Is form a quality? No: form is a reason. Now what is constituted by (material) substance, and reason? (In the warm body) it is neither what burns, nor what is visible; it is quality. If, however, it be said that combustion is an act emanating from reason, that being hot and white are actualities, we could not find anything to explain quality. [Ennead II,6 (17) 2]
The purpose of the preceding considerations was to determine the meaning of the statement that intelligibles are actual; to (…)
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Guthrie - Plotinus
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Guthrie-Plotinus: actualities
1º de fevereiro, por Cardoso de Castro -
Guthrie-Plotinus: actualized
1º de fevereiro, por Cardoso de Castro(11). (If, as Stoics claim, man first was a certain nature called habit, then a soul, and last an intelligence, the perfect would have arisen from the imperfect, which is impossible). To say that the first nature of the soul is to be a spirit, and that this spirit became soul only after having been exposed to cold, and as it were became soaked by its contact, because the cold subtilized it; this is an absurd hypothesis. Many animals are born in warm places, and do not have their soul exposed (…)
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Guthrie-Plotinus: Adrastea
1º de fevereiro, por Cardoso de CastroThe mutual wrongs of human beings may however very easily all be caused by the desire of the Good (as had been thought by Democritus). But, having strayed because of their inability to reach Him, they turned against each other. They are punished for it by the degradation these evil actions introduced within their souls, and, after death, they are driven into a lower place, for none can escape the Order established by the Law of the universe (or, the law of Adrastea). Order does not, as some (…)
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Guthrie-Plotinus: adumbration
1º de fevereiro, por Cardoso de CastroIn this choric ballet, the soul sees the source of life, the source of intelligence, the principle of being, the cause of the good, and the root of love. All these entities are derived from the One without diminishing Him. He is indeed no corporeal mass; otherwise the things that are born of Him would be perishable. However, they are eternal, because their principle ever remains the same, because He does not divide Himself to produce them, but remains entire. They persist, just as the light (…)
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Guthrie-Plotinus: adumbrations
1º de fevereiro, por Cardoso de CastroHow shall we start, and later arrive at the contemplation of this ineffable beauty which, like the divinity in the mysteries, remains hidden in the recesses of a sanctuary, and does not show itself outside, where it might be perceived by the profane? We must advance into this sanctuary, penetrating into it, if we have the strength to do so, closing our eyes to the spectacle of terrestrial things, without throwing a backward glance on the bodies whose graces formerly charmed us. If we do (…)
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Guthrie-Plotinus: aei
1º de fevereiro, por Cardoso de CastroAs the existence of begotten things consists in perpetually acquiring (something or another), they will be annihilated by a removal of their future. An attribution of the future to the (intelligible) entities of a nature contrary (to begotten things), would degrade them from the rank of existences. Evidently they will not be consubstantial with existence, if this existence of theirs be in the future or past. The nature (“being”) of begotten things on the contrary consists in going from the (…)
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Guthrie-Plotinus: aeon
1º de fevereiro, por Cardoso de CastroHow shall we define the aeon (or, eternity)? Shall we say that it is the intelligible “being” (or, nature) itself, just as we might say that time is the heaven and the universe, as has been done, it seems, by certain (Pythagorean) philosophers? Indeed, as we conceive and judge that the aeon (eternity) is something very venerable, we assert the same of intelligible “being,” and yet it is not easy to decide which of the two should occupy the first rank; as, on the other hand, the principle (…)
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Guthrie-Plotinus: aeons
1º de fevereiro, por Cardoso de CastroOne does not become a good man merely by scorning the divinities, the world, and the beauties it contains. Scorn of the divinities is the chief characteristic of the evil. Perversity is never complete until scorn of the divinities is reached; and if a man were not otherwise perverse, this vice would be sufficient to make him such. The respect which the (Gnostic) pretend to have for the intelligible divinities (the aeons) is an illogical accident. For when one loves a being, he loves all that (…)
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Guthrie-Plotinus: aerial
1º de fevereiro, por Cardoso de CastroLet us now examine how it happens that the soul descends into the body, and in what manner this occurs; for it is sufficiently astonishing and remarkable. For a soul, there are two kinds of entrance into a body. The first occurs when the soul, already dwelling in a body, undergoes a transmigration; that is, passes from an aerial or igneous body into a terrestrial body. This is not usually called a transmigration, because the condition from which the soul comes is not visible. The other kind (…)
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Guthrie-Plotinus: affairs
1º de fevereiro, por Cardoso de CastroThe subject that perceives a sense-object must itself be single, and grasp this object in its totality, by one and the same power. This happens when by several organs we perceive several qualities of a single object, or when, by a single organ, we embrace a single complex object in its totality, as, for instance, a face. It is not one principle that sees the face, and another one that sees the eyes; it is the “same principle” which embraces everything at once. Doubtless we do receive a (…)