PLOTINUS ENNEAD I.2.7.

5: A DIFFERENT
BY
H.
J.
BLUMENTHAL
Enn. I.2.7.1-6 in
Henry
and
Schwyzer's
editio minor
(O.C.T. 1964)2)
Until
Henry
and
Schwyzer
restored the MSS
reading
to
the text all
editors,
and
translators,
from Kirchhoff to Harder's
second edition
(1956)
followed
Porphyry's
Sententiae
32,
p.
29.6L,
and read
Cilento,
ad
loc.,
while
acutely suggesting
that
Porphyry's <al<6rqq
was to be attributed to him as author rather
than editor
(of
the
Enneads),
nevertheless did not venture to
depart
from the
tradition4).
This editors' choice
may
be seen not
simply
as
a failure to make the distinction made
by Cilento,
but also as an
indication of unease with the transmitted text. Yet
<al<6rqq
has no
authority
other than its
presence
in
Porphyry's summary,
while
1)
Reflection on the text of this
passage
was
provoked by
a
paper
on I.
2 given by
J.
M. Dillon to the Northern Association for Ancient
Philosophy
at
Nottingham
in
April
1981. It will
appear
as
part
of Plotinus and Philo on levels
of virtue,
in
Festschrift
H.
Drrie,
Jahrb.
fr Antike und
Christentum,
Ergnzungsband
10
(1983).
I am
grateful
to Dr H.-R.
Schwyzer
for some
very
detailed comments on
my proposal,
but hasten to add that he thinks is to be
retained,
and to Professor W.
J.
Verdenius for
suggesting
some
improvements.
2)
In the addenda to the editio
maior,
vol. III
(1973), 352, Henry
and
Schwyzer
now
accept
Kirchhoff's deletion of in line 1.
3) Similarly Macrobius,
In Somn.
Scip. 1.8.10, II.39.8.W,
but as
Henry
has
shown,
Macrobius follows
Porphyry
rather than
Plotinus,
cf. P.
Henry,
Un
"hapax legomenon"
de
Plotin,
in
Milanges
Bidez,
Annuaire de l'Inst. de Philol. et
d'Hist. Orientales 2
(1934),
477-8
(hereafter Henry).
For
Porphyry
as editor of
Plotinus cf.
Porph.,
Vita Plot. 24.
4)
Plotino,
Enneadi. Prima versione
integra
e commentario
critico,
I
(Bari 1947),
338,
but cf.
already Henry,
484-5 and Plotin et
l'Occident,
Spicilegium
sacrum
Lovaniense 15
(Louvain 1934),
161.
90
auXo',Mq I
has the unanimous
testimony
of the MSS even
though
it
occurs nowhere else.
Sharing
the editors' dissatisfaction with I should like to
propose
aurora,
which could
very easily
have been
changed
to
at an
early stage
in the transmission.
Al<6<qq
too would be
a
hapax legomenon, LSJ
and editors of Sextus
Empiricus
notwith-
standing (see below),
and so has the
disadvantage,
as
compared
with of not even
being
well attested
anywhere.
Never-
theless there do seem to be
good
reasons for its installation here.
Let us
begin by reconsidering
This
reading
was
supported
with
strong arguments by Henry,
in a
paper
devoted
exclusively
to
its),
and these
arguments
have been endorsed as con-
vincing by Schwyzer
in his discussion of the
Sententiae6).
In
spite
of
this
weighty support
doubts must remain. In
particular Henry's
arguments
were directed
primarily against
the then
generally
accepted
and
many
of them would
apply
with
equal,
or
even
greater,
force to a defence of The
objection
to
O'CuX6-Mq
is that it seems
inadequate
in the
context,
that is as a
description,
or
indication,
of what the
equivalent
of
courage
would be in
Nous,
where the virtues as such do not exist
(cf. 1.2.7.1-3).
That Nous is
immaterial, and,
unlike
soul,
unrelated to matter in
any way,
is too
commonplace
a characteristic of it to use for a
special
feature of the
hypostasis
which
might
be taken as an
analogue
of
courage. Henry
cites as a
parallel VI. 2 .8.4 7),
but there a 6' ga-ctv &v7?a has much
more
point, being given
as a
description
of entities in whose case
being
and
being thought
coincide.
Further,
it could be
argued
that
xa0apo"v
in the second
part
of the
description
io al<06
yiviw
xa9apov
in our 1.2 text
already
includes the sense of immaterial.
KaOocp6v
is
certainly
used in this sense as a
description
of To
voq<6v
elsewhere
(cf. IV.7.10.31-32).
But too much
weight
should not be
given
to this
argument, particularly
since there is an intentional
element of
tautology
in
any
case.
5) Henry,
475-85.
6)
H.-R.
Schwyzer,
Plotinisches und
unplotinisches
in den 'AOPMAI des
Porphyrios,
in Atti del
convegno
internaz. sul tema Plotino e il
Neoplatonismo
in Oriente e in
Occidente,
Roma, 5-9.10.1970,
Accademia Naz. dei
Lincei,
Problemi attuali di scienza e di
cultura 198
(Rome 1974),
226 and n. 13.
7) Henry,
479.
91
For
Henry
has shown
that,
whatever stands in the
place
of
should be
equivalent
to the second
part
of the
description.
His case rests
mainly
on the demonstration that each of the
quasi-
virtues is identified
by
a
single feature8):
thus
aocpia
and
which
describe v6qJiq
are
equivalent. Tal<6rqq
is excluded
by
this
constraint,
unless one
pays
no attention to While
&vX6rqq
might
be a
satisfactory equivalent
to
xa8ap6v,
it is less
satisfactory
as one to
iq'
al<06
iiivelv. Henry
cites as a further
parallel
VI.8.6.22-36 where TO 0"tuXov is
equated
with
e'Xe6Oepov,
and
that is
equivalent
to TO
iq' Henry,
who takes the
thought
of
this
passage
as an elaboration of
I.2.7,
thinks the
equivalence
of
&vXov and
iq'
is a
strong argument
for
&vX6rqq
in our
text9).
That contention
is, however,
open
to some
doubt,
most
par-
ticularly
because in VI.8.6
iq' appears
to have its standard
technical sense of
being
within our
power
or
control,
whereas the
al<06 in 1.2.7 does not. The reference of l3J<1
aac?aiEpov
in
VI.8.6 line
26,
which
Henry
takes as
being
to the discussion in 1.2
is rather internal to that in VI. 8.
Recently
OLV?OT1?S
has been defended
again by
M. del Carmen
Fernandez
Llorens,
who
gives
1.8.4 and 5 as evidence in its
favour'O).
1.8.5 does not seem
helpful.
1.8.4,
where 8etXLa in line 10
combined with the
description
of soul
inclining
to
Nous,
eXd
xa8apa
xai
eX1tcr'tpCX1t'tCXL,
in lines
25-26,
merely
reinforces the
equivalence
of
xa9apoS
and lack of but that is not of
great
significance:
lack of
5X-q being
a
negation
of 6etXL'a
might
be,
but it is
applied
to
soul,
which is
perhaps
a reason for not
applying
it to Nous
in I.2.7. In
fact,
in so far as all the
paradeigmatic quasi-virtues
of
Nous are an
upgraded
version of virtues in the
soul,
is
perhaps
too close to the <X7t<x9eKx which is
given
as a
description
of
a'v6pt'(X
in the soul at 1.2.6.25. After
all,
eX1tcX9e.LCX does consist
precise-
ly
in the soul's
turning away
from matter and so that
something
else should be said about
quasi-courage
in Nous.
So much for the case
against
Can
one justify
the substitu-
tion of
aurora
as a more
satisfactory reading?
Its sense would seem
8) Henry,
478-9.
9) Henry,
480-2.
10)
Plotino,
Perficit ser. 2.9
(1978),
19 n. 63.
11)
Cf.
e.g.
III.6.5,
and H.
J.
Blumenthal,
Plotinus'
Psychology (The Hague
1971),
54-6.
92
to be
particularly apposite.
To state the
obvious,
Nous consists of
Forms,
and the standard Platonic
description
of Forms includes
that
they
are auto io x. One would thus
explain aurora
as an
abstract noun formed like the common
<al<6<qq
and and
meaning `having
the
quality
of
being
<xur6
r6\
`itselfness'. Will this
do as a characterization of oiov
av8pia?
Yes,
because it would be a
heightened
version of the Platonist view that
courage
consists in not
being
affected
by
externals: for this we
might compare
the state-
ment in the Platonic
Definitions
that it is
gEt;
1tO
q6fiov
(412A3)
as well as the
description
of
courage
as o'c7zdcOetcx in 1.2.6. A
word that included that
meaning
would be
appropriately equivalent
in
meaning
to To
iq'
al<06
?Ve.LV xot0ap6v.
It
is,
of
course,
always
useful in
understanding
a Plotinian text to
look for a Platonic text which Plotinus
may
have had in mind as a
basis for his own
reflections,
or
misinterpretations.
An obvious can-
didate here is Phaedo 78D 3-7. auio r6
lJov,
auro r6
xaX6v,
auro
xcxO''tov 0
EaTLV, e,
To
1 ov, e, yfi
1t0'tE.
(.rLETaaO?'1'?V v
Xat
v '1?VTCVOUV
&d
v
,

, < , , ,
<XUTMV J 6
eam,
yovoit iq
ov auio xa9
avio,
xaTa Tauia
lxit
xai o1to'te.
ollayfl
<X\?o(o30?V
olliyiav
If
Plotinus had had this text in mind
al<6<qq
could well reflect the
series of cx'to To...
there, which, moreover,
is followed
by liovoet6'eq
ov al<O xa9' that with the remainder of the
sentence,
could
easily
be
represented by iq'
aurou
iiivelv xoc0ocp6v 12).
Could it be that
Porphyry, reading
Plotinus with the same Platonic
text,
or at least a
similar
one,
such as the
nearby
Phaedo 79D
1 -2 13),
in
mind,
focused
on
lhJa6<mq
'tcx'tcX
EXet
and therefore wrote As a
counter-argument
on the same lines one
might
refer to Phaedo
67A,
which would
perhaps suggest O'CUX6T71q
as an
equivalent
of
?t6vetv
xa8ap6v,
but since that
passage
is
basically
a discussion of
purifica-
tion it is less
obviously
relevant to Nous than
78D,
in so far as that is
so
clearly
about Forms. Another
possible explanation
for
Porphyry's change
is that he was
removing
an unconventional
expression
in favour of
something
more
straightforward.
Finally,
we must ask how an
original
al<6<qq
would have become
Most
obviously by simple misreading.
That could have
12)
This
might
have been reinforced
by
a text like
Rep.
572A 1-2
where,
though
the context is
different,
is
coupled
with
13)
Or
perhaps,
less close at
hand,
Phil. 59C 2-4.
93
been abetted
by
an
unphilosophical
transcriber
finding aurora
incomprehensible,
whereas even if
unprecedented,
would
have a clear
meaning 14).
Thus,
for what it is
worth, auioir?S
is the
more
difficult,
the easier
reading,
a
point
that should be
used with some care since
unthinking application
of the lectio
dif, ficilior principle
seems to have been
responsible
for the
appearance
of
avio?tr?S
in the
passage
of Sextus
Empiricus
which is
considered below.
Having argued
for its insertion in the text of Plotinus at
I.2.7.5,
we must now consider
briefly
the other
occurrences,
or
supposed
occurrences,
of the word. Let it be said
immediately
that it will
result from this that the
entry
in
LSJ is misleading,
and, moreover,
that on the evidence
given
there it would have no business to
appear
in the lexicon at all.
LSJ
reads:
"identity,
S.E.lLI.
10.261,
v.l. in
Porph.
Sent. 39".
'Identity'
is
surely
not a suitable translation: the
Greek for that is the well-attested At S.E. Adv. Math.
X.261 the editors cannot be
right
to
print
which is
preceded by
xocr',
a clear case of
haplography
for xar'a
which in
any
case
appears
in the best MS and
is, further,
required
by
the
context,
since the
expression
is
opposed
to xa9' At
Porphyry
Sent.
39,
p.
47.3L, auroT?Tt. appears
in a Stobaeus MS.
LSJ give
it as a varia
lectio,
but
again
which the editors do
print
here,
is
strongly suggested,
if not as in the Sextus
passage
clearly required:
it is
preceded by
io XKTK 'tcx'tcX
'6'xetv
to
which it should be
equivalent, though
in this case it could be
claimed that the
preceding
words had caused an
original avTOTr?T?
to
be
changed
to
Lastly, av?oi?ios appears
in the MSS of
the w
family
at Plotinus
III. 7.11.51,
but there it is
opposed
to To
yiwtv
Ev Tw so that the of the other
MSS,
which all
editors
except
Perna
print,
is almost
certainly
correct. If it were
not,
then the association with
?Le'vetv
here and in 1.2.7 would have some
mutually
corroborative
value,
and the
reading proposed
for 1.2.7.5
would not be a
hapax.
Whether or not this
proposal
is
accepted,
the
entry
in
LSJ should
be
changed;
if it be not
accepted,
it is
arguable
that the word should
simply disappear.
University
of LIVERPOOL
14)
For the common confusion of with cf.
J. Jackson, Marginalia
Scaenica
(Oxford 1955),
153.