Plotini Opera Omnia cum Ficini commentariis

p. 13, 6. ἀντίληψιν perception/apprehension] A Platonic word, like ἀντιλαμβάνεσθαι to apprehend (see Stephanus’s Thesaurus, p. 5563, London ed.), and also frequent in Plotinus (see the Greek Index of Plotinus). For the meaning of the whole passage, use Ficinus’s Commentary. Furthermore, there are many things read in the monuments of Platonic philosophers about the souls of infants and children. See, for example, Proclus in Alcibiades I, p. 195 et seq., and Hermes’s Key, p. 11 (Franciscus Patricius ed., in New Philosophy of the Universe).

— 13. εἰ δὲ μὴ ἀνθρώπου ψυχὴ εἰσέδυ but if the soul of a man did not enter] Namely, εἰς τὰ θηρία into the beasts. See above. But this passage is memorable and to be noted, the more so because Wyttenbach did not notice it in his commentary on Plato’s Phaedo, p. 210 et seq. He claims that the older Platonists and Plotinus himself retained Plato’s opinion, which establishes that souls migrate into the bodies of brutes. But in this passage, we see Plotinus positing this same opinion with great hesitation, or rather leaving it in the middle. This is an argument that he, who had previously pronounced more confidently on this matter, restrained his assent toward the end of his life, when this book was written by him.

p. 14, 1. ἀσυμφωνεῖ is discordant] See the Greek Index of Plotinus. Soon, regarding the verb μετενσωματοῦσθαι to be reincarnated, see the annotation in II. 9. 6, below p. 203 G. Regarding the word ἀναμάρτητος sinless, see below p. 678 B.

— 7. σύνθετον—καὶ τὸ ἐκ πάντων ἡ ψυχὴ—γίνεται composite—and the soul becomes that which is from all things] Ficinus supplied σύνθετον composite by thought for τὸ ἐκ πάντων that which is from all things. I mention this because Engelhardt is stuck on these. But this sentiment does not seem to be confused with that of Aristotle. For the Stagirite says in On the Soul III. 8, p. 62 (Sylburg ed.): "Now, having summarized what was said about the soul, let us say again that the soul is in a way all things." To set up the following discussion about the separation of the soul from the body and the rest that clings to it, Engelhardt compares the passage of Dionysius the Areopagite (so-called) in Mystical Theology § 1. I have brought together more on this matter for Plotinus On Beauty, p. 55 (in annotation p. 302 et seq.), which I do not wish to repeat here. But because Plotinus says here that only the composite sins, he is severely rebuked for this by Brucker in his Critical History of Philosophy, Vol. II, p. 416, who exclaims thus: "Behold, truly, a miserable foundation for moral philosophy! That is the same as saying that the administrator of the royal treasury, caught in theft, is not punished by the noose, but only the thief." We will not pass over in silence what is thrown at Plotinus more bitterly and perhaps sometimes more unfairly by some.

— 11. θαλάττιον Γλαῦκον Glaucus of the sea] Plato, Republic X. 611, p. 497 (Bekker ed.): "We have seen him, however, disposed just as those who see the sea-Glaucus, etc." To which passage compare Ast’s commentary, p. 624, and the mythological commentary of Moser cited there in Nonnus’s Dionysiaca X, vs. 105, p. 237. Add Gottfried Hermann on the Glaucus of Aeschylus, and cf. the Scholia on Plato’s aforementioned work, p. 196 et seq. Proclus also followed the simile of Plato in Alcibiades I, chap. 76, p. 224 (Frankfurt ed.).

— 18. ἄλλου του ἀπ’ αὐτῆς γινομένου of some other thing coming from it] The passage is difficult, and one might think Ficinus had a different reading before his eyes, although the Medici books he used show no variation. Therefore, we wanted to change nothing. If you read ἀπὸ from, it must be taken for ὑπὸ by, a usage not infrequent. See Viger’s On Idioms IX. 1. 16, p. 580 et seq. Regarding νεύσει by an inclination/nod, we have gathered more in the notes on the book On Beauty, p. 265 (Heidelberg ed.). Conf. Wyttenbach on Eunapius, p. 30.

p. 15, 1. Ἆρ’ οὖν ἀφίησι τὸ εἴδωλον Does it therefore release the image] With this passage one should compare what is discussed in the following, IV. 5, especially chapter 7, p. 449 et seq., from which I will excerpt only this: p. 480 A above: "Since even that in the mirror must be called an activity of that in the thing seen, working into that which is capable of suffering, not flowing, etc." Which then might be applied to the soul, insofar as it imparts life to the body. And Ficinus seems to have looked toward this passage in his Commentary on our passage. The gist of this discussion, which Engelhardt also outlined, is: The soul is not the cause of sin,