Papyrology
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FRIDERICUS CREUZER’S

ANNOTATIONS ON PLOTINUS.

BOOK I.

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P. 1, 2. ENNEAD A] Dr. T. G. V. Engelhardt translated this first Ennead into German in the book titled: The Enneads of Plotinus, translated and accompanied by continuous notes explaining the original text. First Part. Erlangen. 1820. 8vo. Regarding this first Ennead, which primarily contains moral topics, see J. F. Winzer, Outline of the decrees of Plotinus concerning matters pertaining to the doctrine of morals. Wittenberg 1809.

— 7. CONCERNING THE] The source for this book of Plotinus is in Plato’s Timaeus, p. 42a, to which compare Proclus, p. 326 ff. Add Plato, Laws I, p. 776f, from which Porphyry also drew in On Abstinence I. 33, p. 54 (Rhoer). Compare also Damascius, On First Principles, p. 219 (Wolf) and Michael Psellus, On All-Various Doctrine, ch. 44, p. 103 (Fabricius). Plotinus also had Aristotle before his eyes. For he says in On the Soul book I, ch. 1, p. 3 (Sylburg): "The passions of the soul also pose a difficulty: are they all common to the soul and the one possessing it, or is there something specific to the soul itself? It is necessary to grasp this, though not easy. It appears that nothing is suffered or enacted without the body, for instance, to be angry, to be confident, to desire, and generally to perceive; the act of thinking intellection most of all seems to be specific to it, etc." Compare also page 4. The Stoics had also worked on the same subject. This, to omit other matters, is understood from the Plutarchan fragment, Whether the ailment is of the Soul or the Body, which, mutilated by the injury of time, was brilliantly restored by Wyttenbach, Vol. V, part 3, p. 700a (minor ed.), and inserted by J. Bakius into the Fragments of Posidonius, p. 222. Olympiodorus argues in his Prazis practice/exercise 1 (end of p. 9, editio princeps) on Plato’s Alcibiades I that Plotinus pursues the same intention in this book as Plato did in the first Alcibiades. For it states: "And again, for Plotinus, the main point in the Enneads is: What is the animal living being, and who is the human? There he shows the animal to be

the composite, but the human to be the soul. This is also the intention Plato had in his Alcibiades."

— 9. PLEASURES AND] For the opinion, see Plato, Phaedo p. 69a, p. 27 (Bekker). Compare Plato, Philebus p. 36, p. 185 (Bekker), where Stallbaum (§ 74, p. 106) also discusses the use of the plural in "pains, fears, etc." Regarding Laws V, p. 732e, p. 382 (Bekker): "Pleasures, pains, and desires are, by nature, very human, etc." Cicero, On Laws I. 11, § 32, p. 79 (ed. Moser and our own): "Troubles, joys, desires, and fears similarly pervade the minds of all." Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio book II, ch. 12: "Plotinus in the book What is the animal, what is the human, asks to whom the pleasures, sorrows, fears, desires, and animosities, or griefs, and finally thoughts and intellects belong in us: whether they belong merely to the soul, or to the soul using the body; and after many things which he discussed under a copious density of subjects, he pronounces this last conclusion: the Animal is an ensouled body. But he did not leave this neglected or unexamined: by what benefit of the soul or by what path of association it is enlivened. Therefore, he assigns all these passions which we have mentioned to the animal, but he testifies that the true human is the soul itself." Macrobius presents the same summary of this book as Olympiodorus in the place cited above. Suidas in Hedomenos (Vol. II, p. 46, Kust.) praises it as follows: "Pleasures, pains; confidence; fears; aversions, and suffering from both. In two ways—or perhaps something else is from the mixture." He does not have the rest.

— 11. OR OF SOME THIRD] Macrobius omitted this third member: "or of some third, from both," who treated many parts of this passage more freely. The same author there says of our own: Plotinus is more sparing of words than anyone.

— p. 2, I. SOME—OTHERS] Ficinus translates alia—alia some—others. Engelhardt says the first ai some necessarily pertains to pathe passions, and the other to dianoia kai doxa thought and opinion, but they think Plotinus wrote while thinking of pleasures, pains. But then it should have been ta men—ta de the former—the latter, since fears and confidences are added. Next, the same author prefers to correct it to: which, then, are the passions. Neither pleases, nor do the manuscripts support it. The simplest explanation is hai men—hai de some—others via enallage substitution. One must refer the numbers to the nearest terms, thought and opinion, in this sense: one must inquire whether thoughts and opinions arise from the same place from which the passions also arise (e.g., from the soul joined with the body), while others arise from elsewhere (e.g., from the soul alone).