Plotino – Tratado 1,6 (I,6,6) – A purificação da alma

6. Pois, como diz o antigo ensinamento, a temperança, a coragem e toda virtude é purificação, inclusive a própria sabedoria. Por isso os mistérios corretamente enigmam que o não purificado, indo ao Hades, jazerá na lama, porque o que não é puro é amigo da lama por sua maldade ¹: como os porcos, não puros de corpo, se comprazem com esse tipo de coisa ². Que seria, então, a verdadeira temperança senão o não associar-se aos prazeres do corpo, fugir deles por não serem puros nem próprios do puro? E a coragem é afobia da morte. Esta, porém, a morte, é estar a alma afastada do corpo ³. Mas não teme isso quem ama [313] estar só. A magnanimidade, por sua vez, é o desdém pelas coisas daqui. E a sabedoria, a intelecção aversa às coisas baixas e que conduz a alma às superiores.

A alma, estando purificada, toma-se então forma e razão, inteiramente incorpórea, intelectual e toda ela pertencente ao divino, donde provém a fonte do belo e todas as coisas congêneres desse tipo. A alma assim alçada ao intelecto toma-se a-flux bela. O intelecto e as coisas dele oriundas são a beleza própria e não alheia da alma, pois nesse momento ela é verdadeiramente apenas alma. Por isso, também se diz corretamente que o bem e o belo para a alma consistem em assemelhar-se a deus ⁴, porque daí provêm o belo e a outra parte dos entes. Ou melhor: os entes são a beldade e a outra natureza é o feio, que é ele mesmo o mal primeiro, de modo que, para deus, o mesmo é ser bom e belo, ou melhor, o bem e a beldade.

Logo, deve-se do mesmo modo investigar o belo e o bem, o feio e o mal. E como o primeiro deve-se estabelecer a beldade, que também é o bem: dele provém imediatamente o intelecto enquanto o belo; a alma é bela pelo intelecto: e as demais coisas são belas devido à alma que as informa, tanto as belas no âmbito das ações quanto as no das ocupações. Ademais, os corpos, todos os que são considerados belos, é já a alma que os faz assim: porque ela é divina e como que uma fração do belo, ela toma belas todas as coisas que toca e domina, na proporção em que são capazes de participar. [314]

6. Pois, conforme um antigo ensinamento , a disciplina moral, a coragem e todas as virtude são purificações, inclusive a sabedoria. Por isso os mistérios dizem com razão que o ser que não foi purificado será mergulhado na imundície quando for para o Hades, posto que o impuro, devido aos seus vícios, ama as imundícies, como os porcos, cujos corpos são impuros, amam a impureza.

Em que consistirá então a verdadeira disciplina moral a não ser em não se unir aos prazeres dos corpos, mas fugir deles visto que são impuros e indignos dos puros? A coragem, por sua vez, consiste em não temer a morte. Ora, a morte é a separação entre a alma e o corpo, e o homem que ama estar livre em relação ao corpo não temerá essa separação. Já a grandeza de alma é o desprezo das coisas daqui de baixo. A sabedoria é o ato da inteligência que se desvia das coisas de baixo e conduz a alma para as do alto. Assim, a alma uma vez purificada, torna-se uma Forma [Idéia] e uma razão: torna-se totalmente incorporal, intelectual e pertence inteira ao mundo divino, no qual está a origem da beleza e do qual provém todas as coisas belas. Portanto, uma alma elevada ao nível da inteligência é ainda mais bela, pois a inteligência e o que dela provém são, para a alma, uma beleza própria e não estrangeira, pois só então a alma é realmente uma alma. Por isso se diz com razão que quando a alma se torna algo bom e belo tornar-se semelhante a Deus, pois de Deus provêm toda a beleza e todo o bem que há nos seres.

Podemos inclusive dizer que beleza é a existência real ou a verdadeira realidade e a feiura é o princípio contrário à existência. A feiura é o primeiro mal. Assim, para Deus as qualidades da bondade e da beleza são a mesma, bem como as realidades do Bem e da Beleza. Portanto, devemos seguir o mesmo método para descobrirmos a beleza e o bem, e a feiura e mal.

A Beleza, essa Beleza que também é o Bem, deve ser colocada como a primeira realidade. Imediatamente depois dela vem a Inteligência, que é uma manifestação proeminente da beleza. A alma é bela mediante a inteligência. As outras belezas, por exemplo as das ações e ocupações, provêm do fato de a alma imprimir nelas a sua forma, a qual também é responsável por toda a beleza que há no mundo sensível, pois sendo um ente divino, um fragmento da beleza primordial, torna belas todas as coisas que toca e domina, contanto que ela mesma participe da beleza.

6 Y es que, según la doctrina antigua, «la morigeración, la valentía» y toda virtud es «purificación, y la sabiduría misma lo es» Y por eso los ritos mistéricos tienen razón al decir, con misterioso sentido, que quien no esté purificado, yendo «al Hades, yacerá en el cieno». Porque lo impuro, por su maldad, es amigo del cieno, lo mismo que los cerdos, inmundos como son de cuerpo, se recrean en lo inmundo. Porque la verdadera morigeración, ¿en qué puede consistir sino en no tener trato con los placeres del cuerpo, antes bien rehuirlos como impuros e impropios del puro?. La valentía consiste en no temer la muerte; mas ésta, la muerte, consiste en que el alma esté separada del cuerpo. Ahora bien, esta separación no la teme quien gusta de quedarse a solas. La magnanimidad consiste en el desdén por las cosas de acá; y la sabiduría, en la intelección, que vuelve la espalda a las cosas de abajo y conduce el alma a las de arriba.

Una vez, pues, que el alma se ha purificado, se hace forma y razón, se vuelve totalmente incorpórea e intelectiva y se integra toda ella en lo divino, de donde nacen la fuente de lo bello y todas las cosas de la misma estirpe parecidas a lo bello. Un alma subida a la inteligencia realza, por tanto, su belleza. Ahora bien, la inteligencia y las cosas derivadas de la inteligencia son la belleza propia, que no ajena, del alma, ya que entonces es realmente sólo alma. Y por eso se dice con razón que, para el alma, el hacerse buena y bella consiste en asemejarse a Dios, porque de él nacen la Belleza y la otra porción de los seres. Mejor dicho, los Seres son la Beldad, y la otra naturaleza la fealdad, que es lo mismo que el mal primario; luego también en Dios son la misma cosa bondad y beldad, o mejor, el Bien y la Beldad.

Y, por tanto, la investigación de lo bello debe ir paralela a la de lo bueno; y la de lo feo, a la de lo malo. Y así, lo primero de todo hay que colocar a la Beldad, que es lo mismo que el Bien. De éste procede inmediatamente la Inteligencia en calidad de lo bello. El Alma, en cambio, es bella por la Inteligencia, mientras que las demás cosas son ya bellas por obra del Alma, porque las conforma, tanto las que entran en el ámbito de las acciones como las que entran en el de las ocupaciones. E incluso los cuerpos, cuantos son calificados de bellos, es ya el Alma quien los hace tales. Porque como el Alma es cosa divina y una como porción de lo bello, cuantas cosas toca y somete las hace bellas en la medida en que son capaces de participar.

6. Car suivant un vieux discours, la tempérance, le courage, toute vertu et la prudence elle-même sont des purifications. C’est pourquoi les mystères disent à mots couverts que l’être non purifié, même dans l’Hadès, sera placé dans un bourbier, parce que l’être impur aime les bourbiers, à cause de ses vices, comme s’y complaisent les porcs, dont le corps est impur. En quoi consisterait donc la véritable tempérance sinon à ne pas s’unir aux plaisirs du corps, mais à les fuir parce qu’ils sont impurs et ne sont pas ceux d’un être pur ? Le courage consiste à ne pas redouter la mort. Or la mort est la séparation de l’âme et du corps. Il ne redoutera pas cette séparation, celui qui aime à être isolé du corps. La grandeur d’âme est le mépris des choses d’ici-bas. La prudence et la pensée qui se détourne des choses d’en bas et conduit l’âme vers le haut. L’âme, une fois purifiée, devient donc une forme, une raison ; elle devient toute incorporelle, intellectuelle ; elle appartient tout entière au divin, où est la source de la Beauté, et d’où viennent toutes les choses du même genre. Donc l’âme réduite à l’intelligence est d’autant plus belle. Mais l’intelligence et ce qui en vient, c’est, pour l’âme, une beauté propre et non pas étrangère, parce que l’âme est alors réellement isolée. C’est pourquoi l’on dit avec raison que le bien et la beauté de l’âme consistent à se rendre semblable à Dieu, parce que de Dieu viennent le Beau et toute ce qui constitue le domaine de la réalité. Mais la beauté est une réalité vraie, et la laideur une nature différente de cette réalité. C’est la même chose qui, primitivement, est bonne et belle, ou qui est le bien et la beauté. Il faut donc rechercher, par des moyens analogues, le beau et le bien, le laid et le mal. Il faut poser d’abord que la beauté est aussi le bien ; de ce bien, l’intelligence tire immédiatement sa beauté ; et l’âme est belle par l’intelligence : les autres beautés, celles des actions et des occupations, viennent de ce que l’âme y imprime sa forme ; l’âme fait aussi tout ce qu’on appelle les corps ; et, étant un être divin et comme une part de la beauté, elle rend belles toutes les choses qu’elle touche et qu’elle domine, pour autant qu’il leur est possible de participer à la beauté.

VIRTUES ARE ONLY PURIFICATIONS.

6. Thus, according to the ancient (Platonic or Empedoclean) maxim, “courage, temperance, all the virtues, nay, even prudence, are but purifications.” The mysteries were therefore wise in teaching that the man who has not been purified will, in hell, dwell at the bottom of a swamp; for everything that is not pure, because of its very perversity, delights in mud, just as we see the impure swine wallow in the mud with delight. And indeed, what would real temperance consist of, if it be not to avoid attaching oneself to the pleasures of the body, and to flee from them as impure, and as only proper for an impure being? What else is courage, unless no longer to fear death, which is mere separation of the soul from the body? Whoever therefore is willing to withdraw from the body could surely not fear death. Magnanimity is nothing but scorn of things here below. Last, prudence is the thought which, detached from the earth, raises the soul to the intelligible world. The purified soul, therefore, becomes a form, a reason, an incorporeal and intellectual essence; she belongs entirely to the divinity, in whom, resides the source of the beautiful, and of all the qualities which have affinity with it.

THE SOUL’S WELFARE IS TO RESEMBLE THE DIVINITY.

Restored to intelligence, the soul sees her own beauty increase; indeed, her own beauty consists of the intelligence with its ideas; only when united to intelligence is the soul really isolated from all the remainder. That is the reason that it is right to say that “the soul s welfare and beauty lie in assimilating herself to the divinity,” because it is the principle of beauty and of the essences; or rather, being is beauty, while the other nature (non-being, matter), is ugliness. This is the First Evil, evil in itself, just as that one (the FirsFirst Principle) is the good and the beautiful; ior good and beauty are identical. Consequently, beauty or good, and evil or ugliness, are to be studied by the same methods. The first rank is to be assigned to beauty, which is identical with the good, and from which is de rived the intelligence which is beautiful by itself. The soul is beautiful by intelligence, then, the other things, like actions, and studies, are beautiful by the soul which gives them a form. It is still the soul which beautifies the bodies to which is ascribed this perfection ; being a divine essence, and participating in beauty, when she seizes an object, or subjects it to her dominion, she gives to it the beauty that the nature of this object enables it to receive.

APPROACH TO THE GOOD CONSISTS IN SIMPLIFICATION.

We must still ascend to the Good to which every soul aspires. Whoever has seen it knows what I still have to say, and knows the beauty of the Good. In deed, the Good is desirable for its own sake; it is the goal of our desires. To attain it, we have to ascend to the higher regions, turn towards them, and lay aside the garment which we put on when descending here below; just as, in the (Eleusynian, or Isiac) mysteries, those who are admitted to penetrate into the recesses of the sanctuary, after having purified themselves, lay aside every garment, and advance stark naked.

6. For, as the ancient teaching was, moral-discipline and courage and every virtue, not even excepting Wisdom itself, all is purification.

Hence the Mysteries with good reason adumbrate the immersion of the unpurified in filth, even in the Nether-World, since the unclean loves filth for its very filthiness, and swine foul of body find their joy in foulness.

What else is Sophrosyne, rightly so-called, but to take no part in the pleasures of the body, to break away from them as unclean and unworthy of the clean? So too, Courage is but being fearless of the death which is but the parting of the Soul from the body, an event which no one can dread whose delight is to be his unmingled self. And Magnanimity is but disregard for the lure of things here. And Wisdom is but the Act of the Intellectual-Principle withdrawn from the lower places and leading the Soul to the Above.

The Soul thus cleansed is all Idea and Reason, wholly free of body, intellective, entirely of that divine order from which the wellspring of Beauty rises and all the race of Beauty.

Hence the Soul heightened to the Intellectual-Principle is beautiful to all its power. For Intellection and all that proceeds from Intellection are the Soul’s beauty, a graciousness native to it and not foreign, for only with these is it truly Soul. And it is just to say that in the Soul’s becoming a good and beautiful thing is its becoming like to God, for from the Divine comes all the Beauty and all the Good in beings.

We may even say that Beauty is the Authentic-Existents and Ugliness is the Principle contrary to Existence: and the Ugly is also the primal evil; therefore its contrary is at once good and beautiful, or is Good and Beauty: and hence the one method will discover to us the Beauty-Good and the Ugliness-Evil.

And Beauty, this Beauty which is also The Good, must be posed as The First: directly deriving from this First is the Intellectual-Principle which is pre-eminently the manifestation of Beauty; through the Intellectual-Principle Soul is beautiful. The beauty in things of a lower order-actions and pursuits for instance- comes by operation of the shaping Soul which is also the author of the beauty found in the world of sense. For the Soul, a divine thing, a fragment as it were of the Primal Beauty, makes beautiful to the fulness of their capacity all things whatsoever that it grasps and moulds.

VI. Indeed, as the ancient oracle declares, temperance and fortitude, prudence and every virtue, are certain purgatives of the soul; and hence the sacred mysteries prophesy obscurely, yet with truth, that the soul not purified lies in Tartarus, immersed in filth. Since the impure is, from his depravity, the friend of filth; as swine, from their sordid body, delight in mire alone. For what else is true temperance ⁵ than not to indulge in corporeal delights, but to fly from their connection, as things which are neither pure, nor the offspring of purity? And true fortitude is not to fear death: for death is nothing more than a certain separation of soul from body; and this he will not fear, who desires to be alone. Again, magnanimity is the contempt of every mortal concern; it is the wing by which we fly into the regions of intellect. And lastly, prudence is no other than intelligence, declining subordinate objects; and directing the eye of the soul to that which is immortal and divine. The soul, thus refined, becomes form and reason, is altogether incorporeal and intellectual; and wholly participates of that divine nature, which is the fountain of loveliness, and of whatever is allied to the beautiful and fair. Hence, the soul, reduced to intellect, becomes astonisliingly beautiful; for as the lambent flame which appears detached from the burning wood, enlightens its dark and smoky parts, so intellect irradiates and adorns the inferior powers of the soul, which, without its aid, would be buried in the gloom of formless matter. But intellect, and whatever emanates from intellect, is not the foreign, but the proper ornament of the soul: for the being of the soul, when absorbed in intellect, is then alone real and true. It is, therefore, rightly said, that the beauty and good of the soul consists in her similitude to the Deity; for from hence flows all her beauty, and her allotment of a better being. But the beautiful itself is that which is called beings; and turpitude is of a different nature, and participates more of non-entity than being.

But, perhaps, the good and the beautiful are the same, and must be investigated by one and the same process; and in a like manner the base and the evil. And in the first rank we must place the beautiful, and consider it as the same with the good; from which immediately emanates intellect as beautiful. Next to this, we must consider the soul receiving its beauty from intellect; and every inferior beauty deriving its origin from the forming power of the soul, whether conversant in fair actions and offices, or sciences and arts. Lastly, bodies themselves participate of beauty from the soul, which, as something divine, and a portion of the beautiful itself, renders whatever it supervenes and subdues, beautiful, as far as its natural capacity will admit.