6. PARTICULAR SIMILARITIES.
God is supreme king.[615] Eternity is now, but neither past nor future.[616] The King in heaven is surrounded by leisure.[617] The Good is above Being;[618] the divinity is the unity above the "Being and Essence;[619] and connected with this is the unitary interpretation of the name A-pollo,[620] following in the footsteps of Plutarch. Nevertheless, the inferior divinity traverses the heavens,[621] in a circular motion.[622] While Numenius does not specify this motion as circular,[623] it is implied, inasmuch as the creator's passing through the heavens must have followed their circular course. With this perfect motion is connected the peculiar Numenian doctrine of inexhaustible giving,[624] which gave a philosophical basis for the old simile of radiation of light,[625] so that irradiation is the method of creation,[626] and this is not far removed from emanationism. This process consists of the descent of the intelligible into the material, or, as Numenius puts it, that both the intelligible and the perceptible participate in the ideas.[627] Thus intelligence is the uniting principle that holds together the bodies whose tendency is to split up, and scatter,[628] making a leakage or waste,[629] which process invades even the divinity.[630] This uniting of scattering elements produces a mixture or mingling,[608] of matter and reason,[631] which, however, is limited to the energies of the existent, not to the existent itself.[632] All things are in a flow,[633] and the whole all is in all.[634] The divinity creates by glancing at the intelligence above,[635] as a pilot.[636] The divinity is split by over-attention to its charges.[637]
This leads us over to consideration of the soul. The chief effort of Numenius is a polemic against the materialism of the Stoics, and to it Plotinos devotes a whole book.[638] All souls, even the lowest, are immortal.[639] Even qualities are incorporeal.[640] The soul, therefore, remains incorporeal.[641] The soul, however, is divisible.[642] This explains the report that Numenius taught not various parts of the soul,[643] but two souls, which would be opposed by Plotinos in his polemic against the Stoics,[644] but taught in another place.[645] Such divisibility is indeed implied in the formation of presentation as a by-product,[646] or a "common part."[647] Moreover, the soul has to choose its own demon, or guardian divinity.[648] Salvation as a goal appears in Numenius,[649] but not in Plotinos, who opposes the Gnostic idea of the "saved souls,"[650] though elsewhere he speaks of the paths of the musician,[651] lover[652] and philosopher[653] in reaching ecstasy.[654] Still both Gnostics and Plotinos insisted on the need of a savior.[655] Memory is actualization of the soul.[656] In the highest ecstasy the soul is alone with the alone.[657]