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Select Works of Plotinus · 681 of 752 · tr. Thomas Taylor

Select Works, Section 651

Section 12 12. Or take it another way: Since in our view this universe stands to that as copy to original, the living total must exist There beforehand; that is the realm of complete Being and everything must exist There. The sky There must be living and therefore not bare of stars, here known as the heavens- for stars are included in the very meaning of the word. Earth too will be There, and not void but even more intensely living and containing all that lives and moves upon our earth and the plants obviously rooted in life; sea will be There and all waters with the movement of their unending life and all the living things of the water; air too must be a member of that universe with the living things of air as here. The content of that living thing must surely be alive- as in this sphere- and all that lives must of necessity be There. The nature of the major parts determines that of the living forms they comprise; by the being and content of the heaven There are determined all the heavenly forms of life; if those lesser forms were not There, that heaven itself would not be. To ask how those forms of life come to be There is simply asking how that heaven came to be; it is asking whence comes life, whence the All-Life, whence the All-Soul, whence collective Intellect: and the answer is that There no indigence or impotence can exist but all must be teeming, seething, with life. All flows, so to speak, from one fount not to be thought of as one breath or warmth but rather as one quality englobing and safeguarding all qualities- sweetness with fragrance, wine- quality and the savours of everything that may be tasted, all colours seen, everything known to touch, all that ear may hear, all melodies, every rhythm.
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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 passage explicitly negates human categories like planning and reasoning when applied to the eternal divine realm.

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Divine Simplicitytheology

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

[auto] The text describes the eternal state as having nothing to be added or taken away and being complete without 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.

The mention that things are good only in conjunction with their causes implies a causal chain or hierarchy of existence.

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Logoscosmology

The divine reason, word, or ordering principle through which the universe was created; mediates between the transcendent God and the material world.

The passage discusses 'planning and reasoning' as assumptions applied to process rather than the eternal, engaging with the concept of divine reason.

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Monadcosmology

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

References to the 'first state' and the eternal imply a singular, undivided source principle.

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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] The passage asserts that all things in the eternal likeness stand together without addition or subtraction, implying fundamental unity.

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Related passages · 6 parallels
christian_mysticism|Pseudo-Dionysius: The Divine Names|Chapter 4, Section 1l
Need is there to understand that in proper truth we do but use the elements and syllables and phrases and written terms and words as an aid to our senses; inasmuch as when our soul is moved by spiritual energies unto spiritual things, our s…”
Shared concept: Apophatic Theology — Describing the divine only by negation—God transcends all positive categories and concepts; the via negativa. (derived)
christian_mysticism|Pseudo-Dionysius: The Divine Names|Chapter 2, Section 1a
65 CHAPTER II Concerning the Undifferencing and the Differentiation in Divinity, and the Nature of Divine Unification and Differentiation. 166 166 περὶ ἡνωμένης καὶ διακεκριμένης θεολογίας καὶ τίς ἡ θεία ἕνωσις καὶ διάκρισις. I. ’ Tis th…”
Shared concept: Divine Simplicity — The doctrine that God has no parts, divisions, or composite attributes; pure undivided being. (derived)
christian_mysticism|The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme|Chapter 7 (part 4)
28.) "In Paradise the substance of the divine world penetrated the substance belonging to time, comparable to the power of the sun penetrating a fruit growing on a tree, and endowing it with such qualities as render it lovely to the sight a…”
Shared concept: Logos — The divine reason, word, or ordering principle through which the universe was created; mediates between the transcendent God and the material world. (derived)
jewish_mysticism|The Kabbalah Unveiled|Introduction, Section 1c
The Mantuan Codex terms this the sixth conformation of Macroprosopus, and refers it, as in the case of the fourth conformation, to the primal idea of the Sephira Netzach, victory.] 15. Therein are His two nostrils like mighty galleries, wh…”
Shared concept: Logos — The divine reason, word, or ordering principle through which the universe was created; mediates between the transcendent God and the material world. (derived)
theosophy|The Secret Doctrine|Page 3 (part 7)
Herbert Spencer has of late so far modified his Agnosticism, as to assert that the nature of the "First Cause,"* which the Occultist more logically derives from the "Causeless Cause," the "Eternal," and the "Unknowable," may be essentially…”
Shared concept: Unity Of Being — The doctrine that all existence is ultimately one substance or one divine reality; non-duality as a theological claim. (derived)
christian_mysticism|The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme|Chapter 4 (part 1)
p. 89 CHAPTER IV. CREATION. Everything we see in nature is manifested truth; only we are not able to recognise it as such, unless the truth is manifest within ourselves. God is the supreme, fundamental, universal, self-existent eternal…”
Shared concept: Unity Of Being — The doctrine that all existence is ultimately one substance or one divine reality; non-duality as a theological claim. (derived)