Scholars have generally disagreed about the precise systematization of Aphrodite and her various forms in Plotinus’ Enneads, described most prominently (though not exclusively) in Enneads III.5 [50]. What I believe becomes apparent from reviewing the ways scholars have struggled with this question is a persistent failure to appreciate, among all the Gods discussed by Plotinus, the pervasiveness and centrality of Aphrodite to his thinking.
In this two part post, I will address this challenge. In the present post, I will survey the way scholars have attempted to understand the thealogy (from Ancient Greek thea, “Goddess”) of III.5. In the following post, I will give a systematic account of Aphrodite at every level of Plotinus’ system of thought with the exception of the One / Good. To argue for a ‘henological’ form of Aphrodite, on the basis of reading I.6 [1] 6-9 through the lens of VI.9 [10] 9 and III.5 [50], I have devoted a forthcoming paper (to be presented at the 2026 Annual Conference of the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy).
I believe in a certain respect this confusion can be observed already in Marsilio Ficino’s 1475 Commentary on the Enneads. Here, I will quote Ficino’s discussions of III.5.2, wherein Plotinus asks explicitly ‘who is Aphrodite?’ (III.5 [50] 2.12-13), from the edition and translation of Gersh, with some Latin for clarification:
”…and moreover that intellectual soul which is most immediately generated from the first intellect and is therefore primarily intellectual is not able to come [non posse coire], together with matter [cum materia], into the communal form of a single composite. For this soul is both an intellect of a certain kind and a soul simpliciter, while the life that is immediately born from it is as though a soul of a certain kind and nature simpliciter, this latter being now able to come into union with matter. Therefore, that intellectual soul that is in the world [intellectualem itaque animam illam in mundo] we call the first Venus. Let the second life that is immediately infused into the world from that source be called the second Venus. In both of these, a perpetual love flourishes and is stirred to excitement around the beauty of the divine mind toward generating in itself a similar beauty in the case of the first Venus and toward expressing to the extent of its powers this beauty in matter in the case of the second Venus. Indeed, Plotinus thinks — in line with Plato — that the intellectual world-soul [intellectualem mundi animam], as long as it exercises an internal activity around God by understanding him and willing, conceives in itself something not imaginary but natural and subsistent. In this teaching he imitates (as I believe) the mystery of the Christian Trinity.”
Ficino rightfully notes that the “most immediately generated” Soul, which is ‘simply’ Soul as a hypostasis, is non posse coire cum materia, as Plotinus emphasizes in III.5 [50] 2.21-24
…ὡς μηδὲ εἰς τὰ τῇδε ἐλθεῖν μήτε ἐθελήσασαν μήτε δυναμένην, μὴ κατὰ τὰ κάτω φῦσαν βαίνειν χωριστὴν οὖσάν τινα ὑπόστασιν καὶ ἀμέτοχον ὕλης οὐσίαν…
“…as she is not to come among sensible things and is not wishing to and is not able to descend to the natural things below, being a certain hypostasis without participation in matter…” (My translation)
However, Ficino does not correctly distinguish the two forms of Aphrodite. When Ficino proceeds to discuss how this hypostatic Soul and the world-soul are both called Venus (Aphrodite), the slightest prepositional phrase he adds constitutes a major departure from Plotinus’ discussion of the Soul hypostasis. By saying intellectualem itaque animam illam in mundo, Ficino adds a description of the first (ie, ‘Heavenly’) Venus as “in the world.” The Heavenly Aphrodite as described by Plotinus is entirely transcendent of this mundus, as Plotinus says in III.5 [50] 2.29-30:
…καὶ τῆς ἱδρύσεως πρὸς τὸ γεννῆσαν ἱκανὸν ὂν κατέχειν ἄνω…
“…and her foundation in her sufficient producer withholds above…”
The sense here of ἱδρύσεως is not a ‘foundation’ as in a cause, but as the LSJ notes with respect to the Platonic uses of this term in Republic 427b and Laws 909e refers to the foundation, setting up or establishment of temples or of statues in temples. This connects this passage to other, rather famous passages in Plotinus wherein he discusses the vision of the intelligible world as similar to the sight of a statue in or in front of a temple (V.1.6.5-15). The implication of the above-quoted passage is of a cultic statue of the Heavenly Aphrodite which, befitting her who does not in any way partake in matter (III.5.2.19-27), is as it were a statue without matter. This connects this passage also to other famous sections of the Enneads, such as the description of a contemplative practice of ascent to the intelligible in V.8 [31] 9: imagining the entire cosmos as a sphere, before, among other acts of negation, subtracting the matter from it.
In his Commentary on Plato’s Symposium, Ficino further argues that the heavenly Aprhodite represents something which “is not proper to the soul, but an imitation of Angelic [ie, Noetic] contemplation,” (Jayne 1944, 191). He thus appears not to follow very closely Plotinus’ own identifications of Aphrodite with Soul, perhaps motivated to make a clearer delineation between Soul and ‘Angelic Mind’ (Intellect). This would fit well with Marije Martijn’s assessment in her article on Aphrodite among the Neoplatonists, that Ficino is “much closer to later Neoplatonism than he is to Plotinus” (Martijn 2022, 192): namely, that the Plotinian Aphrodite’s multiple forms united in a single divine name proposes a continuity between individual souls, a cosmic soul, and a soul which remains ‘undescended’ into the sensible cosmos, eternally within Intellect though still remaining Soul. Perhaps Ficino is motivated by a desire to show Plotinus’ ‘imitation’ of the economy of the Trinity (wherein the Holy Spirit proceeds from, rather than remaining in and proceeding from, a conceptually prior hypostasis).
While not repeating this particular mistake, modern scholarship has encountered challenges of a similar kind as what can be observed in Ficino’s Commentaries.
Armstrong 1967, 174-175, commenting on III.5.2, does not seem to take seriously the thealogical nature of Plotinus exegetical project, given he says that the “allegorisation of the cult-titles Ourania and Pandemos and the different mythical accounts of the birth of Aphrodite (which has no basis in actual Greek religious practice), appears in the speech of Pausanias in the Symposium”. This approach retains an outdated approach towards the broader Neoplatonic allegorical tradition as metaphysical reductionism, with the added bonus erroneously claiming the basis of the allegorisation has “no basis in actual Greek religion practice”.
The collection of translations under Brisson and Pradeau read the two forms of Aphrodite as divisions within the world-soul, on the basis that Zeus (in the exegesis of Hesiod’s Theogony in V.8) has already established Zeus as Soul. This is, of course, complicated by the fact that Plotinus himself actually denies (III.5 [50] 8.10-15) that Zeus represents Soul in the specific context of exegesis of the myth of the birth of Eros as retold in Symposium. The comments by Flamand on this matter seem to attempt to maintain a crosstextual continuity between the identifications or assignments of Plotinus’ various exegeses of Theogony and Symposium which cannot be assumed prima facie. In a previous post, I discuss how understanding these exegeses in light of a nascent, Plotinian form of henadological polytheistic theology (which appears more systematized in later thinkers such as Proclus) allows us to preserve the “flexibility of [Plotinus’] exegetical technique” (Kalligas 2014, 513).
Gerson follows a similar path. In their footnote on V.8.13.15-20, they describe that “Zeus is the hypostasis Soul and Aphrodite is the soul of the universe. Cf. III.5.8.2-3”. The passage to which they refer rather interestingly shows Plotinus questioning whether reading Zeus as Soul, and what follows in III.5.10-15 is his account for Zeus as representing Intellect, not Soul.
Gerson, Flamand, Brisson and Pradeau thus each make errors in interpretation similar to that of Ficino’s other comments on Plato’s Symposium, which imply that the two forms of Aphrodite both correspond to the cosmic Soul (“…the World-Soul which we have properly called twin Venuses… Jayne 1944, 190), rather than both the cosmic and hypostatic soul.
Martijn recognizes that the account given by Brisson and Pradeau cannot fully describe the Heavenly Aphrodite. Nevertheless, she maintains a distinction between Zeus and Aphrodite with respect to the Hypostasis Soul, that, much like Gerson, points at III.5.8 without further context to say that “Zeus stands for Soul as immanent in Intellect, whereas Aphrodite stands for Soul as Soul” (Martijn 2022, 172). Shortly after, however, Martijn argues that Plotinus is “probably … not aiming at a consistent or unified interpretation of the different myths, but is perfectly happy with using each of them as contributing part of the picture.” (ibid, 173). If it is the case that Plotinus is not seeking to provide a unified interpretation of various myths which coheres in a single theological account (rather than freely changing identifications of mythical figures with various hypostases from myth to myth), then on the basis of III.5.8.10-15 we should deny that Zeus, in the context of the exegeses of the Symposium, is in any way Soul. Plotinus’ quotation of Philebus 30d at III.5.8.9-11 seems, in this case, to anticipate an objection from a fellow exegete of Plato against his decision not to interpret Zeus as Soul. Plotinus’ allusion to theological traditions which identify Zeus with Hera (which I have explored in a previous blog post on possible Orphic backgrounds for III.5.8) is thus the response to this objection (on perhaps the assumption, already present in III.5.2.2, that Plato and ‘the theologians’ are fundamentally harmonious in their accounts).
Of course, we may also doubt (with Wolters 1972, xvi-xvii, contra Pepin’s 1958 Mythe et Allegorie, perhaps the uncited origin of Martijn’s assessment about Plotinus’ attitude towards the project of allegory and mythical exegesis) that Plotinus is not concerned with a ‘unified interpretation.’ The sheer exegetical scope of III.5 needs to be remembered: Plotinus presents an attempt to reconcile Diotima’s characterization of Eros as a daimon in Symposium with Socrates’ assertion that Eros is a God in Phaedrus, by means of elaborating on Pausanias’ speech in Symposium, itself an exegetical attempt to unify the divergent genealogies of Aphrodite appearing in, among many other authors, Homer and Hesiod, all the while quoting tragedians (cf. Aeschylus’s Suppliants 521 in III.5.3.18), and ensuring his account of Eros as a daimon will present a daimonology that is true of all daimones (III.5.6). This without even considering scholarly arguments (by Kern, Wolters and Kalligas) about Orphic influences also present in the text (III.5.2, III.5.8).
Put simply, the treatise is a grandiose, highly intertextual exegetical project. In fact, there may not be an allegorical project of this scope extant in Greek literature prior to Plotinus.
Concerning the correct reading of Plotinus’ systematization of Aphrodite, then, I think Lacrosse and Bertozzi represent the strongest fidelity to the treatise. The former clearly distinguishes that Aphrodite Ourania corresponds to the hypostasis Soul, without qualifications like Ficino or Martijn, while Aphrodite Pandemos corresponds to the soul of ‘all’ or of ‘the cosmos’ (Lacrosse 1994, 46). The latter agrees, but makes an additional argument citing Hadot, which any future reader of the Enneads ought to bear in mind:
“Notice that for Plotinus the duality of Aphrodite and her corresponding Eros is not one of moral opposition (as it seemed to be in Pausanias’ discourse in the Symposium), but rather of ontological subordination. Therefore, the appellative Pandemos should not be taken in the pejorative sense it has for Pausanias.” (Bertozzi 2021, 159)
(Stay tuned for Part 2!)
References
Armstrong, A.H. (1967), Plotinus: Enneads. Loeb Classical Library. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press). Vol. 3.
Bertozzi, Alberto. (2021), Plotinus on Love: An Introduction to His Metaphysics through the Concept of Eros. (Leiden: Brill).
Flamand, Jean-Marie (Tr.) (2009), “Traité 50 (III, 5) Sur l’amour” in Plotin: Traités 45-50. Brisson, L. and Pradeau, J.F. (Eds.) (Paris: Flammarion).
Gersh, Stephen (Ed., Tr.). (2018), Ficino, Marsilio. Commentary on Plotinus. I Tatti Renaissance Library. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press). Vol. 5
Gerson, Lloyd P. (ed.) (2018), The Enneads. Boys-Stones, George; Dillon, John M.; Gerson, Lloyd P.; King, R.A.H.; Smith, Andrew; Wilberding, James (trs.). (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Henry, Paul and Schwyzer, Hans-Rudolf (eds.) (1964), Plotini Opera. (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Vol. I
Jayne, Sears Reynolds (Tr.) (1944), Marsilio Ficino’s Commentary on Plato’s Symposium. (Columbia: University of Missouri Studies).
Kalligas, Paul. (2014), The Enneads of Plotinus: A Commentary (Vol. 1). Fowden, Elizabeth Key and Pilavachi, Nicolas (Trs.) (Princeton: Princeton University Press).
Lacrosse, Joachim. (1994), L’Amour chez Plotin: Érôs Hénologique, Érôs Noétique, Érôs Psychique. (Bruxelles: Éditions Ousia).
Martijn, Marije (2022), “A Match Made in Heaven: The Metaphysics of Aphrodite in
Neoplatonic Thinkers.” in Schultz, Jana and Wilberding, James (eds.), Women and the Female in Neoplatonism. (Leiden: Brill) 169-195.
Wolters, Albert Marten. (1972), Plotinus “On Eros”: A Detailed Exegetical Study of Enneads III.5. (Amsterdam: Filosofisch Instituut van de Vrije Universiteit).