Plotinus

Oriental Christian mysticism, however, contained a pagan element.

It had long ago absorbed the ideas and adopted the language of Plotinus and the Neoplatonic school.

2.

Neoplatonism Aristotle, not Plato, is the dominant figure in Muslim philosophy, and few Mohammedans are familiar with the name of Plotinus, who was more commonly called the Greek master Al-Shaykh Al-Yoonani.

But since the Arabs gained their first knowledge of Aristotle from his Neoplatonist commentators, the system with which they became imbued was that of Porphyry and Proclus.

Thus the so-called theology of Aristotle, of which an Arabic version appeared in the 9th century, is actually a manual of Neoplatonism.

It is impossible in the brief space at my command to give the reader more than a passing glimpse of the treasures which the exuberant fancy of the East has heaped together in every room of this enchanted palace.

The soul is likened to a moaning dove that has lost her mate, to a reed torn from its bed and made into a flute whose plaintive music fills the eye with tears, to a falcon summoned by the fowler's whistle to perch again upon his wrist, to snow melting in the sun and mounting as vapor to the sky, to a frenzied camel swiftly plunging through the desert by night, to a caged parrot, a fish on dry land, a pawn that seeks to become a king.

Absolutely.

Now, you've introduced me to somebody I had never read before, Plotinus.

Now, and you also write about, people call him pseudo-Dionysius, but there are other people who think there's nothing pseudo about him.

Anyway, let's not get into that debate.

What, why, what, and what did Plotinus and what did pseudo-Dionysius or Dionysius believe about beauty?

Yeah, so Plotinus was not a Christian.

He rubbed shoulders with Christians.

He was a Roman philosopher, wasn't he?

We don't agree with secularism or naturalism.

What we want is a supernaturalism." And so in looking for a supernatural worldview, what they do is they go to Platonism, and they look at the writings not only of Plato, but of first century Platonists like Plutarch and fourth century or third, fourth century ones like Plotinus.

And they say, "No, there is a supernatural world.

We can prove there's a supernatural world, so that means that miracles and resurrections and things like that are feasible after all." And, uh, that's been a problem for those who want to take the Old Testament seriously as a promise of God putting the world right at last.

If anything, it's a complete rejection of that, right? It's like, you know, the Hermeticists talk about being reborn into the noose or whatever, into the, like the, into the divine mind or like waking up in the divine mind.

You know, Plotinus and, and Neoplatonic philosophers are talking about like these cosmic ascent kinds of meditations that will take you into the, again, the noetic realm and eventually bring you back to the sort of divine beauty and oneness that underpins all of reality, Tohen.

Um, so, so there's definitely similarities and differences.

They're definitely connecting to these higher forces and minds and, and powers, uh, particularly when you get to the, uh, like the theurgic Neoplatonists like Iamblichus.