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but that which is illuminated by the soul (ἐλλάμπεται). Insofar as a certain communion intervenes between the soul and this illuminated object (τὸ ἐλλαμπόμενον), the former (the soul) is said to descend or be carried by an inclination (νεύσει). From this communion is born the image (τὸ εἴδωλον), which it itself releases (ἀφίησι) if that communion has ceased. Nor is this release (ἄφεσις) a separation or a splitting of that which was joined, but as soon as the soul has receded from that which receives that image (τὸ ὑποδεξάμενον), the image itself ceases (vanishes); nor is this surprising, since this image itself had not arisen from elsewhere, except from the very communion of the illuminator with the illuminated (τοῦ ἐλλαμποῦντος καὶ τοῦ ἐλλαμφθέντος). — Furthermore, Stobaeus recounts the opinions of philosophers about the soul separated again from the body in Eclogues I. 52, § 39, p. 920 et seq. (Heeren ed.), where mention is also made of Plotinus.

p. 15, 8. ἐὰν ἐκεῖ βλέπῃ ὅλῃ if it looks there as a whole] That ἐκεῖ there and ἐκεῖσε thither, very frequent in the Enneads, designates the intelligible world and all things that are above, the divine, God. I wanted to note this once.

ib. ὁ ποιητὴς—ἐπὶ τοῦ Ἡρακλέους the poet—concerning Heracles] Eustathius has more on that Homeric passage, p. 460 (Basil ed.). There were some who said these verses were added by Onomacritus. See Porson’s Excerpts from the Scholia of the Harleian Codex on that passage. Hemsterhuis is good on Lucian, Vol. II, p. 492 (Bip. ed.): "Platonists were so far from rejecting those Homeric verses that they believed a mystery of secret discipline resided there." He then cites Proclus on Plato’s Republic, p. 382, and others. Whatever Proclus has, it flowed from this passage of Plotinus. Add the annotations of Davis and ourselves on Cicero’s On the Nature of the Gods III. 16, p. 551, our edition. Tully had touched on the same matter in his books On the Republic. See the fragment of the third book, no. XXVIII, from Augustine’s City of God XXII. 4. — What follows: τὸ εἴδωλον—διδοὺς—αὐτὸν—δὲ—εἶναι giving the image—himself—however—to be, argues for an imitator of Plato, who similarly uses διδόναι to give for to hand over. See Ast’s Commentary on the Republic (II. 7, p. 364 Stephanus), p. 406. Therefore, it should properly be translated thus: "handing over his image (i.e., singing/making it) among the shades, but he himself dwelling among the Gods." Plotinus touched on the same story below, IV. 3. 27, p. 392 et seq.

BOOK II.

p. 22, 7. ΠΕΡΙ ἈΡΕΤΩΝ On Virtues] The argument of this second book is connected with several of Plato’s dialogues, and the beginning itself was born from the Theaetetus, as we shall see in the annotation to chapter 1. In particular, several passages of the Phaedo also pertain to this, on which (p. 42) Wyttenbach placed these in his annotation (p. 216):

"But civil virtue is in the lowest degree, since there are four grades of virtues altogether; as indeed the later Platonists described them, with Plotinus as the leader, Ennead I, book II: from which those who followed them have frequently mentioned them, e.g., Porphyry in On the Grades, p. 34; Marinus in his Life of Proclus testing them against these; Macrobius translating that passage of Plotinus into Latin, On the Dream of Scipio I. 8: Plotinus, foremost among the professors of philosophy with Plato, in his book On the Virtues, has arranged their grades in order by the true and natural reason of division. 'There are,' he says, 'four kinds of quadruple virtues: of these the first are called political, the second purgatorial, the third those of the soul already purged, the fourth exemplary'—let the rest be read in him, worth knowing, longer than to be set down here. Vincent of Beauvais excerpted the passage of Macrobius in the Historical Mirror, book V, chap. 9."

These are the words of Wyttenbach. As far as Porphyry is concerned, compare the Second Part of the Sentences toward Intelligibles, which now comes forth for the first time from the Vatican Codex from the edition of Lucas Holstenius, Rome 1630, and again Cambridge 1655, p. 235 et seq. That part is titled Περὶ Ἀρετῶν On Virtues, and is largely excerpted from the books of Plotinus, in the judgment also of Holstenius in On the Life and Writings of Porphyry, p. 53. For this reason, also Thomas Taylor, who in his book Select Works of Plotinus (London, 1817) presented this second Plotinian book in the English language, in his added notes on p. 566, converted not a few things usefully excerpted from that Porphyrian writing into the explanation of the Plotinian book. Many of these sentiments of Porphyry are read in Stobaeus’s Florilegium, Tit. I, p. 54 (Gaisford ed.), whose entire title Περὶ Ἀρετῆς On Virtue provides many decrees collected from other philosophers, starting from the Pythagoreans. Michael Psellus plundered Porphyry in his Omnifaria Doctrina § 55, p. 110. Finally, the Libellus on Virtue and its Parts by Georgius Gemistus must be referred here, which Angelo Mai recently edited in Greek and Latin from codices (Milan, 1816), which writing is assigned to Philo in the Ambrosian Codex.