life. His experiences of nonmaterial reality were so powerful that he said he was
ashamed to have a body.
Plotinus’ writings were edited by one of his pupils, Porphyry, in the form of six
groups of nine “Tractates” (treatises), published as the so-called Enneads(from the
Greek word for “nine”). The selection given here, in the A.H. Armstrong transla-
tion, is Plotinus’ “Treatise on Beauty.” This tractate explains how the ascent of the
soul to the One/Good depends on beauty of soul, a godlike disposition.
Neoplatonism, with its emphasis on the otherworldly and the need for
escape from the physical world, was the perfect philosophy for the chaotic
final days of the Roman Empire. St. Augustine, in particular, was strongly
influenced by Neoplatonic thought. Indeed, if St. Thomas is considered an
Aristotelian, St. Augustine may be called a Neoplatonist. Many later thinkers,
such as Meister Eckhart, Nicholas Cusanas, John Comenius, Jacob Boehme,
G.W.F. Hegel, and Friedrich Schelling, also had their philosophy molded by
Neoplatonist doctrines.
Joseph Katz,Plotinus’ Search for the Good(New York: King’s Crown Press,
1950); Émile Bréhier,The Philosophy of Plotinus,translated by Joseph
Thomas (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958); and Lloyd P. Gerson,
Plotinus(Oxford: Routledge, 1994) are good introductions to the study of
Plotinus. For more advanced studies, see A.H. Armstrong,The Architecture of
the Intelligible Universe in the Philosophy of Plotinus(Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1940); J.M. Rist,Plotinus: The Road to Reality(Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1967); Lloyd P. Gerson, ed.,The Cambridge
Companion to Plotinus(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); and
Margaret R. Miles,Plotinus on Body and Beauty(Oxford: Basil Blackwell,
1999). E.R. Dodds,Select Passages Illustrating Neoplatonism,translated by
E.R. Dodds (New York: Macmillan, 1923), and Dominic J. O’Meara,Plotinus:
An Introduction to theEnneads (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), pro-
vide anthologies of the Enneadswith discussions of important passages. For
discussions of Neoplatonism as a school, see Thomas Whittaker,The Neo-
Platonists (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1918); Arthur O.
Lovejoy’s influential book,The Great Chain of Being(Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1936); R.T. Wallis, Neoplatonism (London:
Duckworth, 1972); and the collection of essays, R. Baine Harris, ed.,The
Structure of Being: A Neoplatonic Approach(Norfolk, VA: International
Society for Neoplatonic Studies, 1982).