Fate, Providence and Moral Responsibility in Ancient,Medieval and Early Modern Thought

Pieter d'Hoine, Gerd Van Riel

Published by Leuven University Press

Pieter d'Hoine. and Gerd Van Riel. Fate, Providence and Moral Responsibility in Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern Thought:

Studies in Honour of Carlos Steel.

Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2014. Project MUSE. Web. 11 Jun. 2015. http://muse.jhu.edu/.

For additional information about this book

Access provided by Yale University Library (8 Jul 2015 04:10 GMT)

http://muse.jhu.edu/books/9789461661456

tHe question oF evil in tHe World in Plotinus

Luc Brisson (Cnrs Paris/Villejuif)*

The Soul is a hypostasis proceeding from another hypostasis that is its cause, viz., the Intellect, which depends on the One. Following Plato in the Timaeus (35a-b), Plotinus insists on the souls intermediary position between what is primarily indivisible, characteristic of the Intelligible, and what is divisible in bodies, speci-fying that the soul comes to be within bodies by accident. It is both divisible in bodies, because there is a soul in each body, and indivisible in the Intelligible: as Porphyry was to repeat in his Sentences, it is everywhere and nowhere.

In this way, Plotinus makes a distinction between the total Soul ( ), which always remains in the Intelligible, and particular souls, always attached to a body, which they produce and administer. The total Soul is what is tradition-ally called the hypostasis Soul. All the other souls, both the soul of the world and human souls, are attached to this Soul, which is and remains unique. All these souls remain united, forming one single soul, before being projected here and there like a light that is scattered, without being divided, when it arrives on earth. The soul of the world ( ) which is also the case for the human soul, on a lesser scale produces and administers bodies, both those of the world and those of the other living beings.

1. evil in General

Since the world is produced and organized by the soul of the world, always re-maining in contact with the Intellect, which in turn depends on the One, other-wise known as the Good in itself,1 the world should be absolutely exempt from evil. Yet it is clear that this is not the case, as Plato himself admitted:

But it is not possible, Theodorus, that evil should be destroyed for there must always be something opposed to the good; nor it is possible that it should have its seat in heaven. (Plato, Theaetetus 176a5-7, trans. M.J. Levett, rev. by M.F. Burnyeat)

Like Plato, Plotinus finds himself forced to admit that, in our world, evil will never disappear, be it negative evil, the one that manifests itself in catastrophes and all

* Translated by Michael Chase.1 For a description of the overflow of the One-Good into the world, see treatise 51 (i

8), 2.

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the other scourges, or positive evil, which is committed by man. Any attempt to dissolve negative evil and positive evil, moreover, ends up in failure.

2. evil in tHe World

How, then, can a Platonist explain what I would qualify as negative evil: that is, catastrophes, wars, accidents, illness, and death, without defecting to the side of his opponents, the Epicureans, Peripatetics, and Gnostics?2 For the Epicureans, the gods do not intervene in our world, which is left to its own resources. For the Peripatetics, the providential order does not reach further down than the moon. For the Gnostics, providence dispenses its benefits only to the chosen, that is, to the Gnostics. If one admits the presence of evil in the world, then one must ask the following questions: where does evil come from, and what does it consist in? questions that are dealt with in treatise 51 (i 8), but already mentioned in trea-tises 47 (iii 2) and 48 (iii 3). These last two treatises, which, at the origin, formed a single set which Porphyry clumsily divided into two, deal with the classical theme of providence, on which Plotinus had already assumed a position in treatise 27 (iV 3), 15-16, treatise 28 (iV 4), 39 and treatise 39 (Vi 8), 17.

In his two treatises On Providence (47 (iii 2) and 48 (iii 3)), Plotinus explains that providence must be understood as the totality of the ,3 considered not in their functions of the production and organization of matter, but in their function as guarantors of the permanence of that organization, which is merely a reflection of the structure of the intelligible world. As a disciple of Plato, Plotinus continues to follow the doctrine set forth in the Timaeus and in Book X of the Laws. In this respect, he finds true allies in the Stoics. Although one may not discern it, the usefulness of evils exists, and it is always possible to discover it by changing ones scale: what may be considered an evil from a particular viewpoint may have its usefulness if one adopts a general viewpoint. However, Plotinus does not limit himself to repeating what the Stoics had said. He replaces it all within the context of his metaphysics and his cosmology:

For certainty in the All the consequences and results that follow upon those deeds that are evil depend directly on rational formulas and so are rational ( ); for instance, from adultery may come children who are

2 See Proclus: On the Existence of Evils, trans. by J. Opsomer and C. Steel (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle), London: Duckworth, 2003.

3 In this paper, is translated by rational formula. See L. Brisson, Logos et logoi chez Plotin. Leur nature et leur rle, Les Cahiers Philosophiques de Strasbourg 8 [numro spcial sur Plotin], 1999, 87-108 [reprinted in: N.-L. Cordero (ed.), Ontologie et dialogue. Hommage Pierre Aubenque, avec sa collaboration loccasion de son 70e anniversaire, Paris: Vrin, 2000, 47-68].

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naturally well constituted and better men, or from the carrying off of captives it may happen other cities better than those sacked by wicked men. (treatise 47 (iii 2), 18.13-18)4

To illustrate his point, Plotinus has recourse to several comparisons, three of which deserve mention. Plotinus likens providence to a general (see treatise 48 (iii, 3), 2); he compares the universe to a tree, all of whose parts depend on the same root and the same principle, the soul (treatise 48 (iii 3), 7). Finally, human life is presented as a play written by reason as an author, that is, the soul of the world that contains all the reasons (treatise 47 (iii 2), 18.19-25). The principle that the divinity is not responsible for evil in the world5 is respected, without the existence of evil in the world being denied. Providence can make use of an evil, but it is not respon-sible for it. The question then arises, however, of whence evil comes into the world.

2.1. Is Matter the Source of Evil?At the end of chapter 3 of treatise 51, Plotinus gives a clear answer: the source of evil is matter.

So that which underlies ( ) figures and forms and shapes and measures and limits, decked out with an adornment which belongs to some-thing else, having no good of its own, only a shadow in comparison with being, is the reality of evil (if there really can be a reality of evil); this is what our argu-ment discovers to be the primal evil, the absolute evil. (treatise 51 (i 8), 3.35-40)

This underlying nature can only be matter, for the expression characterizing it (a shadow in comparison with beings) qualifies matter in treatise 12 (ii 4), 5.18-19: that which underlies is an image ( ).6 In this last case,

4 Translations of the Enneads are by A.H. Armstrong, Plotinus: Enneads, 7 vol. (The Loeb Classical Library), Cambridge, Ma: Harvard University Press / London: Heinemann, 1966-1988, but modified according to the French translation of treatise 6 (iV 8) by Jrme Laurent (in: L. Brisson J.-F. Pradeau (eds.), Plotin: Traits 1-6 (GF; 1155), Paris: Flammarion, 2002), of treatise 13 (iii 9) by Jrme Laurent and Jean-Franois Pradeau (in: L. Brisson J.-F. Pradeau (eds.), Plotin: Traits 7-21 (GF; 1164), Paris: Flammarion, 2003), of treatise 27 (iV 3) by Luc Brisson (in: L. Brisson J.-F. Pradeau (eds.), Plotin: Traits 27-29 (GF; 1203), Paris: Flammarion, 2005), of treatise 47 (iii 2) by Richard Dufour (in: L. Brisson J.-F. Pradeau (eds.), Plotin: Traits 45-50 (GF; 1401), Paris: Flammarion, 2009), of treatise 51 (i 8) by Laurent Lavaud and of treatise 53 (i, 1) by Jean-Franois Pradeau (in: L. Brisson J.-F. Pradeau (eds.), Plotin: Traits 51-54. Porphyre: Vie de Plotin (GF; 1444), Paris: Flammarion, 2010). Here, I have considered the construction of this phrase as chiasmic: goes with () , while goes with .

5 Plato, Republic X 617e; Timaeus 42d.6 See also treatise 26 (iii 6), chapter 7, lines 13, 18 and 24.

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however, Plotinus emphasizes that the term is inadequate when applied to matter. The term no longer implies a resemblance between an image and its model, for in the case of matter, all resemblances are abolished. The then has no other function that to point out an ontological deficiency with regard to being. It is because it is absolutely bereft of reason, that is, of form, and therefore of intelligibility, that matter may be considered as absolute evil. It is indeed matter that introduces defects and deficiencies in our world. As Plotinus remarks,

Then, too, the forms () in matter are not the same as they would be if they were by themselves; they are rational formulas immanent in matter ( ), corrupted in matter and infected with its nature. (treatise 51 (i 8), 8.13-16)7

Evil resides precisely in negative causality: it is form as rational formula () that organizes matter, but, in return, matter exerts a counter-causality on form qua rational formula that considerably weakens its power and perverts it. Such is the cause of evil.

2.2. Matter is Produced by the SoulThe position is clear, but it implies a problematic consequence. Matter, which is the source of evil, is produced by the lower part of the soul of the world, that is the vegetative soul. This position is formulated right from the earliest treatises: trea-tise 13 (iii 9), 3.10-14 and treatise 15 (iii 4), 1.5-12. We find it again in treatise 27 (iV 3), 9.20-29 (cited infra) and in treatise 33 (ii 9), 12.39-44.

The hypostasis Soul receives within itself the intelligible forms () in the mode of rational formulas (). It then produces the body of the world, and even the place in which this body is to be found, that is, matter:

For the truth is as follows. If body did not exist, soul would not go forth,8 since there is no place other than body where it is natural for it to be. But if it intends to go forth, it will produce a place for itself,9 and so a body. Souls rest is, we may say, confirmed in absolute Rest;10 a great light shines from it, and at the outer-

7 The argument proceeds in two stages. Plotinus begins by relying on the assertion, classic in Aristotelian thought, that form cannot be separated from matter in bodies. He then maintains that because of this inseparability, matter contaminates form.

8 This is how, following Armstrong, I translate which in the proper sense means to go forward, to advance.

9 Place is the necessary condition for the appearance of a body. Consequently, it is up to the soul to produce the place that will subsequently be occupied by the body that is to occupy it.

10 Rest in itself is the Intelligible, one of the most important kinds in the Sophist. See my article: De quelle faon Plotin interprte-t-il les cinq genres du Sophiste? (Ennades,

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most edge of this firelight there is a darkness. Soul sees this darkness and, since it is there as a substrate for form, gives it forms. For as we know it is not allowed for that which borders on soul11 to be without its share of reason,12 as what is said to be dimly in the dimness that is, the world of becoming received it [reason].13 (treatise 27 (iV 3), 9.20-29)

At the beginning of chapter 9 of the same treatise, Plotinus recalls that the descrip-tion of the production of the world implies time only for pedagogical purposes.14 In fact, the point is to make clear that the soul of the world cannot enter into the body of the world with which it is inseparably associated since every soul is linked to a body unless it has produced not only this body, but also matter, con-sidered as the place in which this body is located, given that production implies a descent for Plotinus. This production of matter by the lower part of the world soul features the same necessity as the Souls production by the Intellect (treatise 10 (V 1) 3), and that of the Intellect by the One-Good (treatise 7 (V 4) 2.27-44; see also treatise 33 (ii 9), 8.20-25).

This is the origin of the two strongest critiques formulated by Proclus in chapter 31 of On the Existence of Evils, against Plotinus position on evil. One of two alter-natives must be true: either one will be obliged to make the Good the cause of evil,

Vi, 2 [43] 8), in: P. Aubenque M. Narcy (eds.), tudes sur le Sophiste de Platon, (Elenchos; 21), Napoli: Bibliopolis, 1991, 449-473. See also my introduction to treatise 43 (Vi, 2), 4 in L. Brisson J.-F. Pradeau (eds.), Plotin: Traits 42-44 (GF; 1348), Paris: Flammarion, 2008.

11 That is, the body (see treatise 13 (iii 9), 3, 2 with the corresponding note by J. Laurent and J.-F. Pradeau in L. Brisson J.-F. Pradeau (eds.), Plotin: Traits 7-21).

12 Many considerations lead me to translate usually the term by reason in the singular or rational formulas () in the plural. When it is singular, that is, at the level of the Intellect and even at that of the hypostasis Soul, it designates the totality that com-prises all the . In the plural, things become more complex, for, insofar as produc-tion in Plotinus is inseparable from contemplation, the are simultaneously rational contents and rules, laws, or formulas that guide the production of sensible realities by the lower part of the world soul. In a pinch, and speaking very loosely, we could assimilate a rational formula to a computer program.

13 I maintain the manuscript reading , construing as follows: [ ] [a verb whose subject is in the Timaeus, which Plotinus assimilates to matter] [matter] [the world]. There are thus two stages: a) soul produces matter, b) then it informs it by means of the . See treatise 15 (iii 4), 1.8-17.

14 The expression for teaching purposes ( ) was attributed to Xeno-crates, who thus justified the apparent temporal origin of the world in the Timaeus; see Plutarch, On the Generation of the Soul in the Timaeus, 1013 a; 1017 b. See also treatise 6 (iV 8), 4.40-42, and treatise 50 (iii 5), 9.24 ff.

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or one will have to accept the existence of two principles of being.15 According to the first horn of the dilemma, the Good could not be the good, because it would engender evil, whereas according to the second horn, the Good would lose its status as an absolute principle. On the level of philosophical argumentation, the two questions raised by Proclus manifest a twofold contradiction from which it is very hard to escape. However, this contradiction fails to take into account the image that enables Plotinus to describe the production of matter by the lower part of the soul of the world. According to this image, the darkness known as matter is indeed produced by the light in which the intelligible consists, and ultimately by its source, the One-Good. Yet this production is that of an inseparable and neces-sary contrary, for there can be no light without darkness and vice versa; and it is necessary because indispensable in order for bodies to exist.16 In addition, matter cannot be placed on the same level as the One-Good, since being bereft of quali-ties it lacks consistency. Moreover, form and matter, light and darkness are insepa-rable in bodies, and matter is not autonomous, but depends on light.17

2.3. The Fall of the SoulIf one considers that matter is the ultimate source of evil in this world, one must nevertheless go back to the total soul, since all the particular souls, both the soul of the world and the totality of all individual souls, form a single soul. Matter can no longer, therefore, be considered to be the sufficient cause of the appearance of evil, for without an affection of the soul, reflected by fatigue and the desire to withdraw upon itself, matter itself could not have appeared. The emergence of evil thus depends not only on matter, which, once it has appeared, perturbs the souls activity, but more ultimately on an original affection of the soul, prior to the sen-sible. It is from this original affection () of the total soul that the latters fall depends, as does the subsequent presence of matter in the world:

This is the fall18 of the soul, to come in this way to matter and to become weak, because all its powers do not come into action;19 matter hinders them from

15 On this critique, see the article by J. Opsomer, Proclus vs Plotinus on Matter (De mal. subs. 30-7), Phronesis 46.2, 2001, 154-188.

16 Proclus also makes use of this image in order to explain evil; see In Parmenidem iii 832.21 ff.

17 For a critique focusing on the argument, see D.J. OMeara, The Metaphysics of Evil in Plotinus: Problems and Solutions, in: J. Dillon M. Dixsaut (eds.), Agonistes. Essays in Honour of Denis OBrien, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005, 179-185.

18 Only one other occurrence of is to be found in Plotinus, in treatise 26 (iii 6), 6.61.

19 Probably the intellective power of the soul, which remains in the intelligible, and does not descend with the soul in order to administer the sensible.

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coming by occupying the place20 which soul holds and producing a kind of cramped condition,21 and making evil what it has got hold of by a sort of theft22 until soul manages to escape back to its higher state. So matter is the cause of the souls weakness () and vice (): it is then itself evil before soul and is primary evil. Even if soul had produced matter23, being affected () in some way,24 and had become evil by communicating with it, matter would have been the cause by its presence: soul would not have come to it un-less its presence had given soul the occasion of coming to birth. (treatise 51 (i 8), 14.44-54)

This passage is very hard to interpret. The essential problem is that of . How should it be construed? It cannot be given a temporal sense, without falling into the contradiction denounced by Denis OBrien:25 the soul cannot have engen-dered matter after having been affected by matter. The participle must therefore be given causal meaning. Yet two other problems then arise. The first is the problem of the very possibility of a in the soul, and the other that of the nature of that .

How can the soul be affected if, as Porphyry does not cease to repeat in the Sen-tences, and as Plotinus already affirms (treatise 9 (Vi 9), 9.15-20; treatise 26 (iii 6),

20 The body, which is constituted of matter and form.21 See Plato, Symposium 206d6: a being approaching what is ugly contracts. Owing to

this contraction, the soul does not exercise all its powers: it henceforth limits itself to the powers mobilized by the governance of bodies.

22 By a sort of theft translates the verb (l. 48). Matter has seized the body by imposing itself upon it as an element associated with form, or rather with reason.

23 Consequently, the divine cannot be held responsible.24 This phrase is hard to interpret. How and by what can the soul be affected, if matter

is only engendered as a result of this affect? Perhaps the term must take on a particular meaning here: it is an affect internal to the intelligible (since neither the sen-sible nor matter exists). One might adduce the fatigue felt by the individual soul, and its sudden will to belong to itself mentioned by Plotinus in treatise 6 (iV 8), 4.11. For a similar interpretation of this affect of the soul, see the comments of J. Igal in Porfirio: Vida de Plotino y orden de sus escritos. Plotino: Enadas I-II, introd., trad. y notas, Madrid: Gredos, 1982, ad locum. In addition, D. OBrien has proposed a detailed reading of this phrase and its various translations and interpretations. For him, this passage contributes to demon-strating that the souls weakness prior to production is a partial, but not a sufficient cause of vice. It is only once matter is produced that vice develops within the soul (cf. D. OBrien, Plotinus on Evil. A Study of Matter and the Soul in Plotinus conception of human Evil, in: Le Noplatonisme. Colloques internationaux du Centre National de la Recherche Sci-entifique, Sciences humaines, Royaumout, 9-13 Juin 1969, Paris: ditions du C.N.R.S., 1971, 113-146, here 135-139).

25 D. OBrien, Thodice plotinienne et thodice gnostique (Philosophia antiqua; 57), Leiden/New York/Kln: Brill, 1993, 28-35.

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1.25-30), the soul is pure activity and cannot therefore be subject to passivity? How, then, can one explain the souls possibility of suffering an affect? No indisputable answer may be given to this question. One is thus left to evoke a metaphorical for-mula referring to the souls aforementioned fatigue, which is itself a mere image to evoke the deficiency of a hypostasis lower than the Intellect.

In any case, let us accept that the soul suffers from an affect. Yet what does this affect consist in? Plotinus tries to answer this question as follows:

But the soul26 is always above, where it is natural for it to be: that which comes next to it is the All, both the immediately neighbouring part and that which is beneath the sun.27 The partial soul28, then, is illuminated when it goes towards that which is before it29 for then it meets reality but when it goes towards what comes after it, it goes towards non-existence. And it does this, when it goes towards itself, for, wishing () to be directed towards itself it makes an image of itself, the non-being, as if walking on emptiness () and becoming more indefinite;30 and the indefinite image of this is every way dark; for it is altogether without reason and unintelligent and stands far removed from reality. (treatise 13 (iii 9) 3.5-14)

In this passage, we encounter two manifestations of the soul: the total soul and the partial soul. Through the intervention of a partial soul that is the lower part of the world soul in other words its image , the total soul, remaining in the intelligible, produces matter as the limit of its illumination. This production does result from a wish, but this wish is inscribed within the souls very nature. It is inevitable, and the same holds true for individual souls (of human beings and animals). A partial soul cannot refuse to come to inhabit a given body. Therefore, the partial souls withdrawal into itself, its walking on emptiness and its indeterminacy reflect an imperfection, a lack with regard to what is higher, that is, the Intellect (treatise

26 The total soul.27 The celestial bodies on one hand, and the earth on the other.28 The vegetative soul.29 That is, the total soul.30 This image which the soul produces in the guise of a non-being is matter. This,

at least, is what one may conjecture from comparisons with treatise 12 (ii 4), which thus pleads, in a debate that still opposes interpreters, in favour of the hypothesis that matter is indeed engendered by the soul. As the notices and the notes to treatises 12 and 15 (iii, 4) explain in more depth in the volume by L. Brisson J.-F. Pradeau (eds.), Plotin: Traits 7-21, the generation of matter by the soul is indeed a Plotinian thesis. D. OBrien, commenting on this chapter 3 of treatise 13, reconstitutes its argument and provides all the relevant tex-tual parallels in La matire chez Plotin: son origine, sa nature, Phronesis 44.1, 1999, 45-71, esp. 66-70. See also the similar remarks of treatise 11 (V 2), 1, 18-21.

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33 (ii 9), 13.27-33). This is why one cannot speak of sin. The Soul does not revolt against the Intellect: it suffers (remember ) from a lack, because it is not the Intellect, and it is this suffering that provokes its fall.

3. evil in Mankind

Let us turn now to the evil for which human beings are responsible in this world, which may be qualified as positive evil, the importance and frequency of which can be explained by an original weakness of a specific soul.

3.1. Positive EvilIn mankind, one must first distinguish between primary evil, which concerns the soul, and secondary evils, which concern the body (treatise 51 (i 8), 8.37-44). Evil in the soul can only come from certain bodily dispositions (treatise 51 (i 8), 8.1-11). Plotinus answers that this explanation, which takes its inspiration from the end of the Timaeus (86c-e), is only partially acceptable. The forms in the body that account for the latters dispositions are not forms in themselves, but forms that can neither organize nor completely dominate matter (8.11-28). It is from this viewpoint, and only from this viewpoint, that one may say that the dispositions of the body determine the state of the soul (8.28-37). Secondary evils can be ex-plained by the poor functioning of the body, particularly in the case of illnesses, and they pertain to the administration of the sensible world. They therefore belong ultimately to matter.

Yet how can the primary evils be explained, those which, in the soul, do not depend on the bodys poor functioning? Three hypotheses appear, which are re-jected in treatise 51 (i 8).31 (a) If evil is a privation of good (treatise 51 (i 8), 11-12), there is no need to call upon a cause other than privation to account for the origin of evil in the human soul. Privation, however, never exists in itself, but always in something else, and the soul does not possess a privation of the good (11). In addi-tion, vice within the soul is not complete, but partial privation (12.2). (b) One may also consider the fact that evil in the soul is an obstacle, like an obstacle in the eye produces poor vision (treatise 51 (i 8), 13.1-2). Yet evil considered as an obstacle is not primary evil, the origin of which must be sought elsewhere. Plotinus answers these two objections in the same way. It is doubtless not absurd to see a privation, or even an obstacle in vice. Yet privations and obstacles are not original evils: they

31 See the excellent presentation by L. Lavaud in the introduction to his translation of this treatise, in L. Brisson J.-F. Pradeau (eds.), Plotin: Traits 51-54. Porphyre: Vie de Plotin, 23-26.

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can, of course, contribute to evil (just as virtue contributes to good, 13.6), but they are not the primary and principle cause of evil. (c) The third hypothesis con-sists in defining evil in the human soul as a weakness of the soul (treatise 51 (i 8), 14). But the cause of the weakness of the soul is matter:

If the inclination is an illumination directed to what is below, it is not a fault,32 just as casting a shadow is not a fault; what is illuminated33 is responsible, for if it did not exist, the soul would have nowhere to illuminate. The soul is said to go down or incline in the sense that the thing which receives light from it lives with it.34 It abandons its image if there is nothing at hand to receive it; and it abandons it, not in the sense that it is cut off35 but in that it no longer exists: and the image no longer exists when the whole soul is looking to the intelligible world. (treatise 53 (i 1), 12.24-31)

When darkness that is, matter36 receives a form () that is, a rational formula () which is present in the soul, or a light it becomes a body. Body

32 The Greek has .33 There must therefore be something after it, something that needs its power, in order

for the soul to bow down to it. That is to say, once again, that it does not yield on its own initiative or as the result of some defect, but in order to take care of (or to give form to) that which cannot do so itself. It thus gives the forms that are last (see 49 (V 3), 9.35) to the darkness, and it is therefore darkness that bears responsibility for the inclination.

34 This is thus the body, which lives with it. The verb () is a hapax in Plotinus; it is used by Plato and Aristotle most often to designate common human life (in a city), or else frequentation (life among others).

35 A critique of suicide.36 This is the final stage of procession, and therefore, of the explanation of the exist-

ence of evil. The descended soul, or rather the soul that has descended the most, that is, the vegetative power of the world soul, engenders matter. According to the metaphor of light and illumination, there is no longer anything luminous about matter: it is a mere shadow. As treatise 51 (i 8), 14, has reminded us, matter, however much it may wish to, is unable to receive the slightest light coming forth from the soul. It is therefore a shadow, a darkness that the soul perceives, and to which it will try to give some light (this is what was ex-plained more precisely in treatise 27 (iV 3), 9.26-28. When the darkness receives a form or a light, it becomes a body. The body, which is already a psychic product, is what Plotinus here designates as what is illuminated. And it is this reality, the body animated by a power of the soul, that is alone responsible for the fault. It is not the soul that enters into its products, since it does not literally enter them, but it is its products that make poor use of the powers it confers upon them (Plotinus had given a polemical explanation of this, by denouncing the way in which the Gnostics did not understand this illumination of the darkness; see 33 (ii 9), 10, and the explanations of R. Dufour in L. Brisson J.-F. Pradeau (eds.), Plotin: Traits 30-37 (GF; 1228), Paris: Flammarion, 2006, ad locum). What is illuminated and what is in the souls vicinity is one and the same thing: the body. For the same vocabulary, see once again, inter alia, 27 (iV 3), 9 or again 13 (iii 9), 3.2.

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is thus indeed what Plotinus here designates by what is illuminated. As a product of the illumination of matter, the body is therefore necessarily illuminated by the soul that uses it as a substrate. The soul, which is an incorporeal, does not enter into its product, a body, in the strict sense of the term, since it remains attached to the intelligible. Yet its attention may be attracted more by bodies that by the incor-poreal, and this is where the cause of evil is to be found. This is what Porphyry was to qualify as in the Sentences (29 and 32), and it designates the souls excessive attachment to the body. This is where the situation gets complicated. Indeed, it is not a relation to matter that renders the soul evil, but too intimate a relation with the body, which is made up of matter, even though the soul remains attached to the intelligible.37

3.2. The Original Weakness of Particular SoulsYet we must go further in order to account for the evil within individual souls, for we must explain how there can be good and evil souls in this world. The evil com-mitted in this world is related to a preceding evil:

And since the fault ( ) of the soul can refer to two things, either to the course of the descent, or to doing evil when the soul has arrived here below, the punishment of the first is the very experience of descent, and the punish-ment of the second is to plunge in other bodies of inferior condition and very quickly38 according to a judgment depending on its moral value39 judgment means what happened by divine decree; but the boundless kind of wickedness

37 As we can see from treatise 6 (iV 8), 8.1-4: And, if one ought to dare to express ones own view more clearly, contradicting the opinion of others, even our soul does not alto-gether come down, but there is always something of it in the Intelligible; from treatise 22 (Vi 4), 14.16-22: But we who are we? Are we that which draws near and come to be in time? No, even before this coming to be came to be we were there, men who were different, and some of us even gods, pure souls and intellect united with the whole of reality; we were parts of the intelligible, not marked off or cut but belonging to the whole; and we are not cut off even now. See also treatise 27 (iV 3), 12.1-5: But the souls of men see their images as if in the mirror of Dionysus and come to be on that level with a leap from above: but even these are not cut off from their own principle, and from Intellect. For they did not come down with Intellect, but went on ahead of it down to earth, but their heads are firmly set above in heaven.

38 This sentence is very badly constructed and raises formidable problems of construal. I understand that the soul commits a fault in two ways: 1) first, by descending, 2) then by committing evil in this world. Punishment for the first fault consists in the souls abase-ment, and for the second in incarnation in an animal of lower rank, for an ordinary fault, and in chastisement by vengeful divinities for extremely serious faults.

39 The expression must refer to a judgment of the kind de-scribed at the end of Platos Gorgias and Republic.

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() is judged to deserve greater punishment in charge of chastising spir-its.40 (treatise 6 (iV 8), 5.16-24)

Note that the punishment for faults committed in this world takes place through .41 The emergence of evil in particular souls, however, does indeed require an original suffering, similar to that of the soul in general, prior to the sensible, and to the causality proper to matter.

3.2.1. The Disparity Between SoulsThere is, however, a great disparity between particular souls:

Though there is matter with the visible gods, evil is not there, not the vice which men have since not even all men have it; the visible gods master matter, yet the gods with whom there is no matter are better and they master it by that in them which is not in matter. (treatise 51 (i 8), 5.30-34)

The souls of gods and demons are situated at a higher level, where there is no evil; and even the souls of some men probably philosophers are free from evil as well. Other souls are better or worse, according to the circumstances, but more basically because they were not all equal, as we may say, from the beginning:

Human souls may be good or bad as a function of circumstances,42 and because they are not all at the same level at the beginning.43 (treatise 47 (iii 2), 18.1-2)

We find this idea as early as the sixth treatise:

But they change from the whole to being a part and belonging to themselves, and, as if they were tired () of being together, they each go to their own.44 Now when a soul does this for a long time, flying from the All and standing apart in distinctness, and does not look towards the intelligible, it has become a part and is isolated and weak and fusses and looks towards a part and

40 The formula must refer to the kind of punishment evoked in Plato, Phaedo 81d, where one finds the same verb .

41 See J. Laurent, La rincarnation chez Plotin et avant Plotin, in: J. Laurent, LHomme et le monde selon Plotin, Fontenay-aux-Roses: eNS ditions, 1999, 115-137.

42 For example, the soul may undergo the detrimental influence of matter (51 (i 8), 4.12-32).

43 The Phaedrus explains that souls, even before they fall into a body for the first time, do not all have an equal contemplation of the intelligible (248a-c). The inequality of their contemplation, as is then explained by the decree of Adrasteia, provokes the inequality of their first incarnation: some become animals, others sages, others politicians, and so on. Plotinus returns to this question in 48 (iii 3), 4.44-45.

44 It is this motion of isolation and retreat into the self that properly defines the genesis of the individual soul.

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in its separation from the whole it embarks on one single thing45 and flies from everything else. (treatise 6 (iV 8), 4.10-17)

In spite of this disparity, man nevertheless remains responsible for his acts,46 for if a certain power has been granted to its intellect at the origin, the human soul can, in the course of its existence, make this power vary as a function of its attachment to the body.

3.2.2. The Myth of the PhaedrusIn the central myth of the Phaedrus, it is quite clear that there is a great disparity between souls:

Now that is the life of the gods (see Plotinus, treatise 51 (i 8), 2.25-26; 9 (Vi 9), 11.48-49). As for the other souls, one that follows a god most closely, making itself most like that god, raises the head of his charioteer up to the place outside (see Plotinus, treatise 52 (ii 3), 15.15; 31 (V 8), 3.27-36) and is carried around in the circular motion with others. Although distracted by the horses, this soul does have a view of reality, just barely. Another soul rises at one time and falls at another, and because its horses pull it violently in different directions, it sees some real things and misses others. The remaining souls are all eagerly straining to keep up, but are unable to rise; they are carried around below the surface, trampling and striking one another as each tries to get ahead of the others. The result is terribly noisy, very sweaty, and disorderly. Many souls are crippled by the incompetence of the drivers, and many wings break much of the plumage. After so much trouble ( ), they all leave the sight of reality unsatisfied, and when they have gone they will depend on what they think is nourishment their own opinions ( ). The reason there is so much eagerness to see the plain where truth stands (see Plotinus, treatise 20 (i 3), 4.11; 38 (Vi 7), 13.34) is that this pasture has the grass that is the right food for the best part of the soul, and it is the nature of the wings that lift up the soul to be nourished by it. Besides, the law of Destiny is this (see Plotinus, treatise 22 (Vi 4), 16.3-4). If any soul becomes a companion to a god and catches sight of any true thing, it will be unharmed until the next circuit; and if it is able to do this every time, it will always be safe. If, on the other hand, it does not see anything true because it could not keep up, and by some misfortune () takes on a burden of forgetfulness and wrongdoing, then it is weighed down, sheds its wings and falls to earth. At that point, according to the law, the soul is not born into a wild

45 The body, henceforth the exclusive object of the souls concern.46 See treatise 47 (iii 2), 10.

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animal in its first incarnation; but a soul that has seen the most will be planted in the seed of a man who will become a lover of wisdom or of beauty, or who will be cultivated in the arts and prone to erotic love (see, Plotinus, treatise 5 (V 9), 2.2-3; 9 (Vi 9), 7.27-28). The second sort of soul (). (Plato, Phaedrus 248a-d, trans. A. Nehamas and P. Woodruff modified)

Plotinus was well aware of and often cited this famous passage from the Phaedrus (for the totality of them, see treatise 6 (iV 8), 1.37; 4.5 and 21-22; treatise 38 (Vi 7), 22.17; treatise 20 (i 3), 1.6-9; treatise 27 (iV 3), 12; treatise 31 (V 8), 10; treatise 47 (iii 2), 13. 16; treatise 9 (Vi 9), 9.24). If human (and animal) souls that fall down to earth are crippled, this is not willingly. It is because of the blows they receive from the other souls, which, like them, seek to catch a glimpse of the intelligible, and owing to the weakness of their charioteer (the intellect). In addition, the fact that souls have opinion as their nourishment ( ) when they are far from the intelligible, must be placed in relation to the in which the soul consists.

It should be noted that Proclus tries to oppose this passage from the Phaedrus to Plotinus doctrine according to which matter is the source of evil:

If, then, the souls suffer weakness and fall, this is not because of matter, since these [deficiencies] existed already before the bodies and matter, and somehow a cause of evil existed in the souls themselves prior to [their descent into] matter. What else could be the explanation of the fact that among the souls that follow Zeus some raise the head of the charioteer into the outer region, whereas are incapable and sink down, and are as it were blunted by that spectacle, and turn away their eyes? Indeed, how can oblivion of being and mischance and heaviness occur in those souls? For the horse that par-ticipates in evil becomes heavy and verges to the earth, without there being matter [involved]. Indeed, only after the soul has fallen to earth does it enter into communion with matter and the darkness here below. Up there, however, and prior to matter and darkness there is [already] weakness and oblivion and evil; for we would not have departed if not out of weakness, since even at a distance we still cling to the contemplation of being. (Proclus, De mal. subs. 33.1-12, trans. Opsomer and Steel)

This critique is already made by an interlocutor to whom Plotinus responds in treatise 51:

But if lack of good is the cause of seeing and keeping company with darkness, the evil for the soul will lie in the lack and this will be primary evil the dark-ness can be put second and the nature of evil will no longer be in matter but before matter.

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Yes, but evil is not in any sort of deficiency but in absolute deficiency; a thing which is only slightly deficient in good is not evil, for it can even be perfect on the level of its own nature. (treatise 51 (i 8), 5.1-8)

Plotinus does not really answer the objection, or rather he answers it, but up-stream on the level of the soul, not downstream on the level of matter. It is correct to say that particular, relative evils are explained by the presence of matter, which is absolute evil. We may wonder, however, why the Soul has produced the absolute evil that is matter. One is then brought back to the fact that the Soul suffers from a deficiency (), or a lack with regard to the Good. The intimate weakness of the soul that pushes it to yield does indeed seem to precede any relation to matter and, as the text says, to be prior to it. Here is how Plotinus describes this defi-ciency of the soul, whereas it remained, until then, preserved and turned toward the intelligible:

But they change from the whole to being a part and belonging to themselves, and, as if they were tired () of being together, they each go to their own. (treatise 6 (iV 8), 4.10-12)

In any case, that is, in the case of the soul as such and in that of particular souls, one finds at the origin of evil, whether it is that absolute evil that is matter, or that relative evil that is the defective behavior of the human soul, a weakness, a defi-ciency, a lack. One cannot, of course, speak of original sin, for the souls original distance with regard to the good does not result from a previous choice, but from a necessity.

3.2.3. The Tragic FaultIn fact, this weakness, this fatigue, does not pre-exist the soul, but is attached to it qua such-and-such a soul. One may therefore think, not of original sin, but of the tragic fault as described by Suzanne Sad in a book that has been successful in France.47 In tragedy, which, moreover, takes up and modifies mythological motifs, the hero who commits a fault is the victim of a situation of whose causes he is unaware, and whose consequences escape him: Oedipus kills his father and mar-ries his mother without knowing what he is doing, as a result of a concatenation of events unleashed by an oracle given to his father Laios, who had been cursed by Pelops, son of Tantalus and father of Atreus and Thyestes, because he had carried off Chrysippus, another of Pelops sons. Tantalus himself, considered as a son of Zeus, was said to have been punished for having revealed without malice the se-crets of the gods to men. One might even associate with this kind of tragic fault,

47 S. Sad, La faute tragique, Paris: Maspero, 1978.

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dependent on an inherited conglomerate, in the words of Dodds,48 the famous Socratic saying: no one commits evil willingly, which Plotinus explains while an-swering an interlocutor in treatise 47 (iii, 2), 10. The human soul is responsible not for its state of original weakness, which it must nevertheless assume with all ne-cessity, but for the insufficiency of the effort it devotes to detaching itself from cor-poreal affects, in order to make use of its intellect that guides it toward the good.

I think it is precisely this opposition between tragic fault and original sin that basically justifies Plotinus opposition to the Gnostics. The notion of original sin has meaning only in the context of a religion in which everything depends on an omnipotent god whom a human soul chooses to oppose. What is more, original sin pre-exists each particular soul, insofar as it was committed by the first human couple. Plotinus, who could not accept this religious context, remained faithful to the Greek tradition and to its much more complex approach to faults, conceived as original weaknesses that must be assumed in order that we may free ourselves from them.

Since, as is explained in treatises 47 (iii 2) and 48 (iii 3), the soul of the world ad-ministers by its providence the world which it has, moreover, created, this world, traversed from one end to the other by the intelligible, ought not to know evil. Yet nothing allows us to reach this conclusion. How, then, can one account for evil in this world? As is explained in treatise 51 (i, 8), 8, evil in this world is the consequence of an original weakness of the total soul, which produced matter like the darkness that necessarily follows light.49 In addition, the evil for which each particular soul is responsible depends on its distance from the intelligible when it enters a body. Yet this original defect does not depend on the individual soul, any more than the weakness that induces the total soul to produce matter de-pends on that soul. Nevertheless, particular souls must assume its consequences in their efforts to free themselves from the affects of a body made up of form and matter, in order to rise back up toward the intelligible. Beyond Plato, Plotinus re-mains faithful to the Greek tradition of the tragic fault as described in the central myth of the Phaedrus (247e-249b), which leads him to oppose the Gnostics. The latter are situated in a completely different religious tradition, that of monotheism, which defends the idea of an original sin. Such a sin consists, for the original couple, in opposing the law of an omnipotent god, and is then transmitted to each particular soul.

48 Words that Dodds (see E.R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational, Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press, 1951, 179) borrows from Gilbert Murray, Greek Studies, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946, 66-67.

49 Moreover it is turned towards its products not towards its principle; see treatise 30 (iii 8) and treatise 12 (ii 4), 8-11.