Plotinus and the One

1. Primal Light:
Plotinus and the One
Lecture 5: The Legacy of Mystery Religions

2. Thesis
Thesis: Plotinus gives us insight into two of the three
phases of religious experience: the early Christian
phase and the consolidation phase.
Plotinus (204–270) deepened the idea of ecstasy in the
Mystery Religions and his work inspired generations
of pagan, Christian, Jewish, Islamic and Gnostic writers.
His ideas influenced the consolidation of the Nicene
creed by bishops in the Roman Empire and influenced
later writings like those of the 6th century medieval
mystic Pseudo-Dionysius.

3. Thesis
The Plotinus developed the Platonic language that
was used by early Christian discussion groups
such as those gathered around the Gospel of
John and the Gospel of Thomas. His writings also
fed into the later consolidation by Christian
bishops, such as their doctrine of the Trinity. Two
centuries after consolidation, Christian thinkers
like Pseudo-Dionysius revived Plotinus’s idea of
creatures emanating from a single Source like
cascading waves from a fountain or like radiation
emitting from the One primal light.

4. The Three Primal Hypostases
• Essay in your green book (pages 90-104)
• formal title = Enneads V, 1 (Greek ennead = 9)
• Hypo-stases = under-standings
• "Three Basic Assumptions about Reality“
• Why “assumption,” supposition, under-standing?
Because they cannot be proven or spoken, but are
always assumed
• This little treatise shows how to liberate the spirit
through insight (gnosis). Later Christian thinkers relied
heavily on this treatise when they developed the
doctrine of the Trinity (tri-une, three-in-one)

22. Three Hypostases

23. Three Hypostases
Soul, life, aliveness, movement, senses
Intellect, patterns
Oneness, the Good

24. Three Hypostases
Soul
Intellect
One

25. Three Hypostases
Spirit
Son
Father

26. Early Christian Gospels
Groups gathered around their favorite Jesus stories,
shared gospels (“good news”) and had different
answers to the question: Who is Jesus?
Some gospels show compatible views of Jesus
(great king, messiah, divinely appointed) while
some gospels challenge others.
The gospels of John and Thomas both describe
Jesus as “primal light of creation” (Genesis) but
the John gospel challenges the Thomas gospel
about where that light shines.

27. Early Gospel Christians
• Johannine (John gospel) Christians
• Peter Christians
• Matthew, Mark, and Luke Christians (synoptic)
• Thomas Christians
• Mary Magdalene Christians
• James Christians
• Andrew Christians
• (Gospel of) Judas Christians

28. Gospel of Judas (review)
From inside the One, there are no boundaries,
only infinite openness (child-like Jesus)
From this viewpoint, all finite forms are
cramping and laughable (“laughing Jesus”)
Forms of morality (betrayal, loyalty) are limited
and may be suspended by God as Oneness
Limited definitions of good-guy / bad-guy do not
exist at the heart of God (forgiveness)

29. Irenaeus of Lyons (died 202 AD) defined an
orthodox doctrine (teaching) of four gospels
in opposition to early Christian groups who
embraced a diversity of Jesus stories. He
attacked other Christians as "Gnostics" and
"spawn of Satan" because they encouraged
personal imagination (vision, prophecy,
ecstasy) and self-reliance (Christ
consciousness, inner light). Irenaeus
prepared the way for later consolidation by
Emperor Constantine in 325.

30. John vs Thomas
The Gospel of John, favored by “Gnostics,”
attacks the Gospel of Thomas. Both
gospels use Neo-Platonic language but
they use it differently: The Gospel of
Thomas champions the inner light (Christ
as Child of the Father) born in humans
while the Gospel of John envisions Christ
as a singular light descending from heaven
and then rejected by human darkness
(evil).

31. While the gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke
portrayed Jesus as a messiah, prophet, or new
king of the Jews, John's Christ has a divine
singularity that becomes a final judgment on
humanity and its shortcomings. Later
consolidation places John's Gospel in a formative
role among the three synoptic gospels and gives
a special meaning to "Son of God.” John uses
Platonic language (light, logos, first-born) to
elevate the cosmic significance of Jesus. The
primal light image is also used by the Thomas
gospel.

32. John & Thomas: Primal Light
The synoptic gospels proclaim Jesus as a human agent of
God; both John & Thomas gospels declare Jesus to be
the light of God (Genesis).
The divine light that dawns on the universe as it comes
into being radiates from the primal One. Following
Jesus is the way humanity can re-connect with the
divine light before the Fall.
The Thomas gospel proclaims the primal light within
every human “made in the image and likeness of God”
The John gospel declares Jesus to be God’s light that
contrasts with humanity’s darkness

33. John’s Gospel ranks John at the top
• John is “Beloved Disciple”
• Jesus loves John more than Peter
• Thomas is “the Doubting Thomas”
• John sits next to Jesus at Last Supper
• John stays next to Jesus’s mother at the cross
• Peter betrays Jesus during crucifixion
• John outruns Peter to find the risen Christ
• At Lake Gennesaret, John recognizes Jesus first

34. John’s Gospel puts Jesus over the top
• John’s Jesus: “Who do you say I am?”
• Jesus is more than God’s messiah, he is God
• Jesus is unique, “only begotten son of God”
• Thomas drops to knees “My Lord and God!”
• Jesus is divine judge who condemns all who
reject his gospel (“Only through me”)
• Humans have no innate capacity to know God

36. Thomas Gospel
• “When will the kingdom of God come?” Jesus
said: “What you look forward to has already
come, only you do not recognize it.”
• “The kingdom of the Father is spread out
upon the earth and people do not see it.”
• “The kingdom of God is within you.”
• “Whoever takes his place in the beginning will
know the end and will not taste death.”

37. Thomas Gospel
• “I am the light which is before all things. It is I
who am all things. From me all things came
forth, and to me all things extend. Split a piece
of wood and I am there; lift up the stone and
you will find me.”
• If you bring forth what is within you, what you
bring forth will save you. If you do not bring
forth what is within you, what you do not
bring forth will destroy you.”

38. Thomas Gospel
• After consolidation, with John’s gospel at the
top of the other three synoptic gospels, the
Bishop Athanasius declared that all the other
gospels were to be burned and their groups
placed outside the law
• Monks of Pachomius put 50 gospels, including
Thomas, into a 6-foot urn and buried it in the
desert where a shepherd found it in 1945

39. Celestial Hierarchy
•Pseudo-Dionysius “the Areopagite”:
mistaken identity, actually not the
convert of St. Paul when he visited the
Areopagus in Athens
•Instead, he was 6th century medieval
fan of Plotinus who focused on the
multiple levels of emanation from the
One.

40. Three Hierarchies, Spheres or Triads of angels, with each Hierarchy containing
three Orders or Choirs: 3 x 3 = 9. The Greek word for “nine” is “ennea.” The
“Enneads” of Plotinus are 9 sections each (six altogether).

41. Celestial Hierarchy
•An org chart for divine radiation
•Multiplicity of powers, tasks, beauties
•Symmetry and balance
•“great chain of being” in harmony
•Emanation (branches of river),
cascading fountain, radiant sun
•Suggests “way back” to Source

42. Pope Benedict XVI
If five centuries later, the author of these books chose the pseudonym of
Dionysius the Areopagite, this implies that he had the intention of placing
Greek wisdom at the service of the Gospel, promoting an encounter between
culture and Greek intelligence with the announcement of Christ; he wanted to
do what that Dionysius aimed to do, that is, that Greek thought would meet
with the proclamation of St. Paul. Being Greek, he wanted to be a disciple of
St. Paul and in this way, a disciple of Christ.
Why did he hide his name and choose this pseudonym? One part of the answer I
have already given: He wanted to express this fundamental intention of his
thought.
But there are two hypotheses about this anonymity and about his pseudonym.
According to the first one, the pseudonym was a falsification by which, dating
his works in the first century, in the times of St. Paul, he wanted to give his
literary production an almost apostolic authority. But there is a better
hypothesis than this first one, which seems hardly believable to me, and it is
that he wanted to perform an act of humility. He didn't want to give glory to
his name; he didn't want to construct a monument to himself with his works,
but instead, to really serve the Gospel, to create an ecclesial theology, not
individual and based in himself.

43. Pope Benedict XVI
Why did he hide his name and choose this pseudonym? One
part of the answer I have already given: He wanted to
express this fundamental intention of his thought.
But there are two hypotheses about this anonymity and about
his pseudonym. According to the first one, the pseudonym
was a falsification by which, dating his works in the first
century, in the times of St. Paul, he wanted to give his
literary production an almost apostolic authority. But there
is a better hypothesis than this first one, which seems
hardly believable to me, and it is that he wanted to perform
an act of humility. He didn't want to give glory to his name;
he didn't want to construct a monument to himself with his
works, but instead, to really serve the Gospel, to create an
ecclesial theology, not individual and based in himself.

44. Pope Benedict XVI
In reality, he managed to elaborate a theology that we can
date with certainty in the sixth century, but that we cannot
attribute to any of the figures of this time period. It is a
theology something "de-individualized," that is, a theology
that expresses a common thought and language. Those
were times of bitter conflict after that Council of Chalcedon.
He, on the other hand, in his "7th Epistle," says: "I would
not like to cause polemics; I simply speak of the truth; I
seek the truth." And the light of truth by itself makes error
fade and makes what is good shine. With this principle he
purified Greek thought and related it to the Gospel. This
principle, which he affirms in his seventh letter, is also the
expression of a true spirit of dialogue: It is not about
seeking the things that separate, one must seek the truth
in Truth itself; this, then, shines and causes errors to fall.

45. Pope Benedict XVI
Therefore, despite the fact that the theology of this
author is, we could say, "supra-personal," truly
ecclesial, we can place it in the sixth century.
Why? The Greek spirit, which he placed at the
service of the Gospel, he found in the books of a
certain Proclus, who died in Athens in 485. This
author belonged to late platonic thought, a
current of thought that had transformed Plato's
philosophy into a type of religion, whose final
objective was to create a great apologetics for
Greek polytheism and return, following the
success of Christianity, to the ancient Greek
religion.

46. Pope Benedict XVI
He wanted to demonstrate that, in reality, the divinities were the
forces of the cosmos. The consequence to be drawn from this
was that polytheism should be considered truer than
monotheism, than a single creator God. Proclus presented a
great cosmic system of divinities, of mysterious forces,
according to which, in this deified cosmos, man could find
access to divinity. Now then, he made a distinction between
the paths for the simple -- those who were not able to elevate
themselves to the heights of truth, for whom certain rites
could be sufficient -- and the paths for the wise, who on the
other hand should purify themselves to arrive to pure light.

47. Pope Benedict XVI
As can be seen, this thought is profoundly anti-Christian. It is a
delayed reaction against the victory of Christianity: an anti-
Christian use of Plato, meanwhile a Christian reading of the
great philosopher was already in place. It is interesting that
Pseudo-Dionysius would have dared to avail precisely of this
thought to show the truth of Christ; to transform this
polytheistic universe into a cosmos created by God, in the
harmony of the cosmos of God, where every force is praise of
God, and show this great harmony, this symphony of the
cosmos that goes from the seraphim to the angels and
archangels, to man and all the creatures, which together
reflect the beauty of God and are praise of God.

48. Pope Benedict XVI
He thus transformed the polytheistic image into praise of the Creator and his
creatures. In this way, we can discover the essential characteristics of his
thought: Before all, it is cosmic praise. All of creation speaks of God and is
a praise of God. Given that the creature is a praise of God, the theology of
Pseudo-Dionysius becomes a liturgical theology: God is found above all
praising him, not just reflecting. And liturgy is not something constructed
by us, something invented so as to have a religious experience for a
certain amount of time. It consists in singing with the choir of the
creatures and entering into the cosmic reality itself. And thus the liturgy,
apparently only ecclesiastical, becomes ample and great, it unites us with
the language of all creatures. He says: God cannot be spoken of in an
abstract way; to speak of God is always -- he uses the Greek word -- a
"hymnein," an elevating of hymns to God with the great song of creatures,
which is reflected and made concrete in liturgical praise.

49. Pope Benedict XVI
• Nevertheless, if his theology is cosmic, ecclesial and liturgical, it is also
profoundly personal. I think it is the first great mystic theology. Moreover,
the word "mystic" acquires with him a new meaning. Until this epoch, for
Christians, this word was equivalent to the word "sacramental," that is,
that which pertains to the "mysterion," sacrament. With him, the word
"mystic" becomes more personal, more intimate: It expresses the path of
the soul toward God.
• And, how is it possible to find God? Here we observe again an important
element in his dialogue between Greek thought and Christianity, in
particular, biblical faith. Apparently what Plato says and what great
philosophy says about God is much more elevated, much more true; the
Bible seems very "barbaric," simple, pre-critical, we would say today. But
he observes that precisely this is necessary so that we can thus
understand that the most elevated concepts of God never reach his true
greatness. They are always beneath him.

50. Pope Benedict XVI
These images bring us to understand, in reality, that God is
above every concept; in the simplicity of the images, we find
more truth than in the great concepts. The face of God is our
incapacity to truly express what he is. In this way he speaks --
Pseudo-Dionysius himself says -- of a "negative theology." It is
easier to say what God is not than to express what he really is.
Only through these images can we grasp at his true face and,
on the other hand, this face of God is very concrete: It is Jesus
Christ. If Dionysius shows us, following Proclo, the harmony of
the celestial choirs, in such a way that it seems that all of
them depend on each other, it is true that our path toward
God remains very far from him. Pseudo-Dionysius shows that
in the end, the path to God is God himself, who makes himself
close to us in Jesus Christ.

51. In this way, a great and mysterious theology is made very concrete,
both in the interpretation of the liturgy and in the reflection on
Jesus Christ: With all of this, Dionysius the Areopagite had a great
influence on all of medieval theology, on all of mystical theology,
both in the East and in the West. He was virtually rediscovered in
the 13th century above all by St. Bonaventure, the great Franciscan
theologian who in this great mystical theology found the conceptual
instrument for interpreting the heritage -- so simple and profound --
of St. Francis. The poor man, like Dionysius, tells us that in the end,
love sees more than reason. Where the light of love is, the shadows
of reason fade away. Love sees, love is an eye and experience gives
us much more than reflection. Bonaventure saw in St. Francis what
this experience meant: It is the experience of a very humble path,
very realistic, day after day, it is to walk with Christ, accepting his
cross. In this poverty and in this humility, in the humility that is lived
also in the church, an experience of God is given that is more
elevated than that which is attained by reflection. In it, we really
touch the heart of God.

52. Pope Benedict XVI
Today, Dionysius the Areopagite has a new
relevance: He is presented as a great mediator in
the modern dialogue between Christianity and
the mystical theologies of Asia, marked by the
conviction that it is impossible to say who God is,
that only negative expressions can be used to
speak of him; that God can only be spoken of
with "no," and that it is only possible to reach
him by entering into this experience of "no." And
here is seen a similarity between the thought of
the Areopagite and that of the Asian religions. He
can be today a mediator like he was between the
Greek spirit and the Gospel.

53. Pope Benedict XVI
In this context, it can be seen that dialogue does not accept
superficiality. Precisely when one enters into the depths of the
encounter with Christ, an ample space for dialogue also opens.
When one finds the light of truth, he realizes that it is a light for
everyone; polemics disappear and it is possible to understand one
another, or at least, speak to one another, draw closer together. The
path of dialogue consists precisely in being close to God in Christ, in
the depths of the encounter with him, in the experience of the
truth, which opens us to the light and helps us to go out to meet
others -- the light of truth, the light of love. In the end, he tells us:
Take the path of the experience, of the humble experience of faith,
every day. Then, the heart is made big and can see and also
illuminate reason so that it sees the beauty of God. Let us ask the
Lord that he help us today too to place the wisdom of our time at
the service of the Gospel, discovering again the beauty of the faith,
of the encounter with God in Christ.

54. Pope Benedict XVI
• Dear Brothers and Sisters,
• In today's catechesis we turn to the teaching of a sixth-century author whose
writings have been attributed to the first-century disciple of Saint Paul, Dionysius
the Areopagite. His two principal works, The Divine Names and Mystical Theology,
strive to present a knowledge of God which surpasses rational understanding and
culminates in spiritual perfection and transforming contemplation. Pseudo-
Dionysius stresses the apophatic or "negative" understanding born of pondering
God's infinite transcendence and otherness. By contemplating what God is not,
and by entering more deeply into the rich symbolic language of Scripture, we grow
in our relationship with the One who reveals himself in hiddenness. Contemplation
is thus an ascent leading from purification to illumination, perfection and union
with God. In the West, Dionysius' writings influenced the early scholastics and
Saint Thomas, as well as Saint Teresa of Avila and Saint John of the Cross. His vision
of a great cosmic harmony reflecting the beauty of the Creator and the love freely
bestowed on us in Christ, can also inspire our efforts to work for unity,
reconciliation and peace in our world.

55. Plotinus: Successors
•Porphyry (234 - c. 305), edited
Enneads, wrote “Life of Plotinus”
•Iamblichus (245-325), “On the
Egyptian Mysteries,” developed
theurgy (god-magic), rituals using
special costumes, props, gestures
•Proclus (412-485), the “last
worshipper” in Athens, wrote
visionary Hymns to the Gods based
on his dreams

56. What is Faith?
• a system of belief or trusting our own deepest experiences?
• a narrow-minded set of beliefs or feeling connected to our heart?
• Agreement on terminology or a general sense of "everything is okay"?
• a commodity you possess or trusting the path you are already walking?
• Blind acceptance of doctrine or freedom to imagine our potentials?
• pain at having one's questions silenced or humorous acceptance of how
little we know?
• submission to an external authority or continual need to re-balance our
own center?
• cleanly dividing those who belong and those who do not or a loving
respect for everyone we find around us?
• fueling hatred by invoking embittered agendas or an expanding sense of
connecting to everyone who came before and after us?