Plotino - Tratado 27,11 (IV, 3, 11) — Segunda explicação: a alma do mundo é a intermediária que faz participar o sensível ao inteligível (2)

11. Me parece que han comprendido bien la naturaleza del universo esos antiguos sabios que han querido tener presentes a los dioses fabricándoles templos y estatuas. Comprendieron, en efecto, que es fácil atraerse en todas partes la naturaleza del alma universal, pero que resulta todavía más sencillo hacerse con ella si se construye un objeto que pueda recibir su influjo o siquiera su participación. La representación en imagen de una cosa sufre siempre el influjo de esta, al modo como un espejo es también capaz de aprehender la imagen. Porque la naturaleza, actuando de una manera muy hábil, hace todas las cosas imitando aquellos seres cuyas razones posee. Así nace realmente todo, como una razón que se da en la materia, pero que recibe una forma de algo que está sobre la materia; (la naturaleza) lo pone en contacto con la divinidad según la cual fue engendrado, mientras el alma universal lo contempla para que todo se haga según ella. No es posible, pues, que haya alguna cosa que no participe de la divinidad, pero tampoco lo es que la divinidad descienda hasta nosotros. La inteligencia de que hablamos viene a ser como el sol inteligible —que es precisamente lo .que nosotros tomamos como ejemplo—, pero a continuación de él hemos de colocar un alma que de él depende y que permanece en el mundo inteligible. Esta alma da al sol los límites que ciertamente le convienen, operándose, por medio de ella, la unión más íntima entre el sol sensible y el sol inteligible. También por su intermedio se transmiten al sol sensible las voluntades del sol inteligible, así como al sol inteligible los deseos del sol sensible, todo ello en la medida en que, por medio del alma, pueden esos deseos llegar hasta aquél.

Nada está lejos de nada, porque el estar lejos supondría la diferencia y la mezcla entre los seres; pero es que, además, en esta misma separación hay unidad. No de otro modo ocurre con los dioses, que no se encuentran nunca separados de los seres inteligibles, sino que, por el contrario, aparecen unidos al alma primitiva, que proviene en cierta manera de la inteligencia. Por medio de esta alma, que les hace ser lo que se dice que ellos son, los dioses contemplan la inteligencia, hacia la cual, y sólo a ella, dirige el alma sus miradas.

XI. Les anciens sages, qui voulaient se rendre les dieux présents en fabriquant des statues (68), me paraissent avoir bien pénétré la nature de l’univers : ils ont compris que l’essence de l’Âme universelle est facile à attirer partout, qu’elle peut être aisément rendue présente dans toute chose disposée pour recevoir son action et pour participer ainsi quelque peu à sa puissance. Or une chose est toujours disposée à subir l’action de l’Âme quand elle se prête 288 comme un miroir à recevoir toute espèce d’image (69). La Nature dans l’univers forme avec un art admirable tous les êtres à l’image des raisons qu’elle possède : dans chacune de ses œuvres la raison [séminale] unie à la mati  ère, étant l’image de la raison supérieure à la matière [de l’idée] (70), se rattache à la Divinité [à l’Intelligence] d’après laquelle elle a été engendrée, et que l’Âme universelle a contemplée pour créer (71). Il était donc également impossible qu’il y eût ici-bas quelque chose qui ne participât pas de la Divinité, et que celle-ci descendît ici-bas : car elle est l’Intelligence, le Soleil qui brille là-haut. Considérons-la comme le modèle de la Raison (παράδειγμα τοῦ λόγου). Au-dessous de l’Intelligence est l’Âme, qui en dépend, qui subsiste par elle et avec elle. L’Âme tient à ce Soleil [à l’Intelligence] : elle est l’intermédiaire par lequel les êtres d’ici-bas se rattachent aux êtres intelligibles, l’interprète (ἑρμηνευτική) (72) des choses qui descendent du monde intelligible dans le monde sensible et des choses du monde sensible qui remontent dans le monde intelligible. En effet les choses intelligibles ne sont pas éloignées les unes des autres ; elles sont seulement distinguées par leur différence et leur constitution; elles sont chacune en elle-même, sans aucune rela- 289 tion avec le lieu ; elles sont à la fois unies et distinctes. Les êtres que nous appelons des dieux méritent d’être regardés comme tels parce que jamais ils ne s’écartent des intelligibles, qu’ils sont suspendus à l’Âme universelle considérée dans son principe, au moment même où elle sort de l’Intelligence. Ainsi, ces êtres sont des dieux en vertu même du principe auquel ils doivent leur existence, et parce qu’ils se livrent à la contemplation de l’Intelligence, dont l’Âme universelle elle-même ne détache point ses regards.

THE UNIVERSAL SOUL AS MODEL OF REASON, AS INTERMEDIARY AND INTERPRETER.

11. The ancient sages, who wished to materialize the divinities by making statues of them, seem to me to have well judged the nature of the universe. They understood that the being of the universal Soul was easy to attract anywhere, that her presence can easily be summoned in everything suited to receive her action, and thus to participate somewhat in her power. Now anything is suited to undergo the action of the soul when it lends itself like a mirror to the reflection of any kind of an image. In the universe nature most artistically forms all beings in the image of the reasons it contains. In each of (nature’s) works the ("seminal) reason" that is united to matter, being the image of the reason superior to the matter (of the idea), reattaches itself to divinity (to Intelligence), according to which it was begotten, and which the universal Soul contemplated while creating. It was therefore equally impossible that there should be here below anything which did not participate in the divinity, and which the latter brought down here below; for (the divinity) is Intelligence, the sun that shines there on high. Let us consider (the universal Soul) as the model of reason. Below the Intelligence is the Soul, which depends on it, which subsists by and with it. The Soul holds to this sun (of Intelligence); the Soul is the intermediary by which the beings here below are reattached to intelligible beings; she is the interpreter of things which descend from the intelligible world into the sense-world, and of the things of the sense-world which return into the intelligible world. Indeed, intelligible things are not separated from each other; they are distinguished only by their difference and their constitution. Each of them remains within itself, without any relation to locality; they are simultaneously united and separate. The beings that we call divinities deserve to be considered such because they never swerve from intelligible entities, because they depend on the universal Soul considered in her principle, at the very moment of the Soul’s issuing from Intelligence. Thus these beings are divinities by virtue of the very principle to which they owe their existence, and because they devote themselves to the contemplation of Intelligence, from which the universal Soul herself does not distract her gaze.

XI. Those ancient wise men, likewise, who wishing that the Gods should be present with them, fabricated temples and statues, appear to me to have directed their attention to the nature of the universe, and to have intellectually perceived, that the nature of soul is every where tractable; and that it may be received the most easily of all things, if any thing is fashioned so as to be passive to it, and is able to receive a certain portion of it. But every thing is disposed to be passive which is in any way imitative, so as to be able like a mirror to seize a certain form. For the nature of the universe has fashioned all things most artificially in imitation of those forms the participations of which it contains in itself. And since every thing is thus generated, the reason [or productive principle] in matter, which was fashioned according to a reason prior to matter, is conjoined to that God, conformably to whom it was generated, and which the soul looks to, and possesses while it fabricates. Hence it was not possible for any thing to be generated destitute of this God; nor again-, is it possible for him to descend hither; since this God is intellect, the sun of the intellectual world. Let this, therefore, be assumed by us as the paradigm of reason. But next to this soul follows, suspended from permanently abiding intellect, and being also itself permanent. Soul, therefore, imparts the terminations of itself which are prior to this visible sun, to this sun ; and causes it through itself as a medium to be conjoined to intellect, becoming as it were an interpreter of the things derived from intellect to the sun, and also of those which revert from the sun to intellect, so far as the former recurs through soul to the latter. For no one thing is veiy remote from another; and yet again, it is remote through difference and mixture. But every thing [in the intellectual region] is in itself, not locally, and each is united to each, and is at the same time separate from each. These, however, [i.e. the mundane spheres] are Gods, because they are never deserted by intellect and soul; and are suspended from the primordial soul, which is as it were departing [from mundane natures]. These, therefore, so far as they are what they are, and so far as they are said to look to intellect [are divine]; the vision of soul itself being directed no where else than to intellect.

11. I think, therefore, that those ancient sages, who sought to secure the presence of divine beings by the erection of shrines and statues, showed insight into the nature of the All; they perceived that, though this Soul is everywhere tractable, its presence will be secured all the more readily when an appropriate receptacle is elaborated, a place especially capable of receiving some portion or phase of it, something reproducing it, or representing it, and serving like a mirror to catch an image of it.

It belongs to the nature of the All to make its entire content reproduce, most felicitously, the Reason-Principles in which it participates; every particular thing is the image within matter of a Reason-Principle which itself images a pre-material Reason-Principle: thus every particular entity is linked to that Divine Being in whose likeness it is made, the divine principle which the soul contemplated and contained in the act of each creation. Such mediation and representation there must have been since it was equally impossible for the created to be without share in the Supreme, and for the Supreme to descend into the created.

The Intellectual-Principle in the Supreme has ever been the sun of that sphere - let us accept that as the type of the creative Logos - and immediately upon it follows the Soul depending from it, stationary Soul from stationary Intelligence. But the Soul borders also upon the sun of this sphere, and it becomes the medium by which all is linked to the overworld; it plays the part of an interpreter between what emanates from that sphere down to this lower universe, and what rises - as far as, through soul, anything can - from the lower to the highest.

Nothing, in fact, is far away from anything; things are not remote: there is, no doubt, the aloofness of difference and of mingled natures as against the unmingled; but selfhood has nothing to do with spatial position, and in unity itself there may still be distinction.

These Beings [the Reason-Principles of this sphere] are divine in virtue of cleaving to the Supreme, because, by the medium of the Soul thought of as descending they remain linked with the Primal Soul, and through it are veritably what they are called and possess the vision of the Intellectual Principle, the single object of contemplation to that soul in which they have their being.