Plotinus had a persistent interest in myth. His earliest treatise — I.6 “On Beauty” — is littered with quotations from Homer and references to mythic figures (e.g. Narcissus). This interest is particularly apparent in his treatises on Eros and Beauty: the aforementioned I.6 [1], V.8 [31] “On the Intelligible Beauty” and III.5 [50] “On Eros”. How is it, then, that such an attentive reader of myth appears to contradict himself in his identifications concerning the hypostases, Intellect and Soul, between V.8.13 and III.5.2-3, 8?
In the former, he lays out a clear identification between the three primary hypostases and the three successive rulers of the cosmos as described in Hesiod’s Theogony: Ouranos as the One, Kronos as the Nous and Zeus as the Soul. The explicit identification of Kronos with Nous is already prefigured in V.1.4, where Plotinus transposes the mythical idea of the ‘Golden Age’ of the reign of Kronos from a prehistorical past to the intelligible world itself. In V.1.7, he mentions Zeus being the only one of Kronos’ children not consumed; while in context Plotinus is only making a point about Intellect containing all things, this exceptional position of Zeus becomes, in V.8.13, an indication of Zeus as the Soul: the Soul has proceeded from Intellect and made itself external to Intellect. By the end of V.8.13, summarizing the exegesis of Hesiod in V.8 and built on the earlier allusions to Theogony in V.1, the binding of Kronos and transfer of rule to Zeus becomes symbolic of the distinction between the intelligible and sensible worlds.
This account stands at odds with Plotinus’ identifications between Gods and hypostases in III.5, wherein he interprets the divine characters from the birth of Eros in Symposium.
He begins in III.5.2 with an analysis of Aphrodite as Soul (employing the distinction from Pausanias’ speech between Ourania and Pandemos – itself an exegetical maneuver to harmonize Theogony 188 with Iliad 5:370 and Odyssey 8:267 – to talk about different registers of the Soul, the hypostatic Soul and the Soul of the Cosmos, This distinction proves crucial for the conclusions of the treatise concerning Eros as a God and Eros as a Daimon). This identification was already established in VI.9 [9] 9.31, which appears to prefigure III.5’s topic, when he says that “All Soul is Aphrodite.” Bertozzi rightly, I think, characterizes this as the “leading principle of Plotinus’ exegesis” (Bertozzi 2021, 159) in III.5
Aphrodite/Soul reverts to ‘her father,’ who is Intellect. Plotinus leaves it up to the reader whether to prefer Kronos or Ouranos as the ‘father’ of Aphrodite. While Kalligas explains this through citing Proclus’ Commentary on Plato’s Cratylus 110.6-12, where it is explained that Kronos and Ouranos are different types of causes (Kalligas 2014, 513), I am not entirely sure Plotinus’ relatively flexible mythical hermeneutics would make such a technical distinction. Between the two, he appears to prefer emphasizing Kronos as Aphrodite’s father in III.5, given that it fits well with the aforementioned identification of Kronos with Intellect. Plotinus explains that, in reversion, Aphrodite’s/Soul’s ‘sight’ of her father gives rise to Eros (drawing a semantic etymological connection between Eros and horasis, ‘seeing’). In III.5.2, Zeus does not really enter the picture. The triadic relationship is between Kronos, Aphrodite, and Eros.
One may be tempted to harmonize these two accounts by analyzing them as referring to two different triads: the account of the successive reigns in Theogony as the three primary hypostases, and the account of the birth of Eros as triadic relationship of Intellect, Soul and Eros. This harmonization would work, if III.5 ended with its second section. Three challenges emerge in the following sections of the treatise:
- Plotinus strongly affirms that Eros is a hypostasis in III.3.1-2: “It is not appropriate to disbelieve that Love is a real existent [hypostasin], that is, a Substance produced from a Substance, lesser than the producer, but still a Substance.” (Gerson) [Ὑπόστασιν δὲ εἶναι καὶ οὐσίαν ἐξ οὐσίας ἐλάττω μὲν τῆς ποισαμένης, οὖσαν δὲ ὅμως, ἀπιστεῖν οὐ προσήκει.] (HS). This, at the very least, complicates any distinction which reads the Hesiodic exegesis of V.8 as concerning hypostases proper and III.5 as concerning merely activities within hypostases.
- Plotinus affirms that Eros is an activity (energeia) of Soul ‘stretching itself’ toward Good (ie, the One): in III.5.4.21-23: “…if indeed Soul is the Mother of Eros, Aphrodite is the Soul, and Eros is the activity of the Soul stretching herself towards the Good. (My own translation). […εἴπερ ψυχὴ μήτηρ ἔρωτος, Ἀφροδίτη δὲ ψυχή, ἔρως δὲ ἐνέργεια ψυχῆς ἀγαθοῦ ὀριγνωμένης. – because ὀριγνωμένης is a participle describing ψυχῆς, not ἔρως, and being from the deponent verb ὀριγνάομαι needs to be understood in, conceptually as it were, the middle voice, I have rendered this reflexively in English: stretching herself] (HS) This description of Eros brings the Good into picture, frustrating any attempt to read the III.5 exegesis as describing triadic relations posterior to Nous.
- Plotinus reintroduces Zeus in III.5.8.1-2, 4-6, given the setting of the myth as told in Symposium: “But who is this Zeus, into whose ‘garden’ he [Plato] says, ‘Plenty entered’… But what should we make of these, Zeus and his garden? For we shouldn’t take Zeus as Soul since we have already taken Aphrodite as this.” (Gerson) [Ἀλλὰ τίς ὁ Ζεύς, οὖ τὸν κῆπον λέγει, εἰς ὃν εἰσῆλθεν ὁ Πόρος … ταῦτα δὲ τί δεῖ τίθεσθαι, τὸν Δία καὶ τὸν κῆπον; οὐδὲ γὰρ ψυχὴν δεῖ τίθεσθαι τὸν Δία τὴν Ἀφροδίτην τοῦτο θέντας.] (HS) Here it is clearly stated that Zeus cannot, in the context of Plato’s Symposium, be interpreted as Soul, perhaps most directly contradicting the account in V.8.
The basic problem which then emerges concerns the status of Aphrodite and Zeus. There have been some scholarly attempts to bridge the two treatises.
Brisson, Pradeau and Flamand (2009, 422 note 156) argue for a “double valeur symbolique” for Zeus, who can be both Soul and Intellect. They refer to IV.4.9-10. There is a clear textual reason to do so: both there and in III.5.8.9, Plotinus quotes from Plato’s Philebus 30d, where it is said that “… in the nature of Zeus there is on the one hand a royal soul, and on the other a royal intellect …” [… ἐν μὲν τῇ τοῦ Διὸς … φύσει βασιλικὴν μὲν ψυχήν, βασιλικὸν δὲ νοῦν …]. Plotinus quotes this in III.5.8 to problematize the simple identification of Zeus with Soul. However, in IV.4.10, Plotinus is making a distinction between ways of speaking of Zeus as the Demiurge and the Soul of the Cosmos. This does not actually help us to understand the context of III.5.8, which is that it appears Zeus (and his garden) have no hypostatic correspondent, given that all Soul is Aphrodite: the undescended hypostatic Soul being Aphrodite Ourania, the Soul of the Cosmos being Aphrodite Pandemos, and the individual Souls being the “many Aphrodites”. Explaining Zeus as a Demiurge, in this particular context, does not really add to the summary exegesis of the myth in III.5.9.
For this reason, I think Marije Martijn is right in disagreeing with Brisson and Pradeau concerning V.8.13.12-19 (which the latter, on the grounds of an epexegetic kai, to identify Aphrodite with the Soul of the Cosmos; this claim is also made by Gerson, that “Zeus is the hypostasis Soul and Aphrodite the soul of the universe”). She argues that Aphrodite in V.8 must be understood as corresponding to a higher register of Soul, though her alternative proposal – that “Zeus stands for Soul as immanent in Intellect, whereas Aphrodite stands for Soul as Soul” (Martijn 2022, 172) – does not seem to really follow from the section she cites: while mentioning III.5.8.5-17, she avoids the statement just after that, at III.5.8.20 “Aphrodite is the Soul of Zeus” [ἡ ψυχὴ τοῦ Διὸς ἡ Ἀφροδίτη] (HS).
I would propose an alternative way to approach the exegeses of V.8 and III.5. Rather than try to make the identifications in one exegetical circumstance line up with those present in another, we should instead read these identifications as contextual. This would follow from the methodological reflections Plotinus gives concerning reading mythology in III.5.9.24-26:
Δεῖ δὲ τοὺς μύθους, εἴπερ τοῦτο ἔσονται, καὶ μερίζειν χρόνοις ἃ λέγουσι, καὶ διαιρεῖν ἀπ’ ἀλλήλων πολλὰ τῶν ὄντων ὁμοῦ μὲν ὄντα, τάξει δὲ ἣ δυνάμεσι διεστῶτα…
“But myths, if indeed they are going to be myths, must separate temporally their narrative and divide from each other many Beings which exist together, but are distinct from each other by rank or powers…” (Gerson)
Plotinus here is prefiguring techniques of mythical exegesis which will become widespread in later Platonic thinkers (cf. discussion of Olympiodorus in Butler 2005, 35-39). Most important for the present question between V.8 and III.5 is the latter statement: myths “must divide [diairein] from each other many Beings which exist together [polla ton onton homou men onta].” Plotinus is here referring to the Gods and other characters which are presented in mythical narratives. Importantly, Plotinus continues to use the plural, onta, to indicate that their plurality is not a side effect of the narrative structure of myth; these beings are plural, and exist together [homou]. Rather, it is diairein, or to separate them from one another, which is necessary for the mythical narrative structure. This point was already highlighted by Wolters in his introduction to his translation and study of III.5 (cf. Wolters 1972, xiv-xv).
However, I believe this allegorical methodology becomes much clearer if we, unlike Wolters, understand the Gods as ‘all in each’, as Plotinus explains in V.8.4.6-11 and V.8.9.17-24. In these passages, “we see many traits of the later technical doctrine of the henads as we find in Platonists like Proclus. The unity of the divine manifold rests in all the Gods being in each, rather than in one…” (Butler 2016, 147).
What I would consider a henadological reading of the exegeses presented in V.8 and III.5 would be to work from a starting point that holds the Gods to not be reducible to particular beings, essences or hypostases. Rather, as Plotinus says, “they are distinct from each other by taxei or dunamesi”: the Gods’ duties or powers with respect to the structure of the cosmos may be different, but the Gods are not defined by their duties or powers. For Zeus to appear in the exegesis of Theogony as the hypostasis Soul, in Symposium as Intellect, other times are the Demiurge or as the Soul of the Cosmos as in IV.4.10 – these are respectively indicated by Plotinus as taxeis or dunameis. Zeus, himself, precedes any of these descriptions, and as such each description must be understood contextually.
I believe Plotinus indicates this when, after giving his exegesis of Theogony, he says “If then, speaking in a more familiar way” [ἵνα γνωριμώτερον λέγωμεν, V.8.13.16-17] when he reintroduces Aphrodite to the discussion. For Plotinus and for his students, Aphrodite is the ‘more familiar’ deity, insofar that she is the most mentioned deity in the entirety of the Enneads and, it seems, central to Plotinus’ philosophical project and philosophical practice given her role as the Mother of Eros. To use the language Butler 2021 provides in describing relationships between Gods within the henadic manifold from the perspective of the individual, Aphrodite remains for the majority of the Enneads in the ‘devotional regard’, while Zeus is given a ‘peripheral regard’. Given the polycentric flexibility of a henadological view of divinity, it is possible for one’s regard to shift temporarily. His analysis of Zeus as symbolizing Soul in the context of the successive reigns in the Theogony appears to be just that: a shift from peripheral to devotional regard dictated by the contexts of the myth.
References
Bertozzi, Alberto. (2021), Plotinus on Love: An Introduction to His Metaphysics through the Concept of Eros. (Leiden: Brill).
Butler, Edward (2005), “The Theological Interpretation of Myth.” The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies 7:1, 27-41
Butler, Edward (2016), “Plotinian Henadology.” Kronos Philosophical Journal V, 143-159.
Butler, Edward (2021), “Polytheism as Methodology in the Study of Religions.” Oscillations: Non-Standard Experiments in Anthropology, the Social Sciences and Cosmology.
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).
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
Kalligas, Paul. (2014), The Enneads of Plotinus: A Commentary (Vol. 1). Fowden, Elizabeth Key and Pilavachi, Nicolas (Trs.) (Princeton: Princeton University Press).
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).