7. SIMILARITIES APPLIED DIFFERENTLY.
This comparison of philosophy would have been much stronger had we added thereto the following points in which we find similar terms and ideas, but which are applied differently. The soul is indissolubly united to intelligence according to Plotinos, but to its source with Numenius.[658] Plotinos makes discord the result of their fall, while with Numenius it is its cause.[659] Guilt is the cause of the fall of souls, with Plotinos,[660] but with Numenius it is impulsive passion. The great evolution or world-process is by Plotinos called the "eternal procession," while with Numenius it is progress.[661] The simile of the pilot is by Plotinos applied to the soul within the body; while with Numenius, it refers to the logos, or creator in the universe,[662] while in both cases the cause,—of creation for the creator,[663] and incarnation for the soul[664]—is forgetfulness. There is practically no difference here, however. Doubleness is, by Plotinos, predicated of the sun and stars, but by Numenius, of the demiurge himself,[665] which Plotinos opposes as a Gnostic teaching.[666] The Philonic term "legislator" is, by Plotinos, applied to intelligence, while Numenius applies it to the third divinity, and not the second.[667] Plotinos extends immortality to animals, but Numenius even to the inorganic realm, including everything.[668] While Numenius seems to believe in the Serapistic and Gnostic demons,[669] Plotinos opposes them,[670] although in his biography[671] he is represented as taking part in the evocation of his guardian spirit in a temple of Isis.
We thus find a tolerably complete body of philosophy shared by Plotinos and Numenius, out of the few fragments of the latter that have come down to us. It would therefore be reasonable to suppose that if Numenius's complete works had survived we could make out a still far stronger case for Plotinos's dependence on Numenius. At any rate, the Dominican scribe at the Escoreal who inserted the name of Numenius in the place of that of Plotinos in the heading of[672] the fragment about matter, must have felt a strong confusion between the two authors.
8. PHILOSOPHICAL RELATIONS BETWEEN NUMENIUS AND PLOTINOS.
To begin with, we have the controversy with the Stoics, which, though it appears in the works of both, bears in each a different significance. While with Numenius it absorbed his chief controversial efforts,[673] with Plotinos[674] it occupied only one of his many spheres of interest; and indeed, he had borrowed from them many terms, such as "pneuma," the spiritual body, and others, set forth elsewhere. Notable, however, was the term "hexis," habituation, or form of inorganic objects,[675] and the "phantasia," or sense-presentation.[676] Like, them, the name A-pollo is interpreted as a denial of manifoldness.[677]
Next in importance, as a landmark, is Numenius's chief secret, the name of the divinity, as "being and essence," which reappears in Plotinos in numberless places.[678] Connected with this is the idea that essence is intelligence.[679]
9. PYTHAGOREAN SIMILARITIES.
It is a common-place that Numenius was a Pythagorean, or at least was known as such, for though he reverenced Pythagoras, he conceived of himself as a restorer of true Platonism. It will, therefore, be all the more interesting to observe what part numbers play in their system, especially in that of Plotinos, who made no special claim to be a Pythagorean disciple. First, we find that numbers and the divine ideas are closely related.[680] Numbers actually split the unity of the divinity.[681] The soul also is considered as a number,[682] and in connection with this we find the Pythagorean sacred "tetraktys."[683] Thus numbers split up the divinity,[684] though it is no more than fair to add that elsewhere Plotinos contradicts this, and states that the multiplicity of the divinity is not attained by division;[685] still, this is not the only case in which we will be forced to array Plotinos against himself.
The first effect of the splitting influence of numbers will be doubleness,[686] which, though present in intelligence,[687] nevertheless chiefly appears in matter,[688] as the Pythagorean "indefinite dyad."[689] Still, even the Supreme is double.[690] So we must not be surprised if He is constituted by a trinity,[691] in connection with which the Supreme appears as grandfather.[692]
If then both Numenius and Plotinos are really under the spell of Pythagoras, it is pretty sure they will not be materialist, they will believe in the incorporeality of the divinity,[693] of qualities;[694] and of the soul[695] which will be invisible[696] and possess no extension.[697] A result of this will be that the soul will not be located in the body, or in space, but rather the body in the soul.[698]