 |
Plotinus on metempsychosis. Proclus on the descent of souls into irrational natures. Footnotes
|
|
|
|
PLOTINUS ON METEMPSYCHOSIS
Let us now turn to the genuine disciples of the master for further light on this tenet, and first of all to Plotinus.
The most sympathetic notice of this tenet in Plotinus is to be found in Jules Simon’s Histoire de l’É cole d’Alexandrie (Paris, 1845), i. 588 ff., based for the most part on En., I. i. 12; II. ix. 6; IV. iii. 9; V. ii. 2; and on Ficinus’ Commentary (p. 508 of Creuzer’s edition).
After citing some “ironical” passages from Plotinus (in which the philosopher disguised the real doctrine which in his day still pertained to the teachings of a higher initiation), Jules Simon goes on to say:
“Even though admitting that this doctrine of metempsychosis is taken literally by Plotinus, we should still have to ask for him as for Plato, whether the human soul really inhabits the body of an animal, and whether it is not reborn only into a human body which reflects the nature of a certain animal by the character of its passions.
“The commentators of the Alexandrian school sometimes interpreted Plato in this sense. Thus, according
p. 435
to Proclus, Plato in the Phæ drus condemns the wicked to live as brutes and not to become them, κ α τ ί ε ν α ι ε ἰ ς β ι ὸ ν θ ή ρ ε ι ο ν, κ α ὶ ο ὐ κ ε ἰ ς σ ῶ μ α θ ή ρ ε ι ο ν (Proc., Comm. Tim., p. 329). Chalcidius gives the same interpretation, for he distinguishes between the doctrines of Plato and those of Pythagoras and Empedocles, qui non naturam modō feram, sed etiam formas. 1 Hermes (Comm. of Chalcidius on Timæ us; ed. Fabric., p. 350) declares in unmistakable terms that a human soul can never return to the body of an animal, and that the will of the Gods for ever preserves it from such disgrace. ” 2
PROCLUS ON THE DESCENT OF SOULS INTO IRRATIONAL NATURES
Again, Proclus in his Commentaries on the Timæ us, writes very definitely with reference to the following passage of Plato:
“And if he still in these conditions did not cease from vice, he would keep on changing into some brutish nature according as he acted in a way resembling the expression in genesis of such a mode of vicious living. ” 3
For he says:
“With reference to this descent of souls into irrational animals, it is usual for men to enquire how it is meant.
“And some think that what are called brute-like lives are certain resemblances of men to brutes, for that it is not possible for the rational essence to become the soul of a brute.
“Others allow that even this [human soul] may be
p. 436
immediately degraded to reason-less creatures, for that all souls are of one and the same species, so that they may become wolves and panthers and ichneumons.
“But the true reason (logos) asserts that though the human soul may be degraded to brutes, it is [only] to brutes which possess the life suited to such a purpose, while the degraded soul is as it were vehicled on this [life], and bound to it sympathetically.
|
|
|
“And this has been demonstrated by us at great length in our lectures on the Phæ drus, and that this is the only way in which such de-gradation can take place. If, however, it is necessary to remind you that this meaning (logos) is that of Plato, it must be added that in the Republic 1 he says that the soul of Thersites assumed an ape [life], but not an ape’s body, and in the Phæ drus 2 that [the soul] descends into a brutish life, and not into a brutish body, for the mode of life goes with its appropriate soul. And in the passage [from the Timæ us] he says that it changes into a brute-like nature; for the brutish nature is not the body but the life [principle] of the brute. ” 3
Footnotes
429: 1 See commentary thereon.
429: 2 Stewart (J. A. ), The Myths of Plato (London, 1905), pp. 313 ff.; cf. also Jowett (Oxford, 1892), i. 454 ff.; and Taylor (London, 1804), iii. 325 ff.
429: 3 Cf. C. H., x. (xi. ) 11: “Since Cosmos is a sphere—that is to say, a head. ”
430: 1 Cf. 246 B: “For ’tis a Yoke of Horses that the Charioteer of Man’s Soul driveth, and, moreover, of his Horses the one is well favoured and good and of good stock, the other of the contrary and contrary. ”
430: 2 Lit., under water.
430: 3 Lit., evil—that is, ignorance.
430: 4 Viz., behold the truth.
431: 1 Sc. as a germ or seed.
431: 2 It is low down in the scale, indeed, that Plato places the soothsayers and hierophants; he is, however, “ironical, ” for he places poets even lower down, and still lower sophists and tyrants, all in keeping with his well-known views about these people as known in his own time.
432: 1 ἢ π α ι δ ε ρ α σ τ ή σ α ν τ ο ς μ ε τ ὰ φ ι λ ο σ ο φ ί α ς —Stewart, “Of loved his comrade in the bonds of wisdom”; Jowett, “or a lover who is not devoid of philosophy”; Taylor, “or together with philosophy has loved beautiful forms. ” I fancy that Plato has used this graphic expression simply to designate a man who has not true union with wisdom, but is seeking for union though ignorantly.
432: 2 “The numbers three and ten are called perfect; because the former is the first complete number, and the latter in a certain respect the whole of number; the consequent series of numbers being only a repetition of the numbers which this contains. Hence, as 10 multiplied into itself produces 100, a plane number, and this again multiplied by 10 produces 1000, a solid number; and as 1000 multiplied by 3 forms 3000, and 1000 by 10, 10, 000; on this account Plato employs these numbers as symbols of the purgation of the soul, and her restitution to her proper perfection and felicity. I say, as symbols; for we must not suppose that this is accomplished in just so many years, but that the soul’s restitution takes place in a perfect manner. ”—Taylor, op. cit., iii. 325.
432: 3 Cf. the “Vision of Er. ”
432: 4 “We must not understand by this that the soul of a man becomes the soul of a brute; but that by way of punishment it is bound to the soul of a brute, or carried in it, just as dæ mons used to reside in our souls. Hence all the energies of the rational soul are perfectly impeded, and its intellectual eye beholds naught but the dark and tumultuous phantasms of a brutal life. ”—Taylor, loc. cit.
|
|
|
433: 1 Viz., the form of a man; it is, however, also an astrological term.
433: 2 There seems to be no agreement among translators as to the meaning of this sentence: δ ε ῖ γ ὰ ρ ἄ ν θ ρ ω π ο ν ξ υ ν ι έ ν α ι κ α ὶ ε ἶ δ ο ς λ ε γ ό μ ε ν ο ν, ἐ κ π ο λ λ ῶ ν ἰ ὸ ν α ἰ σ θ ή σ ε ω ν ε ἰ ς ἕ ν λ ο γ ι σ μ ῷ ξ υ ν α ι ρ ο ύ μ ε ν ο ν. Stewart translates: “Man must needs understand the Specific Form which proceedeth from the perceiving of many things, and is made one by Thought; ” Jowett: “For a man must have intelligence of universals, and be able to proceed from the many particulars of sense to one conception of reason; ” Taylor: “Indeed it is necessary to understand man, denominated according to species, as a being proceeding from the information of many senses, to a perception contracted into one reasoning power. ”
433: 3 Sc. collecting into one.
433: 4 That is to say, revolved in the Cosmos Order.
433: 5 Cf. C. H., i. 14: “So [Man]. . . bent his face downwards through the Harmony. ”
434: 1 All these are technical terms of the Mysteries.
434: 2 Cf. C. H., ix. (x. ) 4: “For this cause they who Gnostic are please not the many nor the many them. They are thought mad and laughed at. ”
435: 1 Who not only made the soul go into an animal nature but into animal forms.
435: 2 The last sentence of C. H., x. (xi. ) being quoted textually by Chalcidius.
435: 3 Tim., 42 C.
436: 1 Lib. X. 620 C.
436: 2 Phæ dr., 249 B.
436: 3 Comment, in Plat. Tim., 329 D; ed. Schneider (Warsaw, 1847), pp. 800, 801. With all of this the views of Basilides (F. F. F., 275 ff. ) may be most instructively compared.
p. 437
|
|
|
