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Select Works of Plotinus · 422 of 752 · tr. Thomas Taylor

Select Works, Section 398

Section 14 14. (19) As for the souls of the other living beings, fallen to the degree of entering brute bodies, these too must be immortal. And if there is in the animal world any other phase of soul, its only possible origin, since it is the life-giver, is, still, that one principle of life: so too with the soul in the vegetal order. All have sprung from one source, all have life as their own, all are incorporeal, indivisible, all are real-beings. If we are told that man's soul being tripartite must as a compound entity be dissolved, our answer shall be that pure souls upon their emancipation will put away all that has fastened to them at birth, all that increment which the others will long retain. But even that inferior phase thus laid aside will not be destroyed as long as its source continues to exist, for nothing from the realm of real being shall pass away.
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Themes
Apophatic Theologytheology

Describing the divine only by negation—God transcends all positive categories and concepts; the via negativa.

[auto] The text defines the principle by what it is not, stating it neither enters into being nor passes away and rejects change.

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Body As Obstacleanthropology

The material body viewed as a prison, tomb, or source of error that hinders spiritual knowledge and return.

The text states that blending with an inferior principle hampers the relation to the highest.

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Divine Simplicitytheology

The doctrine that God has no parts, divisions, or composite attributes; pure undivided being.

[auto] The principle is described as possessing primal being and life in its own essence while rejecting all change or composition.

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Emanation Hierarchycosmology

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] It outlines a structure where a primal nature provides life and order to the kosmos and other living forms in a dependent relationship.

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Living Godtheology

The divine conceived as active, present, and dynamic—not an abstract principle but a personal responsive reality.

[auto] The passage explicitly states the principle lives in a life that is essentially innate and can never fail, acting as a provider of motion.

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Monadcosmology

The absolutely simple, undivided first principle from which all multiplicity and existence flows.

[auto] The passage describes a self-caused, indestructible first principle that serves as the source of life and motion for all else.

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Return To Sourcesoteriology

The soul's journey back to its divine origin, reversing the fall into matter through stages of purification or illumination.

The text describes the soul recovering its earliest state by turning its tendency back to its own principle.

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Separation From Sourcesoteriology

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 passage describes the primal Being being hampered when it blends with an inferior principle.

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Spiritual Ascentpraxis

A staged journey of the soul upward through heavenly realms or levels of being toward the divine source.

The passage outlines the process of turning tendency back to the primal state as a recovery.

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Unity Of Beingtheology

The doctrine that all existence is ultimately one substance or one divine reality; non-duality as a theological claim.

[auto] It presents a single sustaining principle responsible for the maintenance and ordered system of the entire kosmos and individual things.

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