Greece & Rome · c. 204–270
Plotinus
Founder of Neoplatonism, teaching in Rome
Described reality as emanating from the One through Intellect and Soul, and the philosophical life as the soul’s inward ascent to union with its source. Porphyry reports that he experienced such union several times.
Life and thought
Plotinus was born in Egypt around 204 CE and at twenty-seven found his teacher, Ammonius Saccas, in Alexandria, studying with him for eleven years. He joined Emperor Gordian’s campaign against Persia hoping to learn Persian and Indian wisdom, but the expedition failed. From 244 he taught in Rome, attracting senators and the emperor Gallienus. He began writing only around fifty; his pupil Porphyry arranged the fifty-four treatises into six groups of nine, the Enneads.
Plotinus saw reality as overflowing from a single source, the One, beyond being and thought, as light pours from the sun without the sun losing anything. From it comes Intellect, the realm of Plato’s Forms thinking itself, and from Intellect comes Soul, which animates the visible world; matter, at the far edge, is almost nothing. The human soul belongs to every level, and philosophy is the journey inward and upward to the One, ending in a union beyond words; Porphyry says Plotinus reached it four times while he knew him. Augustine and medieval mystics drew on this picture.