As to the soul's salvation, God is the opposite of the evil of beings,[551] which, when created in honor of the divinity[552] is the image of the Word, the interpreter of the One,[553] and is composed of several elements;[554] but it is a fall from God,[555] and its fate is connected with the "parousia."[556]
This going forth of the soul from God, when considered cosmically, becomes the "procession of the soul."[557] This is the "eternal generation,"[558] whereby the Son is begotten from eternity,[559] so that there could be no (Arian) "ên hote ouk ên," or, "time when he was not."[560] This is expressed as "light of light,"[561] and explained by the Athanasian light and ray simile.[562] We find even the Johannine and Philonic distinction between God and the Good.[563] The world is the first-begotten,[564] and the Intelligence is the logos of the first God,[565] as the hypostasis of wisdom is "ousia," or "being,"[566] and it is the "universal reason."[567]
As to the trinity, Plotinos is the first and chief rationalizer of the cosmic trinity, which he continuously and at length discusses.[568] God is father and son,[569] and they are "homoousian," or "consubstantial."[570] The human soul (as image of the cosmic divinity), is one nature in three powers.[571] Elsewhere we have discussed the history of the term "persons," but we may understand the result of that process best by Plotinos's simile of the trinity as one head with three faces,[572] in which the "persons" bear out their original meaning of masks, "personare." Henceforward the trinity was an objective idea.
NOTE
Although mentioned above, special attention should be given to the parable of the vine and the branches (iii. 3.7.—48, 1088 with Jno. xv. 1–8), and the divinity's begetting a Son (v. 8.12—31, 571). The significant aspect of this is that it is represented as being the content of the supreme ecstatic vision; what you might call the crown of Plotinos' message. "He tells us that he has seen the divinity beget an offspring of an incomparable beauty, producing everything in Himself, and without pain preserving within Himself what He has begotten.... His Son has manifested Himself externally. By Him, as by an image (Col. i. 15), you may judge of the greatness of His Father ... enjoying the privilege of being the image of His eternity."
VII. PLOTINOS'S INDEBTEDNESS TO NUMENIUS.
1. HISTORICAL RELATIONS BETWEEN NUMENIUS AND PLOTINOS.
We have, elsewhere, pointed out the historic connections between Numenius and Plotinos. Here, it may be sufficient to recall that Amelius, native of Numenius's home-town of Apamea, and who had copied and learned by heart all the works of Numenius, and who later returned to Apamea to spend his declining days, bequeathing his copy of Numenius's works to his adopted son Gentilianus Hesychius, was the companion and friend of Plotinos during his earliest period, editing all Plotinos's books, until displaced by Porphyry. We remember also that Porphyry was Amelius's disciple, before his spectacular quarrel with Amelius, later supplanting him as editor of the works of Plotinos. Plotinos also came from Alexandria, where Numenius had been carefully studied and quoted by Origen and Clement of Alexandria. Further, Porphyry records twice that accusations were popularly made against Plotinos, that he had plagiarized from Numenius. In view of all this historical background, we have the prima-facie right to consider Plotinos chiefly as a later re-stater of the views of Numenius, at least during his earlier or Amelian period. Such a conception of the state of affairs must have been in the mind of that monk who, in the Escoreal manuscript, substituted the name of Numenius for that of Plotinos on that fragment[573] about matter, which begins directly with Numenius's name of the divinity, "being and essence."[574]