Select Works of Plotinus · 286 of 752 · tr. Thomas Taylor
Select Works, Section 275 (part 1)
Section 9 9.
Clearly a Being of this nature is not the primal existent; there must exist that which transcends it, that Being [the Absolute], to which all our discussion has been leading.
In the first place, Plurality is later than Unity.
The Intellectual-Principle is a number [= the expression of a plurality]; and number derives from unity: the source of a number such as this must be the authentically One.
Further, it is the sum of an Intellectual-Being with the object of its Intellection, so that it is a duality; and, given this duality, we must find what exists before it.
What is this?
The Intellectual-Principle taken separately, perhaps?
No: an Intellect is always inseparable from an intelligible object; eliminate the intelligible, and the Intellectual-Principle disappears with it.
If, then, what we are seeking cannot be the Intellectual-Principle but must be something that rejects the duality there present, then the Prior demanded by that duality must be something on the further side of the Intellectual-Principle.
But might it not be the Intelligible object itself?
No: for the Intelligible makes an equally inseparable duality with the Intellectual-Principle.
If, then, neither the Intellectual-Principle nor the Intelligible Object can be the First Existent, what is?
Our answer can only be: The source of both.
What will This be; under what character can we picture It?
It must be either Intellective or without Intellection: if Intellective it is the Intellectual-Principle; if not, it will be without even knowledge of itself- so that, either way, what is there so august about it?
If we define it as The Good and the wholly simplex, we will, no doubt, be telling the truth, but we will not be giving any certain and lucid account of it as long as we have in mind no entity in which to lodge the conception by which we define it.
Yet: our knowledge of everything else comes by way of our intelligence; our power is that of knowing the intelligible by means of the intelligence: but this Entity transcends all of the intellectual nature; by what direct intuition, then, can it be brought within our grasp?
To this question the answer is that we can know it only in the degree of human faculty: we indicate it by virtue of what in ourselves is like it.
For in us, also, there is something of that Being; nay, nothing, ripe for that participation, can be void of it.
Wherever you be, you have only to range over against this omnipresent Being that in you which is capable of drawing from It, and you have your share in it: imagine a voice sounding over a vast waste of land, and not only over the emptiness alone but over human beings; wherever you be in that great space you have but to listen and you take the voice entire- entire though yet with a difference.
And what do we take when we thus point the Intelligence?
The Intellectual-Principle in us must mount to its origins: essentially a thing facing two ways, it must deliver itself over to those powers within it which tend upward; if it seeks the vision of that Being, it must become something more than Intellect.
For the Intellectual-Principle is the earliest form of Life: it is the Activity presiding over the outflowing of the universal Order- the outflow, that is, of the first moment, not that of the continuous process.
Describing the divine only by negation—God transcends all positive categories and concepts; the via negativa.
[auto] The text negates diversity and parts in the Supreme ('we cannot stop at a principle containing separate parts'), using negation to describe the higher principle.
The doctrine that God has no parts, divisions, or composite attributes; pure undivided being.
[auto] The text states that in the Intellectual-Principle and Supreme 'no distinction exists between Being and Knowing' and there are no separate parts.
A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.
[auto] The text describes a structured progression from Nature to Soul to Intellectual-Principle to the Supreme, implying a hierarchical order of being.
Salvation through direct experiential knowledge of the divine nature, not through faith, ritual, or moral works alone.
[auto] The passage focuses on 'Contemplation' where the object of knowledge becomes identical with the knower, indicating direct experiential knowledge.
The absolutely simple, undivided first principle from which all multiplicity and existence flows.
[auto] The 'Supreme' is described as an entity where distinctions vanish and no separate parts exist, fitting the definition of a simple first principle.
The merging of the individual soul or self with the divine, transcending personal identity.
[auto] The passage explicitly describes the 'complete identity of Knower and Known' and objects becoming 'one thing with them' in advanced contemplation.
The felt condition of exile from one's divine origin — Rumi's reed flute torn from its bed, Plotinus's 'we have forgotten,' the Gnostic forgetfulness; the affective wound that complements return_to_source and gives the return its motive.
The text notes that the Whither is less good than the Whence, indicating a degradation or distance from the original Unity.
A staged journey of the soul upward through heavenly realms or levels of being toward the divine source.
[auto] The passage outlines 'advancing stages of Contemplation rising from that in Nature, to that in the Soul and thence again to that in the Intellectual-Principle'.
The doctrine — central to Eastern Orthodox and Maximian theology — that the human person is progressively transformed into a partaker of the divine nature by grace, not merely justified or united in passing ecstasy.
The Soul is described as rising to become one with the Intellectual-Principle, effectively partaking in the divine nature.