Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 4 In Chronological Order,...

God is supreme king.615 Eternity is now, but neither past nor future.616 The King in heaven is surrounded by leisure.617 The Good is above Being;618 the divinity is the unity above the "Being and Essence;619 and connected with this is the unitary interpretation of the name A-pollo,620 following in the footsteps of Plutarch. Nevertheless, the inferior divinity traverses the heavens,621 in a circular motion.622 While Numenius does not specify this motion as circular,623 it is implied, inasmuch as the creator's passing through the heavens must have followed their circular course. With this perfect motion is connected the peculiar Numenian doctrine of inexhaustible giving,624 which gave a philosophical basis for the old simile of radiation of light,625 so that irradiation is the method of creation,626 and this is not far removed from emanationism.

This process consists of the descent of the intelligible into the material, or, as Numenius puts it, that both the intelligible and the perceptible participate in the ideas.627 Thus intelligence is the uniting principle that holds together the bodies whose tendency is to split up, and scatter,628 making a leakage or waste,629 which process invades even the divinity.630 This uniting of scattering elements produces a mixture or mingling,608 of matter and reason,631 which, however, is limited to the energies of the existent, not to the existent itself.632 All things are in a flow,633 and the whole all is in all.634 The divinity creates by glancing at the intelligence above,635 as a pilot.636 The divinity is split by over-attention to its charges.637

This leads us over to consideration of the soul. The chief effort of Numenius is a polemic against the materialism of the Stoics, and to it Plotinos devotes a whole book.638 All souls, even the lowest, are immortal.639 Even qualities are incorporeal.640 The soul, therefore, remains incorporeal.641 The soul, however, is divisible.642 This explains the report that Numenius taught not various parts of the soul,643 but two souls, which would be opposed by Plotinos in his polemic against the Stoics,644 but taught in another place.645 Such divisibility is indeed implied in the formation of presentation as a by-product,646 or a "common part."647 Moreover, the soul has to choose its own demon, or guardian divinity.648 Salvation as a goal appears in Numenius,649 but not in Plotinos, who opposes the Gnostic idea of the "saved souls,"650 though elsewhere he speaks of the paths of the musician,651 lover652 and philosopher653 in reaching ecstasy.654 Still both Gnostics and Plotinos insisted on the need of a savior.655 Memory is actualization of the soul.656 In the highest ecstasy the soul is alone with the alone.657