Stoics and Epicureans, being still active, are controverted, the Stoics only for their materialism,
the Epicureans for every part of their philosophy. Artistotle plays a larger part than appears, as
borrowings from him are often unacknowledged. One feels the influence of Parmenides at many
points.
The Plato of Plotinus is not so full-blooded as the real Plato. The theory of ideas, the mystical
doctrines of the Phaedo and of Book VI of the Republic, and the discussion of love in the
Symposium, make up almost the whole of Plato as he appears in the Enneads (as the books of
Plotinus are called). The political interests, the search for definitions of separate virtues, the
pleasure in mathematics, the dramatic and affectionate appreciation of individuals, and above
all the playfulness of Plato, are wholly absent from Plotinus. Plato, as Carlyle said, is "very
much at his ease in Zion"; Plotinus, on the contrary, is always on his best behaviour.
The metaphysics of Plotinus begins with a Holy Trinity: The One, Spirit and Soul. These three
are not equal, like the Persons of the Christian Trinity; the One is supreme, Spirit comes next,
and Soul last. *
The One is somewhat shadowy. It is sometimes called God, sometimes the Good; it transcends
Being, which is the first sequent upon the One. We must not attribute predicates to it, but only
say "It is." (This is reminiscent of Parmenides.) It would be a mistake to speak of God as "the
All," because God transcends the All. God is present through all things. The One can be present
without any coming: "while it is nowhere, nowhere is it not." Although the One is sometimes
spoken of as the Good, we are also told that it precedes both the Good and the Beautiful. â€
Sometimes, the One appears to resemble Aristotle's God; we are told that God has no need of
his derivatives, and ignores the created world. The One is indefinable, and in regard to it there
is more truth in silence than in any words whatever.
We now come to the Second Person, whom Plotinus calls nous. It is always difficult to find an
English word to represent nous. The
* Origen, who was a contemporary of Plotinus and had the same teacher in philosophy,
taught that the First Person was superior to the Second, and the Second to the Third,
agreeing in this with Plotinus. But Origen's view was subsequently declared heretical.â
€
Fifth Enmead, Fifth Tractate, Chap. 12.