Enneads
Plotinus's six Enneads of nine treatises each, edited and arranged by his pupil Porphyry. Stephen MacKenna's translation (1917–1930), revised by B.S. Page (1962).
Source context· Greco-Christian stream · Greco-Latin cultural age
- Stream
- Greco-Christian
- Cultural age
- Greco-Latin (4th post-Atlantean cultural age)
- Composed
- c. 250 CE
Porphyry: Life of Plotinus & Arrangement of the Treatises
Porphyry's Life of Plotinus + the order of his books
Porphyry's biographical preface (c. 301 CE) recounting Plotinus's life, his teaching method, his fifty-four treatises, and the editorial principles by which Porphyry arranged them into six ennead-groups of nine treatises each.
1 sections · 8,795 words
Read →Ennead I — Ethics, Aesthetics, Inner Life
Ethical treatises — virtue, dialectic, beauty, the Good
Nine treatises on the ethical life of the soul: the nature of the living being and the human being; the virtues; on dialectic; on happiness; whether happiness depends on duration; on beauty; on the primal good and other goods; on what evils are and whence they come; and on the rational withdrawal from life.
9 sections · 29,399 words
Read →Ennead II — The Physical Cosmos
Physical-cosmological treatises — the heavens, matter, sense
Nine treatises on the structure of the sensible cosmos: the motion of the heavens; on the soul's substance in the universe; on whether the stars are causes; on matter (the famous treatise 'on matter'); on potentiality and actuality; on quality; on complete transfusion; on sight; against the Gnostics (the great anti-Gnostic treatise).
9 sections · 36,077 words
Read →Ennead III — Cosmos, Time, Providence
Cosmological treatises — fate, providence, eternity, love, contemplation
Nine treatises on the principles governing the cosmos and soul-in-cosmos: on fate; on providence (two long treatises); on our allotted daemon; on love; on impassivity of incorporeals; on eternity and time (the great treatise on time); on nature, contemplation, and the One (the famous treatise that all things contemplate); on the contemplation of the Intellectual.
9 sections · 51,680 words
Read →Ennead IV — On the Soul
On the Soul — the most concentrated psychology of antiquity
Nine treatises on the nature of soul: on the essence of the soul (two treatises); difficulties about the soul (three treatises — the great Plotinian psychology, treating immortality, descent, and the parts of the soul); on sensation and memory; on the immortality of the soul; on whether all souls are one; on the descent of the soul into bodies.
9 sections · 59,259 words
Read →Ennead V — On the Intellectual-Principle
On the Intellectual Principle (Nous) — the second hypostasis
Nine treatises on the second principle (Νοῦς) and its relation to the One and Soul: on the three primary hypostases (the foundational treatise); on the origin and order of the beings after the First; on the knowing hypostases and the Transcendent; on how the One generates Intellect; on the Forms in Intellect; on the Good; on whether there are Ideas of particulars; on the intelligible beauty; on the Intellect, Forms, and Being.
9 sections · 37,243 words
Read →Ennead VI — Being, Number, the One
On the One, on Being, on the categories — the climactic ennead
Nine treatises on Being and the One: on the kinds of being (three long treatises against Aristotle's categories); on the perfect identity of Being and Number; on numbers; on the omnipresence of Being; on free will and the will of the One; on the Good and the One (the climactic treatise — Plotinus's final word on the highest principle).
9 sections · 93,682 words
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