Categoria: Neoplatonismo

Concerning Virtue. VIRTUE THE ROAD TO ESCAPE EVILS. 1. Man must flee from (this world) here below (for two reasons): because it is the nature of the soul to flee from evil, and because inevitable evil prevails and dominates this world here below. What is this flight (and how can we accomplish it)? (Plato), tells…

Tractate 19 First Ennead. Second tractate. On virtue. 1. Since Evil is here, “haunting this world by necessary law,” and it is the Soul’s design to escape from Evil, we must escape hence. But what is this escape? “In attaining Likeness to God,” we read. And this is explained as “becoming just and holy, living…

Of Dialectic, or the Means of Raising the Soul to the Intelligible World. SEARCH FOR A DEMONSTRATION OF DIVINITY SUCH THAT THE DEMONSTRATION ITSELF WILL DEIFY. 1. What method, art or study will lead us to the goal we are to attain, namely, the Good, the first Principle, the Divinity, by a demonstration which itself…

Tractate 20 First Ennead Third tractate. On dialectic [the upward way]. 1. What art is there, what method, what discipline to bring us there where we must go? The Term at which we must arrive we may take as agreed: we have established elsewhere, by many considerations, that our journey is to the Good, to…

Whether Animals May Be Termed Happy. DEFINITIONS OF HAPPINESS. 1. The (Aristotelian) ideal of living well and happiness are (practically) identical. Should we, on that account, grant even to animals the privilege of achieving happiness? Why might we not say that they live well, if it be granted them, in their lives, to follow the…

Tractate 46 First Ennead. Fourth tractate. On true happiness. 1. Are we to make True Happiness one and the same thing with Welfare or Prosperity and therefore within the reach of the other living beings as well as ourselves? There is certainly no reason to deny well-being to any of them as long as their…

Does Happiness Increase With Time? HAPPINESS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH DURATION OF TIME. 1. Does happiness increase with duration of time? No: for the feeling of happiness exists only in the present. The memory of past happiness could not add anything to happiness itself. Happiness is not a word, but a state of soul.…

Tractate 36 First Ennead. Fifth tractate. Happiness and extension of time. 1. Is it possible to think that Happiness increases with Time, Happiness which is always taken as a present thing? The memory of former felicity may surely be ruled out of count, for Happiness is not a thing of words, but a definite condition…

Of Beauty. REVIEW OF BEAUTY OF DAILY LIFE. 1. Beauty chiefly affects the sense of sight. Still, the ear perceives it also, both in the harmony of words, and in the different kinds of music; for songs and verses are equally beautiful. On rising from the domain of the senses to a superior region, we…

Tractate 1 First Ennead. Sixth tractate. Beauty. 1. Beauty addresses itself chiefly to sight; but there is a beauty for the hearing too, as in certain combinations of words and in all kinds of music, for melodies and cadences are beautiful; and minds that lift themselves above the realm of sense to a higher order…

ENÉADA I 7 (54) — DEL BIEN PRIMARIO Y DE LOS OTROS BIENES

Of the First Good, and of the Other Goods. THE SUPREME GOOD AS END OF ALL OTHER GOODS. 1. Could any one say that there was, for any being, any good but the activity of “living according to nature?” For a being composed of several parts, however, the good will consist in the activity of…

Tractate 54 First Ennead. Seventh tractate. On the primal good and secondary forms of good [otherwise, “On happiness”]. 1. We can scarcely conceive that for any entity the Good can be other than the natural Act expressing its life-force, or in the case of an entity made up of parts the Act, appropriate, natural and…

ENÉADA I 8 (51) — SOBRE QUÉ SON LOS MALES Y DE DONDE PROVIENEN

Of the Nature and Origin of Evils. QUESTIONS TO BE DISCUSSED. 1. Studying the origin of evils that might affect all beings in general, or some one class in particular, it is reasonable to begin by defining evil, from a consideration of its nature. That would be the best way to discover whence it arises,…

Tractate 51 First Ennead. Eighth tractate. On the nature and source of evil. 1. Those enquiring whence Evil enters into beings, or rather into a certain order of beings, would be making the best beginning if they established, first of all, what precisely Evil is, what constitutes its Nature. At once we should know whence…

Of Suicide. EVIL EFFECTS OF SUICIDE ON THE SOUL HERSELF. 1. (As says pseudo-Zoroaster, in his Magic Oracles), “The soul should not be expelled from the body by violence, lest she go out (dragging along with her something foreign,” that is, corporeal). In this case, she will be burdened with this foreign element whithersoever she…

Tractate 16 First Ennead. Ninth tractate. “The reasoned dismissal”. “You will not dismiss your Soul lest it go forth…” [taking something with it]. For wheresoever it go, it will be in some definite condition, and its going forth is to some new place. The Soul will wait for the body to be completely severed from…