mountainman

The Disciples of Plotinus seem to number very close to twelve - a total of eleven without counting an additional defector (whom Porphyry names as Olympius - a 12th "apostle" - also formerly a follower of Ammonias Saccas). The philosophy of Plotinus was a third century restatement of the Greek philosophical knowledge of Plato and other "Greek patriachs". The Greek academic Porphyry wrote a "Life of Plotinus" perhaps about c.300 CE, and included mention that this philosopher was patronised and highly regarded by the Roman emperor Galenius, politicians and members of the senate. One of Porphyry's major literary works was the preservationn of the sayings/discourses of Plotinus - in "The Enneads.

The writings and works of Porphyry were highly likely to have been preserved in the libraries of Rome when Constantine arrived. We have here Plotinus, a well respected Greek philosopher, sometimes described as the most brilliant philosopher since Aristotle, living to the age of 69 and having the tradition of attracting almost twelve apostles to his version of Platonic philosophy and daily living. A huge compendium of written literature sourced from this very popular luminary --- following the Second Sophistic --- is generated by the academic Porphyry. Is it a coincidence that Plotinus or Jesus had twelve apostles?

See the Stanford article on Plotinus for a background.
The source data is provided by Porphyry: On the Life of Plotinus

mountainman

History of Western Philosophy - Bertrand Russell - 1945

p.289

Chapter 30 - PLOTINUS (204-270 CE)

Plotinus (204-270 CE), the founder of Neoplatonism,
is the last of the great philosophers of antiquity.

p.292

"The metaphysics of Plotinus begins with a Holy Trinity:

The One, Spirit and Soul.

These three are not equal, like the Persons of the Holy Trinity;
the One is supreme, Spirit comes next, and Soul last.[2]

[2] Origen, a contemporary of Plotinus and
had the same teacher in philosophy, taught
that the First Person was superior to the
Second, and the Second to the Third, agreeing
in this with Plotinus. But Origen's view was
subsequently declared heretical.

THE ONE is somewhat shadowy. It is sometimes called
God, sometimes called the Good; it transcends Being.

THE NOUS "SPIRIT" - offspring/reflection of the ONE.
includes mind - the intellect.

SOUL - offspring of the Divine Intellect. It is double:
there is an inner soul, intent on NOUS, and another,
which faces the external.

p.300

[end of chapter]..

Plotinus is both an end and a beginning - an end
as regards the Greeks, a beginning as regards
Christendom.


To the ancient world, weary with
centuries of disappointment, exhausted by despair
his doctrine might be acceptable, but could not be
stimulating. To the cruder barbarian world, where
the superabundant energy needed to be restrained
and regulated rather than stimulated, what could
penetrate in his teachings was beneficial, since
the evil to be combated was not languor but
brutality. The work of transmitting what could
survive of his philosophy was performed by the
Christian philosophers of the last age of Rome.

Joe Blowe

I've posted this before on another forum, but it's worth repeating in this thread

The gospellers claimed that Jesus had twelve apostles and they are named in:

Mark 3:13-18
Matthew 10:2-4
Acts 1:13-26
John 1:40-50, 6:71, 20:24, and 21:2
2 Corinthians 1:1

Here’s the list:

Simon Peter
Andrew
James (son of Zebedee)
John (son of Zebedee)
Philip
Bartholomew
James (son of Alphaeus)
Judas Iscariot
Judas (James’ brother)
Nathanael
Matthew
Levi
Thomas
Thomas Didymus
Thaddaeus
Lebbaeus Thaddaeus
Simon the Canaanite
Simon Zelotes (or Simon the Zealot)
Matthias
Paul

Oops...Twenty apostles.

Here’s how the apologists whittle the list down to a more acceptable level:


* Matthias and Paul were NOT chosen by Jesus (18 still on the list)

* Thomas and Thomas Didymus were one and the same (17 still on the list)

* Simon the Canaanite was also known as Simon Zelotes (16 still on the list)

* In Matthew 10:3, Matthew is described as a publican and in Luke 5:27, Levi is described as a publican, so the apologists have declared (with no real evidence) that the one publican used both names (15 still on the list).

* Thaddaeus (Mark 3:18) and Lebbaeus Thaddaeus (Matt 10:3) are one and the same (14 still on the list).

* Judas (the brother of James) is not the Judas who betrayed Jesus because John 14:22 specifically states that he was “Judas NOT Iscariot”, so who was he? Well he wasn’t one of the famous apostles (say the apologists) otherwise we’d have more information about him...So maybe Judas was another name for Thaddaeus – yeah, that will do, just make it up! (13 still on the list)

* As for Nathanael (say the apologists) there is no way he could be an apostle in his own right, otherwise we’d have 13 apostles and that would be just plain silly – so they simply state that it must have been a name used by one of the other apostles. No evidence, of course, but it solves the problem so it must be true.


So these are the commonly accepted apostles of Jesus:
Simon/Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, James (son of Alphaeus), Judas Iscariot, Matthew, Thomas, Thaddaeus, and Simon.

But that still leaves two extra apostles:
Judas (brother of James) and Nathanael

Funny book, the bible...Well it makes me laugh.

yankee_doodle

Unfortunately even these type of smoking guns won't convince many in Judeo-Christian society that their faith systems are merely another in a long list of mythological offshoots.

You can point to similarities between Judaism and older Sumerian myths (and Mesopotamian mythology more broadly), the numerous similarities between Christianity and Egyptian/Greek mythology, the numerous virgin birth motifs, etc. and the faithful will at least appear to remain belligerent.

It won't matter to them that there's never been a single supernatural event evidencing a god who governs the universe, which has been verified by rigorous, independent scrutiny. They are indoctrinated (or maybe even brainwashed). I was a Christian myself at one point in life, now I'm so far detached from religiosity I'm not sure how I was ever gullible enough to buy into those stories, but I was (and I'm the product of a decent law school education).

I hear Christians everyday who are so misinformed it spins my head around. In the minds of many Christians Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and Alexander Hamilton (all deists, and secular progressives) were a cabal of bible pounders.

I guess all we can do is try and mitigate the potential harm of religion through remaining at least somewhat active (and through lending our support to progressive organizations the best we can)? In remaining active I think the best way we can serve the public interest is by making sure real facts are abundantly available in the public sphere. I too often conduct a Google search only to find the first few pages of the search saturated with apologetic web sites (that sometimes try to mask themselves). This is sort of scary to me (and provides a modern example, in a country where many believe we're immune to this sort of mindless propaganda, of the potential dangers of religion).

Anyways, I'm new to this forum & hopefully I wind up being a good fit here.

Minimalist

It would if it weren't used for such tyranny.

mountainman

Did Plotinus write "Against the Gnostics"?

The Ninth Tractate of the Second Ennead by Plotinus is often generally quoted and cited with the description "Against the Gnostics"

However the actual title of this tractate is:

AGAINST THOSE THAT AFFIRM THE CREATOR OF THE KOSMOS
AND THE KOSMOS ITSELF TO BE EVIL:

Does anyone happen to know why it is generally quoted
that Plotinus wrote "Against the Gnostics"?


Here are the opening sections ....

NINTH TRACTATE.
AGAINST THOSE THAT AFFIRM THE CREATOR OF THE KOSMOS
AND THE KOSMOS ITSELF TO BE EVIL:

[GENERALLY QUOTED AS "AGAINST THE GNOSTICS"].

Section 1
1. We have seen elsewhere that the Good, the Principle, is simplex, and, correspondingly, primal- for the secondary can never be simplex- that it contains nothing: that it is an integral Unity.

Now the same Nature belongs to the Principle we know as The One. just as the goodness of The Good is essential and not the outgrowth of some prior substance so the Unity of The One is its essential.

Therefore:

When we speak of The One and when we speak of The Good we must recognize an Identical Nature; we must affirm that they are the same- not, it is true, as venturing any predication with regard to that [unknowable] Hypostasis but simply as indicating it to ourselves in the best terms we find.

Even in calling it "The First" we mean no more than to express that it is the most absolutely simplex: it is the Self-Sufficing only in the sense that it is not of that compound nature which would make it dependent upon any constituent; it is "the Self-Contained" because everything contained in something alien must also exist by that alien.

Deriving, then, from nothing alien, entering into nothing alien, in no way a made-up thing, there can be nothing above it.

We need not, then, go seeking any other Principles; this- the One and the Good- is our First; next to it follows the Intellectual Principle, the Primal Thinker; and upon this follows Soul. Such is the order in nature. The Intellectual Realm allows no more than these and no fewer.

Those who hold to fewer Principles must hold the identity of either Intellectual-Principle and Soul or of Intellectual-Principle and The First; but we have abundantly shown that these are distinct.

It remains for us to consider whether there are more than these Three.

Now what other [Divine] Kinds could there be? No Principles of the universe could be found at once simpler and more transcendent than this whose existence we have affirmed and described.

They will scarcely urge upon us the doubling of the Principle in Act by a Principle in Potentiality. It is absurd to seek such a plurality by distinguishing between potentiality and actuality in the case of immaterial beings whose existence is in Act- even in lower forms no such division can be made and we cannot conceive a duality in the Intellectual-Principle, one phase in some vague calm, another all astir. Under what form can we think of repose in the Intellectual Principle as contrasted with its movement or utterance? What would the quiescence of the one phase be as against the energy of the others?

No: the Intellectual-Principle is continuously itself, unchangeably constituted in stable Act. With movement- towards it or within it- we are in the realm of the Soul's operation: such act is a Reason-Principle emanating from it and entering into Soul, thus made an Intellectual Soul, but in no sense creating an intermediate Principle to stand between the two.

Nor are we warranted in affirming a plurality of Intellectual Principles on the ground that there is one that knows and thinks and another knowing that it knows and thinks. For whatever distinction be possible in the Divine between its Intellectual Act and its Consciousness of that Act, still all must be one projection not unaware of its own operation: it would be absurd to imagine any such unconsciousness in the Authentic Intelligence; the knowing principle must be one and the selfsame with that which knows of the knowing.

The contrary supposition would give us two beings, one that merely knows, and another separate being that knows of the act of knowing.

If we are answered that the distinction is merely a process of our thought, then, at once, the theory of a plurality in the Divine Hypostasis is abandoned: further, the question is opened whether our thought can entertain a knowing principle so narrowed to its knowing as not to know that it knows- a limitation which would be charged as imbecility even in ourselves, who if but of very ordinary moral force are always master of our emotions and mental processes.

No: The Divine Mind in its mentation thinks itself; the object of the thought is nothing external: Thinker and Thought are one; therefore in its thinking and knowing it possesses itself, observes itself and sees itself not as something unconscious but as knowing: in this Primal Knowing it must include, as one and the same Act, the knowledge of the knowing; and even the logical distinction mentioned above cannot be made in the case of the Divine; the very eternity of its self-thinking precludes any such separation between that intellective act and the consciousness of the act.

The absurdity becomes still more blatant if we introduce yet a further distinction- after that which affirms the knowledge of the knowing, a third distinction affirming the knowing of the knowledge of the knowing: yet there is no reason against carrying on the division for ever and ever.

To increase the Primals by making the Supreme Mind engender the Reason-Principle, and this again engender in the Soul a distinct power to act as mediator between Soul and the Supreme Mind, this is to deny intellection to the Soul, which would no longer derive its Reason from the Intellectual-Principle but from an intermediate: the Soul then would possess not the Reason-Principle but an image of it: the Soul could not know the Intellectual-Principle; it could have no intellection.

andrewcriddle

All the titles of Plotinus' works derive from Plotinus' followers. In the Life of Plotinus Porphyry uses both titles for this tractate.

Andrew Criddle

DCHindley

Andrew,

I don't think MM disputes that these are both titles of the same work, but I think he is wondering whether "Against the Gnostics" is the correct title for a work that refutes "those who affirm that the creator of the Cosmos (the demiurge Ialdabaoth or whatever, who formed the world) and the Cosmos itself (primal matter) are evil."

If so, I'd say "yes."

DCH