Plotino - Tratado 38,36 (VI, 7, 36) — Posição do problema: pode-se dizer que o Bem pensa?

36. Todo lo demás está perfectamente claro y ya se ha dicho bastante sobre ello. Sin embargo, convendrá hablar todavía un poco partiendo del lugar en que nos encontramos y siguiendo el curso de nuestro razonamiento. El conocimiento o el contacto del Bien son lo más grande que podemos alcanzar; dice (Platón  ) que se trata del conocimiento más alto, entendiendo por ello no la visión misma del Bien, sino el conocimiento que la precede 1 . Las analogías, las negaciones, el conocimiento de los seres que salen de El, la escala que presentan nos adoctrinan sobre el Bien; pero dirigen nuestro camino basta El nuestras propias purificaciones, nuestras virtudes y nuestras disposiciones que nos permiten establecernos y residir en lo inteligible a la vez que regalarnos con todo lo que allí hay. Es así como llegamos a contemplarnos a nosotros mismos y a las otras cosas y como nos convertimos en objeto de contemplación. Somos ya esencia, inteligencia y ser vivo total que no ve en modo alguno el bien externo. He aquí un estado en el que nos hallamos cerca del Bien y El a distancia inmediata. El Bien se encuentra próximo, extendiendo su luz sobre la región inteligible. Y es entonces cuando abandonamos todo conocimiento racional, llevados como niños hasta la morada de lo bello. Hasta allí se extiende el pensamiento, transportado por la ola de la inteligencia y elevado a tal altura por su flujo que permite ver repentinamente sin que podamos siquiera explicárnoslo. En esa contemplación, que es un llenarse de luz, no hacemos que los ojos vean un objeto diferente; lo que ellos ven no es otra cosa que la luz misma. No existe, pues, la distinción entre el objeto que se ve y la luz que nos lo ofrece, como no hay igualmente una inteligencia y un objeto pensado, sino una luz que engendra ambas cosas y hace que existan por debajo de ella. Esa luz da origen   a la Inteligencia y no se extingue por el hecho de engendrarla. Al contrario, permanece tal cual es y engendra precisamente por cuanto ella es en sí misma. Si esta permanencia no tuviese lugar, tampoco existiría lo que esa luz produce.

XXXVI. Le reste est clair. Quant au dernier point, il en a été déjà parte. Cependant il est bon d’y ajouter encore quelque chose en partant du degré où nous sommes parvenus et en nous avançant par des raisonnements.

La connaissance, ou, si l’on peut s’exprimer ainsi, le tact du Bien (ἡ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ἐπαφή) est ce qu’il y a de plus grand (124). C’est ce que Platon nomme la plus grande des sciences (125); et encore appelle-t-il ici science, non la vision même du Bien, mais la science que l’on a du Bien avant cette vision. Cette science est obtenue par l’étude des analogies (126), par les négations [qu’on fait au sujet du Bien (127)], par la connaissance des choses qui procèdent de lui (128), enfin par les degrés que l’on parcourt pour monter jusqu’à lui (129). Or voici les degrés qui conduisent à Dieu : les purifications, les vertus qui ornent l’âme, l’élévation à l’intelligible, l’édification dans l’intelligible, puis le festin ou se nourrit de nectar celui qui devient à la fois spectateur et spectacle, soit pour lui-même, soit pour les autres (130). Étant devenu Essence, Intelligence, Animal universel, il ne considère plus ces choses comme étant hors de lui ; arrivé à cet état, il approche de Celui qui est immédiatement au-dessus de tous les intelligibles et qui répand déjà sur eux sa splendeur. Il laisse alors toute la science qui l’a conduit jusque-là : édifié dans le Beau, il pense, tant qu’il ne va pas au delà de l’essence dans laquelle il se trouve. Mais là , soulevé en quelque sorte parle flot même de l’intelligence, et emporté par la vague qui se gonfle, il voit tout à coup, sans savoir comment. La contemplation qui remplit ses yeux de lumière ne lui fait pas voir une chose extérieure ; c’est la lumière même qu’il voit. Il n’y a pas là d’un côté la lumière, de l’autre l’objet visible ; il n’y a pas non plus, d’un côté, l’intelligence, et, de l’autre, l’intelligible ; il n’y a que la clarté qui engendre postérieurement ces choses, et leur permet de subsister dans son sein. Pour Dieu, il est seulement la clarté qui engendre l’Intelligence, qui ne se consume pas en engendrant et demeure en soi. Cette clarté est, et par cela seul naît une autre chose. Si cette clarté n’était pas telle, cette autre chose ne subsisterait pas.

THE TOUCH WITH THE GOOD IS THE GREATEST OF SCIENCES.

36. The remainder is plain. As to the last point, it has already been discussed. Still it may be well to add something thereto, starting from the point reached, and proceeding by arguments. Knowledge, or, if it may be so expressed, the “touch of the Good,” is the greatest thing in the world. Plato calls it the greatest of sciences, and even so he here applies this designation not to the vision itself of the Good, but to the science of the Good that may be had before the vision. This science is attained by the use of analogies, by negations (made about the Good), by the knowledge of things that proceed from it, and last by the degrees that must be taken (or, upward steps that must be climbed to reach up to Him.) (These then are the degrees) that lead up (to the divinity): purifications, virtues that adorn the soul, elevation to the intelligible, settling in the intelligible, and then the banquet   at which nectar feeds him who becomes simultaneously spectator and spectacle, either for himself, or for others. Having become Being, Intelligence, and universal living Organism, (the initiate) no longer considers these things as being outside of him; having arrived at that condition, she approaches Him who is immediately above all the intelligible entities, and who already sheds His radiance over them. (The initiate) then leaves aside all the science that has led him till there; settled in the beautiful, he thinks, so long as he does not go beyond that (sphere of) being. But there, as it were raised by the very flood of intelligence, and carried away by the wave that swells, without knowing how, he suddenly sees. The contemplation which fills his eye with light does not reveal to him anything exterior; it is the light itself that he sees. It is not an opposition between light on one side, and the visible object on the other; nor is there on one side intelligence, and on the other the intelligible entity; there is only the (radiation) which later begets these entities, and permits them to exist within it. (The divinity) is no more than the radiation that begets intelligence, begetting without being consumed, and remaining within itself. This radiation exists, and this existence alone begets something else. If this radiation were not what it was, neither would the latter thing subsist.

36. We need not carry this matter further; we turn to a question already touched but demanding still some brief consideration.

Knowledge of The Good or contact with it, is the all-important: this - we read - is the grand learning, the learning we are to understand, not of looking towards it but attaining, first, some knowledge of it. We come to this learning by analogies, by abstractions, by our understanding of its subsequents, of all that is derived from The Good, by the upward steps towards it. Purification has The Good for goal; so the virtues, all right ordering, ascent within the Intellectual, settlement therein, banqueting upon the divine - by these methods one becomes, to self and to all else, at once seen and seer; identical with Being and Intellectual-Principle and the entire living all, we no longer see the Supreme as an external; we are near now, the next is That and it is close at hand, radiant above the Intellectual.

Here, we put aside all the learning; disciplined to this pitch, established in beauty, the quester holds knowledge still of the ground he rests on but, suddenly, swept beyond it all by the very crest of the wave of Intellect surging beneath, he is lifted and sees, never knowing how; the vision floods the eyes with light, but it is not a light showing some other object, the light is itself the vision. No longer is there thing seen and light to show it, no longer Intellect and object of Intellection; this is the very radiance that brought both Intellect and Intellectual object into being for the later use and allowed them to occupy the quester’s mind. With This he himself becomes identical, with that radiance whose Act is to engender Intellectual-Principle, not losing in that engendering but for ever unchanged, the engendered coming to be simply because that Supreme exists. If there were no such principle above change, no derivative could rise.