Armstrong, A. H.
Plotinus, Enneads II (1966)
Plotinus particularly disliked the idea that the divine power which made the universe might change its mind and destroy it. He had already attacked it in his treatise Against the Gnostics (II 9, 4).
Plotinus particularly disliked the idea that the divine power which made the universe might change its mind and destroy it. He had already attacked it in his treatise Against the Gnostics (II 9, 4).
The treatise as it stands in the Enneads is a most powerful protest on behalf of Hellenic philosophy against the un-Hellenic heresy (as it was from the Platonist as well as the orthodox Christian point…
Short statement of the doctrine of the three hypostases, the One, Intellect and Soul ; there cannot be more or fewer than these three. Criticism of attempts to multiply the hypostases, and especially of the…
From this point to the end of ch. 12 Plotinus is attacking a Gnostic myth known to us best at present in the form it took in the system of Valentinus. The Mother, Sophia Achamoth,…
This early treatise, written in a style which suggests that it was intended for a comparatively wide circle of readers, is particularly interesting in a number of ways. It shows more clearly than any other…
Chapter 13 sums up the argument, and prepares the way for the polemical appendix refuting Gnostic ideas of spiritual reality which occupies II 9.
Editors disagree on where, if anywhere, in the Enneads this fuller treatment is to be found, and it seems better to suppose with Harder that Plotinus may never have carried out his plan for a…
1, 23. L’univers grand et beau. Réminiscence possible du Timée 92 c : ὅδε ὁ κόσμος […] μέγιστος καὶ […] κάλλιστος. Sur le même thème, cf. V 8 [31] 8 et 9…
Cette théorie d’un démiurge qui crée le monde, puis l’abandonne à lui-même, puis le corrige, est sans doute une théorie dos gnostiques qu’a combattus Plotin. Elle a un parallèle frappant dans les idées de Valentin…
Ce traité a, dans ces derniers temps, appelé tout particulièrement l’intérêt des historiens des religions (note 1 : C. Schmidt, Plotins Stellung zum Gnosticismus und kirchlichen Christentum, Leipzig, 1901 ; Bousset, Hauptprobleme der Gnosis. p. 186…