his Timaeus commentary—to be the Christian theologian Origen of Alexandria (4–5, 21–23, 40). Many readers will protest on chronological grounds, but, as, Marx-Wolf states (142n58), the issue is not essential to the argument that Porphyry's rejection of blood sacrifice in his De abstinentia is plausibly inspired by Christian polemics against sacrifice (28). Iamblichus, meanwhile, agreed with Porphyry that "it was not possible for everyone to be a philosopher and to achieve complete release from corporeality and generation" (36), and for this reason disagreed with Porphyry regarding traditional sacrifices, taking them to be necessary means of purification available to οἱ πολλοί. Chapter Two argues that the demonological taxonomies of Origen, Porphyry, and Iamblichus contain significant ambiguities and inconsistencies that result from engagement with traditional beliefs and practices concerned with demons (39–40). Again, Origen of Alexandria is taken to be the author of the work On Demons known to Porphyry (41–42), yet the ensuing discussion of Princ. and Hom. 1 Reg. makes no effort to synthesize the demonologies of these works with On Demons. Why bother to conflate the two Origens if one is to treat their works in isolation? In any event, Marx-Wolf shows how the demonological taxonomies of Origen and Porphyry are hardly coherent: souls, demons, and angels become overlapping or even exchangeable categories (52–54). Iamblichus, meanwhile, leaves the confines of traditional Platonism by incorporating archons and a plethora of contemporary ritual practices into his theurgic system (62). Inspired by recent scholarship highlighting possible "Gnostic" contributions to Neoplatonism, Chapter Three examines Origen's discussion of "Gnosticism" and the demonology of two works extant from Nag Hammadi. Wary of critiques of the term "Gnostic(ism)," Marx-Wolf uses it freely in scare quotes. She presents [End Page 497] an Iamblichaean reading of the Apocryphon of John, wherein the 365 beings governing the psychic human body are taken to be helpers in "purifying the body and providing for . . . eventual release of the spirit" (90—NHC II, 1.18.31–32 is not cited, but seems to support this view). Marx-Wolf also identifies a parallel between the teaching on postmortem souls found in Porphyry's On the Styx and a passage in Zostrianos, although it is a bit strong to state simply that the former "borrowed" from the latter (96). Chapter Four examines the adoption of hieratic rhetoric by Origen, Porphyry, and Iamblichus. They employed this terminology to "demote and discredit other ritual experts who were attempting to overcome marginalization," namely the authors of "so-called magical" texts (101; another rejected term in scare quotes). Marx-Wolf slyly observes how funny it is that Iamblichus slanders these Egyptian ritual experts in Myst., "because at the same time he was posing as one of them" (119). He, like Porphyry and Origen, "felt the need to assert their authority and expertise in idioms represented by their competitors." Spiritual Taxonomies is clearly written and well-timed, tackling...

“To Try to Bring the Divine in Us Back Up to the Divine in the All”: The Gnostic Background of Plotinus’s Last Words

Controversy has long surrounded Plotinus’s dying words to his disciple Eustochius, as reported by Porphyry in his Vita Plotini. This paper focuses not on the philological difficulties of his last words, but their philosophical significance. First, it argues that these words are in fact intelligible within Plotinus’s overall system: they evoke an insoluble paradox at the very center of his conception of contemplative ascent. Second, it argues that these words find significant parallels in Platonizing Sethian sources, by which Plotinus was likely influenced (and not vice versa). Third, it suggests that his final words may have been a ritual utterance, something like the “redemption” rite performed at the moment of death among followers of the Valentinian heresiarch Marcus, as reported by Irenaeus. This would help to explain the urgency of his dying words: could Plotinus have been waiting on Eustochius precisely so he could utter this “last rite,” as it were, in his company and thus “bring the divine in us back up to the Divine in the All”?

Porfirio nella «Vita di Plotino». Note a una traduzione di Giacomo Leopardi

In the opening to the Dialogo di Plotino e di Porfirio, Leopardi translates cum variatione a passage from Porphyry’s Vita Plotini (XI 11-15). While respecting the words and syntax of the original Greek text with elegant rigour and heightened semantic competence, Leopardi makes a few deliberate changes, thereby giving rise to an exchange that plays upon Porphyry’s rational ethos and Plotinus’ ‘feeling of the soul’ [‘il senso dell’animo’]. The original passage is not cited in its entirety; actually, the disciple could not be present at his master’s death, thus depriving the latter of the very consolatory affections to which Leopardi’s Plotinus refers in his moving speech at the end of the dialogue. His words therefore convey an illusion, one which Leopardi knowingly withholds from the reader.

Plotinov beg iz »ograde«

Prispevek obravnava Plotinov razdvojeni odnos do telesnega. Platonistična tradicija namreč zagovarja popolnost vesoljne ureditve, katere del je tudi vesoljno »telo«, torej čutno zaznavni svet. Po drugi strani pa je odnos duša-telo na individualni (torej tudi človeški) ravni drugačen od tistega na vesoljni. Vzrok je v slabosti individualne duše, ne v njenem telesu; telo je snov, ki ji je bila vdihnjena oblika, in je v tem smislu produkt duše ter v njeni oskrbi. Plotinov odpor do življenja v telesu in s tem povezan način življenja, kakršen je razviden iz Porifirijeve Vita Plotini, je posledica trenutne nemoči sprejeti naravno nujnost. Zveza telesa in duše ostaja sveta celo v trenutku mistične ekstaze, in vsak poskus nasilne prekinitve telesnega življenja je nenaraven in škodljiv.

The Phaedrus and the Life of Plotinus

A perusal of Plato’s dialogue the Phaedrus sheds much light on Porphyry’s Vita Plotini. The similarities between the two works are impressive, and it can be argued that Porphyry wrote his text with the dialogue in mind. These similarities include their use of medicine, their structural disunity, and their cast of characters, among which must be included the impalpable but pervasive entity the supernatural. Two of the key themes of the Phaedrus—communication and the godlikeness of the pre-fallen soul—also inform the present discussion of the Vita. Plotinus had difficulty with both spoken and written communication, but his godlikeness allowed him to triumph over them.

Daemonic Trickery, Platonic Mimicry: Traces of Christian Daemonological Discourse in Porphyry’s De Abstinentia

Porphyry of Tyre’s discussion of daemons and animal sacrifice in De Abstinentia strays from traditional Platonic formulations of daemonic involvement in the Graeco-Roman cult. As a result, scholars have struggled to identify the intellectual pedigree for Porphyry’s daemonology. By contrast, I propose that Porphyry draws upon Christian Platonic daemonologies, best represented in the writings of Origen of Alexandria. To substantiate this hypothesis, I first outline the dissonance between Porphyry’s daemonology and his Hellenic predecessors, before outlining the several daemonological tenets he shares with Christian writers. Second, I note the extensive conceptual commonalities between Origen and Porphyry’s respective daemonologies, Finally, I reexamine Porphyry’s attribution of his daemonology to “certain Platonists,” a claim which, when read in light of Porphyry’s Vita Plotini, places Origen squarely within the intellectual circles from which Porphyry was drawing his daemonological discourse.

Plotinus and Magic

AbstractContemporary scholarship accents incipient theurgical practice for Plotinus; this lends a certain urgency to the question of his acceptance of magic. While use of magic recorded in Porphyry’s Vita Plotini has received considerable attention, far less has been done to analyze actual discussion in the Enneads. Examination of key passages brings to light the context for discussion of magic, particularly issues of sympathy, prayer, astrology and divination. Equally important is Plotinus’ understanding of the cosmos and role of the heavenly bodies. Plotinus’ affirmation of the highest part of the soul as undescended, together with the claim that our soul has a common origin with the World Soul in Soul-Hypostasis, is significant for the relative unimportance he attributes to the role and effect of magic.

The auditor Thaumasius in the Vita Plotini

In his Vita Plotini, Porphyry recounts a colourful episode which, for a brief moment, brings to life the dynamics within the lecture room of Plotinus in Rome. The author explains how he was in the habit of posing questions to Plotinus frequently and persistently while his teacher was conducting his philosophical discourse before a mixed body of listeners. On one occasion, such an exchange between the two over the issue of the connexion between the soul and the body continued intermittently over a period of some three days, with the following outcome (Porph. V. Plot. xiii 12-15):

The Limits of the Self in Plotinus

Psychoanalysis is born of the fact that the notion of the self appears unable to take account of the whole of psychological life. Rejecting the limits of the self is recognizing the fact that it is invaded by forces which are completely other than it; it also involves both an analysis of why these are not understood, and a recognition that it is possible for the self to be obliterated. Plotinus asks: “But we . . . who are we?” (6.4.[22].14, 16). Does it involve flagrant anachronism to establish a link between the contemporary philosophy of the limits of the self and the Plotinian opening up to what is activity beyond the self? That this is not merely an arbitrary comparison may be demonstrated firstly on negative grounds, in that psychoanalysis rejects the cogito, exactly in the manner of Plotinus; the subject is born neither of itself nor of thought. However psychoanalysis, while accepting the partial state of the self, affirms the constitutive value of narcissism. The child’s identification with his image, called the mirror stage by Lacan(Écrto 1.89ff.: 1966 edn.), is the crucial stage in the building of the self. If this identification fails, or the image of the self is rejected, serious personality destructuring results. We are not here in the business of confusing philosophy with psychology, or child personality development with the progress of the spirit, but Plotinus’ reticence about images throughout the Enneads does bear a connection with Porphyry’s anecdotes in theLtfe of Plotinus: “Plotinus was ashamed of being in a body”; Plotinus refused to divulge any details of his family, or his place of birth; Plotinus was opposed to a portrait being made of him (Vita Plotini 1). This concurrence of life and writing cannot be neglected: Plotinus refused to allow Porphyry to write his biography, as if to assert the paradox of such an undertaking: an effort to paint the portrait of one who rejected all portraits.

Being in Numenius and Plotinus Some Points of Comparison

In his Vita Plotini (17,1-6), Porphyry tells us that when the people from Greece began to say that Plotinus was appropriating the ideas of Numenius, and Trypho the Stoic and Platonist told Amelius, the latter wrote a book to which we gave the title 'On the Difference between the Doctrines of Plotinus and Numenius' (trans. Armstrong). Whilst this evidence cautions us against making rapprochements between Plotinus and Numenius which overlook the differences between their respective doctrines, it also encourages us to compare these doctrines, and research has in fact brought to light Numenian material in the Enneads of Plotinus. Without going into a discussion of the results of this research1, this article will propose further possible points of comparison, with respect in particular to certain accounts of true Being in Plotinus and Numenius, and suggest that these might provide additional indications of Numenian influence in Plotinus' thought. The accouilt of Being given by Plotinus in Enneads VI 4, ch. 2 and VI 5, ch. 3 will first be examined, in relation in particular to the use made in these texts of Plato's Parmenides. A comparison will then be proposed between an aspect of the Plotinian account and Being as described by Numenius, this leading to a brief discussion of the possibility that Numenius may not only have influenced the account of Being given in Enneads VI 4 and 5, but may also have provided a precedent to Plotinus' use of the Parmenides in these works.

The Chronology in Porphyry's Vita Plotini

The Chronology in Porphyry's Vita Plotini