Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 2 In Chronological Order,...

241 Pun on "koros," fulness, or son.

242 Or, being satiated with good things.

243 See Life of Plotinos, 18. Notice how well the chronological order works out. The former book (31) and the next (33) treat of the Gnostics, while this book treats of the philosophical principle of their practical aspect. Besides, it explains the Amelio-Porphyrian quarrel. Like all other difficulties of the time, it was about Gnosticism, and Amelius's dismissal meant that Plotinos rejected Egyptian Gnosticism, and Numenius's true position as a dualist stands revealed; but after Porphyry's departure, Plotinos harked back to it.

244 We see here an assertion of the standpoint later asserted by Berkeley, Kant and Hegel that the mind cannot go outside itself, and that consequently it is the measure of all things. Kant's "thing-in-itself," a deduction from this, was already discovered by Plotinos in the result of the "bastard reasoning" process, which Hegel called "dialectic."

245 See iii. 6.1.

246 The Kantian "thing-in-itself." See Porphyry, Principles of Intelligibles, 33.

247 See iii. 6.1.

248 Here is a pun based on "doxa."

249 "Paradechomenê."

250 "Doxa," which is derived from "dechesthai," to receive.

251 We would, in other words, become pessimists.

252 This is Philo's secondary divinity, p. 27, Guthrie's "Message of Philo Judaeus."

253 That is, of the Intelligence and of the intelligible entities.

254 Who is the Unity; a Numenian conception, fr. 36.

255 A term reminiscent of the famous Christian Nicene formulation.

256 That is we will form a "pair." Numenius, 14, also taught the Pythagorean "pair or doubleness."

257 See vi. 6.16.

258 Pun between essences, "einai," and one, or "henos."

259 "Ousia."

260 Notice the two words for "essence." Plato Cratylus, 424; Cary, 87.

261 As Plato in his Cratylus suggests.

262 Or, essence.

263 Or, essence, to be.

264 Being.

265 The goddess Hestia in Greek, or Vesta in Latin; but "hestia" also meant a "stand." P. 401, Cratylus, Cary, 40.

266 See Numenius, 67, 42.

267 See ii. 9.1; iii. 9.9.

268 Such as Numenius, 42, and Plutarch, de Isis et Osiris, Fr. Tr. 381.

269 From "a-polus."

270 See i. 6.4; iii. 5.1.

271 See v. 5.1.

272 See i. 6, end.

273 Pun between "on" and "hen."

274 See Plato, Rep. vi., Cary, 13.

275 Mentioned in Biography of Plotinos, 16.

276 See vi. 9. Another proof of the chronological arrangement.

277 See v. 6.

278 See v. 1, 2, 3, 6; vi. 7, 9.

279 Of Bythos.

280 Ennoia and Thelesis.