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Home , Analogy of the sun, Brian Copenhaver, Iamblichus, Marsilio Ficino, Renaissance philosophy, Stephen MacKenna

THE INFLUENCE OF ON ‘S DOCTRINE OF THE

HIERARCHY OF

by

Nora I. Ayala

A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of

The Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters

in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Master of Arts

Florida Atlantic University

Boca Raton, Florida

May 2011

THE INFLUE CE OF PLOTINUS ON MARSILIO FICINO'S DOCTRINE OF THE

HIERARCHY OF BEING

by

ora 1. Ayala

This thesis was prepared under the direction ofthe candidate's thesis advisor, Dr. Marina Paola Banchetti, Department of , and has been approved by the members of her supervisory committee. It was submitted to the faculty of the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters and was accepted in partial fulfillment ofthe requirements for the degree ofMaster ofArts. SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE:

J)

~'S{L~=-~ Clevis R. Headley, Ph.D.

~> (L.. ~-=--~ Clevis R. Headley, Ph.D. Director, Liberal Studies ~; .~.Q. L

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to express my sincere thanks to those who were, have been, and are a part of my life. I am who I am because of their unique gifts.

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ABSTRACT

Author: Nora I. Ayala

Title: The Influence of Plotinus on Marsilio Ficino‘s Doctrine of the Hierarchy of Being

Institution: Florida Atlantic University

Thesis Advisor: Marina Paola Banchetti, Ph.D.

Degree: Master of Arts

Year: 2011

Marsilio Ficino provides the ground to consider as a distinctive movement within the vast context of . Ficino‘s

Platonism includes traces of earlier humanistic thought and ideas from Neoplatonic such as Plotinus, , and Dionysius the Areopagite. Ficino was able to rebuild a traditional philosophy that, from the ancient Greeks to Plotinus, had established the harmony between paganism and Christianity. , characterized by complex metaphysical, ethical, and psychological canons, provided the grounds for

Ficino‘s cosmological challenge to merge the cyclical aspect of the with the religious notion of the soul, in order to secure its cosmic position. Ficino adopted Plotinus hierarchy of being as a dominant component of his own thought. His formulations on the

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three hypostases and the movements of the soul allow him to develop his own hierarchy of the universe, in which soul anchors the of the structure and reaffirms its ontological nature as immortal.

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THE INFLUENCE OF PLOTINUS OF MARSILIO FICINO‖S DOCTRINE OF THE HIERARCHY OF BEING

INTRODUCTION ...... 1

CHAPTER I ...... 6

Neoplatonism as a ...... 6

Plotinus as a Neoplatonist: ...... 11

The Three Primary Hypostases (Enneads V. 1) ...... 17

Soul ...... 21

Intellect ...... 24

The One ...... 26

The One and the Theory of Emanation ...... 28

CHAPTER II ...... 35

Neoplatonic Heritage and Pseudo-Dionysius...... 35

CHAPTER III ...... 51

Renaissance Platonism ...... 51

Marsilio Ficino as a Renaissance Platonist ...... 53

The Hierarchy of Being ...... 54

CONCLUSION ...... 78

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 82

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INTRODUCTION

If each of us, essentially, is that which is greatest within us, which always remains

the same and by which we understand ourselves, then certainly the soul is the man

himself and the body but his shadow. Whatever wretch is so deluded as to think

that the shadow of man is man, like Narcissus is dissolved in tears. You only

cease to weep, Gismondo, when you cease looking for your Alberia degli

in her dark shadow and begin to follow her by her own clear light.1

Marsilio Ficino, a Florentine priest who has been described as a combination of scholar, , and magus, not only revived for Renaissance thought but also introduced into his own philosophy several Neoplatonic philosophers such as Plotinus,

Proclus, and Dionysius the Areopagite. His profound understanding of their metaphysics provided him with a better understanding of pagan ideas, thereby facilitating his reconciliation of Platonism with Christianity. His own vision of unity, however, surpassed that of his philosophical ancestors in that it is a totalizing unity, in which the universe is seen as a manifestation of the One, God, or the Good. His Platonic evangelization has influenced European thought to the present time, most fundamentally through his teaching that:

1 Marsilio Ficino, Meditations : Selected Letters of Marsilio Ficino, trans. from the by members of the Language Department of the School of Economic Science, (Vermont: Inner Traditions International, 1997), 15.

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The human soul was immortal and unlimited, [which] links directly with the

unshakeable confidence and creative genius that so many of the giants of the

Renaissance expressed in so many fields. His view that the whole creation was

moved by love and inspired to return to God through His beauty was reflected in

the intense beauty of physical form that the masters of the Renaissance manifested

with such skill. His emphasis on the importance of human nature and the

that lie within it gave support to a new direction in education. Ultimately it is the

practice of these virtues that leads to the discovery of the divine in man.2

Of all his commentaries, letters, writings, , and interpretations of

Plato, Plotinus, and other Neoplatonists, his own Platonic Theology is the most influential work because it played a central ―role in the Lateran council‘s promulgation of the immortality of the soul as a dogma in 1512.‖3 The Platonic Theology was written at the beginning of the , a time during which Ficino finished the first epic of Plato‘s works, entered the priesthood, and tried to draft a ―unitary theological tradition, and particularly a theological metaphysics.‖4 It can be described not only as a summa theologica, but also as a summa philosophica, and a summa platonica, an audacious, sometimes problematic, endeavor to re-emerge ancient and late for an intellectual and governing elite, who were the Florentine equivalents of ‘ most intelligent audience, with a style which imitates in Latin what Plotinus did in Greek,

2Marsilio Ficino, Meditations on the Soul, xix.

3 Marsilio Ficino, Platonic Theology, trans. by Michael J. B. Allen with John Warden, Latin text edited by James Hankins with William Bowen, Volume I, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001), viii.

4 Ibid., ix.

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approaching sublimity in a manner that is both, simple and ―rhetorically challenging.‖5

Ficino considered his Platonic Theology his major and longest philosophical toil, his masterpiece in which he developed his search for the of an and which included notions of the mind, spirit, and body, reserving for the human soul a privileged place in the hierarchy of God‘s creation, appealing to medieval and scholastic theories but mainly reviving ―ancient theosophical themes‖6 which will foresee the predominantly cosmological theories characteristic of the late Renaissance philosophers and astronomers. Ficino formulates a hierarchy which is unity within plurality, ―an ordered song which is both inside and outside the soul both as unitary self and as all things – a part becomes the whole, a whole of parts and in parts, in the world and yet in God as

God.‖7

Since Ficino is considered a Renaissance Platonist, the Platonic Theology includes references to Plato and Plotinus but, as the name‘s similarity to Proclus‘s

Theologia Platonica insinuates, it is also a tribute to this last Neoplatonist, who carried

Plato into the Middle Ages. The subtitle On the Immortality of the Soul is exactly the same subtitle as that of Plotinus‘s Enneads 4.7 which marks the clear indebtedness to both Plotinus and Marius Victorinus, who translated ‘s compilation of the

Enneads into Latin. In his letter to Besarion, the Greek cardinal of Sabina, Ficino describes Plato‘s discussion on beauty in as referring to the beauty of the soul, required from God, that is called wisdom and is compared with gold. ―When this gold

5 Marsilio Ficino, Platonic Theology, ix.

6 Ibid., x.

7 Ibid.

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was given to Plato by God, it shone in him most brilliantly, because he was so pure in heart.‖8 And he adds later that when that gold was first put into Plotinus‘s work, ―then that of Porphyry, , and eventually of Proclus, the earth was removed by the searching test of fire, and the gold so shone that it filled the whole world again with marvelous splendor.‖9

It is clear that Plotinus‘s mystical formulations on the soul greatly influenced

Ficino‘s development of his own hierarchy of being and the role of soul from both ontological and metaphysical perspectives. From the ontological perspective, soul is considered immortal by creation and able to transcend death and, from the metaphysical perspective, it is considered to have a twofold opposition of structures or natures. Based on Plotinus‘s two assumptions, Ficino places the soul in the middle of his pentadic structure, where it is located at the dividing line between the intelligible and the sensible realms and is able to ascend toward the eternal realm through and also, through energies and activities, to descend to the temporal realm. This privileged position in the middle of the hierarchy enables soul to link the eternal to the temporal, to become the microcosm that contains within man all the reflections of what is in the eternal realm, and to sustain the metaphysics of the hierarchical structure.

The emphasis of this thesis will be the study of three different , which are intimately connected, following a chronological order. Chapter I will discuss

Neoplatonism as the last great movement in ancient philosophy. The focus will be on

Plotinus and on the influential role of his treatises compiled as the Enneads, on the three

8 Marsilio Ficino, Meditations on the Soul, 82.

9 Ibid., 83. 4

hypostases of Being, on his theory of emanation, and on the nature of the soul. Chapter II will focus on the medieval transition from the notion of the One to the notion of God. At this time, Greek intellectual Christianity displayed a strong Platonic and Neoplatonic influence, as seen in the works of Dionysius the Areopagite, commonly known as

Pseudo-Dionysius. The discussion will emphasize Pseudo-Dionysius‘ works The Divine

Names, The Celestial Hierarchy, The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, and The Mystical

Theology, in which the ―Neoplatonic aspect of his thought included .‖10

Chapter III will discuss the philosophical thought of Marsilio Ficino who, while translating Plato into Latin, read the Enneads and incorporated Plotinus‘s ideas into his own and christianized Platonism by combining Christian and Plotinian ideas, all the while developing his doctrine of the hierarchy of being. The influence of Plotinus‘s hierarchy of being will be compared and contrasted to Ficino‘s, analyzing both similarities and differences in detail, while acknowledging other influences on Ficino‘s thought, such as and Christianity. This last chapter will concentrate on Book

III of his Platonic Theology, which is titled ―On the Immortality of the Soul.‖

10Pauliina Remes, Neoplatonism, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008), 199. 5

CHAPTER I

Neoplatonism as a Philosophical Movement

The philosophical tradition of Neoplatonism thrived from the third century to the sixth century CE in such intellectual cities as Alexandria, Rome, and Athens.

Neoplatonism originated in the thought of the philosopher Plotinus, who moved from

Alexandria to the capital of the Roman Empire and began teaching his own interpretation of Plato‘s philosophy. His numerous disciples included Porphyry, who exhibited such originality that he ultimately bestowed on the movement an identity of its own. By the time the Christian emperor Justinian closed the Athenian in 529 CE,

Neoplatonic philosophy had expanded to Syria, Asia Minor, and Alexandria, as well as to the birthplace of Platonism itself, Athens. Neoplatonism and Christianity co-existed at a time when Christianity was the official religion of the empire, and were able to engage in intensive but peaceful debate. The Neoplatonic school came to an institutional end when was officially closed, but its philosophy survived in both pagan and

Christian contexts and influenced the thought of Christian intellectuals who had an interest in philosophy and theology. Through these thinkers, Neoplatonism was able to leave its long-lasting mark on .

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Although the term Neoplatonism entails that this movement was primarily influenced by Plato, it distinguished itself in several ways during the five hundred years that separated Plato from Plotinus. As a of fact, two theories have been argued on the applicability of the term. One branches from ―nineteenth-century German scholarship, and bears no relation to the self-understanding of Plotinus and his followers, who, no doubt, understood themselves as simply the spiritual and philosophical pupils of Plato‖.11

For them it was more important to prove Plato‘s philosophy correct than to claim their own originality. The second theory is that the name builds a false gap between the

Neoplatonists and the Middle-Platonists, ignoring the fact that there exists a continuity of thought between Plotinus and the later Platonists. Because Plotinus‘s works survived the test of time, unlike the others, there may be support for this last theory. Neoplatonism is closely related to Middle-Platonism, which begins around 130 BCE and lasts until the late-second century CE. This crucial and challenging period marks a return to a stricter reading of Plato, combined with the doctrines of , the Stoics, , and synthesizing Plato‘s formulation of the intelligible realm with Aristotle‘s perfect intellect or , ―separated from the individual human intellects [thereby] rendering Platonic forms as contents of the supreme intellect.‖12 But the most important aspects of

Neoplatonism, which make it unique in its approach to Platonism, are the following five characteristics:

11 Pauliina Remes, 2.

12 Ibid., 5. 7

1. The formulation of the One, which is superior to the Nous or Aristotelian intellect,

as a first principle from which everything emanates and which is indefinable,

while the emanations are accessible by reason.

2. The multiple metaphysical levels proposed by Plotinus, which are more complex

than the Platonic idea of two different realms; one material, changeable, and

temporal and the other eternal, immaterial, and permanent. For Plato, the

empirical realm is just an imitation of the eternal realm, which is true .

3. The Platonic idea that the higher realm is prior, more perfect, simpler, and more

unified than the metaphysically lower realm is applied to a ―hierarchical

metaphysical system‖13which extends from perfect unity to the multiple

manifestations of the observable realm, in which the goodness of the higher level

diminishes further at each lower level.

4. The central levels of reality are both metaphysically real and intimately connected

to the human soul. ―Neoplatonists as metaphysical realists‖14 believe that reality

exists independently from the human mind but also that reality inhabits in the

mind. Therefore, ―the complexity of thinking must coincide with the complexity

of being. Reality is thereby essentially minded or intelligible, that is both

intelligibly organized and penetrable to reason, as well as in some sense

essentially thought.‖15

13Pauliina Remes, 7.

14 Ibid., 8.

15 Ibid. 8

5. The desire for wholeness, completion, and belongs to the non-

intellectual life. The motivation to continue life and existence that is observable in

nature responds to the vertical effort to achieve the perfection of its origin and to

rise, at last, towards the absolute unity of the source of the hierarchy. The

contemplative character of creation, where the created constantly looks upward

toward the creator or origin causes a tendency to return to the first principle. This

upward or vertical movement is one of the most distinctive features of

Neoplatonism.

Neoplatonism exemplifies the role that philosophy played in antiquity. Philosophy was seen as a way of life of which the main task was to heal the soul. For Neoplatonists, the healing of the soul was achieved through a journey to the inner self by internal contemplation, an activity that was not contrary to reason but was ―a kind of intellectual intensification.‖16 Plotinus considered the role of reason as important in the therapy of the soul, but he located the spiritual and ecstatic outside the rational faculty. The later Neoplatonists, on the other hand, favored , the process by which man tries to be god-like by trying to subdue the desires and passions of the body to the use of reason, which was considered ―the most divine aspect of human nature.‖17

In Neoplatonism, philosophical studies were combined with religious practices in which prayer and mystical rituals were also incorporated. Theurgy became a captivating object of study of religion, religious practices, mysticism, and meditation. At the

Neoplatonic school, philosophical studies did not begin until the purification of the soul

16 Pauliina Remes, 9.

17 Ibid., 10.

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had been achieved. Students became acquainted with the Pythagorean Golden Verses followed by Aristotle‘s Metaphysics as an introduction to philosophical matters concerning nature and the sensible realm. While most Middle-Platonist believed that

Plato and Aristotle displayed some degree of harmony and philosophers previous to

Plotinus showed animosity towards Aristotle, Plotinus tried to portray Aristotle‘s position as conflicting and, therefore, tried to complement or substitute it with Platonic ideas.18

After Porphyry, the notion that the two theories were compatible was accepted. Once the student of Neoplatonism had reached clarity of thought and learned the art of argumentation, Plato‘s dialogues were then introduced, not in chronological order but in a peculiar order that served the purpose of the school‘s curriculum. Special emphasis was placed on the dialogues and , because both deal with metaphysics and cosmological order. While the first of those offers explanation for the ―physical‖ aspect of Neoplatonism, the second of those establishes the foundation for the idea of the

One as a separate entity from being.

Several ancient philosophical schools had some influence on the development of

Neoplatonism. These were skepticism and which provided Plotinus with some materialistic ideas that he adjusted to his non-materialistic philosophy. ―The Stoic conception of the physical universe permeated by internal ‗sympathy‘ had an influence on the way the Neoplatonists regarded nature and the hypostasis Soul as responsible for the temporal and living unity of the .‖19 But it is also important to examine how

Neoplatonism related to the two most prominent religious movements prevalent in the

18 Pauliina Remes, 11.

19 Ibid., 14. 10

Roman Empire at the time; Christianity and Gnosticism. All of them had in common the in one god or first principle, in the immortality of the soul and its return to the first principle, in , prayer, and mystical experiences. The differences between them, however, were based on the discrepancy between the simple Neoplatonic One, which created out of necessity, and the anthropomorphic Christian God, and between the

Christian return to God through personal salvation and the Neoplatonic idea of an ascent of the soul to achieve perfect goodness. Of the three movements, Neoplatonism was the only one loyal to philosophical argumentation, in addition to its spiritual and mystical characteristics.

Plotinus as a Neoplatonist: The Enneads

The philosophy of Plotinus provided an answer to the anxiety experienced during the third century CE in the Roman Empire, in which twenty-nine emperors reigned during a period of seventy years. Social and political unrest were provoked internally by antagonists and externally by the hostility of barbarians, who threatened the stability of the empire. The Stoics‘ exhortation to accept reality as it was, in order to become untouchable by the swings of fate, was no longer convincing. Therefore, a philosophy which established that the freedom of the soul would not be achieved in the empirical world but by ascending into an ideal realm gave credence to the idea that the political and social unrest of society should not interfere with the soul‘s ultimate aspiration.

Accordingly, we find an inspirational disregard in Plotinus for ordinary matters, and this disregard and silence about them is ―the only tribute which Plotinus ever pays to the turbulences which after all must have been an insistent enough fact in people‘s lives—but

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a formidable tribute it is, as it signifies the philosopher‘s sense of powerlessness in regard to the ordinary world.‖20 It seems that Plotinus‘s purpose as a philosopher was to chart the insensible realm, the world that transcends sensory reality, and to live in it abundantly despite the soul‘s ties to the human body. His philosophy has its roots in the Hellenic tradition, as he stated in one of his debates against the Gnostics. But although it does not abruptly depart from his predecessors‘ ideas, it is new in many respects to the point that

19th century scholars linked Plotinus to the beginning of Neoplatonism.

What we know about Plotinus‘s life and his school is known through his biography, The Life of Plotinus written by his pupil Porphyry. In this text, Porphyry prepares the reader for understanding Plotinus‘s treatises and his peculiar silence about his parents, race, and native land, something interpreted by Porphyry as indicating

Plotinus‘s disregard for the human body and the sensible realm. It is estimated that

Plotinus was born in Lycopolis, Egypt, in 204 or 205 CE, moved to Alexandria in his twenties and discovered there his intellectual affinity. Guided by his teacher Ammonius

Sacca and motivated by the idea of acquainted with Eastern philosophies,

Plotinus enlisted in the military expedition of Gordian III to Persia. The expedition failed before he reached his goal, and he was forced to return to Rome where he spent the rest of his life teaching and writing. Among his listeners were highly ranked officials, such as

Emperor Gallienus and Governor Rogatianus, who found that the cure for psychosomatic problems merely required changing their way of life. It was in Rome that Plotinus began writing philosophy and those writings were the reflection of his oral lectures, which

20 Plotinus, The Philosophy of Plotinus: Representative Books from the Enneads, ed. Sterling P. Lamprecht. (Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., 1950), viii.

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followed a seminar style in which students‘ questions and oppositions provided him with grounds for his own further philosophical development. His works are preserved in full due to the flawless recompilation by Porphyry, who organized them in six groups of nine treatises each, called the Enneads, which means ―nine‖ in Greek. He ordered them, not in chronological order, but following the Aristotelian division of philosophy, probably not approved by Plotinus himself, into , , and metaphysics. The Enneads begin with easier ethical treatments, proceeding in Enneads II and III to discussions pertaining mostly to and . The psychological benefits of philosophical contemplation are discussed in IV. Epistemological issues and intellection are mostly discussed in V. The last group of treatises deal with the higher levels of the hierarchy of being, namely numbers, being in general, as well as the One beyond Being.21 Because

Porphyry also provides the chronological order in which the treatises were developed by

Plotinus, it can be noted that for Plotinus the telos of a wise life was its identification with

Intellect or nous rather than with the One.22 His writings were not easy to follow and, unfortunately, he did not mention the different philosophers who could have influenced his thought. He called these philosophers ―they‖ and expressed their thoughts in a very condensed manner. The exceptions to this are references to Plato, in whom Plotinus found a source for most of his principles. ―Nevertheless, those who applied the name

Neoplatonism to distinguish the philosophy of such thinkers as Plotinus from that of

Plato [and the Middle-Platonist philosophers], were perhaps even more right than they

21 Pauliina Remes, 20.

22 Ibid.

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imagined‖23, because there are two fundamental differences between them. One is a in method and the other in focus. According to the former, while Plotinus dedicated his life to teaching a doctrine, Plato wrote dialogues with the purpose of confronting different philosophies with one another. Plotinus‘s becomes

―metaphysics.‖ That is, what is ―dynamic takes on the garb of fixity, though the breath of mystical aspiration which dominates the Enneads confers its own powerful impulse upon the whole.‖24 While Plato focused his concern on the reorganization of Athenian society,

Plotinus tried to disengage himself from earthly matters. But overall, Plotinus exerts a major role in later interpretation of Plato, to the point that Ficino declares that Plato speaks through the words of Plotinus. There are three critical points in Plato‘s doctrine that are essential for Plotinus:

1. The clear distinction between the eternal realm and the temporal, between Ideas

and sensible things, and between the here and the beyond. These dichotomies are

characteristic of a relaxed dualism, contrasted with radical dualism, whether

Gnostic or Manichean. The same relaxed dualism reappears in the doctrine of

creation to ―achieve a fusion with the relaxed , different from ,

of Semitic and Biblical thought.‖ 25 Plotinus does not emphasize the distinction

and opposition between the intelligible and the sensible world, which are bound

together by what he calls ‗participation‘. The intelligible realm is the realm of the

three hypostases; the One, Intellect or Nous, and Soul.

23 Plotinus, The Philosophy of Plotinus, x.

24Paul Henry, introduction to Enneads, Plotinus, trans. Stephen MacKenna, ( : , 1954), xi.

25 Ibid. 14

2. The Socratic idea of a soul that is immaterial and immortal. This idea, which was

not common to all the Greeks, isolates Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus from the rest

of the Greek tradition. Plotinus, in his first treatise On Beauty, one of the most

striking and widely read, follows Plato in placing the essence of beauty not in

symmetry but in a non-material principle, that is, in participation with the idea of

beauty in the intelligible realm. Thus, this kind of becomes a feature of

his relaxed dualism. In On the Immortality of the Soul, he attacks the Stoics,

Pythagoras‘s view of the soul as harmony, and Aristotle‘s view of the soul as a

body‘s form or entelechy, and emphasizes the distinction between the spiritual

and the physical realms. Plotinus shares with Plato the notions that the soul

survives death and that it is individual.

3. The idea of a transcendent God who is superior to the Ideas and to Being. Plotinus

finds the foundation for his idea of ‗negative theology‘ in the notion of the Good

in Plato‘s and in the description of the absolute One in the Parmenides,

in which the Good is described as being above everything and in which the One

does not allow for any kind of multiplicity.

Plotinus‘s teachings and writings are so rich that they provided the foundation for the

Neoplatonic movement. While for his pupils he was a wise teacher, his interpretations of

Plato provoked a departure for the later representatives of the school, who embraced a different position on the status and the ascendant movement of the universal soul.26

According to Plotinus, the ascent of the soul was attained through the use of reason, allowing man to lift himself from sensible objects. This idea of intellectual training as

26 Pauliina Remes, 21.

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means of purification classifies Plotinus‘s thought as non-humanistic, because the type of immortality he attributes to the human soul is independent from its deeds in the empirical world. This position conflicted with Christianity, which did not see much value in the wisdom of the Greeks for the attaining of salvation, since it contradicted the Christian idea of salvation after death.

To fully understand Plotinus‘s idea on the ascent of the soul, one must consider his ethical aim, which is neither Platonic, Aristotelian, Stoic, nor Epicurean. Plotinus does not emphasize changing the empirical world because, in terms of his metaphysics, he has already affirmed the existence of an intelligible world.27 Humanity can transcend its worldly circumstances through thought. But, the kind of intellectual activity advocated by Plotinus is not everyday intellectual activity. According to Plotinus,

―thought could be carried to the point of embracing the totality of existence [and] the true objects of thought are not the things of sense but their ideal exemplars, the ‗forms‘ or

‗intelligibles‘ of whose unchanging beauty we sometimes get a glimpse in some beautiful object.‖28 For him, however, intelligence is not the ultimate reality, since implies a desire for what we do not have, and what we lack is a state of unity with the

One. In order to achieve this inner , it is vital that the soul break away from the body and return upon itself. ―In the equation between contemplation and action lies the very center of Plotinus‘s metaphysics.‖29 This inward movement, so characteristic of

Neoplatonism but also of Gnosticism and Christianity, shows Plotinus as closer to Plato

27 Plotinus, The Philosophy of Plotinus, xxii.

28 Ibid., xxiii.

29 Paul Henry, xlii.

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than to Aristotle. This is because Plotinus‘s metaphysics is closer to meta-psychology, and his departs from Aristotle‘s views of the movement of the spheres towards the unmoved mover to the satisfaction of the soul‘s desire for unity, that only the One can gratify. In Plotinus, the starting point of movement is Soul, not nature. The soul travels, through the power of dialectic, back to the Intellect and, through a process of purification, to the One. Since Plotinus does not take into consideration the ideas of sin or salvation, he does not consider the soul as being in opposition to sin, and he criticizes the idea of man as ―the centre of the universe and the subject of redemption.‖30

Although Plotinus‘s theory is not systematic, it brilliantly synthesizes the religious and philosophical problems of the soul, of the world, and of its rational justification. His theology fuses the cosmos and the soul and, without departing from , he is able to incorporate mysticism in his philosophical approach to these problems.

The Three Primary Hypostases (Enneads V. 1)

Porphyry placed The Three Primary Hypostases, one of the most important and revealing of the treatises, at the beginning of what is considered the ‗theological‘

Ennead31. It not only reflects the unbreakable unity of personal spiritual life and metaphysical reflection that is typical of Plotinian theology, but it is also the most cited after ― of Caesarea, by Basil and Augustine, Ciryl and Theodoret.‖32 As is

30 Paul Henry, xliii.

31 Ibid., xliv.

32 Ibid.

17

suggested by its title, it gives an extensive explanation of the three hypostases of the intelligible realm, their characteristics, their differences, and how each derives from the other. They are presented in ascendant order: Soul, Intellect, and the One.33 This Ennead explains the ascent of the soul as an upward journey of the mind to the One, where man is called to understand his true nature and dignity. It describes how the soul, in its estrangement in the sensible realm, is reminded of ―its true nature in a language of a power unsurpassed in the Enneads; then we are shown how, having returned to an understanding of our true nature as soul, we find transcending it Intellect and the One or

Good, and are brought to see how the Good must transcend and generate Intellect.‖34 We are reminded, at the end, that we as soul are able to find Intellect and the One within us.

There is a final plea not to be concerned with worldly problems ―but to turn inwards and listen to the voices from on high.‖35 According to Paul Henry, Plotinus intelligently asserts that his doctrine is a continuation of Plato‘s doctrine, and he elaborates his hierarchy of the intelligible world linking the differences between the One, Intellect, and

Soul with the three ‗ones‘ of Parmenides’ first three hypotheses, with other passages in the Timaeus, and with passage VI. 508c, d, e and 509 of the Republic in which Socrates explains to :

…What the good itself is in the intelligible realm, in relation to understanding and

intelligible things, the sun is in the visible realm, in relation to sight and visible

things.

33 Plotinus, Enneads, trans. by A. H. Armstrong, (Cambridge Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1987), 7.

34 Ibid.

35 Ibid., 8. 18

How? Explain a little more.

You know that, when we turn our eyes to things whose colors are not longer in the light of the day but in the gloom of night, the eyes are dimmed and seem nearly blind, as if clear vision were no longer in them.

Of course.

Yet whenever one turns them on things illuminated by the sun, they see clearly, and vision appears in those very same eyes?

Indeed.

Well, understand the soul in the same way: When it focuses on something illuminated by and what is, it understands, knows, and apparently possesses understanding, but when it focuses on what is mixed with obscurity, on what comes to be and passes away, it opines and is dimmed, changes its opinions this way and that, and seems bereft of understanding.

It does seem that way.

So what gives truth to the things known and the power to know to the knower is the . And though it is the cause of knowledge and truth, it is also an object of knowledge. Both knowledge and truth are beautiful things, but the good is other and more beautiful than they. In the visible realm, light and sight are rightly considered sunlike, but it is wrong to think that they are the sun, so here it is right to think of knowledge and truth as godlike but wrong to think that either of them is the good—for the good is more prized. …

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… Therefore you should also say that not only do the objects of knowledge owe

their being known to the good, but their being is also due to it, although the good

is not being, but superior to it in rank and power.36

Plotinus is not only indebted to Plato in the development of his theory of the three hypostases and of the transcendent One, but also to Aristotle and to the Stoics. Although he criticizes Aristotle‘s view of the first principle as an entity which thinks itself, Plotinus owes to him the ―fundamental principle that the thought par excellence is self-thought, in which intelligence and intelligible coincide.‖37 Since this is the most distinctive attribute of Aristotle‘s Unmoved Mover, which is separated and distant from the world of man as is Plotinus‘s One.38 The immanent God of the Stoics can be found in the nature of

Plotinus‘s notion of the world soul, which can be both ―transcendent to the sensible world and the seat of Providence.‖39 Thus, Platonism, , and Stoicism are represented by each one of the three hypostases: ―the One, on this assumption, would be the God of Plato, the Good in the Republic identified with the absolute One of the

Parmenides. The thought which thinks itself and in which Being and Intellect coincide would be the first principle of Aristotle. Lastly, the soul of the world would conjure up certain features of the Absolute of the Stoics, the vital principle of the immanent in the world.‖40

36 Plato, The Republic, trans. G. M. A. Grube, revised by C. D. C. Reeve, (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1992), 182.

37 Paul Henry, xlvi.

38 Ibid.

39 Ibid.

40 Ibid., xlvi. 20

Soul

What is it, then, which has made the souls forget their father, God, and be

ignorant of themselves and him, even though they are parts which come from his

higher world and altogether belong to it? The beginning of evil for them was

audacity and coming to birth and the first otherness and the wishing to belong to

themselves.41

The soul, in its desire to become different, chooses a direction that leads it away from its origin, forgetting that its life derives from it, and is unable to seize the power and nature of divinity. This kind of ignorance is the product of the soul‘s excessive attachment to the sensible world and to its disregard for itself, since the desire to seek and admire something implies the acknowledgement of one‘s inferiority to the thing sought.

The soul, which now belongs to the sensible world, can return to the intelligible realm by instructing and reminding itself of its true nature and worth and accepting the low value of the things it prizes at the present.42 The soul needs to gain knowledge of itself before it examines the object of its desire and needs to know whether it is capable of such investigation since, if it cannot recognize the thing it seeks, this is not worth the task. But if the soul shares its nature, the task will be possible. The soul needs to know that it is that which infuses the spirit of life to all the animals on earth, the air and water, and all the stars and the heavens. But because it is different from them, it is superior to them, and it does not perish with them. Since it never departs from itself, it is eternal. According to

Plotinus, although soul is only one, it has two halves. The one that is higher, called

41 Plotinus, Enneads, trans. by A. H. Armstrong, V.1.1.1-7, 11.

42 Ibid., V.1.1.17-30, 13.

21

‗World Soul‘, is nourished by the Intellect and serves as a guide. The other that is lower is called ‗Individual Soul‘. But both halves have the same rank. Even though soul animates all things and is present in every single point of mass, the World Soul remains whole and present in its totality, resembling the Intellect from which it obtained its indivisibility and omnipresence. Its power makes possible a world of plurality contained within the ties of unity and its presence makes the world divine. We are divine because our soul is of the same kind as the World Soul, which gives life to the deities. As Plotinus states:

Let look at the great soul, being itself another soul which is no small one, which

has become worthy to look by being freed from deceit and the things that have

bewitched the other souls, and is established in quietude. … … Into this heaven at

rest let it imagine soul as if flowing in from outside, pouring in and entering it

everywhere and illuminating it: as the rays of the sun light up a dark cloud, and

make it shine and give it immortality and wakes what lies inert. … … For soul

has given itself to the whole magnitude of heaven, as far as it extends, and every

stretch of space, both great and small, is ensouled; one body lies in one place and

one in another, and one is here and another there; some are separated by being in

opposite parts of the universe, and others in other ways. But soul is not like this

and it is not by being cut up that gives life, by a part of itself for each individual

thing, but all things live by the whole, and all soul is present everywhere, made

like to the father who begat it in its unity and universality.43

43 Plotinus, Enneads, trans. by A. H. Armstrong, V.1.2.4-23; 31-40, 17.

22

Without soul we are only earth, just as the fire is nothing without the principle that ignites its flames. Therefore, if it is the soul that calls our attention then, rather than seeking it in others, we should seek it in ourselves, although ―by admiring the soul in another, you admire yourself.‖44

Because Soul has a divine character, it can help us to reach divinity or pure unity, ascending with the help of its power. According to Plotinus, we as human

―will not look far; and the stages between are not many.‖45 That which will guide us during the ascension towards union with the One is the upper part of the soul, its more divine part, which is an image of the Intellect from which it proceeds. Just as the spoken word is the image of the word of the soul, the soul is the image of the word or reason of

Intellect and of that segment of its activity by which life is produced in another level or reality.46 Plotinus compares this phase of the Intellect‘s activity to fire, which holds heat as part of its essence but also radiates it outwardly, although ―the activity on the level of

Intellect does not flow out of it, but the external activity comes into existence as something distinct.‖47 Because Soul proceeds from Intellect, it has intellectual existence, manifested by its discursive reasoning, and some degree of perfection that is never equal to its predecessor. When Soul establishes itself in the sensible world, it never departs from Intellect since it only finds its actualization in the continuous contemplation of the

Intellect. Therefore, Intellect makes Soul divine by being its progenitor and by being part

44 Plotinus, Enneads, trans. by A. H. Armstrong, V.1.2.5, 19.

45 Ibid., V.1.3.5, 19.

46 Ibid., V.1.3.10-15, 21.

47 Ibid.,V.1.3.13, 21.

23

of it. These internal and intellectual activities of the soul are active and superior compared to the inferior activities, of foreign origin, which are passive. The only thing that separates Soul and Intellect is their nature. As matter is to form, Soul is to Intellect, the recipient of a simple intellectual form not composed by parts. Although Soul possesses great excellence, Intellect is superior to it. Plotinus explains that it is normal for soul to try to transcend the sensible realm and to observe the ―pure Intellect presiding over [it], and immense wisdom, and the true life of Kronos, a god who is fullness and intellect. For he encompasses in himself all things immortal, every intellect, every god, every soul, all for ever unmoving.‖48

Intellect

Plotinus describes the Intellect as a superior reality that embraces all immortal beings, all intelligence, divinity, and soul. Since it does not have a future or a past and it does not change due to its perfection, it is eternal and immutable and all the things in it are perfect and remain identical with themselves, satisfied with their present condition.

Therefore, it lacks nothing and its state of harmony is not contingent on anything else. In contrast with Soul, whose action is always divided by the different objects it tries to animate, Intellect remains unchanged because all the things it contains are perfect,

―having nothing which is not so, having nothing in itself which does not think; but it thinks not by seeking but by having.‖49 This reflects Plotinus‘s idea that knowledge

48 Plotinus, Enneads, trans. by A. H. Armstrong, V.1.4.6-10, 23.

49 Ibid., V.1.4.15, 23.

24

implies a want or a lack. For him, knowledge is not a possession but a desire to obtain something we do not have.

Each thing contained by Intellect is both Intellect and Being, since the cause of thinking is also the cause of Being. Intellect gives existence to Being in thinking it and

Being, as the object of thought, provides Intellect with its thinking and its existence.

But the cause of thinking is something else, which is also the cause of being; they

both therefore have a cause other than themselves. For they are simultaneous and

exist together and one does not abandon the other, but this one is two things,

Intellect and Being and thinking and thought, Intellect as thinking and Being as

thought. For there could not be thinking without otherness, and also sameness.

These then are primary, Intellect, Being, Otherness, Sameness; but one must

include Motion and Rest.50

The activity of thought implies difference as well as identity. Thus, it is important to consider other terms beside Intellect and Being, terms such as Identity or Sameness that describe the unity of Intellect, Difference or Otherness that explain the difference between the thought and its object, Motion or Movement that are part of the thinking process, and Rest that results from sameness. The multiplicity of objects or forms creates number and quantity, while the individual characteristics of each create quality, ―and from these as principles everything else comes.‖51 The reality of the Intellect is multiple, and the soul lives in it until it decides to separate and descend to the sensible realm as a giver of life. But when it comes closer to Intellect and becomes one with it, it has the

50 Plotinus, Enneads, trans. by A. H. Armstrong, V.1.4.30-36, 25.

51 Ibid., V.1.4.44, 25.

25

desire to seek knowledge of that which has begotten Intellect, the perfect unity that is also the cause of Number. Because Number is not primary and dyad is secondary, the cause of this must be a Being whose simplicity and unity precedes multiplicity and is the cause of their existence as a manifold. The dyad is indefinite in itself but, when it becomes determinate, it becomes Number, which is substance. Therefore, soul is also number, because only things without mass or extension belong to the higher levels of the hierarchy. The things that the senses experience as real are ranked as inferior. Plotinus exemplifies this concept by comparing it with a seed, the value of which does not reside in its observable properties but in the importance of the unseen, which are Number and the seminal reasons.52 According to Plotinus:

what is called number in the intelligible world and the dyad are rational principles

and Intellect; but the dyad is indefinite when one forms an idea of it by what may

be called the substrate, but each and every number which comes from it and the

One is a form, as if intellect was shaped by the numbers which came to exist in it;

but it is shaped in one way by the One and in another by itself, like sight in its

actuality; for intellection is seeing sight, and both are one.53

The One

Before discussing the One, Plotinus invokes us to reach out with our souls and pray to the One in quiet solitude, so that we can observe God resting alone as in an inner sanctuary in which he remains undisturbed and removed from all things. To accomplish

52 Plotinus, The Philosophy of Plotinus, 14.

53 Plotinus, Enneads, trans. by A. H. Armstrong, V.1.5.15-19, 29.

26

this, we must first observe all those objects that resemble the images surrounding the sanctuary or simply the image that first emerged and the principle by which it appears.

―Everything which is moved must have some end to which it moves.‖54 The One, according to Plotinus, differentiates itself from everything else by not having an end or telos. Therefore, it does not need to move towards such an end and that which it generates is generated without motion on its part. The One creates the secondary hypostases below it without volition or movement, because the One is akin to an energy that overflows without exhausting itself, like the ―light of the sun which, so to speak, runs around it, springing from it continually while it remains unchanged.‖55 All things, during their existence, necessarily generate from their own substance some further existence, which depends on their power. This new reality resembles the image of its genitor. Therefore, everything that possesses this kind of perfection is productive and, because the One is complete perfection, its production is eternal. However, that which it produces is not as perfect as itself and perfection diminishes further with each lower level that is produced.

According to Plotinus, the Intellect, emanated from the One, contemplates and needs the

One for its existence, though the One does not need Intellect. The Soul, which is an emanation of Intellect, depends on it as a derivation of Intellect‘s activity and directs itself to Intellect, just as Intellect contemplates the One. Therefore, as there is nothing between Intellect and the One, there is nothing between Soul and Intellect. The only separation between the begetter and the begotten is the difference between them. When

Plotinus calls Intellect the image of the One, he implies that Intellect retains some of the

54 Plotinus, Enneads, trans. by A. H. Armstrong, V.1.6.17, 29.

55 Ibid., V.1.6.31, 31.

27

attributes of the One, but it is not the One. Thus, he raises the question of how the One gives origin to Intellect. According to Plotinus, it is by ―its return that it sees; and this seeing is Intellect.‖56 Plotinus did not believe that the One returns upon itself and sees itself ―as the unity-in-multiplicity which is Intellect‖57 because, in his account, there is no division or multiplicity in the One since it is perfect unity. ―Intellect, certainly, by its own means even defines its being for itself by the power which comes from the One, and because its substance is a kind of single part of what belongs to the One and comes from the One, it is strengthened by the One and made perfect in substantial existence by and from it.‖58 Therefore, Intellect is characterized by multiplicity, has in itself the power to generate and to characterize Being out of itself, is of pure origin, and includes in itself the whole of being, all the beauties of ideas, and all the intelligible deities, without letting them descend into matter. It is this Intellect that, out of its perfection, generates Soul, the last hypostasis of the divine sphere.

The One and the Theory of Emanation

Plotinus‘s philosophy embraces two ideas that imply and represent two movements. One movement is downward from perfect unity to multiplicity, and the other movement is an upward journey away from multiplicity and towards the perfect unity of the One. The first movement is justified by the hierarchical organization of living reality or hierarchy of Being, which proceeds eternally from its transcendent First Principle, the

One, and descends in an uninterrupted chain of levels from the Divine Intellect and the

56 Plotinus, Enneads, trans. by A. H. Armstrong, V.1.7.7, 35.

57 Ibid., footnote, 34.

58 Ibid., V.1.7.12-16, 37. 28

Forms to the Soul and to the last reality, Matter. The ascendant movement can be achieved as a result of the Soul‘s desire to abandon the sensible realm and by a process of gradual purification, to achieve union with the object of desire, that is, the One. The theory of emanation explains the origin of this hierarchy. Plotinus, taking into account the principle of prior simplicity, that all things must be originated by one single source. This principle postulates that ―every composite thing depends and derives in some way from what is not composite, what is simple.‖59 Plotinus applies this principle with a rigor that distances him from Aristotle and brings him closer to Plato and such

Platonists as , who states that divine intellect cannot be simple because, although it has a high degree of unity, it is still a composite. Therefore, for Plotinus, there must be something prior to divine intellect, something that represents perfect unity. ―But it must be single, if it is to be seen in others. Unless one were to say that it has its existence by being with others. But then it will not be simple, nor will what is made up of many parts exist. For what is not capable of being simple will not exist, and if there is no simple, what is made up of many parts will not exist.‖60 Plotinus, in this passage, emphasizes a duality that will be characteristic of the natures of Intellect and Soul. Both have dual natures, one as part of the whole and the other in itself, outside of the whole. As well, that which is prior to multiplicity must be superior in power and in being, since it produces the complex and displays unity, independence, and self-integrity.61

60 Plotinus, Enneads, V.6.3.10-15, quoted in Dominic J. O‘Meara, Plotinus: An Introduction to the Enneads, (New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1993), 46.

60 Dominic J. O‘Meara, Plotinus: An Introduction to the Enneads, (New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1993), 44.

61Ibid., 49. 29

Plotinus describes the One as ineffable and unknowable, because it cannot be considered as an object ―of knowledge and discourse.‖62 It is formless and infinite, neither intellect nor Being. Therefore, it is not nothingness but an incredible source of power and perfection, originator of everything else that emanates from it, such as form, number, measure, order, and limit.63 In Plotinus‘s universe, immanence does not rule out transcendence since, for him, the One is both immanent and transcendent. The One is transcendent as the source of all Being. But, the One is also always in the world, in us as much as we are in It. Plotinus describes the lower realm as being in the higher realm, body as being in soul, soul as being in the Intellect, and Intellect as being in the One. The hierarchical order does not imply a physical separation between hypostases, since these are distinctive while also together. The One derives the Intellect out of necessity without experiencing any change and outside ordinary time. Its derivation is eternal, since it does not have a beginning or an end. Intellect is, for Plotinus, a living conglomeration of beings, which have the characteristics of Forms and Intelligences, ―in which every part thinks and therefore in a real sense is the whole; so that the relationship of whole and parts in this spiritual world is quite different from that in the material world, and involves no sort of separation or exclusion.‖64 This idea of ‗unity-in-diversity‘ constitutes the most perfect representation of the unity of the One, which the Intellect cannot fully grasp in his normal contemplation. While Intellect is infinite due to its power and to its immeasurability, it is also finite by of its constitution as a whole that is made of

62 Dominic J. O‘Meara, 55.

63 Plotinus, Enneads, trans. by A. H. Armstrong, xvii.

64 Ibid., xxi. 30

numerous Forms. For humanity, Intellect represents our higher level of perceptive thought, which grasps its object without the need for reason. At this highest stage, we become Soul, which is formed as an image of the Intellect.

The Soul in Plotinus is very similar to that in Plato. It serves as a liaison between the intelligible and the sensible realms, representing the former in the latter. Soul is derived from Intellect and returns to it through contemplation, as the Intellect returns to the One. However, its relationship to Intellect is much closer than that of Intellect to the

One because, at its maximum state, Soul belongs to Intellect. The Soul is constituted by two parts or levels, the higher level where it performs as ―a transcendent principle of form, order, and intelligent direction and the lower where it operates as an immanent principle of life and growth‖65 in what Plotinus called Nature. The lower soul is connected to the higher soul, as the higher soul is connected to Intellect, through contemplation. But, since Nature belongs to the sensible realm, the contemplation of the lower realm is so weak that what it produces ―is the immanent forms in body, which are non-contemplative and so sterile, and below which lays only the darkness of matter.‖66

The soul, differently from Intellect, moves freely from one thing to another, causing physical movement in space and time. It does not possess being as a whole but as individual parts. The Plotinian soul has two characteristics that define its nature in terms of its relationship to the material world. It organizes bodies and it is present in bodies. It is rational, and it is both one and many. Our individual souls are simply parts of the

Universal Soul. Therefore, spiritually having the whole within them, they can turn to

65 Plotinus, Enneads, trans. by A. H. Armstrong, xxii.

66Ibid., xxiii.

31

universality through contemplation, abandoning the bodies that they rule. The soul divides itself when it enters the body without ceasing to be whole, because its unity is not the same as the unity of body, which is the sum of its parts. The soul, being divisible and indivisible at the same time, is not one in the sense of being continuous and the possessor of different parts. It is divisible, because it is present in every part of the body that it inhabits. But it is indivisible, because it is present as a whole in each part that constitutes the body. This indicates the magnitude of the soul‘s power, which establishes it as a divine entity that is situated at the privileged location between the superior, or intelligible, realm and the sensible realm.

Nature, as Plotinus defines it in the Enneads, is part of the range of powers or activities that are manifested by Soul. Thus, Nature is not a reality separated from Soul, as Soul is separated from Intellect. It is an image produced by Soul, which does not work on matter but creates without moving or changing because, in all production, ―there is something which does not move or change, the form guiding the process, and since it is in matter that change occurs and that visible shapes are generated in accord with this form.‖67 For Plotinus, then, Nature as the formative principle of things is described as contemplation, as an object of contemplation, and as a rational principle. ―For it is the product of a contemplation that remains and does anything else, but makes in being contemplation.‖68 It is a contemplation guided by superior principles in which things are created in harmony with the nature of the maker. Nature contemplates Soul as Soul contemplates Intellect. Nature‘s type of contemplation belongs to the lowest level in the

67 Dominic J. O‘Meara, 75.

68 Plotinus, Enneads, quoted in Dominic J. O‘Meara, Plotinus: An Introduction to the Enneads, 75. 32

series of , in which contemplation manifests itself as derivation. Intellect exists as a contemplation of the One, Soul exists as a contemplation of Intellect, and

Nature exists as contemplation of Soul. Therefore, everything derives from contemplation and is contemplation. For Plotinus, the individual soul descends into a body in order to fulfill the law of the universe and the plan of Universal Soul in its desire for expansion.

However, the spiritual state of the individual soul determines the degree of attachment to the material world. The soul that is completely attached to the body and isolated from the whole is trapped inside the body and is deviated from its higher destiny to rise from the trivialities of the material world and ascend ―to the universality of transcendent Soul and to the world of Intellect,‖69 towards perfect union with the One. Plotinus‘s work and philosophy are captured in the following words: ―try to bring back the god in you to the divine in the All.‖70

According to Plotinus, the material world, as an organic living form, is the best imaginable representation of the realm of Forms within Intellect. These are fused together

―by a universal sympathy and harmony,‖71 in which evil and misery belong as part of a greater design. Everything that is alive and has a form is good. But matter, which is the last and lowest level of the One‘s derivation or emanation, constitutes the principle of evil. For Plotinus, however, evil does not represent a positive form or spiritual entity in the universe. It is, rather, a privation or lack of goodness that is inevitable as part of the

69 Plotinus, Enneads, trans. by A. H. Armstrong, xxiv.

70 Ibid., xxv.

71 Ibid., xxiv. 33

material world, since the lowest emanation is also the one that is furthest removed from the One‘s absolute perfection and unity.

34

CHAPTER II

Neoplatonic Heritage and Pseudo-Dionysius

Platonic and Neoplatonic influences are very difficult to separate when studying their roles in Western philosophy, because the Platonism present in medieval and

Renaissance thought is saturated by the Neoplatonic interpretations of Plato‘s work.

Therefore, it is important to study this Neoplatonic legacy as divided into two categories.

The first category is that of direct influence, in which the thinker includes in his writings what he imported directly from the Neoplatonic source. The other category is that of indirect influence, in which the thinker imports Neoplatonic ideas through intermediary sources. Direct influence is the most prevalent but also more difficult to prove. In the case of Neoplatonism, however, it is the most common form of influence. The

Neoplatonic heritage can be then divided ―into Plotinian, Athenian, and Alexandrian strands of thought.‖72 The Plotinian branch is faithful to the Enneads, the Athenian branch is characterized by its marked mysticism and embraces metaphysical and theological ideas and concepts, and the Alexandrian branch is Neoplatonic but also embraces Aristotelianism and, particularly, Aristotelian . The most influential thinkers of this period were Marius Victorinus, the fourth century Christian rhetorician and theorist who translated Greek Neoplatonism into Latin, Augustine of Hyppo (354-

430 CE), whose interpretation of Plato is close to Plotinus‘s and Porphyry‘s and who is

72 Pauliina Remes, 198. 35

responsible for synthesizing the Christian faith with Platonic philosophy, and

(480-525 CE), who forms a strong link between antiquity and in the

Latin West. Of the medieval philosophers, the most important Neoplatonists were

Johanes Scotus Eriugina (800-877), whose translations of Plato were employed by

Arabic philosophers, William of Moerbeke, who translated Proclus‘s Elements of

Theology and his commentaries of Parmenides and the Timaeus into Latin, and Meister

Eckhart (1260-1327), who retained the mystical side of Neoplatonism and adopted its idea of negative theology.73

It is, however, in the Greek Christian world in which one finds the strongest

Neoplatonic influence, as exemplified in the ideas of Basil of Cesarea (330-379 CE),

Gregory of Nazianzen (329-390 CE), (d. 394CE) and, most fundamentally, Dionysius the Areopagite, commonly known as Pseudo-Dionysius. While

Gregory of Nyssa followed the Plotinian branch of Neoplatonism, Pseudo-Dionysius embraced Proclus‘s tradition. Proclus, who has been considered the ―great systematizer of Neoplatonism,‖74 departed from some of Plotinus‘s beliefs and embraced Iamblicus‘s idea of a more prolific ―supra-sensible realm.‖75 Confronted with the dilemma of how the

One can be both absolute and transcendent unity and imminent multiplicity in being, later

Neoplatonists took different approaches from that of Plotinus. While Iamblichus claims a new entity above the One, which he calls the Ineffable, Proclus retains the One with its transcendent and perfect attributes. But he also adds the Henads, a group of entities

73 Pauliina Remes, 199.

74 Ibid., 29.

75 Ibid., 28.

36

located above the Forms that have the properties of being, in some way, transcendent and unknowable, while being definable by and accessible to the human soul. Therefore, the domain of the One is expanded by the Henads, which each act as the beginning of a chain of entities, so that every entity below is subordinated to the One and to each of the

Henads. Basically, the Henads narrow the gap between the One and Being, but they do not solve the problem presented by multiplicity. They function as the catalyst in the process of unity becoming multiplicity and vice versa. They do not interparticipate as do the Forms, and they are beyond thought and Being.76 The introduction of these new hierarchies helped the later Neoplatonists to include a new system of divinities, which were absent in Plotinus‘s hierarchy, and to create a system that was not only more amenable to the mysticism and literature of the time but that also synthesized metaphysics with traditional religion, thereby heightening the value of paganism in an environment that was increasingly dominated by Christianity.

Neoplatonism left a strong legacy for the development of the , with regard to issues concerning God and the immortality of the soul. With respect to the issue of God, three important factors should be considered:

1. The idea of the One as the unity of being, truth, and happiness is transformed into

the notion of a God who maintains these threefold characteristics but also

differentiates Himself through direct creation. Truth is endowed to the world as

part of the creation, rather than as a thought within the divine Intellect. As in

Neoplatonism, happiness is understood as a form of bliss, a product of the union

with the Creator, who represents order, goodness, and beauty.

76 Pauliina Remes, 74. 37

2. The doctrine of emanation from the creator appears first in Augustine‘s On the

Trinity. The triadic nature of the power of the Neoplatonic God, which has

internal activity or rest, external activity or movement, and the ability to return

back to the creator proved very influential on Christian thinkers such as Gregory

of Nyssa, Pseudo-Dionysius, , and in

their interpretation of cosmic theology and creation. ―It became interpreted as the

distinction between ousia (substance), dunamis (power or potentiality) and

energia (activity).‖77 According to Christianity, God creates through an act of

will. God makes Himself known through His creation, and the idea of the divinity

regressing to Himself through His creation is manifested in one of the pillars of

Christian faith, that is, the idea of a transcendent God who creates the universe

and the return of man to God through salvation.

3. The theory of negative or , elaborated first by Plotinus in his

definition of the ineffable One and which defines God by what He is not,

influenced the Cappadocian Fathers, Maximus the Confessor, and Pseudo-

Dionysius who adopted the via apophatica, thus differentiating themselves from

thinkers in Latin West who adopted the via cataphatica, defining God in positive

terms.

Although the Neoplatonic idea of the immortality of the soul is rooted in Plato and the idea of the soul as a divine intellectual entity is shared with other ancient philosophers, the most particular aspects of the Neoplatonic conception of the soul are its two movements: The ability to descend and separate from its creator and its desire to return to

77 Pauliina Remes, 204. 38

its origin through purification. The later Neoplatonists decided to remove divinity from the soul, so that human beings would have their own nature and their own place in the creation. This idea fits with the Christian assumption that the soul is not able to reach the level of the transcendent God. However, they maintained the ability of the soul to ascend, through the practice of virtues and the purification from sin. The union of the soul with its creator is no longer achieved through its own desire, as Plotinus had stipulated, but by the grace of God.

The historical importance of Pseudo-Dionysius rests both on the fact that ―his doctrine is the first Christian version of a type of Neoplatonic philosophy taught mainly at two centers of learning, Athens and Alexandria, from approximately the fourth to the sixth century A.D.‖78 and on the fact that he is responsible for transmitting the tenets of ancient philosophy to many influential thinkers of the Byzantine world. Pseudo-

Dionysius is an enigmatic author whose treatises are difficult to decipher and whose thought includes themes such as ―the hierarchical vision of the world, the approach to

God and the different ways of naming him, the correlative presentation of the divinizing intelligences, and the treatment of symbols.‖79 Although several theories were developed regarding his real identity, none of these has been conclusive. What we know about

Pseudo-Dionysius we know through his works, which appeared bearing his name around

500 A.D., in Syria, and were immediately embraced by other thinkers. His works, referred to as the Corpus Aeropagiticum, consist of four treatises and ten letters. The first

78 Stephen Gersh, From Iamblichus to Eriugena: an investigation of the prehistory and evolution of the pseudo-Dionysian tradition, (Leiden: Brill, 1978) , 1.

79 Pseudo-Dionysius, the Aeropagite, Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, trans. by Colm Luibheid, Mahwah, (New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1987), 5. 39

treatise, On Divine Names, is devoted to the intelligible names of God. The second treatise, On Celestial Hierarchy, is devoted to the angels. The third treatise, On the

Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, is devoted to the Christian Church and its sacraments and orders. Lastly, the fourth treatise, Mystical Theology, explains the union with God. The

Letters expose the techniques used by the author in his adoption of Neoplatonic ideas and also explain how the author adapts those ideas to the Christian faith. ―The symbolic theology in which the Letters culminate is inseparable from the affirmative and negative theologies expounded in the four treatises, and the Letters were composed on a hierarchic plan, which elaborates in many details on the obscure discursive treatment of hierarchy in the treatises, a subject on which, this Neoplatonist is the discoverer and master.‖80

Although some scholars have claimed that Pseudo-Dionysius rejected paganism, his

Letters confirm his reliance on Proclus and Neoplatonism.

The Dionysian takes two routes in its journey to posterity as being a significant influence in the history of Western spirituality. One route leads from the paganism of the East to the Christian Orthodox East. The second route leads from the

Christian Orthodox East to the Catholic West.81 Through the first route, Dionysian spirituality had been cleansed of any traces of paganism by the work of Maximus the

Confessor and, due to Maximus‘s legitimacy as a saint of the church, the medieval West pushed his ideas towards the second route. By this time, Pseudo-Dionysius‘s works have been translated by different authors, including John Scotus. Phillipe Chevallier‘s

80 Ronald Hathaway, Hierarchy and the Definition of Order in the Letters of Pseudo-Dionysius: A Study in the Form and meaning of the Pseudo-Dionysian Writings, (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1969), xiv.

81 Pseudo-Dionysius, 13.

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enormous anthology of The Corpus Aeropagiticum made possible its evaluation by later

Latin translators, including Marsilio Ficino reinforcing the notion that Pseudo-

Dionysius‘s spirituality has been better received and more influential in the West than in the East, where Augustine had been more influential. According to Jaroslav Pelikan, ―the most fascinating aspect of the westward odyssey of Dionysian spirituality is the interaction between the Neoplatonism of Dionysius and the Neoplatonism of Augustine.

Each had a distinctive metaphysics; but more importantly, each was the fountainhead for a distinctive piety and devotion.‖82

Pseudo-Dionysius‘s metaphysics of creation claims of God ―that he is all, that he is no thing‖83and is the cause of everything. ―It is the cause of all beings, but itself nothing, as transcending all things in a manner beyond being…But since…it is the cause of all beings, the beneficent providence of the Thearchy is hymned from all the effects.‖84

When Pseudo-Dionysius refers to God as cause, he does not mean this as ‗first cause‘ or

Supreme Being. Rather, he means this in the sense that everything that exists is God‘s effect. In this sense, Pseudo-Dionysius remains loyal to the Neoplatonic idea of causation as vertical, in which a lower ontological level is the effect of a higher level.85 As already mentioned, Pseudo-Dionysius‘s influence derives from Proclus who, on the subject of causation, differs from both Plato and Plotinus. This is because his doctrine of causation departs from the dual relation between the ‗participated‘ term that involves the

82 Pseudo-Dionysius, 24.

83 Pseudo-Dionysius, On Divine Names, I.2, 596C.

84 Ibid., On Divine Names, I.5, 593C-D.

85 Eric Pearl, Theophany: The Neoplatonic Philosophy of Dionysius the Aeropagite, (Albany: State of New York Press, 2007), 17. 41

individuated properties and the ‗unparticipated‘ term that represents perfect unity and does not belong to anything. Proclus‘s doctrine embraces a three-term relation that includes the participated, the participant, and the unparticipated. The purpose of this division is not to keep the participants alienated from the unparticipated but to assert

God‘s presence in all of them. Thus, ―the cause is separated in the sense that it is not conditioned by its effects, not in the sense that it is not present to or immanent in them.

The unparticipated term, then, is simply a universal determination considered as one and the same and hence transcendent to its instances; while the participated terms are the same determination considered as differently present in each instance.‖86 Thus, in the doctrine of creation as manifestation, the effect is contained in the cause and, regardless of the number of levels or triadic subdivisions, the creation represents the differentiation of the One.

According to Pseudo-Dionysius, God is ―the source of all holy enlightenment, a

Source which has told us about itself in the holy words of scripture, the cause of everything that is origin, being, and life. … It is the Life of the living, the being of beings, it is the Source and the cause of all life and of all being, for out of its goodness it commands all things to be and it keeps them going.‖87 The manifestation of God in all things created is what Pseudo-Dionysius refers to as ―powers, participations, processions, providences, manifestations, or distributions of God.‖88 His God is both transcendent and immanent. It is transcendent because it is not a being at all and is not part of reality.

86 Eric Perl, 24.

87 Pseudo-Dionysius, On Divine Names, I.3 589B-C.

88 Eric Perl, 29.

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However, it is immanent because it is present in each one of the things created. In this account, using Plotinus‘s metaphor of the One as source of light that is not itself illuminated, Pseudo-Dionysius‘s God is the being in which all beings participate, but It is not one of these beings. Thus God, as light or illumination, both transcends and permeates from the higher and most revered level to the lowest. When he calls God ―the

Different‖ in On Divine Names, Pseudo-Dionysius tries to explain God‘s divine difference as God‘s ―unitary multiplication and the uniform processions of his multiple- generation to all things.‖89 For Plotinus, Proclus, and Pseudo-Dionysius, God is simple and unified, in which all the differentiated beings become one undifferentiated entity that contains everything but also has the power to unfurl and multiply in different beings.

Therefore, the whole of reality is the appearance or occurrence of God. It is theophany. It is the presence of God in the content of any being in a distinctive finite way, endowing such a being with the gift of intellect and transforming it into a representation of God.

―For to be present means to be given or available to thought, i.e. to be intelligible. And as intelligible, as given to thought, God is apparent, or manifest, in and as the being.‖90 This idea of being as theophany, in Pseudo-Dionysius, is a response to the Neoplatonic idea that being belongs to the intelligible realm.

At this point it is important to clarify what it means for God to appear in reality, in order to truly grasp the doctrine of being as theophany. This is because referring to God as a mere appearance could lead to a reduction of God to a mere thing or object of thought. This would remove all divine attributes from God and would consider God as

89 Eric Perl, 31.

90 Ibid., 32.

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just another member of reality. But since God is not just another thing but is the sum of all things, God is beyond being.

It is the supra-being beyond every being. It sets the boundaries of all sources and

orders and yet it is rooted above every source and order. It is the measure of all

things. It is eternity and is above and prior to eternity. It is abundance where there

is want and superabundance where there is plenty. It is inexpressible and

ineffable, and it transcends mind, life, and being. It is the supernatural. It is the

transcendent possessor of transcendence.91

Pseudo-Dionysius, in On Divine Names, elaborates his own notion of reality, as hierarchic and triadic, based on the Platonic and Neoplatonic models of three classes, three stages, and three functions. Therefore, his angelic universe, which corresponds to the Plotinian intelligible realm, is constituted by three triads, each divided into three orders, each of which is branched into three levels of intelligences, each one belonging to the threefold arrangement. In every single triadic cluster, perfection belongs to the first element, illumination to the second, and purification to the last.92 The angelic and the human realms are parts of a dualistic universe, which ―constitutes a sacred order, an understanding, and an activity, all regulated by the law of hierarchical mediations, both in the sense of the descent of and in that of the ascent of divinization.‖93

The stability and synchronization of each of the parts and of the whole depend on occupying their proper place and function. In part, this is possible because Pseudo-

91 Pseudo-Dionysius, On Divine Names, II.10, 648C-D.

92 Pseudo-Dionysius, 5.

93 Ibid., 6.

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Dionysius only includes the divine in his hierarchy. Thus, the steadiness, the dynamism, and the effectiveness of his hierarchy is totally dependent on the creator, which is both the origin and the final desire of all divinization. It is through this approach that Pseudo-

Dionysius reaches the idea of God, whose divine name maybe either of biblical or of philosophical origin, since all these names imply the paradoxical idea that God reveals itself in the creation but nobody has ever seen it. Therefore, God could be the recipient of numerous names or could continue without a name, because God is above everything that can be named. From the perspective of the process of creation, it is possible to name God based on its work by adopting affirmative or cataphatic theology. But, from the perspective of the divine ascent or return, God will not bare a name, as affirmed in the negative or apophatic theology. The divine names that Pseudo-Dionysius introduces in

On Divine Names, are Good, Being, Life, and Wisdom. Arranged in a hierarchical mode, each one of these names represents the manner in which God is present in the different classes of beings: matter, plants, irrational living beings, rational living beings, and intelligible beings. The last three of these, considered cognitive beings, are ―participants in God as Wisdom.‖94

The divine name ―Good‖ tells of all the processions of the universal Cause; it

extends to beings and nonbeings and that Cause is superior to being and

nonbeings. The name ―Being‖ extends to all beings which are, and it is beyond

them. The name of ―Life‖ extends to all living things, and yet is beyond them.

94 Eric Perl, 65.

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The name ―Wisdom‖ reaches out to everything which has to do with

understanding, reason, and sense perception, and surpasses them all.95

I do not think of the Good as one thing, Being as another, Life and Wisdom as yet

other, and I do not claim that there are numerous causes and different Godheads,

all differently ranked, superior and inferior, and all producing different effects.

No. But I hold that there is one God for all these good processions and that he is

possessor of the divine names of which I speak and that the first name tells of the

universal Providence of the one God, while the other names reveal general or

specific ways in which he acts providentially.96

Therefore, the divine processions, as Pseudo-Dionysius called them, are organized by taking into account the extent of universality by which each is present in different beings.

The divine order is established by placing the Goodness of God at the apex, followed by

Being, Life and, at last, Wisdom. Following Proclus, Pseudo-Dionysius situates Being as prior to Life, because Being, Life, and Intellect participate, in that order, in the intelligible realm. All of these are below the Good, which is itself beyond Being. While

Proclus‘s thought implies the existence of several gods of different types and ranks,

Pseudo-Dionysius discards this position, arguing that his ranks are not substances or hypostases located between God and his creation but are the different ways in which God makes itself present in its creation. This rejection of illustrates the process of

Christianization that Pseudo-Dionysius is experiencing. The disparity between Proclus and Pseudo-Dionysius, however, is more rooted in what concerns religious practices than

95 Pseudo-Dionysius, On Divine Names, V.1, 816B.

96 Ibid., On Divine Names, V.1, 816C-D.

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in metaphysics, because both sustain the idea that the universe is filled and constituted

―by a multiplicity of divine powers at work differently in different things, all of which are presences or manifestations of the One, or God.‖97

According to Pseudo-Dionysius, both beings and nonbeings participate in God as the Good, identifying nonbeings with matter, which does not have form but constitutes the substratum of every other being capable of receiving or possessing forms. Therefore, matter takes its origin from the Good. Inanimate objects are produced by the Good and

Being. Plants are produced by the Good, Being, and Life. Animals are produced by the

Good, Being, Life and Wisdom. Within this arrangement, the more universal encloses the less universal, so that Being is above Life because Life is a specification of Being and

Life is above Wisdom because Wisdom is a specification of Life. As intellection is the highest form of consciousness, intelligible beings possess the higher modes of Life and

Being. These celestial beings or angels, mentioned in On Divine Names and the

Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, are considered to represent the most perfect level in the hierarchy because they are closer to God.

Divine intelligences do exist in a manner superior to other beings and they live in

a fashion surpassing other living things. They have understanding and they have

knowledge far beyond perception and reason. They desire and participate in the

beautiful and the Good in a way far above the things which exist. They are very

much closer to the Good and participate much more in the Good, from which they

have received more and certainly greater gifts. … The more a thing participates in

97 Eric Perl, 68.

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the one infinitely generous God, the closer one is to him and the more divine one

is with respect to others.98

The Good then is present in all things according to their rank, as it shines through them.

―These illuminations are the participated determinations of creatures, and they are analogous to each in that each being participates in God in the manner appropriate to and constitutive of that being.‖99

In the Celestial Hierarchy, Pseudo-Dionysius makes clear that although the activity of each level in the hierarchy represents the presence of God according to that level, the activity of the lower level is similar to that of the higher but in a lesser manner.

Therefore, when Pseudo-Dionysius states that the higher beings are closer to God, he does not mean that they are between God and the lower beings. Rather, he means that

God is not present in all things equally but in a just proportion. Pseudo-Dionysius departs from the Neoplatonic idea that each level causes the one below it and postulates that only

―cognitive illumination and not being is transmitted through the created hierarchy.‖100

Each being in the hierarchy participates in God according to its desire to fulfill the role of its proper position in relation to other beings above or below, exercising its activities, not individually but in constant relation to the other beings. ―Therefore, when the hierarchic order lays it on some to be purified and on others to do the purifying, on some to receive illumination and on others to cause illumination, on some to be perfected and on others to bring about perfection, each will actually imitate God in the way suitable to whatever role

98 Pseudo-Dionysius, On Divine Names, V.3, 817B.

99 Eric Perl, 71.

100 Ibid., 73.

48

it has.‖101 The purpose of the hierarchy, then, is for beings to become like God and to be united to God. Its core principle is what Pseudo-Dionysius calls immediate mediation, the hierarchical mediation of beings by which God constitutes them through his presence.

Pseudo-Dionysius‘s influence on Scholastic theology became noticeable during the twelfth century and continued through the thirteenth century, when monks of the

Franciscan and Dominican orders translated and commented on his works. Thomas

Aquinas discussed some of his treatises and Saint considered him the

―prince of mystics.‖102 In the sixteenth century, no other writings of the early Christian era received similar attention in terms of translations, excerpts, commentaries, and even cumulative corpora, with the exception of the and the works of Boethius.103

As mentioned above, Pseudo-Dionysius‘s ideas influenced not only medieval mystical thought but also Scholastic theology. His ―apostolic authority was supported by

Hilduin‘s conflation of three Dionysii: the Areopagite, the first bishop of , and the author of the corpus‖104 within Roman traditionalism. However, after being discredited by the humanist Lorenzo Valla, Pseudo-Dionysius and his writings lost credibility with

Protestant thinkers. The different inclinations towards and interest in the study of the

Dionysian corpus during the fifteenth century within some humanist circles continued in the next century among Protestant and Catholic scholars. The relationship of humanism to Dionysian thought was significant. The humanists‘ philological interest in reading

101 Pseudo-Dionysius, On Celestial Hierarchy, III.2, 165B-C.

102 Ibid., 29.

103 Ibid., 33.

104 Ibid., 32.

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ancient texts and translating them into Latin improved the condition of Greek texts and made it possible to have greater access to the Dionysian corpus. Humanistic pedagogy rejected Scholastic logicism and and embraced Pseudo-Dionysius‘s idea that Christian learning and contemplation imply one another, promoting the concept that the study of the liberal arts, accompanied by deep contemplation, were the remedies for the ills of the time.105 For the members of the Florentine Academy, Pseudo-Dionysius offered the perfect combination of Platonic philosophy and Christian faith. The head of the Academy, Marsilio Ficino, not only translated and commented on The Divine Names and The Mystical Theology but also included Dionysian thought in his own Theologia

Platonica, including Pseudo-Dionysius with Plato and Paul, ―as the pillars of his religious synthesis.‖106

105 Pseudo-Dionysius, 36.

106 Ibid. 50

CHAPTER III

Renaissance Platonism

Renaissance philosophy, although a direct product of Medieval thought, placed tremendous emphasis on the ideas of humanistic intellectuals, who were captivated by the revival of ancient Greek texts. The translation and reinterpretation of those texts, especially those of Plato and of the Neoplatonists, dethroned Aristotelian in favor of humanistic pedagogy that emphasized and ethics over logic and the production of commentaries. Apart from humanism, as primarily a pedagogical reform movement, two schools of thought dominate Renaissance philosophy. These are

Platonism and Aristotelianism. In the context of Renaissance philosophy, these two schools of thought share the fundamental concepts of the dignity of man, the unity of truth, and the immortality of the soul, which distinguish them from both earlier and later forms of Platonism and Aristotelianism. ―The theme of dignity and excellence of man, derived though it was from a patristic and mediaeval Christian tradition, was the principal medium through which the status and powers of man in relation to divinity, cosmos, and polity were treated in a focused way.‖107 The relevance of the concept of the hierarchy of being is, on the other hand, specific only to Renaissance Platonism as a result of Marsilio

107 Charles Trinkaus, ―Marsilio Ficino and the Ideal of Human Autonomy,‖ in Ficino and Renaissance Neoplatonism, ed. by Konrad Eisenbichler and Olga Zorzi Pugliese, (Toronto: Dovehouse Editions Canada, 1986), 141.

51

Ficino‘s development of this notion, which he inherited from Neoplatonism and Pseudo-

Dionysian philosophy.

Renaissance philosophy was enriched by access to previously unavailable texts from ancient Greece and Rome. Therefore, the predominant role of Aristotle during the later Middle Ages is, in part, replaced by Plato and other non-Aristotelian philosophers.

Plato‘s manuscripts were read under a new light in part because of the great accomplishments of Ficino, who retranslated and reinterpreted the works of Plato and the

Neoplatonists.108 Some Platonic dialogues, such as Timaeus, acquired particular importance during this period. The success of Ficino‘s work facilitated the development of Renaissance Platonism, which also incorporated humanism but was also characterized by a definitive departure from medieval philosophy. Since Aristotle did not take a definite position on the , the eternity of the world, and on the immortality of the soul, Plotinian thought offered a better alternative for the Church

Fathers in their attempts to reconcile paganism and Christianity. Plato had a great influence on Eastern theologians ―such as Clement, , and Pseudo-Dionysius, but

Latin authors read in the medieval West also saw the advantage of buttressing their faith with Platonic wisdom,‖109 which fit well with the Christian teachings on creation, the immortality of the soul, and eternal life. However, because Christianity and

Neoplatonism were closer in time and doctrine, it was easier for Ficino to resolve theological problems from the point of view of the Plotinian unitarian conception of God

108 and Charles Schmidt, Renaissance Philosophy, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 15.

109 Ibid., 128.

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than from ―Plato‘s less schematic theology.‖110 The Neoplatonic philosophers had great interest in Plato‘s metaphysics and were eager to incorporate the idea of hypostatical hierarchies, therefore focusing their attention on dialogues such as Phaedrus, ,

Timaeus, and Parmenides. The Neoplatonic interpretation of Plato led to the development of theologies in which God‘s transcendent being was so far removed from the material realm that new spiritual levels or hierarchies had to be created in order to close the ontological gap. Neoplatonists championed the idea of unity, of the superiority of cause over effect, and of the creation of different levels of reality, and they distinguished themselves from Plato by creating a more doctrinaire and schematic philosophy.111

Marsilio Ficino as a Renaissance Platonist

Marsilio Ficino, as the leader of the Florentine Academy, provides the grounds to consider Renaissance Platonism as ―a distinct movement within the broader context of

Renaissance philosophy.‖112 Ficino‘s Platonism has a distinctive character that contains both traces of earlier humanistic thought but is also imbued with ideas from other sources that enrich its ―highly diversified thought.‖113

Between 1469 and 1474, Ficino wrote the eighteen books that comprise his longest original work, the Platonic Theology, dedicated to his patron Lorenzo de‘ Medici.

The central theme of this work is the ascent of the human soul, maintaining that

110 Brian Copenhaver and Charles Schmidt, 135.

111 Ibid.

112 Paul O. Kristeller, Eight Philosophers of the , (Stanford: Standford University Press, 1964), 37.

113 Ibid., 38.

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―although man‘s worship of God puts him closer to divinity than any other mortal thing, to allow death to thwart the human yearning for immortality would make mankind the most wretched of creatures, thus violating the order given the world by its creator.‖114 In

Platonic Theology, Ficino combines the influence of Plato, Plotinus, and Proclus with that of Pseudo-Dionysius, Augustine, and Aquinas. This is due to the fact that the preoccupation with the immortality of the soul was present in both Platonic and

Neoplatonic philosophy and in early and late medieval theology. Through the influence of medieval theologians, Ficino incorporated ideas on the faculties of the soul, the different attributes of God, and Nature‘s order. Through Pseudo-Dionysian influence,

Ficino revised the Neoplatonic ontological levels in the hierarchy of being and tailored these to Christian theology.

The Hierarchy of Being

Ficino remained faithful to his Neoplatonic and medieval sources and tried to describe the universe in terms of a hierarchy descending from God. Each level below

God has its specific place and shares in a degree of perfection. Ficino‘s final metaphysical position claims a hierarchy constituted by five substances. These are the

One or God, Angelic Being or Mind, the Soul, Quality, and Body or Matter.115 In his revision of the Plotinian hierarchy, Ficino treats quality as a separate level of being but also adds symmetry. He locates the soul in the middle of the hierarchy, between the eternal and the temporal realms, providing the human soul with a privileged position that

114 Paul O. Kristeller, 38.

115 Ibid., 42.

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defines the metaphysical background needed to develop his theory of the dignity of man.

The upper part of Ficino‘s hierarchy corresponds to Plotinus‘s three hypostases: The One,

Intellect (Nous), and Soul. Since Plotinus did not give a full account of the relation between the hypostases and the sensible realm, his successors added these details.

Proclus, in his Elements of Theology and Theology of Plato developed the five levels that influenced Ficino‘s chain, in which the soul‘s metaphysical centrality secures its role as a cosmic link between the divine and sensible realms. Representing ―the cosmos in miniature, the little totality, [and] the all here in us which mirrors the All There which is also us,‖116 the soul debilitates the position of angelic beings above it and quality below it. Ficino understood the Neoplatonic principles that govern the description of being that mediates between the One and Good, on the higher level and evil and non-being in the lower level. The first two levels, as divine, transcend being and the lower two levels, as absence of the good, do not possess being. The gap between these two extremes has to be filled with different levels of being that display goodness and existence, but in different degrees. Therefore, a hierarchy is constructed based on several principles such as ―the superiority of one to many, of cause to effect, of rest to motion, and of whole to part.‖ 117

The arguments presented by Ficino in his description of God‘s supremacy in the hierarchy show the influence of two schools of thought and of two ways of seeing the universe. First, the establishment of God‘s omnipotence through the direct relation between power and absolute unity responds to Platonic and Neoplatonistic ideas in which

116 Marsilio Ficino, Platonic Theology, trans. by Michael J. B. Allen with John Warden, Latin text edited by James Hankins with William Bowen, Volume I, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2001), xv.

117 Brian Copenhaver and Charles Schmidt, 150.

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body or matter is divisible. Quality lacks steadiness, the soul has the inner capacity to move itself and emulate pure minds or angelic beings, and angels have all knowledge but depend for their being on a superior entity which is total unity. Secondly, the notion of

God‘s omnipotence, which is based on the infinite character of being and the infinite power needed for creation, are derived by Ficino from the ―Thomistic doctrine of being and act, developed in the [later] discussion of primary and secondary .‖118 Thus, causality serves as the link between the Platonic/Neoplatonic and the Thomistic views of the universe.

The factor that determines the five different hierarchical levels of Ficino‘s universe is the level of unity and power that each manifests. For Ficino, the Platonic ideal of self-knowledge is best achieved by knowing the world and God. This is a view of the world that is unified by its connection to divine power.119 The lowest level of Ficino‘s hierarchy corresponds to body or corporeality, which is characterized by extension. Since it is extended, it is passive, composed of parts, and infinitely divisible. When left to itself, matter is capable of constant change. It is not determined by species or kind and it possesses, by nature, the potency to become any corporeal body. Thus, lack of stability translates into lack of unity and, because unity is closely related to power of action, matter or corporeality lacks the capacity to initiate action though it has the ability to undertake it.

118 Ardis Collins, The Secular is Sacred: Platonism and in Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974), 22.

119 Ibid., 8.

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If it is the characteristic of body to receive and to be acted upon, but characteristic

of incorporeal nature to give and to act, then in corporeal nature dwells what we

call potency (the potency the theologians call receptive or passive) and in

incorporeal nature act, that is, the capacity for action.120

Since corporeal things show stability and are capable of acting, characteristics which are not innate in corporeality, there must be another factor responsible for this display of unity and power. This is what Ficino calls quality. Quality is capable of influencing the way in which corporeal things differentiate between each other, not in essence but in action. It has the ability to differentiate one body from another by stamping its specific action, because quality is a form and, as a form, it is a principle of being that causes a thing to be what it is. Furthermore, ―the way a thing is determines the way it acts.‖121

According to Ficino, quality is a source of being, for the same reason that it is a source of action.

So powerful is the gift of unity itself and of stability that only at the lowest level

of the universe does it seems to be overtaken by its opposites. Yet even there the

gift sometimes prevails in a way, since it continually keeps the matter which is

subject to infinite plurality and change, constant in the unity of substance and

order.122

120 Marsilio Ficino, Platonic Theology, Book III, Chapter I.5, 217.

121 Ardis Collins, 9.

122 Marsilio Ficino, Platonic Theology, Book III, Chapter I.2, 213-214.

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Quality, defined as ―the many and the one,‖123 constrains bodies into species and, while it is undivided within itself, it becomes divisible when it mixes with body. This implies that quality, as a form, is both a principle of being and a principle of unity. Since unity is related to the power to act, the unifying role is assigned to quality. Thus, quality is responsible for stabilizing the body and defining its capacities. Since it provides the unity of body, it must be more unified than corporeality. Quality, by nature, is not extended and, even when a body is divided, its quality remains intact in each of the parts as it is in the whole. Consequently, it is indivisible. ―But because it is received in matter and divided up and thus made in a way corporeal, it is not pure act but rather act contaminated with the passivity of body. So quality is composed of both act and potency.‖124 Because it is indivisible in itself and is the cause of action, it is situated above corporeality. However, because quality is said to subsist only in matter, there must be a higher principle that can supply quality‘s deficiencies.

The call for a higher principle responds to the lack of perfection in the form present in quality. This higher principle must be able to hold unity of substance. A body can only be whole if all of its parts belong to a single entity that will remain unchangeable. According to Ficino, this unifying principle, the cause of harmony, is called soul or life.

The universal principle must always have existed, and must always continue to

exist, through its own power. It must always have existed, because it could have

not been produced at some time out of itself—for that would involve its pre-

123 Ibid., Book III, Chapter I.1, 213.

124Marsilio Ficino, Platonic Theology, Book III, Chapter I.5, 217.

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existing itself—nor could it have been produced from another—for nothing comes

before what is first (nothing else would ever have existed if the first had not

existed first). It will always continue to exist, because, if the principle is once

destroyed, the totality of things collapses, and neither the principle itself nor

anything else can any more restored to being.125

This principle, considered incorporeal, has infinite power because it is immortal, does not have any of the body‘s characteristics but provides the body with qualities, and is the body‘s true form given that ―it exists through itself.‖126 Because this principle is not made out of parts, it is immortal. First, it can never be disbanded. Second, it is not attached to anything on which its existence depends. Third, it is not polluted by any other substance.

Lastly, it is not limited by space, motion or time.127 Following the principle that a cause always has some part in its effect, there must be something in quality which resembles the soul. Since quality is totally mobile in itself and in its operations, the soul must have some kind of mobility because that ―which bestow(s) mobility must possess it.‖128 The source of the soul‘s motion is not external to it, as it is for quality. Soul is mobile due to an internal source of motion, called life. When the soul is present in the body, which is in itself powerless to act, the body lives and moves from within itself in order to act.

Without a soul, however, the body can only move as the result of external force.

125 Marsilio Ficino, Platonic Theology , Book I, Chapter III.23, 51.

126 Ibid., Book I, Chapter III. 25, 53.

127 Ibid.

128 Ardis Collins, 12.

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Ficino describes the rational soul as stable in its essence, mobile in its activity, and both mobile and stable in its power.129 Thus, it is more simple and more stable than quality, because it has the power of a true form. Although it supplies quality‘s deficiencies, it has it owns weaknesses when it comes to its mobility in its operations.130

Both its external and internal functions are performed in time and divided into consecutive moments. Thus, in operation, the soul is not stable or unified because it hesitates ―between potency and act, between the capacity for something which is not possessed and the actual possession of it.‖131 The soul moves, because it does not have internal rest. This is due to its constant desire to reach something that will complete and perfect its nature and that can be attained only by reaching for something more perfect than itself. The soul yearns for understanding, because its capacity to understand depends on something that is above it.

Therefore something exists above soul, in order than soul—which by its nature is

open equally to understanding and to not understanding, switching as it does from

the one to the other in alternation—may be ordered and determined for

understanding through the influence, in this genus [of understanding], of that

which is always in act. Such a something is what is always understanding or

always actually understood which is the same.132

Ficino does not explain in clear detail how the entity above soul endows soul with understanding. But he explains that the rational soul, through an internal enlightenment,

129 Marsilio Ficino, Platonic Theology, Book I, Chapter IV, 55.

130 Ardis Collins, 13.

131 Ibid.

132 Marsilio Ficino, Platonic Theology, Book I, Chapter V.4.4, 63. 60

is constantly aware of the existence of the angels and of God. Thus, it is through this knowledge that soul desires to be, in its functions, as angelic beings and God are in theirs.

The motion through which it pursues this end is innate to the soul, but the purpose of such activity originates from an external source. Angelic beings need to be posited between the soul and God as intermediaries because, as perfect minds, they act as a link between the rational soul, which is imperfect mind, and God, who represents perfect truth that is above mind. Faithful to Plotinus‘s description of the soul as two folded, Ficino describes the rational soul, which is capable of two different types of activities, as if it were made out of gold and silver, depending upon the realm in which its activity takes place. Those activities that are executed in union with the body in the temporal realm correspond to the silver part of the soul, while those activities that are rational and performed independently of the body and are geared towards the eternal belong to the gold part of the soul. Since soul is not unified in its activities and is always in motion, it contains plurality and is not perfect. However, its existence implies the existence of a perfect and pure mind, totally independent from the body, which is capable of infinite understanding in an eternal act of knowing.133 Angelic being precedes soul, which is mobile and multiple. Thus, angelical being cannot be both motionless and unified. As cause of soul, angelic being has to share one of the two characteristics of soul. It has to be either mobile or multiple but cannot be both. Since it has multiplicity, it must therefore be immobile. Thus, angelic being is characterized by its multiplicity and stability. It is

―motionless plurality. It conforms to soul in that like soul it is a plurality; but it differs

133 Ardis Collins, 14.

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from soul in that it is motionless while soul is moved.‖134 Multiplicity in angelic being is manifested through intellect, the essence and being of which are the combination of its capacity of understanding, of the act of understanding, and of the different things that are understood. Since multiplicity derives from unity, which does not itself need to be derived, multiplicity has an intrinsic need to become unified. Thus, angelic being, as multiple, depends on something above it, that is, complete unity. Following Plotinus,

Ficino claims that this perfect unity is God, ―the most powerful of all in that He is the simplest of all.‖135

God represents absolute unity, goodness, and truth in itself. These are one and the same because, since unity is simplicity and truth is purity, what is good is the result of its purity and simplicity. ―What is one and the same in things must be one and the same in their cause, since an effect retains the vestiges of its cause and it is similar to it.‖136All things are part of and seek unity, truth, and goodness. Thus, unity, truth, and goodness must be the initial causes and the ultimate accomplishments of everything. Therefore

God, described by Plotinus as absolute unity, is for Ficino the pinnacle of the hierarchy of the universe. As previously established, Ficino views the universe as a hierarchy of causes in which what is superior must provide for the inadequacies of what is inferior.

God cannot have anything above it, since that which is absolute unity, goodness, and truth, cannot be caused and cannot receive anything from outside itself. Multiplicity

134 Marsilio Ficino, Platonic Theology, Book I, Chapter II.3, 81.

135 Ibid.

136 Ardis Collins, 16. 62

implies weakness, while unity represents power and, since there is not anything more powerful than unity itself, God must be omnipotent.

Just as extreme dispersion leads to infinite weakness, so in the highest unity

dwells infinite power. Act by its very nature contains no limit, for to be subject to

a limit is passion, which is the opposite of act. Therefore, act is only subject to a

limit to the extent that it depends on a substrate which possesses a degree of

passive potentiality. The divine act, however, subsists in itself. The active power,

insofar as it is power, is not itself confined to a fixed number of levels. For what

prevents the power as power from being thought about or from existing on one

level as on another? Therefore it accepts no limit as to its levels except from the

passive potentiality into which it is mixed, or from a limiting cause. But the divine

power is unmixed and is the highest power.137

Influenced by Neoplatonism, the dependence between the various levels in the hierarchy is explained in terms of unity and power because, according to Ficino, unity is power.

Ficino‘s identification of unity with power becomes evident when the hierarchy of the universe is explained by taking into account the concepts of potency and act. Here, potency is the capacity to receive and to endure influences, while act is the capacity to do things and impose influences. Potency belongs to corporeality, whereby nature has the potency to become anything due to its passive and receptive characteristics. On the other hand, the power to cause or act belongs to that which is incorporeal. Quality, which does not share any of the characteristics of the corporeal but becomes embedded in the body, is considered to be a mixture of potency and act. Soul maintains itself separated from the

137 Marsilio Ficino, Platonic Theology, Book II, Chapter IV, 1, 114. 63

body, so it is an act. But Soul is not considered as a pure act because, although it exerts movement on something, it is also receptive of what it lacks in itself. Angelic being is not pure act, because a pure act must be unique, while angelic being displays multiplicity.

Thus, angelic being is a combination of potency and act. ―[B]ecause it remains distinct from truth and dependent upon it, its essence is in potency to its act of understanding and receptive of those forms by which it understands.‖138 Angelic being is not unity but multiplicity because, for understanding, it depends on God, who is absolute unity and pure act.

In his description of God, Ficino introduces the principle of Being that, when associated with effective power, is considered as a necessary condition of action. Thus, a thing acts according to what it is: ―The mode of action follows the mode of being.‖139

God, then, has unlimited power because he is absolute unity, pure act, and Being itself.

His act or capacity to impose influences and to be causal is infinite, because the only thing which could limit the causal power of act is the passive potency of something external of itself, such as the potency of what is caused but does not cause. Based on the assumption that pure act is limitless, and that being is a necessary condition of action, it follows that pure Being is, in nature, infinite perfection. Being can only be limited, not by a flaw in itself, but by the nature of what has caused it. God has not been caused and, in

God, ―being itself is that which exists.‖140 Therefore, God is infinite being and has infinite power.

138 Ardis Collins, 18.

139 Ibid., 19.

140 Ardis Collins, 19.

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Being itself, considered absolutely, is immeasurable, because it can be

communicated to an infinite number of things and be thought about in

innumerable ways. So if the being of anything is finite, it must be either limited

by its cause or by its substrate. Neither of these conditions applies to God. In

infinite being is infinite power just as in finite being is finite power.141

The analysis of the relations between act and between potency and between unity and power explains the dynamic unity that holds the hierarchy together. From the perspective of mobility, it is necessary to concentrate on the causes for the existence of soul, which is the first level capable of movement. At the pinnacle of the hierarchy, God is unmoving absolute unity, followed by angelic being, which is plurality that is not subject to movement, then followed by soul, which retains plurality and is subject to movement. If soul lacked movement, soul would be angelic being. If, on the other hand, soul was totally movable, it would be quality.

Soul, as also described by Plotinus, is the first entity capable both of being mobile and of conferring movement to bodies. ―This proves that soul is the source of movement and that the uncontrolled turbulence of the universe issues from it.‖142 Ficino enumerates four causes that account for the existence of soul.

1. Soul contains something from what caused it, because anything caused by another

thing can trace something in itself back to its cause.

141 Marsilio Ficino, Platonic Theology, Book II, Chapter IV.2, 115.

142 Ibid., Book III, Chapter I.12, 225. 65

2. Soul has the capacity to be a mover that is not moved. If all existing things were

eternally moving, they could escape the hierarchy and wonder into infinity or

move in eternal circles in which the cause and the effect would be the same.

3. Soul is closer and its essence is identical to what it moves.

4. Soul has the capacity to move towards the things to be moved.

Without soul, bodies would not be able to move because angelic being and God, both immutable, are incapable of turning towards bodies. As bodies are totally passive, they would not be able to turn towards angelic being and God.

Therefore, there has to be some mutable nature which of its own accord turns

towards inactive bodies and arouses them. Always alert, it experiences changes in

itself before producing them in body, with the result that, just as corporeal

substance is made by spiritual substance, so corporeal movement is produced by

spiritual movement.143

In order to explain why soul can move itself, although it is dependent on God and angelic being, Ficino appeals to Plotinus‘s idea that soul has an innate desire to become like its progenitors in behavior and activity. In the act of becoming like angelic being and God, the soul moves itself. This movement, described as ―activity within time,‖144 flows from its nature but is incited by the levels above it. As in Plotinus‘s theory of emanation, what flows into the soul from God and angels is perpetual, invariable, and immediate. The effect that it produces on the soul has the same characteristics as angelic being and God.

But the soul, being weaker than God and the angels, acts gradually over time and has the

143 Marsilio Ficino, Platonic Theology , Book III, Chapter II.13, 227.

144 Ibid., Book III, Chapter I.15, 229.

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ability to descend from the divine to the corporeal and to ascend back to the divine by virtue of its own desire.

Ficino begins Chapter II of Book III of the Platonic Theology by stating that ―the soul is the middle level of being. It links and unites all the levels above it and below it when it ascends to the higher and descends to the lower levels.‖145 Thus, the soul exists halfway between the intelligible realm and the sensible realm. It is the third level from the top down and vice versa. Without soul at this level, the whole hierarchy would collapse. Soul is absolutely necessary in nature because angelic being, as unchangeable, is always being and quality, which can be set in motion at any time and is always in the process of becoming. Hence, a mean that shares the characteristics of both is required, something that is eternal like angelic being and that is capable of being moved, something ―which can always be in motion and alive, and which can by means of its motion infuse life into bodies.‖146 Soul has the capacity to link the eternal and the temporal due to its innate capacity of being both mobile and immobile. It is capable of descending to the temporal realm without renouncing the eternal and is capable of ascending to the higher realms without abandoning the lower. Borrowing from Plotinus‘s analogy of the Sun, Ficino compares the soul‘s activity with the activity of the Sun‘s light, which radiates from the Sun without detaching from it and mixes with the air without contamination. In the same fashion soul, which is spiritually united with the eternal through its knowledge, fills the temporal bodies with life, thus fusing the eternal and the temporal.

145 Marsilio Ficino, Platonic Theology, Book III, Chapter II.1, 231.

146 Ibid., Book III, Chapter II.1, 233.

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Since soul is not subject to extension or quantity, once it confers life to the body, it does this as a whole, as though it were the center of a circumference. The center is not attached to any point of the circumference and always holds the same position in regard to the whole circle.147 Thus, as in Plotinus, soul is concomitantly divided and undivided.

It is undivided because, although it is present in each of the body‘s parts, it is always present as a whole. It is divided, because although it has a stable and unified essence, it divides itself in many parts when it acts in space and time. It descends into plurality but, when in contemplation of the eternal, it becomes totally unified.

This is what implants itself in things mortal without itself becoming mortal. For

just as it implants itself as a whole and is not split asunder, so it withdraws as a

whole and it is not dispersed. And because it controls bodies while it also clings to

things divine, it is the mistress of bodies, not their companion. This is the greatest

in nature.148

Soul, as a universal medium, contains within itself the divine images of what is above it and uses these as patterns for what it produces at the lower level. As the true link for all being, it has the power to move into individual things while it conserves all things. As the center of nature, the soul is ―the mean of everything in the universe, the succession or chain of the world, the countenance of all things, and the knot and bond of the world.‖149

According to Ficino, the rational soul gives life to the body within time. It is intelligent, and its motion is perfect in its circularity. Its beginning and its end are the same. Thus,

147 Marsilio Ficino, Platonic Theology, Book III, Chapter II.4, 239.

148 Ibid., Book III, Chapter II.6, 243.

149 Ibid.

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soul begins as moved from itself and returns to itself, thereby creating movement for its own sake. It recognizes itself as spiritual and free from the constraints of matter by essence.

The mystical nature of the soul is analyzed by Ficino from a perspective that is different from that of the Neoplatonic tradition. In Plotinus, Plato‘s notion of the immortality of the soul had been overshadowed by the notion of Intellect as a derivation from the One and of soul as an emanation from Intellect. Ficino, on the other hand, is less concerned with the origin of the soul and more concerned with its return to ―being, life, and intellect—to the triad of which formally, originally, ultimately it is part—and thence its ascent within its own unity to mystical union with the transcendent One.‖150 It is here that Ficino departs from the Plotinian notion that the soul needs to pass through Intellect in its journey towards the One. Ficino follows Augustine‘s doctrine of common truth, in which there is one truth contemplated by all souls but not one intellect for all souls.

Ficino holds ―that all intellects are plunged into the same font of truth, as if to contemplate the work of the artificer in that one idea (ratio) through which he has produced it.‖151 Closely related to the ascent of the soul is Ficino‘s theory of the immortality of the soul, which constitutes the central theme of his Platonic Theology.

Ficino defends the notion that the soul is immortal by explaining the relationship and difference between essence and being. While essence is what a thing is in itself,

―being is the act of the essence and its presence in the nature of things.‖152 It belongs to a

150 Marsilio Ficino, Platonic Theology, xv.

151 Ardis Collins, 8.1

152 Ibid., 47. 69

thing by virtue of its form. Every essence has the capacity to receive being, and being is a form. Forms, which by definition are that which exists, are immortal. Essence, as a form, is also immortal because it is not constrained by space or time. There are forms that belong to a body and are limited by temporality. Nevertheless, the form remains immortal due to its own nature and to being, which does not exist except through matter. Other forms have existence of their own, so that what is received is received with relation to the capacity of the recipient. Therefore, if the essence is immortal, it would receive being as immortal. The rational soul, which does not have its being in matter, is different from other forms because it is immortal due both to its essence and to its being. Since matter does not have the capacity to think, the action of thinking that is executed by the mind follows the subject of being, and the form of the action is the same as the form of being.

The human mind has existence because it belongs to an existing person. Its form of action and its form of being is human. But the rational soul is capable of endless knowledge, an action in which matter is not involved, since mind can know things independently from matter and material conditions. As matter is characterized by multiplicity and mutability, soul possesses unalterable knowledge. Through knowledge, it brings things to simplicity and unites them under ―one universal idea.‖153 Rational soul has the capacity to act independently from matter, and its embodiment is not essential for its being, since the soul‘s being belong to the soul itself. The rational soul does not originate from matter, because all the forms which attain their being from the power of matter decay as a result of the same power. Therefore, the rational soul must have its origin in the power of

153 Ardis Collins, 51.

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essence, which by definition is a ―capacity for being.‖154 As everything corporeal owes its existence to corporeal act, that which is spiritual, like essence, must exist through spiritual act. In both cases, the pure ability to be created is nothing if stripped from the actual act of creation. Thus, when the soul becomes being, it has to be by the power of

God who alone has the ability to create ex nihilo. According to his immutable nature,

God gives to things what is suitable to them. Therefore, God creates rational soul with the innate capacity of being, a necessary and unconditional existence.

The soul is the principle of being for the body and its parts, capable of conferring essence and power when it is intrinsically united with the body. If the union collapses so does the essence, because the manner in which something relates to being is identical to the manner in which something relates to unity. Thus, the soul can give being to the body if and only if it is present in the body. This idea of intimate unifying presence leads

Ficino into a discussion of God‘s role as the ultimate source of being and unity. God‘s divine presence is in each one of the levels of the metaphysical hierarchy and man, burning with desire for unity with God, aspires to discover and to know him. The process of examination is an introspective one in which man, through his soul in the act of contemplation, reaches towards God who is perfect unity. In his letter to Giovanni

Cavalcanti, Ficino explains that when the soul is in union with the body, it is occupied in multiple activities that provoke agitation and confusion. It is also more engaged with temporal activities than with eternal ones, since that is God‘s assignment for it in its service to man. During this period, the soul cannot see clearly the incorporeal realm. But,

154 Ardis Collins, 53. 71

when those activities decline, the mind can see the divine because, freed from the body, mind is capable of knowledge from within, unencumbered by sensory experiences.

Then indeed the soul will observe through itself, and it will see the light of

intellect more clearly than it now sees the light of the senses through the glass

windows of this bodily prison. Entirely at peace, it will perceive through its own

perfect transparency the highest impressions in the light of the divine sun. So

bright is that light, that the light of this sun becomes a shadow in comparison, and

because it is so clear it is hidden from impure eyes but fully manifest to those that

are pure. Nor will the mind then gaze as if at painted images, but rather at real

objects, of which all other things are images.155

Ficino, following Plato, compares the role played by God in the act of knowing to the role played by the sun in the act of seeing. As there are three components in the act of seeing, that is, motion, sight, and the light that binds them, there are three components in understanding. These are the act by which intellect moves the mind, the act of knowing, and God who binds them. Here, the intellect represents truth, knowledge represents science, and God represents goodness. Thus, ―what we know in things is their truth and what we desire in them is their goodness.‖156 God, who is both truth and goodness, has the faculty to unite the knower with the known, and since the same discourse that applies to knowledge can be applied to desire, God also unites the lover and the object of desire.157 Soul desires God, who represents absolute goodness and is above intellect or

155 Marsilio Ficino, Meditations on the Soul, 44.

156 Ardis Collins, 77.

157 Ibid.

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being, because only God can attract and transform the soul. Being relates to God not as his effect but as a demonstration, through its imperfection and incompleteness, of the perfection of God. In agreement with Plotinus, Ficino explains that the perfection of a thing depends on how close it is to the perfect being. From his knowledge of the divine ideas or intellect, God knows himself as perfect and absolute being and ―as imitable in a certain finite mode of being.‖158 As first principle, God creates soul and everything below him through the light of being and, ―by knowing all things in this light, the soul recognizes a certain unity among them; all are understood in terms of being, which is to say that all are understood in their relation to that one cause who is the cause of being.‖159

When all the different essences are known as effects of being, God is known as unity that contains plurality within itself.

In its desire to unite with God, the soul detaches itself from the body and turns inwards in order to know things through the light proper to its own capacity. It then turns to the common light or truth, which illuminates and acquires true knowledge of all things created by God. In this highest state of bliss, the soul loses all multiplicity and becomes stable, so it can ascend to God and become one with him, not due to its own power but to the presence of God in it. In Ficino‘s letter to Michele Mercati, titled “A theological dialogue between God and soul,” God explains to the soul that He is with it and within it.

Therefore, soul does not need ―to be drawn in many directions in order to take hold of

[Him],‖160 because He is unity in itself. The soul will be able to ascend ―by understanding

158 Ardis Collins, 79.

159 Ibid., 87.

160 Marsilio Ficino, Meditations on the Soul, 51.

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and love beyond any kind of intellect, to life itself, pure existence, absolute being.‖161

The soul which, by virtue of being incorporeal in its rise towards God, can abandon the material world with its constantly changing forms reaches the intelligence of angelical being, also incorporeal but unchangeable. Here, it finds that which creates itself, which creates everything else without limits, and which is absolutely pure. The union of the soul with God is possible through the ―transforming power of the love of God which takes complete possession of the mind and makes it divine.‖162

In Ficino‘s theory of love, intellect and will have the same goal. While intellect deals with the subjective, the will is the force behind the love which moves soul and body into action to obtain the object of their desire.163 Thus, intellect is responsible for the inward movement of the soul and will is responsible for outward movement. These constitute the two Platonic wings, as described by Ficino that carry the soul in its flight toward God.164 The role of the will in Ficino is Plotinian, but the difference between intellect and will is not. According to Ficino, intellect and will are not the same, even in

God. Plotinus, on the other hand, claims identity of the will and being in the One and of will and intellect in the Nous. Although both philosophers claim that desire motivates the soul‘s contemplative journey towards God, Plotinus claims that the journey is an intellectual experience, while Ficino claims that it is an emotional one. Ficino, following

Plotinus and Pseudo-Dionysius, also emphasizes the role of the contemplative life. But

161 Marsilio Ficino, Meditations on the Soul, 51.

162 Ardis Collins, 88.

163 Laura Westra, ―Love and Beauty in Ficino and Plotinus,‖ in Ficino and Renaissance Neoplatonism, ed. by Konrad Eisenbichler and Olga Zorzi Pugliese, (Toronto: Dovehouse Editions Canada, 1986), 181.

164 Paul O. Kristeller, 44.

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since the humanists attributed to man an extraordinary importance, the belief in immortality was considered to be man‘s ability to achieve another dimension. In Ficino‘s case, immortality becomes essential to his understanding of human life and of its highest goal. He claims that such a goal is not exclusive to a few people but is attainable by a great number of people and attainable forever.165 According to Ficino, the love of God and the knowledge of God constitute two different aspects of the same experience, which

―holds the key to Ficino‘s metaphysics and ethics alike.‖166 For Ficino, man accomplishes more by his love for God than by his understanding.167 Based upon his interpretation of

Plato‘s definition of love, combined with theories of friendship developed by Aristotle and , the Christian view of love extolled by St. Paul, and the notion of courtly love of the Tuscan poets, Ficino develops a theory of human love in which the love of God is the result of the love of one human being for another. Ficino sees the mutual love between people as a preparation for the love of God, which represents the ultimate goal of man‘s desire. Any relationship between two people is a spiritual union based on their individual love for God. Therefore, God is always the third component in any human friendship and love, as the bond and guardian of such a relationship. Proper love and friendship between human beings always originates in the love of each individual for

God, as manifested in the person‘s desire to ascend to God.168 The inner ascent of the soul constitutes, for Ficino, the central goal of human existence as a representation of the

165 Paul O. Kristeller, 44.

166Ibid., 45.

167 Laura Westra, 182.

168 Paul O. Kristeller, 48.

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human good and of man‘s moral life. The entirety of Ficino‘s moral teachings, as expressed in his letters, is a synthesis of the rules which would lead man into a contemplative life. Only the person who can achieve this kind of life would be free from the earthly worries and ―animated by his inner and insight, he will know and do the right thing under any given circumstances.‖169 If man could not reach this goal, the dignity conferred to him by his central position in the configuration of the universe would have no purpose, and man would be more unhappy than the animals that can fulfill their own natural needs.

I will conclude this final chapter with the beautiful words of Ficino, as he wrote them to Giovanni Cavalcanti in his Meditations on the Soul.

That is why Plato advises us to retreat from ―here‖ to ―there‖—that is, from

attachment to the body and involvement with worldly affairs, to the cultivation of

the soul. Otherwise we cannot avoid evil.

[…] Such freedom we gain principally through the three virtues of prudence,

, and piety. Prudence recognizes what we owe to God and what to the

world. Justice gives its due to the world, and piety its due to God. Thus the man of

prudence yields his body, as a limb of the world, to the turmoil of the world

wherever it happens to move it. But his soul, the offspring of God, he removes

from all dealings with the body and freely commits to the guidance of divine

providence.

169 Paul O. Kristeller, 45.

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My dearest Giovanni [Cavalcanti], if we follow this golden rule of Plato, with the

wind of heaven behind us we shall circumnavigate successfully this vast

whirlpool of fortune, and quite untroubled, sail safely into harbor. Farewell.170

170 Marsilio Ficino, Meditations on the Soul, 119 77

CONCLUSION

Marsilio Ficino considered that the Neoplatonism of Plotinus was ―the soul philosophy, the living light that had shone across the darkness of corporeal death bringing hope and comfort to the minds of the ancients.‖171 And, in accord with St. Augustine, he believed that the soul is essentially immortal by origin and of angelic and divine character, because it was created as an image of the eternal. Although some passages of his writings show Ficino‘s rational strive to convince the skeptic human mind of his assumptions about the soul, these also reflect the difficulties he encountered from introducing and embracing Neoplatonic ideas. Based on his ―philosophico-religious concerns,‖172 he rebuilt a traditional philosophy that, from the ancient Greeks to Plotinus, had established the harmony between paganism and Christianity. He successfully argued for the acceptance of Neoplatonic philosophy, because he was able to recognize the impossibility of reconciling Christian beliefs with Aristotelianism in areas such as the eternal character of the world, the soul‘s immortality, the unifying nature of intellect, and the ―astrological that regarded the individual person, and indeed religion itself, as transient phenomena bound by astrological cycles.‖173

171 Marsilio Ficino, Platonic Theology, xiv.

172 The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, ed. by Charles B. Schmitt and Quentin Skinner, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 237.

173 Ibid. 78

Neoplatonism, characterized by an intricate and complex corpus of metaphysical, ethical, and psychological canons, provided the grounds for Ficino‘s cosmological challenge to merge the cyclical aspect of the universe with the religious notion of the soul, in order to secure its cosmic position. The site of the rational soul at the center of the hierarchy of being and as a link between the incorporeal and the corporeal is an acknowledgment of its function as the giver of life to the sensible world. Accordingly, the rational soul, which includes the human soul, marks the ontological difference between the two realms and institutes a continuous interaction between them. According to the Neoplatonic tradition, this specific location of the soul guarantees an understanding of the universe, its forces, and the relation between the five-substance levels of Ficino‘s hierarchy of being in which he can find ―an ever-changing and different reflection of God‘s actions.‖174

Ficino, familiar with Aristotle‘s cosmology of celestial and elemental spheres surrounding a static earth, tried to decrease the gap between the intelligible, or supralunar, realm and the sensible, or sublunar, realm. The ability of man to return to its source in an ascendant vertical movement, as also explained by Plotinus, establishes the ontological nature and function of the rational soul as the link between the intelligible and the sensible realms. The soul, as a celestial body, decreases the gap between the two worlds because it has the ability to give life to the corporeal world through its divine nature, in a descendent movement, and also to ascent towards the divine. These two movements are the basis for the formulation of soul‘s unique ontological status and for the idea that the higher part of the soul is never attached to the body, an idea well developed by Plotinus in his description of the soul as the third hypostasis.

174 The Cambridge History of Renaissance, 237. 79

In conclusion, although it is true that the immortality of the soul had been defended from Plato to Augustine and other Christian thinkers, and that Marsilio Ficino had read and adopted several arguments from each of these thinkers, it becomes clear that

Ficino adopted Plotinus hierarchy of being as a dominant component of his own thought.

His formulations on the three hypostases and the ascendant and descendent movements characteristics of the soul allow him to develop his own hierarchy of the universe, in which soul anchors the metaphysics of the structure and reaffirms its ontological nature as immortal being.

Ficino‘s doctrine of the immortality of the soul and his arguments in support of it, ensure his influence on the thought of many 16th century philosophers. Ficino may also have indirectly influenced the adoption of the immortality of the soul by the Catholic

Church which declared this notion a dogma of Catholicism at the Lateran Council in

1512.175 Ficino considered the need to worship a higher being to be a natural need in human beings, for the love and knowledge of God belong to man as ―part of his dignity and excellence, and compensation for the many defects and weakness of his nature.‖176

Ficino attempted to establish the harmony between religion and philosophy, so that true religion was considered to be Christianity and true philosophy was considered to be

Platonism. Ficino was convinced that Platonic reason was essential for understanding the

Christian dogmas, and he firmly believed that his mission was to restore the truth of philosophy for the advantage of religion. He believed that those who cannot be guided simply by faith can appeal to reason or intellect in their return to God.

175 Paul O. Kristeller, 47.

176 Ibid. 80

Although Renaissance Platonism eventually lost its dominance in the Western philosophical tradition, the eclectic philosophy of Marsilio Ficino, imbued as it was with

Neoplatonism, constitutes an important chapter in the historical development of

Platonism.

81

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