Neo-Platonism - Grand Lodge Bet-El

Neo-Platonism 

There is certainly no accident in a man’s becoming a slave 

nor is he taken prisoner in war by chance 

nor is outrage done on his body without due cause 

but he was once the doer of that which he now suffers. 

Each soul comes down to a body made ready for it 

according to its resemblance to the soul’s disposition. 

He who finds fault with the nature of universe 

does not know what he is doing 

nor how far his arrogance is taking him. 

- Plotinus 

Neo-Platonism is a modern term used to designate the period of Platonic philosophy beginning with 

the work of Plotinus and ending with the closing of the Platonic Academy by the Emperor Justinian 

in 529 CE. This brand of Platonism, which is often described as ‘mystical’ or religious in nature, 

developed outside the mainstream of Academic Platonism. The origins of Neo-Platonism can be 

traced back to the era of Hellenistic syncretism which spawned such movements and schools of 

thought as Gnosticism and the Hermetic tradition. A major factor in this syncretism, and one which 

had an immense influence on the development of Platonic thought was the introduction of the Jewish 

Scriptures into Greek intellectual circles via the translation known as the Septuagint. The encounter 

between the creation narrative of Genesis and the cosmology of Plato’s Timaeus set in motion a long 

tradition of cosmological theorizing that finally culminated in the grand scheme of Plotinus’ 

Enneads. Plotinus’ two major successors, Porphyry and Iamblichus, each developed, in their own 

way, certain isolated aspects of Plotinus’ thought, but neither of them developed a rigorous 

philosophy to match that of their master. It was Proclus who, shortly before the closing of the 

Academy, bequeathed a systematic Platonic philosophy upon the world that in certain ways 

approached the sophistication of Plotinus. Finally, in the work of the so-called Pseudo-Dionysius, we 

find a grand synthesis of Platonic philosophy and Christian theology that was to exercise an 

immense influence on mediaeval mysticism and Renaissance Humanism.

Table of Contents 

2. What is Neo-Platonism? 

3. Plotinian Neo-Platonism 

a. Contemplation and Creation 

b. Nature and Personality 

c. Salvation and the Cosmic Process 

♦ Plotinus’ Last Words 

d. The Achievement of Plotinus 

♦ The Plotinian Synthesis 

4. Porphyry and Iamblichus 

a. The Nature of the Soul 

♦ The (re)turn to Astrology 

b. The Quest for Transcendence 

♦ Theurgy and the Distrust of Dialectic 

5. Proclus and Pseudo-Dionysius 

a. Being — Becoming — Being 

b. The God Beyond Being 

6. Appendix: The Renaissance Platonists 

7. References 

1. What is Neo-Platonism? 

The term ‘Neo-Platonism’ is a modern construction. Plotinus, who is often considered the ‘founder’ of 

Neo-Platonism, would not have considered himself a “new” Platonist in any sense, but simply an 

expositor of the doctrines of Plato. That this required him to formulate an entirely new philosophical 

system would not have been viewed by him as a problem, for it was, in his eyes, precisely what the 

Platonic doctrine required. In a sense, this is true, for as early as the Old Academy we find Plato’s 

successors struggling with the proper interpretation of his thought, and arriving at strikingly 

different conclusions. Also, in the Hellenistic era, certain Platonic ideas were taken up by thinkers of 

various loyalties — Jewish, Gnostic, Christian — and worked up into new forms of expression that 

varied quite considerably from what Plato actually wrote in his Dialogues. Should this lead us to the 

conclusion that these thinkers were any less ‘loyal’ to Plato than were the members of the Academy 

(in its various forms throughout the centuries preceding Plotinus)? No; for the multiple and often 

contradictory uses made of Platonic ideas is a testament to the universality of Plato’s thought — that 

is, its ability to admit of a wide variety of interpretations and applications. In this sense, Neo- 

Platonism may be said to have begun immediately after Plato’s death, when new approaches to his 

philosophy were being broached. Indeed, we already see a hint, in the doctrines of Xenocrates (the 

second head of the Old Academy) of a type of salvation theory involving the unification of the two 

parts of the human soul — the “Olympian” or heavenly, and the “Titanic” or earthly (Dillon 1977, p. 

27). If we accept Frederick Coplestone’s description of Neo-Platonism as “the intellectualist reply to 

the … yearning for personal salvation” (Copleston 1962, p. 216) we can already locate the beginning of 

this reply as far back as the Old Academy, and Neo-Platonism would then not have begun with 

Plotinus. However, it is not clear that Xenocrates’ idea of salvation involved the individual; it is 

quite possible that he was referring to a unified human nature in an abstract sense. In any case, the 

early Hermetic-Gnostic tradition is certainly to an extent Platonic and later Gnosticism and 

Christian Logos theology markedly so. If an intellectual reply to a general yearning for personal 

salvation is what characterizes Neo-Platonism, then the highly intellectual Gnostics and Christians 

of the Late Hellenistic era must be given the title of Neo-Platonist. However, if we are to be rigorous 

and define Neo-Platonism as the synthesis of various more or less ‘Platonistic’ ideas into a grand 

expression of platonic philosophy, then Plotinus must be considered the founder of Neo-Platonism. 

Yet we must not forget that these Platonizing Christian, Gnostic, Jewish, and other ‘pagan’ thinkers 

provided the necessary speculative material to make this synthesis possible.

2. Plotinian Neo-Platonism 

The great third century thinker and ‘founder’ of Neo-Platonism, Plotinus, is responsible for the grand 

synthesis of progressive Christian and Gnostic ideas with the traditional Platonic philosophy. He 

answered the challenge of accounting for the emergence of a seemingly inferior and flawed cosmos 

from the perfect mind of the divinity by declaring outright that all objective existence is but the 

external self-expression of an inherently contemplative deity known as the One (to hen), or the Good 

(ta kalon). Plotinus compares the expression of the superior godhead with the self-expression of the 

individual soul, which proceeds from the perfect conception of a Form (eidos), to the always flawed 

expression of this Form in the manner of a materially derived ‘personality’ that risks succumbing to 

the demands of divisive discursivity, and so becomes something less than divine. This diminution of 

the divine essence in temporality is but a necessary moment of the complete expression of the One. 

By elevating the experience of the individual soul to the status of an actualization of a divine Form, 

Plotinus succeeded, also, in preserving, if not the autonomy, at least the dignity and ontological 

necessity of personality. The Cosmos, according to Plotinus, is not a created order, planned by a deity 

on whom we can pass the charge of begetting evil; for the Cosmos is the self-expression of the Soul, 

which corresponds, roughly, to Philo’s logos prophorikos, the logos endiathetos of which is the 

Intelligence (nous). Rather, the Cosmos, in Plotinian terms, is to be understood as the concrete result 

or ‘product’ of the Soul’s experience of its own Mind (nous). Ideally, this concrete expression should 

serve the Soul as a reference-point for its own self-conscious existence; however, the Soul all too easily 

falls into the error of valuing the expression over the principle (arkhê), which is the contemplation of 

the divine Forms. This error gives rise to evil, which is the purely subjective relation of the Soul (now 

divided) to the manifold and concrete forms of its expressive act. When the Soul, in the form of 

individual existents, becomes thus preoccupied with its experience, Nature comes into being, and the 

Cosmos takes on concrete form as the locus of personality. 

a. Contemplation and Creation 

Hearkening back, whether consciously or not, to the doctrine of Speusippus (Plato’s nephew and 

successor in the Academy) .Tat the One is utterly transcendent and “beyond being,” and that the 

Dyad is the true first principle (Dillon 1977, p. 12), Plotinus declares that the One is “alone with itself” 

and ineffable (cf. Enneads VI.9.6 and V.2.1). The One does not act to produce a cosmos or a spiritual 

order, but simply generates from itself, effortlessly, a power (dunamis) which is at once the Intellect 

(nous) and the object of contemplation (theôria) of this Intellect. While Plotinus suggests that the One 

subsists by thinking itself as itself, the Intellect subsists through thinking itself as other, and therefore 

becomes divided within itself: this act of division within the Intellect is the production of Being, 

which is the very principle of expression or discursively (Ennead V.1.7). For this reason, the Intellect 

stands as Plotinus’ sole First Principle. At this point, the thinking or contemplation of the Intellect is 

divided up and ordered into thoughts, each of them subsisting in and for themselves, as autonomous 

reflections of the dunam is of the One. These are the Forms (eidê), and out of their inert unity there 

arises the Soul, whose task it is to think these Forms discursively and creatively, and to thereby 

produce or create a concrete, living expression of the divine Intellect. This activity of the Soul results 

in the production of numerous individual souls: living actualizations of the possibilities inherent in 

the Forms. Whereas the Intellect became divided within itself through contemplation, the Soul 

becomes divided outside of itself, through action (which is still contemplation, according to Plotinus, 

albeit the lowest type; cf. Ennead III.8.4), and this division constitutes the Cosmos, which is the 

expressive or creative act of the Soul, also referred to as Nature. When the individual soul reflects 

upon Nature as its own act, this soul is capable of attaining insight (gnosis) into the essence of 

Intellect; however, when the soul views nature as something objective and external — that is, as 

something to be experienced or undergone, while forgetting that the soul itself is the creator of this 

Nature — evil and suffering ensue. Let us now examine the manner in which Plotinus explains 

Nature as the locus of personality.

. Nature and Personality 

Contemplation, at the level of the Soul, is for Plotinus a two-way street. The Soul both contemplates, 

passively, the Intellect, and reflects upon its own contemplative act by producing Nature and the 

Cosmos. The individual souls that become immersed in Nature, as moments of the Soul’s eternal act, 

will, ideally, gain a complete knowledge of the Soul in its unity, and even of the Intellect, by 

reflecting upon the concrete results of the Soul’s act — that is, upon the externalized, sensible entities 

that comprise the physical Cosmos. This reflection, if carried by the individual soul with a memory of 

its provenance always in the foreground, will lead to a just governing of the physical Cosmos, which 

will make of it a perfect material image of the Intellectual Cosmos, i.e., the realm of the Forms (cf. 

Enneads IV.3.7 and IV.8.6). However, things don’t always turn out so well, for individual souls often 

“go lower than is needful … in order to light the lower regions, but it is not good for them to go so 

far” (Ennead IV.3.17, tr. O’Brien 1964). For when the soul extends itself ever farther into the 

indeterminacy of materiality, it gradually loses memory of its divine origin, and comes to identify 

itself more and more with its surroundings — that is to say: the soul identifies itself with the results 

of the Soul’s act, and forgets that it is, as part of this Soul, itself an agent of the act. This is 

tantamount to a relinquishing, by the soul, of its divine nature. When the soul has thus abandoned 

itself, it begins to accrue many alien encrustations, if you will, that make of it something less than 

divine. These encrustations are the ‘accidents’ (in the Aristotelian sense) of personality. And yet the 

soul is never completely lost, for, as Plotinus insists, the soul needs simply “think upon essential 

being” in order to return to itself, and continue to exist authentically as a governor of the Cosmos 

(Ennead IV.8.4-6). The memory of the personality that this wandering soul possessed must be 

forgotten in order for it to return completely to its divine nature; for if it were remembered, we 

would have to say, contradictorily, that the soul holds a memory of what occurred during its state of 

forgetfulness! So in a sense, Plotinus holds that individual personalities are not maintained at the 

level of Soul. However, if we understand personality as more than just a particular attitude 

attached to a concrete mode of existence, and rather view it as the sum total of experiences reflected 

upon in intellect, then souls most certainly retain their personalities, even at the highest level, for 

they persist as thoughts within the divine Mind (cp. Ennead IV.8.5). The personality that one 

acquires in action (the lowest type of contemplation) is indeed forgotten and dissolved, but the 

‘personality’ or persistence in intellect that one achieves through virtuous acts most definitely 

endures (Ennead IV.3.32). 

c. Salvation and the Cosmic Process 

Plotinus, like his older contemporary Christian philosopher, who was originally from Alexandria, 

views the descent of the soul into the material sphere as a necessary moment in the unfolding of the 

divine Intellect, or God. For this reason, the descent itself is not an evil, for it is a reflection of God’s 

essence. Both Origen and Plotinus place the blame for experiencing this descent as an evil squarely 

upon the individual soul. Of course, these thinkers held, respectively, quite different views as to why 

and how the soul experiences the descent as an evil; but they held one thing in common: that the 

rational soul will naturally choose the Good, and that any failure to do so is the result of 

forgetfulness or acquired ignorance. But whence this failure? Origen gave what, to Plotinus’ mind, 

must have been a quite unsatisfactory answer: that souls pre-existed as spiritual beings, and when 

they desired to create or ‘beget’ independently of God, they all fell into error, and languished there 

until the coming of Logos Incarnate. This view has more than a little Gnostic flavor to it, which 

would have sat ill with Plotinus, who was a great opponent of Gnosticism. The fall of the soul 

Plotinus refers, quite simply, to the tension between pure contemplation and divisive action — a 

tension that constitutes the natural mode of existence of the soul (cf. Ennead IV.8.6-7). Plotinus tells 

us that a thought is only completed or fully comprehended after it has been expressed, for only then 

can the thought be said to have passed from potentiality to actuality (Ennead IV.3.30). The question 

of whether Plotinus places more value on the potential or the actual is really of no consequence, for 

in the Plotinian plêrôma every potentiality generates an activity, and every activity becomes itself

a potential for new activity (cf. Ennead III.8.8); and since the One, which is the goal or object of 

desire of all existents, is neither potentiality nor actuality, but “beyond being” (epekeina ousias), it is 

impossible to say whether the striving of existents, in Plotinus’ schema, will result in full and 

complete actualization, or in a repose of potentiality that will make them like their source. “Likeness 

to God as far as possible,” for Plotinus, is really likeness to oneself – authentic existence. Plotinus 

leaves it up to the individual to determine what this means. 

• Plotinus’ Last Words 

In his biography of Plotinus, Porphyry records the last words of his teacher to his students as follows: 

“Strive to bring back the god in you to the God in the All” (Porphyry, Life of Plotinus 2, my 

translation). After uttering these words, Plotinus, one of the greatest philosophers the world has ever 

known, passed away. The simplicity of this final statement seems to be at odds with the intellectual 

rigors of Plotinus’ treatises, which challenge — and more often than not vanquish — just about every 

prominent philosophical view of the era. But this is only if we take this remark in a mystical or 

ecstatic religious sense. Plotinus demanded the utmost level of intellectual clarity in dealing with the 

problem of humankind’s relation to the highest principle of existence. Striving for or desiring 

salvation was not, for Plotinus, an excuse for simply abandoning oneself to faith or prayer or 

unreflective religious rituals; rather, salvation was to be achieved through the practice of 

philosophical investigation, of dialectic. The fact that Plotinus, at the end of his life, had arrived at 

this very simple formulation, serves to show that his dialectical quest was successful. In his last 

treatise, “On the Primal Good” (Ennead I.7), Plotinus is able to assert, in the same breath, that both 

life and death are good. He says this because life is the moment in which the soul expresses itself and 

revels in the autonomy of the creative act. However, this life, since it is characterized by action, 

eventually leads to exhaustion, and the desire, not for autonomous action, but for reposeful 

contemplation — of a fulfillment that is purely intellectual and eternal. Death is the relief of this 

exhaustion, and the return to a state of contemplative repose. Is this return to the Intellect a return 

to potentiality? It is hard to say. Perhaps it is a synthesis of potentiality and actuality: the moment 

at which the soul is both one and many, both human and divine. This would constitute Plotinian 

salvation — the fulfillment of the exhortation of the dying sage. 

d. The Achievement of Plotinus 

In the last analysis, what stands as the most important and impressive accomplishment of Plotinus is 

the manner in which he synthesized the pure, ‘semi-mythical’ expression of Plato with the logical 

rigors of the Peripatetic and Stoic schools, yet without losing sight of philosophy’s most important 

task: of rendering the human experience in intelligible and analyzable terms. That Plotinus’ thought 

had to take the ‘detour’ through such wildly mystical and speculative paths as Gnosticism and 

Christian salvation theology is only proof of his clear-sightedness, thoroughness, and admirable 

humanism. For all of his dialectical difficulties and perambulations, Plotinus’ sole concern is with the 

well-being (eudemonia) of the human soul. This is, of course, to be understood as an intellectual, as 

opposed to a merely physical or even emotional well-being, for Plotinus was not concerned with the 

temporary or the temporal. The striving of the human mind for a mode of existence more suited to 

its intuited potential than the ephemeral possibilities of this material realm, while admittedly a 

striving born of temporality, is nonetheless directed toward a temporal and divine perfection. This is 

a striving or desire rendered all the more poignant and worthy of philosophy precisely because it is 

born in the depths of existential angst, and not in the primitive ecstasies of unreflective ritual. As 

the last true representative of the Greek philosophical spirit, Plotinus is Apollonian, not Dionysian. 

His concern is with the intellectual beautification of the human soul, and for this reason his notion of 

salvation does not, like Origen’s, imply an eternal state of objective contemplation of the divinity — 

for Plotinus, the separation between human and god breaks down, so that when the perfected soul 

contemplates itself, it is also contemplating the Supreme.

• The Plotinian Synthesis 

Plotinus was faced with the task of defending the true Platonic philosophy, as he understood it, 

against the inroads being made, in his time, most of all by Gnostics, but also by orthodox 

Christianity. Instead of launching an all-out attack on these new ideas, Plotinus took what was best 

from them, in his eyes, and brought these ideas into concert with his own brand of Platonism. For 

this reason, we are sometimes surprised to see Plotinus, in one treatise, speaking of the cosmos as a 

realm of forgetfulness and error, while in another, speaking of the cosmos as the most perfect 

expression of the godhead. Once we realize the extent to which certain Gnostic sects went in order to 

brand this world as a product of an evil and malignant Demiurge, to whom we owe absolutely no 

allegiance, it becomes clear that Plotinus was simply trying to temper the extreme form of an idea 

which he himself shared, though in a less radical sense. The feeling of being thrown into a hostile and 

alien world is a philosophically valid position from which to begin a critique and investigation of 

human existence; indeed, modern existentialist philosophers have often started from this same 

premise. However, Plotinus realized that it is not the nature of the human soul to simply escape 

from a realm of active engagement with external reality (the cosmos) to a passive receptance of 

divine form (within the plêrôma). The Soul, as Plotinus understands it, is an essentially creative 

being, and one which understands existence on its own terms. One of the beauties of Plotinus’ system 

is that everything he says concerning the nature of the Cosmos (spiritual and physical) can equally 

be held of the Soul. Now while it would be false to charge Plotinus with solipsism (or even narcissism, 

as one prominent commentator has done; cf. Julia Kristeva in Hadot 1993, p. 11), it would be correct 

to say that the entire Cosmos is an analogue of the experience of the Soul, which results in the 

attainment of full self-consciousness. The form of Plotinus’ system is the very form by which the Soul 

naturally comes to know itself in relation to its acts; and the expression of the Soul will always, 

therefore, be a philosophical expression. speaking of the Plotinian synthesis, then, natural dialectic of 

the Soul, which takes its own expressions into account, no matter how faulty or incomplete they 

appear in retrospect, and weaves them to a cosmic tapestry of noetic images. 

4. Porphyry and Iamblichus 

Porphyry of Tyr (ca. 233-305 CE) is the most famous pupil of Plotinus. In addition to writing an 

introductory summary of his master’s theories (the treatise entitled Launching-Points to the Realm 

of Mind), Porphyry also composed the famous Isagoge, an introduction to the Categories of Aristotle, 

which came to exercise an immense influence on Mediaeval Scholasticism. The extent of Porphyry’s 

investigative interests exceeded that of his teacher, and his so-called “scientific” works, which 

survive to this day, include a treatise on music (On Prosody), and two studies of the astronomical 

and astrological theories of Claudius Ptolemy (ca. 70-140 CE), On the Harmonics, and an Introduction 

to The Astronomy of Ptolemy. He wrote biographies of Pythagoras and Plotinus, and edited and 

compiled the latter’s essays into six books, each containing nine treatises, giving them the title 

Enneads. Unlike Plotinus, Porphyry was interested primarily in the practical aspect of salvific 

striving, and the manner in which the soul could most effectively bring about its transference to 

ever higher realms of existence. This led Porphyry to develop a doctrine of ascent to the Intellect by 

way of the exercise of virtue (aretê) in the form of ‘good works’. This doctrine may owe its genesis to 

Porphyry’s supposed early adherence to Christianity, as attested by the historian Socrates, and 

suggested by St. Augustine (cf. Copleston 1962, p. 218). If Porphyry had, at some point, been a 

Christian, this would account for his belief in the soul’s objective relation to the divine Mind — an 

idea shared by Origen, whom Porphyry knew as a youth (cf. Eusebius, The History of the Church, p. 

195) — and would explain his quite un-Plotinian belief in a gradual progress toward perfection, as 

opposed to the ‘instant salvation’ proposed by Plotinus (cf. Ennead IV.8.4). Iamblichus of Anjar (d. ca. 

330 CE) was a student of Porphyry. He departed from his teacher on more than a few points, most 

notably in his insistence on demoting Plotinus’ One (which Porphyry left unscathed, as it were) to the 

level of cosmos noêtos, which according to Iamblichus generates the intellectual realm (cosmos 

noêros). In this regard, Iamblichus can be said to have either severely misunderstood, or neglected to

even attempt to understand, Plotinus on the important doctrine of contemplation (see above). This 

view led Iamblichus to posit a Supreme One even higher than the One of Plotinus, which generates 

the Intellectual Cosmos, and yet remains beyond all predication and determinacy. Iamblichus also 

made a tripartite division of Soul, positing a cosmic or All-Soul, and two lesser souls, corresponding 

to the rational and irrational faculties, respectively. This somewhat gratuitous skewing of the 

Plotinian noetic realm also led Iamblichus to posit an array of intermediate spiritual beings between 

the lower souls and the intelligible realm — daemons, the souls of heroes, and angels of all sorts. By 

placing so much distance between the earthly soul and the intelligible realm, Iamblichus made it 

difficult for the would-be philosopher to gain an intuitive knowledge of the higher Soul, although he 

insisted that everyone possesses such knowledge, coupled with an innate desire for the Good. In place 

of the vivid dialectic of Plotinus, Iamblichus established the practice of Theurgy (theourgia), which 

he insists does not draw the gods down to man, but rather renders humankind, “who through 

generation are born subject to passion, pure and unchangeable” (On the Mysteries I.12.42; in Fowden 

1986, p. 133). Whereas “likeness to God” had meant, for Plotinus, a recollection and perfection of one’s 

own divine nature (which is, in the last analysis, identical to nous; cf. Ennead III.4), for Iamblichus 

the relation of humankind to the divine is one of subordinate to superior, and so the pagan religious 

piety that Plotinus had scorned — “Let the gods come to me, and not I to them,” he had once said (cf. 

Porphyry, Life of Plotinus 10) — returns to philosophy with a vengeance. Iamblichus is best known 

for his lengthy treatise On the Mysteries. Like Porphyry, he also wrote a biography of Pythagoras. 

a. The Nature of the Soul 

In his introduction to the philosophy of Plotinus, entitled Launching-Points to the Realm of Mind, 

Porphyry remarks that the inclination of the incorporeal Soul toward corporeality “constitutes a 

second nature [the irrational soul], which unites with the body” (Launching-Points 18 [1]). This 

remark is supposedly a commentary on Ennead IV.2, where Plotinus discusses the relation of the 

individual soul to the All-Soul. While it is true that Plotinus often speaks of the individual soul as 

being independent of the highest Soul, he does this for illustrative purposes, in order to show how far 

into forgetfulness the soul that has become enamored of its act may fall. Yet Plotinus insists time and 

again that the individual soul and the All-Soul are one (cf. esp. Ennead IV.1), and that Nature is the 

Soul’s expressive act (see above). Irrationality does not constitute, for Plotinus, a “second nature,” but 

is merely a flawed exercise of rationality — that is, doxa untempered by episteme – on the part of 

the individual soul. Furthermore, the individual soul, which comes to unite with corporeality, 

governs and controls the body, making possible discursive knowledge as well as sense-perception. 

Uncontrolled pathos is what Plotinus calls irrationality; the soul brings aisthêsis (perceptive 

judgment) to corporeality, and so prevents it from sinking into irrational passivity. So what led 

Porphyry to make such an interpretative error, if error it was? It is quite possible that Porphyry 

had arrived at his own conclusions about the Soul, and tried to square his own theory with what 

Plotinus actually taught. One clue to the reason for the ‘misunderstanding’ may possibly lie in 

Porphyry’s early involvement with Christianity. While Porphyry himself never tells us that he had 

been a Christian, Augustine speaks of him as if he were an apostate, and the historian Socrates states 

outright that Porphyry had once been of the Christian faith, telling us that he left the fold in disgust 

after being assaulted by a rowdy band of Christians in Caesarea (Copleston 1962, p. 218). In any case, 

it is certain that he was acquainted with Plotinus’ older contemporary, the Christian Origen, and 

that he had been exposed to Christian doctrine. Indeed, his own spirited attack on Christianity 

(“Fifteen Arguments against the Christians,” now preserved only in fragments) shows him to have 

possessed a wide knowledge of Holy Scripture, remarkable for a ‘pagan’ philosopher of that era. 

Porphyry’s exposure to Christian doctrine, then, would have left him with a view of salvation quite 

different from that of Plotinus, who seems never to have paid Christianity much mind. The best 

evidence we have for this explanation is Porphyry’s own theory of salvation — and it is remarkably 

similar to what we find in Origen! Porphyry’s salvation theory is dependent, like Origen’s, on a 

notion of the soul’s objective relation to God, and its consequent striving, not to actualize its own 

divine potentiality, but to attain a level of virtue that makes it capable of partaking fully of the

divine essence. This is accomplished through the exercise of virtue, which sets the soul on a gradual 

course of progress toward the highest Good. Beginning with simple ‘practical virtues’ (politikai 

arêtai) the soul gradually rises to higher levels, eventually attaining what Porphyry calls the 

paradeigmatikai arêtai or ‘exemplary virtues’ which make of the soul a living expression of the 

divine Mind (cf. Porphyry, Letter to Marcella 29). Note that Porphyry stops the soul’s ascent at nous, 

and presumably holds that the ‘saved’ soul will eternally contemplate the infinite power of the One. 

If Porphyry’s concern had been with the preservation of personality, then this explanation makes 

some sense. However, it is more likely that the true reason for Porphyry’s rejection of the radically 

‘hubristic’ theory (at least to pietistic pagans) of the nature of the individual soul held by Plotinus 

was a result of his intention to restore dignity to the traditional religion of the Greeks (which had 

come under attack not only by Plotinus, but by Christians as well). Evidence of such a program 

resides in Porphyry’s allegorical interpretations of Homer and traditional cultic practice, as well as 

his possibly apologetic work on Philosophy from Oracles (now lost). Compared to Plotinus, then, 

Porphyry was quite the conservative, concerned as he was with maintaining the ancient view of 

humankind’s relatively humble position in the cosmic hierarchy, over against Plotinus’ view that the 

soul is a god, owing little more than a passing nod to its ‘noble brethren’ in the heavens. 

• The (re)turn to Astrology 

One of the results of Porphyry’s conservative position toward traditional religious practice and 

belief was the ‘return’ to the doctrine that the stars and planets are capable of affecting and 

ordering human life. Plotinus argued that since the individual soul is one with the All-Soul, it is in 

essence a co-creator of the Cosmos, and therefore not really subject to the laws governing the Cosmos 

— for the soul is the source and agent of those laws! Therefore, a belief in astrology was, for Plotinus, 

absurd, since if the soul turned to beings dependent upon its own law — i.e., the stars and planets — 

in order to know itself, then it would only end up knowing aspects of its own act, and would never 

return to itself in full self-consciousness. Furthermore, as we have seen, Plotinian salvation was 

instantly available to the soul, if only it would turn its mind to “essential being” (see above); because 

of this, Plotinus saw no reason to bring the stars and planets into the picture. For Porphyry, 

however, who believed that the soul must gradually work toward salvation, knowledge of the 

operations of the heavenly bodies and their relation to humankind would have been an important 

tool in gaining ever higher levels of virtue. In fact, Porphyry seems to have held the view that the 

soul receives certain “powers” from each of the planets — right judgment from Saturn, proper 

exercise of the will from Jupiter, impulse from Mars, opinion and imagination from the Sun, and 

(what else?) sensuous desire from Venus; from the Moon the soul receives the power of physical 

production (cf. Hegel, p. 430) — and that these powers enable to the soul to know things both earthly 

and heavenly. This theoretical knowledge of the powers of the planets, then, would have made the 

more practical knowledge of astrology quite useful and meaningful for an individual soul seeking to 

know itself as such. The usefulness of astrology for Porphyry, in this regard, probably resided in its 

ability to permit an individual, through an analysis of his birth chart, to know which planet — and 

therefore which “power” — exercised the dominant influence on his life. In keeping with the ancient 

Greek doctrine of the “golden mean,” the task of the individual would then be to work to bring to the 

fore those other “powers” — each present to a lesser degree in the soul, but still active — and thereby 

achieve a balance or sôphrosunê that would render the soul more capable of sharing in the divine 

Mind. The art of astrology, it must be remembered, was in wide practice in the Hellenistic world, 

and Plotinus’ rejection of it was an exception that was by no means the rule. Plotinus’ views on 

astrology apparently found few adherents, even among Platonists, for we see not only Porphyry, but 

also (to an extent) Iamblichus and even Proclus declaring its value — the latter being responsible for 

a paraphrase of Claudius Ptolemy’s astrological compendium known as the Tetrabiblos or sometimes 

simply as The Astronomy. In addition to penning a commentary on Ptolemy’s tome, Porphyry also 

wrote his own Introduction to Astronomy (by which is apparently meant “Astrology,” the modern 

distinction not holding in Hellenistic times). Unfortunately, this work no longer survives intact.

. The Quest for Transcendence 

The philosophy of Plotinus was highly discursive, meaning that it operated on the assumption that 

the highest meaning, the most profound truth (even a so-called mystical truth) is translatable, 

necessarily, into language; and furthermore, that any and every experience only attains its full 

value as meaning when it has reached expression in the form of language. This idea, of course, placed 

the One always beyond the discursive understanding of the human soul, since the One was 

proclaimed, by Plotinus, to be not only beyond discursive knowledge, but also the very source and 

possibility of such knowledge. According to Plotinus, then, any time the individual soul expresses a 

certain truth in language, this very act is representative of the power of the One. This notion of the 

simultaneous intimate proximity of the One to the soul, and, paradoxically, its extreme 

transcendence and ineffability, is possible only within the confines of a purely subjective and 

introspective philosophy like that of Plotinus; and since such a philosophy, by its very nature, cannot 

appeal to common, external perceptions, it is destined to remain the sole provenance of the sensitive 

and enlightened few. Porphyry did not want to admit this, and so he found himself seeking, as St. 

Augustine tells us, “a universal way (universalem viam) for the liberation of the soul” (City of God 

10.32, in Fowden, p. 132), believing, as he did, that no such way had yet been discovered by or within 

philosophy. This did not imply, for Porphyry, a wholesale rejection of the Plotinian dialectic in favor 

of a more esoteric process of salvation; but it did lead Porphyry (see above) to look to astrology as a 

means of orienting the soul toward its place in the cosmos, and thereby allowing it to achieve the 

desired salvation in the most efficacious manner possible. Iamblichus, on the other hand, rejected 

even Porphyry’s approach, in favor of a path toward the divinity that is more worthy of priests 

(hieratikoi) than philosophers; for Iamblichus believed that not only the One, but all the gods and 

demigods, exceed and transcend the individual soul, making it necessary for the soul seeking 

salvation to call upon the superior beings to aid it in its progress. This is accomplished, Iamblichus 

tells us, by “the perfective operation of unspeakable acts (erga) correctly performed … acts which are 

beyond all understanding (huper pasan noêsin)” and which are “intelligible only to the gods” (On the 

Mysteries II.11.96-7, in Fowden, p. 132). These ritualistic acts and the ‘logic’ underlying them 

Iamblichus are in terms “Theurgy” (theourgia). These Theurgy acts are necessary, for Iamblichus, 

because he is convinced that philosophy, which is based solely upon thought (ennoia) — and thought, 

we must remember, is always an accomplishment of the individual mind, and hence discursive — is 

unable to reach that which is beyond thought. The practice of Theurgy, then, becomes a way for the 

soul to experience the presence of the divinity, instead of merely thinking or conceptualizing the 

godhead. Porphyry took issue with this view, in his Letter to Anebo, which is really a criticism of the 

ideas of his pupil, Iamblichus, where he stated that, since Theurgy is a physical process, it cannot 

possibly translate into a spiritual effect. Iamblichus’ on the Mysteries was written as a reply to 

Porphyry’s criticisms, but the defense of the pupil did not succeed in vanquishing the persistent 

attacks of the master. While both Porphyry and Iamblichus recognized, to a lesser and greater 

extent, respectively, the limitations of the Plotinian dialectic, Porphyry held firm to the idea that 

since the divinity is immaterial it can only be grasped in a noetic fashion — i.e., discursively (and 

even astrology, in spite of its meditative capacity, is still an intellectual exercise, open to dialectic 

and narratization); Iamblichus, adhering roughly to the same view, nevertheless argued that the 

human soul must not think god on its own terms, but must allow itself to be transformed by the 

penetrating essence of god, of which the soul partakes through rituals intended to transform the 

particularized, fragmented soul into a being that is “pure and unchangeable” (cf. On the Mysteries 

I.12.42; Fowden, p. 133). 

• Theurgy and the Distrust of Dialectic 

According to the schema of Plotinian dialectic, the ‘stance’ of the individual soul is the sole source of 

truth certainty, being a judging faculty dependent always upon the higher Soul. From the 

perspective of one who believes that the soul is immersed in Nature, instead of recognizing, as 

Plotinus did, the soul’s status as an intimate governor of Nature (which is the Soul’s own act),

dialectic may very well appear as a solipsistic (and therefore faulty) attempt on the part of an 

individual mind to know its reality by imposing conceptual structures and strictures upon the 

phenomena that constitute this reality. Iamblichus believed that since every individual soul is 

immersed in the ‘bodily element,’ no soul is capable of understanding the divine nature through the 

pure exercise of human reason — for reason itself, at the level of the human soul-body composite, is 

tainted by the changeable nature of matter, and therefore incapable of rising to that perfect 

knowledge that is beyond all change (cp. Plato, Phaedrus 247 e). Dialectic, then, as the soul’s attempt 

to know reality, is seen by Iamblichus as an attempt by an already fallen being to lead itself up out 

of the very locus of its own forgetfulness. Now Iamblichus does not completely reject dialectical 

reason; he simply requests that it be tempered by an appeal to intermediate divinities, who will aid 

the fallen soul in its ascent back towards the Supreme Good. The practice of ritualistic Theurgy is the 

medium by which the fallen soul ascends to a point at which it becomes capable of engaging in a 

meaningful dialectic with the divinity. This dependence upon higher powers nevertheless negates the 

soul’s own innate ability to think itself as god, and so we may say that Iamblichus’ ideas represent a 

decisive break with the philosophy of Plotinus. 

5. Proclus and Pseudo-Dionysius 

Proclus (410-485 CE) is, next to Plotinus, the most accomplished and rigorous of the Neo-Platonists. 

Born in Constantinople, he studied philosophy in Athens, and through diligent effort rose to the rank 

of head teacher or ‘scholars’ of that great school. In addition to his accomplishments in philosophy, 

Proclus was also a religious Universalist, who had him initiated into all the mystery religions being 

practiced during his time. This was doubtless due to the influence of Iamblichus, whom Proclus held 

in high esteem (cf. Proclus, Theology of Plato III; in Hegel, p. 432). The philosophical expression of 

Proclus is more precise and logically ordered than that of Plotinus. Indeed, Proclus posits the 

Intellect (nous) as the culmination of the productive act (paragein) of the One; this is in opposition to 

Plotinus, who described the Intellect as proceeding directly from the One, thereby placing Mind 

before Thought, and so making thought the process by which the Intellect becomes alienated from 

itself, thus requiring the salvific act in order to attain the fulfillment of Being, which is, for Plotinus, 

the return of Intellect to itself. Proclus understands the movement of existence as a tripartite 

progression beginning with an abstract unity, passing into a multiplicity that is identified with Life, 

and returning again to a unity that is no longer merely abstract, but now actualized as an eternal 

manifestation of the godhead. What constituted, for Plotinus, the salvific drama of human existence 

is, for Proclus, simply the logical, natural order of things. However, by thus removing the yearning 

for salvation from human existence, as something to be accomplished, positively, Proclus is ignoring 

or overly intellectualizing, if you will, an existential aspect of human existence that is as real as it is 

powerful. Plotinus recognized the importance of the salvific drive for the realization of true 

philosophy, making philosophy a means to an end; Proclus utilizes philosophy, rather, more in the 

manner of a useful, descriptive language by which a thinker may describe the essential realities of a 

merely contingent existence. In this sense, Proclus is more faithful to the ‘letter’ of Plato’s Dialogues; 

but for this same reason he fails to rise to the ‘spirit’ of the Platonic philosophy. Proclus’ major works 

include commentaries on: Plato’s, Timaeus, Republic, Parmenides, Alcibiades I, and the Cratylus. He 

also wrote treatises on the Theology of Plato, On Providence, and On the Subsistence of Evil. His most 

important work is undoubtedly the Elements of Theology, which contains the clearest his ideas. 

a. Being — Becoming — Being 

We found, in Plotinus, an explanation and expression of a cosmos that involved a gradual 

development from all but static unity toward eventual alienation — a moment at which the active 

soul must make the profound decision to renounce autonomous existence and re-merge with the 

source of all Being, or else remain forever in the darkness of forgetfulness and error. Salvation, for 

Plotinus, was relatively easy to accomplish, but never guaranteed. For Proclus, on the other hand, 

the arkhê or ‘ruling beginning’ of all Life is the ‘One-in-itself’ (to auto hen), or that which is

esponsible for the ordering of all existents, insofar as existence is, in the last analysis, the sovereign 

act or expression of this primordial unity or monad. The expression of this One is perfectly balanced, 

being a trinity containing, as distinct expressions, each moment of self-realization of this One; and 

each of these moments, according to Proclus, have the structure of yet another trinity. The first 

trinity corresponds to the limit, which is the guide and reference-point of all further manifestations; 

the second to the unlimited, which is also Life or the productive power (dunamis); and the third, 

finally, to the ‘mixture’ (mikton, diakosmos), which is the self-reflective moment of return during 

which the soul realizes itself as a thinking — i.e., living — entity. Thought is, therefore, the 

culmination of Life and the fulfillment of being. Thought is also the reason (logos) that binds these 

triadic unities together in a grand harmonious plêrôma, if you will. Being, for Proclus, is that divine 

self-presence, “shut up without development and maintained in strict isolation” (Hegel, p. 446) which 

is the object of Life’s thinking; this ‘object’ gives rise to that thinking which leads, eventually, to 

understanding (nous), which is the thought of being, and appears (ekphanôs), always, as ‘being’s 

begetter’. When the circle is completed, and reflected upon, logically, we are met with the following 

onto-cosmological schema: thought (noêtos, also known as ‘Being’) giving rise to its “negative” which 

is thinking (Hegel, p. 393) and the thought ‘it is’ (noêtos kai noêros), produces its own precise 

reflection — ‘pure thinking’ — and this reflection is the very manifestation (phanerôsis) of the deity 

within the fluctuating arena of individual souls. Being is eternal and static precisely because it 

always returns to itself as being; and ‘Becoming’ is the conceptual term for this process, which 

involves the cyclical play between that which is and is not, at any given time. “[T]he thought of 

every man is identical with the existence of every man, and each is both the thought and the 

existence” (Proclus, Platonic Theology III., in Hegel, p. 449). The autonomous drive toward 

dissolution, which is so germane to the soul as such, is wiped away by Proclus, for his dialectic is 

impeccably clean. However, he does not account for the yearning for the infinite (as does Plotinus) 

and the consequent existential desire for productive power falls on its face before the supreme god of 

autonomous creation — which draws all existents into its primeval web of dissolution. 

b. The God beyond Being 

Very little is known about the life of the so-called Pseudo-Dionysius. For many centuries, the 

writings of this mystical philosopher were believed to have been from the pen of none other 

Dionysius, the disciple of St. Paul. Later scholarship has shed considerable doubt on this claim, and 

most modern scholars believe this author to have been active during the late fifth century CE. 

Indeed, the earliest reference to the Dionysian Corpus that we possess is from 533 CE. There is no 

mention of this author’s work before this date. Careful study of the Pseudo-Dionysian writings has 

uncovered many parallels between the theurgical doctrines of Iamblichus, and the triadic 

metaphysical schema of Proclus. Yet what we witness in these writings is the attempt by a thinker 

who is at once religiously sensitive and philosophically engaged to bring the highly developed 

Platonism of his time into line with a Christian theological tradition that was apparently persisting 

on the fringes of orthodoxy. To this extent, we may refer to the Pseudo-Dionysius as a ‘decadent,’ for 

he (or she?) was writing at a time when the heyday of Platonism had attained the status of a palaios 

logos (‘ancient teaching’) to be, not merely commented upon, but savored as an aesthetic monument 

to an era already long past. It is important to note, in this regard, that the writings of Pseudo- 

Dionysius do not contain any theoretical arguments or dialectical moments, but simply many subtle 

variations on the apophatic/kataphatic theology for which our writer is renowned. Indeed, he writes 

as if his readers already know, and are merely in need of clarification. His message is quite simple, 

and is manifestly distilled from the often cumbersome doctrines of earlier thinkers (especially 

Iamblichus and Proclus). Pseudo-Dionysius professes a God who is beyond all distinctions, and who 

even transcends the means utilized by human beings to reach Him. For Pseudo-Dionysius, the Holy 

Trinity (which is probably analogous to Proclus’ highest trinity, see above) serves as a “guide” to the 

human being who seeks not only to know but to unite with “him who is beyond all being and 

knowledge” (Pseudo-Dionysius, The Mystical Theology 997A-1000A, tr. C. Luibheid 1987). In the

expression of the Pseudo-Dionysius the yearning for the infinite reaches a poetical form that at once 

fulfills and exceeds philosophy. 

6. Appendix: The Renaissance Platonists 

After the closing of the Neo-platonic Academy in Athens by the Emperor Justinian in 529 CE, 

Platonism ceased to be a living philosophy. Due to the efforts of the Christian philosopher Boethius 

(480-525 CE), who translated Porphyry’s Isagoge, and composed numerous original works as well, the 

Middle Ages received a faint glimmer of the ancient glories of the Platonic philosophy. St. Augustine, 

also, was responsible for imparting a sense of Neo-platonic doctrine to the Latin West, but this was 

by way of commentary and critique, and not in any way a systematic exposition of the philosophy. 

Generally speaking, it is safe to say that the European Middle Ages remained in the grip of 

Aristotelianism until the early Renaissance, when certain brilliant Italian thinkers began to 

rediscover, translate, and expound upon the original texts of Platonism. Chief among these thinkers 

were Marsilio Ficino (1433-1492) and Pico Della Mirandola (1463-1494). Ficino produced fine Latin 

translations of Plato’s Dialogues, the Enneads of Plotinus, and numerous works by Porphyry, 

Iamblichus, Proclus, Pseudo-Dionysius, and many others. In addition to his scholarly ability, Ficino 

was also a fine commentator and philosopher in his own right. His brilliant essay on Five Questions 

Concerning The Mind is a concise summary of general Neo-platonic doctrine, based upon Ficino’s 

own view that the lot of the human soul is to inquire into its own nature, and that since this inquiry 

causes the human soul to experience misery, the soul must do everything it can to transcend the 

physical body and live a life worthy of the blessed angels (cf. Cassirer, et. al. (ed) 1948, p. 211-212). 

Giovanni Pico, the Count of Mirandola, was a colorful figure who lived a short life, fraught with 

strife. He aroused the ire of the papacy by composing a voluminous work defending nine-hundred 

theses drawn from his vast reading of the Ancients; thirteen of these theses were deemed heretical by 

the papacy, and yet Pico refused to change or withdraw a single one. Like his friend Ficino, Pico was 

a devotee of ancient wisdom, drawing not only upon the Platonic canon, but also upon the Pre- 

Socratic literature and the Hermetic Corpus, especially the Poimandres. Pico’s most famous work is 

the Oration on the Dignity of Man, in which he eloquently states his learned view that humankind 

was created by God “as a creature of indeterminate nature,” possessed of the unique ability to ascend 

or descend on the scale of Being through the autonomous exercise of free will (Oration 3, in Cassirer, 

et. al. (ed) 1948, p. 224). Pico’s view of free will was quite different from that expressed by Plotinus, 

and indeed most other Neo-Platonists, and it came as no surprise when Pico composed a treatise On 

Being and the One which ended on Aristotelian terms, declaring the One to be coincident with or 

persisting amidst Being — a wholly un-Platonic doctrine. With Ficino, then, we may say that 

Platonism achieved a brief moment of archaic glory, while with Pico, it was plunged once again into 

the quagmire of self-referential empiricism. 

7. References 

• Cassirer, Ernst; Kristeller, Paul Oskar; Randall, John Herman Jr. (editors) The Renaissance Philosophy of Man 

(University of Chicago Press 1948). 

• Cooper, John M. (ed.), Plato: Complete Works (Hackett Publishing 1997). 

• Copleston S.J., Frederick, A History of Philosophy (vol. I, part II): Greece and Rome (Image Books 1962). 

• Dillon, John (1977), The Middle Platonists (Cornell University Press). 

• Eusebius (tr. G.A. Williamson 1965), The History of the Church (Penguin Books). 

• Fowden, Garth, The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach To The Late Pagan Mind (Cambridge University Press 

1986). 

• Hadot, Pierre (tr. M. Chase), Plotinus, or The Simplicity of Vision (University of Chicago Press 1993). 

• Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (tr. E.S. Haldane and Frances H. Simson), Lectures on the History of Philosophy (vol. 

II): Plato And The Platonists (Bison Books 1995). 

• Jaeger, Werner, Early Christianity and Greek Paideia (Harvard University Press 1961). 

• Layton, Bentley (1987), The Gnostic Scriptures (Doubleday: The Anchor Bible Reference Library). 

• O’Brien S.J., Elmer (1964), The Essential Plotinus: Representative Treatises From The Enneads (Hackett Publishing).

• Origen of Alexandria, Commentary on John, tr. in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. X. (Eerdmans 1979, reprint). 

• Origen of Alexandria, On First Principles [De Principiis], tr. in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. IV. (Eerdmans 1979, 

reprint). 

• Philo of Alexandria (tr. F.H. Colson and G.H. Whitaker), On the Creation of the World [De Opificio Mundi], in vol. 1 of 

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Philo (Harvard University Press 1929). 

• Plotinus (tr. A.H. Armstrong), The Enneads, in seven volumes (Loeb Classical Library: Harvard University Press 

1966). 

• Porphyry (tr. K. Guthrie), Launching-Points to the Realm of Mind [Pros ta noeta aphorismoi] (Phanes Press 1988). 

• Porphyry (tr. A. Zimmern), Porphyry’s Letter to His Wife Marcella Concerning the Life of Philosophy and the Ascent 

to the Gods (Phanes Press 1986). 

• Porphyry (tr. A.H. Armstrong), Life of Plotinus [Vita Plotini], in volume one of the Loeb Classical Library edition of 

Plotinus (Harvard University Press 1966). 

• Proclus (tr. T. Taylor), Lost Fragments of Proclus (Wizards Bookshelf 1988). 

• Proclus (tr. T. Taylor), Ten Doubts Concerning Providence, and On the Subsistence of Evil (Ares Publishers 1980). 

• Pseudo-Dionysius (tr. C. Luibheid 1987), Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works (Paulist Press).

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