Plotini Opera Omnia cum Ficini commentariis

man is made similar through virtue; cf. the following chapters and Ez. Spanheim original: "Ez. Spanhem." on the Caesars of Emperor Julian, p. 254, who has not forgotten Plotinus either. In the immediately preceding text, Taylor correctly interpreted τόνδε τὸν τόπον this place according to Plato’s rationale: this [terrestrial] place. Cf. Julian’s Orat. V. p. 175 B: ἔσχατον γὰρ τῶν ὄντων ἡ γῆ. ἐνταῦθα δέ φησι καὶ ἀπελαθέντα [καὶ delet Wyttenb. l. l.] Πλάτων τὰ κακὰ στρέφεσθαι, κ. τ. λ. For the earth is the lowest of existing things. And here Plato says that evils also are driven and revolve, etc.

p. 23, 1. οἷον σώφρονι e.g., to the temperate man] Proclus refers to this in his Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus, p. 112, writing as follows: τί δὲ οὐ καθ' ἑκάστην ἡμέραν πολλῶν ἐστιν ἀκούειν λεγόντων, ὁ θεὸς ἀγαθός. ἀλλὰ τὸ θεὸς ὄνομά ἐστι χωρὶς ἀρετῆς, ὥς φησι Πλωτῖνος. And why is it that one cannot hear many people saying every day that God is good? But the name 'God' is without virtue, as Plotinus says. Cf. above I. 1. 12, p. 7, where he discusses Hercules.

— 6. πολιτικὰς—ἀρετὰς civil/political virtues] The anonymous author of Περὶ Ἀρετῶν On Virtues, found at the end of Andronicus of Rhodes’ Paraphrase of the Nicomachean Ethics, edited by Dan. Heinsius, Leiden, 1617, p. 754, states:

He therefore calls them πρακτικὰς ἀρετὰς practical virtues, which the Platonists and Plotinus himself used to call πολιτικὰς political/civil. He then explains the individual virtues and their contrary vices, partly using Aristotle. You may see his Rhetoric I. 9, p. 32 ff. (Sylburg), p. 66 ff. (Oxford ed., 1822), from which Psellus also profited in Omnifaria Doctrina § 51 ff. Add Nicomachean Ethics VI. 5, p. 102 ff. (Sylburg), and Plato’s passages in Laws III. 129, 172, and Republic IV, p. 346 ff. and p. 430 ff. From these practical virtues, the same anonymous author distinguishes others as follows:

Olympiodorus in his commentary on the First Alcibiades, p. 155, distinguishes the virtues in three ways: natural, political, and ethical.

p. 25, 10. ὁμοίωσις διττὴ a twofold assimilation] Suidas under the entry ὁμοίωσις assimilation, Vol. II, p. 694 (Kuster ed.): A twofold assimilation. One is the same; the other is different (which should be completed from our passage). Regarding what he immediately adds: When Plotinus says 'assimilation to God,' it must be taken in another way, this pertains to the following chapter III on the next page.

— 11. ὅσα—ἀπὸ τοῦ αὐτοῦ all things from the same] Engelhardt takes these final words to mean according to the same, translating it as: which are assimilated to the archetype equally in all parts. Taylor followed Marsilio. Immediately after, you should translate οὐκ ἀντιστρέφειν with Cicero’s Orator, chapter 32: not to correspond on the other side. Regarding this formula, especially common to Platonists and Peripatetics, see...

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Ast on Plato’s Republic VII, p. 564, Stallbaum on the Philebus § 86, p. 120, and especially Wyttenbach on Plutarch’s Moralia, Vol. I, p. 197, and the interpreters of Aristotle’s Rhetoric I. 1, p. 2—8. Finally, see our annotations in Proclus’s Alcibiades, p. 339, compared with Olympiodorus, p. 114, 118.

p. 26, 2. καὶ ἀμείνους ποιοῦσιν and make [them] better] Marinus excerpted this passage in his Life of Proclus, p. 42, which Boissonade corrected on p. 104 using our passage.

— 3. τὰ πάθη μετροῦσαι measuring the passions] Plotinus wished the preceding ὁρίζουσαι defining and the repeated μετροῦσαι in this passage to be understood as having the power of restraining, limiting, and moderating. Regarding this, in addition to what the most learned Seager recently added to Stephanus’s Thesaurus, p. 6111, add Lambert Bos’s observations on the New Testament, specifically on 2 Corinthians 10:12, and Wetstein on the New Testament, Vol. II, p. 204. Theodoret also, Vol. IV, p. 1119 (Schulze ed.), said to measure despair with faith, i.e., to diminish, to restrain. Regarding the words τῷ ὅλως ἀμείνονι by the absolutely better [nature], Marsilio’s commentary shows he was uncertain, where, however, perhaps in a better way should be corrected for by our better [self]. Taylor: and taking away false opinions FROM A MORE EXCELLENT NATURE. But even with the comma deleted after ἀφαιροῦσαι taking away, one might still ask what ὅλως absolutely/altogether means, which Engelhardt also did not express, though he otherwise interpreted this passage excellently. If the reading is genuine, altogether or thoroughly should have been added. Perhaps this sentiment is connected to the one which Olympiodorus touches upon in his First Alcibiades, p. 155: that the political virtues correspond to each other. Furthermore, Macrobius praised these civil virtues eloquently in the aforementioned passage in his Commentary on the Dream of Scipio I. 7.

— 11. μὴ τὸ πᾶν θεοῦ τοῦτο ᾖ lest this entire thing be of God] Ficinus teaches in his commentary that these words can be taken in two ways: either that such a state of soul is entirely divinity, or that it pertains entirely to God. To me, Engelhardt seems to have explained the sense of this passage well in this way: because the soul, being very close to God, has many qualities that are likewise in God, there is a danger that someone thinking about the connection between God and the soul might opine that the essence of God is nothing other than the substance of the soul itself.

— 16. Λέγων δὴ ὁ Πλάτων Plato says indeed] In the Theaetetus, p. 176 b-c: Therefore one must try to flee from here as quickly as possible. And flight is assimilation to God as far as is possible. Cf. Plotinus I. 6. 8, p. 56 G, where we have placed more notes.