“We must ascend to the Good to which every soul aspires. Whoever has seen it knows what I still have to say, and knows the beauty of the Good. Indeed, the Good is desirable for its own sake; it is the goal of our desires. To attain it, we have to ascend to the higher regions, turn towards them, and lay aside the garment which we put on when descending here below; just as in the (Eleusynian, or Isiac) mysteries, those who are admitted to penetrate the recesses of the sanctuary, after having purified themselves, lay aside every garment, and advance stark naked.”
– Plotinus, Ennead I.6 Of Beauty
The writings of Plotinus (204-271 CE) represent a major strand of Neoplatonic thought. In Neoplatonic thought, the soul’s ultimate good is sometimes conceptualized as “a return to the One” – alternatively referenced as the One, Divinity, Unity, the Good, the Beautiful – the Ultimate Principle from which all emanates. Personally, I view Neoplatonism as a development in the Platonic Theory of Forms, but more explicitly unified in a vision of God or the Absolute. Neoplatonism likely influenced Christian and other forms of mysticism, especially through Pseudo-Dionysius.
In Neoplatonic thought, matter (referenced above in the idea of “descending here below”) is generally regarded as evil, or at least inconsequential to the soul’s task. Plotinus also here references the Greek “Mystery Religions,” and sometimes uses their rituals as demonstrative analogies.
The following posts will be a series of quotations from Plotinus’ Of Beauty and Of the Good and the One.