Plotino – Tratado 10,7 (V, 1, 7) — O Intelecto é uma imagem divisível do Uno indivisível?

7. Decimos que la Inteligencia es una imagen del Uno, pero, de todos modos, conviene hablar con más claridad. Es preciso, en primer lugar, que el ser que ha sido engendrado se parezca al Uno, e, igualmente, ha de conservar muchos de sus caracteres y mantener con El la misma semejanza que la luz con el sol. Pero el Uno no es la Inteligencia. ¿Cómo, pues, podrá engendrar la Inteligencia? Sencillamente, porque ve al volverse hacia sí mismo y esta visión no es otra que la Inteligencia, dado que el ser que percibe algo distinto ha de ser o la sensación o la Inteligencia. Aquí no se trata de la sensación, porque la sensación no percibe el Uno; será, por tanto, la Inteligencia. Mas la Inteligencia es susceptible de división, cosa que no ocurre con el Uno. Es cierto que en la Inteligencia hay también unidad, pero el Uno cuenta, además, con el poder de producirlo todo. En cuanto al pensamiento, aparece dividido según el poder del Uno y contempla a la vez todas las cosas que caen bajo este poder; de otro modo no sería la Inteligencia. Porque saca de sí una especie de percepción simultánea ¹ del poder que tiene de producir por sí mismo una esencia y de definir el ser por la potencia proveniente del Uno. El pensamiento sabe que la esencia es como una parte de lo que encierra el Uno, parte que proviene de El y que a El también debe su fuerza, así como su conclusión en esencia, explicable por El y originaria de El. La Inteligencia ve que tanto la vida como el pensamiento y todas las demás cosas provienen del hecho de su misma división a partir del Uno que no puede dividirse, porque el Uno, claro está, no es ninguna de esas cosas. Sin embargo, todo proviene de El, porque El no se halla contenido en ninguna forma y ha de ser considerado tan sólo como Uno. Pero únicamente la Inteligencia es de todo lo que hay en esos seres, porque el Uno no constituye ninguna de las cosas que hay en la Inteligencia, aunque a El se deban en realidad todas ellas, que, por esto, precisamente, son esencias: porque están limitadas y cuentan con algo que semeja una forma.

Conviene no adscribir el ser a lo ilimitado, sino fijarlo en un límite y en algo que sea estable. Esa estabilidad, en el dominio de los seres inteligibles, viene a ser la definición y la forma, de la que estos seres obtienen su realidad. Y, a su vez, la Inteligencia de la que nosotros hablamos es digna de ser engendrada por el más puro de los principios, ya que no podrá nacer de otra cosa que del primer principio. Ella misma, luego de engendrada, producirá consigo todos los seres, toda la belleza de las Ideas y todos los dioses inteligibles. Pero, llena como está de todos esos seres que ha producido, termina de algún modo por devorarlos para impedirles que caigan en la materia y que crezcan al lado de Rea ². Porque según dejan adivinar los misterios y los mitos relativos a los dioses, antes de Zeus debe ser situado Cronos, el dios sabio por excelencia que recobra nuevamente los seres que engendra, aunque su inteligencia se encuentre llena y saciada de ellos; después de esto, y una vez saciado, se dice que engendra a Zeus, lo mismo que la Inteligencia engendra el alma cuando ha llegado a su perfección ³. Pues, es claro que el ser perfecto está en condiciones de engendrar, poder que en modo alguno deberá ser dejado estéril. Con todo, no es posible que el ser engendrado sea aquí un ser superior, ya que siendo como es una imagen del ser que lo produce necesariamente será inferior a él. Asimismo, es de suyo un ser ilimitado, pero que se presenta limitado y como informado por el ser generador. El producto de la Inteligencia es una cierta palabra y la actividad discursiva constituye a su vez una realidad. Realidad que se mueve alrededor de la Inteligencia y que es la luz de la Inteligencia y la huella que a ella está unida. Porque por un lado se encuentra, en efecto, unida a la Inteligencia y goza y se sacia de ella, participando, incluso, de la Inteligencia y pensando como ella misma piensa; pero por otro toca, precisamente, lo que viene después de la Inteligencia, o mejor, engendra los seres que, por necesidad, son inferiores a ella. Pero de esto hablaremos más adelante ⁴. Porque las cosas divinas llegan tan sólo hasta este punto.

[7] L’Intelligence est, disons-nous, l’image de l’Un. Expliquons cette assertion. Elle en est l’image parce qu’elle est sous un certain rapport nécessairement engendrée par lui, qu’elle a beaucoup de la nature de son Père, et qu’elle lui ressemble comme la lumière ressemble au soleil. Mais l’Un n’est pas intelligence ; comment l’hypostase engendrée par l’Un peut-elle donc être l’Intelligence? C’est que, par sa conversion vers l’Un, elle le voit ; or cette vision (ὅρασις) (34) constitue l’Intelligence. Toute faculté qui perçoit un autre être est sensation ou intelligence : la sensation est semblable à la ligne droite, et l’intelligence, au cercle (35). Toutefois, le cercle est divisible, et l’Intelligence est indivisible : elle est une, mais, en même temps qu’elle est une, elle est la puissance de toutes choses. Or la pensée considère toutes ces choses [dont l’Intelligence est la puissance] en se séparant en quelque sorte de cette puissance ; sinon, l’Intelligence n’existerait pas. En effet, l’Intelligence a conscience de ce que peut sa puissance, et cette conscience constitue son essence. Par conséquent, l’Intelligence détermine son essence par elle-même, au moyen de la puissance qu’elle tient de l’Un, et, en même temps, elle voit que son essence est une partie des choses qui appartiennent à l’Un et qui en procèdent; elle voit qu’elle doit toute sa force à l’Un, que c’est par lui qu’elle a le privilége d’être une essence; elle voit qu’étant elle-même divisible, elle tient de l’Un, qui est indivisible, toutes les choses qu’elle possède, la vie, la pensée, parce que l’Un n’est aucune de ces choses. Tout dérive en effet de l’Un parce qu’il n’est pas contenu dans une forme déterminée; il est l’Un simplement, tandis que dans l’ordre des êtres l’Intelligence est toutes choses. Aussi l’Un n’est-il aucune des choses que contient l’Intelligence ; il est seulement le principe dont elles procèdent toutes ; voilà pourquoi elles sont des essences: car elles sont déjà déterminées, et chacune a une sorte de forme. L’Être doit être contemplé, non dans l’indétermination, mais au contraire dans la détermination elle repos. Or, le repos consiste pour les intelligibles dans la détermination et la forme par lesquelles ils subsistent.

L’Intelligence qui mérite d’être appelée l’Intelligence la plus pure n’a donc pu naître que du Premier principe. Elle a dû, dès sa naissance, engendrer tous les êtres, toute la beauté des idées, tous les dieux intelligibles : car elle est pleine des choses qu’elle a engendrées; elle les dévore, en ce sens qu’elle les retient en elle-même, qu’elle ne les laisse pas tomber dans la matière ni être nourries par Rhéa (36). C’est ce que font entendre les mystères et les mythes : « Saturne, est-il dit, le plus sage des dieux, naquit avant Jupiter et il dévorait ses enfants. » Saturne représente ici l’Intelligence pleine de ses conceptions et parfaitement pure (37).— Ils ajoutent : «Jupiter, dès qu’il fut grand, engendra à son tour. » — L’Intelligence, dès qu’elle est parfaite, engendre l’Âme, par cela même qu’elle est parfaite et qu’une si grande puissance ne doit pas rester stérile. Ici encore l’être engendré devait être inférieur à son principe, en représenter l’image, être par lui-même indéterminé, puis être déterminé et formé par le principe qui l’engendre. Ce que l’Intelligence engendre, c’est une raison, une hypostase dont l’essence est de raisonner. Celle-ci se meut autour de l’Intelligence ; elle est la lumière qui l’entoure, le rayon qui en jaillit. D’un côté, elle est liée à l’Intelligence, elle s’en remplit, elle en jouit, elle y participe, elle en tient ses opérations intellectuelles; d’un autre côté, elle est en contact avec les choses inférieures, ou plutôt, elle les engendre. Étant ainsi engendrées par l’Âme, ces choses sont nécessairement moins bonnes qu’elles, comme nous l’expliquerons plus loin. A l’Âme finit l’ordre des choses divines.

INTELLIGIBLE REST IS THE DETERMINATION AND FORM BY WHICH THEY SUBSIST.

7. We call Intelligence the image of the One. Let us explain this. It is His image because Intelligence is, in a certain respect, begotten by Unity, because Intelligence possesses much of the nature of its father, and because Intelligence resembles Him as light resembles the sun. But the One is not Intelligence; how then can the hypostatic (form of existence) begotten by the One be Intelligence ? By its conversion towards the One, Intelligence sees Him; now it is this vision which constitutes Intelligence. Every faculty that perceives another being is sensation or intelligence; but sensation is similar to a straight line, while intelligence resembles a circle. Nevertheless, the circle is divisible, while Intelligence is indivisible; it is one, but, while being one, it also is the power of all things. Now thought considers all these things (of which Intelligence is the power), by separating itself, so to speak, from this power; otherwise, Intelligence would not exist. Indeed, Intelligence has a consciousness of the reach of its power, and this consciousness constitutes its nature. Consequently, Intelligence determines its own nature by the means of the power it derived from the One; and at the same time Intelligence sees that its nature (“being”) is a part of the entities which belong to the One, and that proceed from Him. Intelligence sees that it owes all its force to the One, and that it is due to Him that Intelligence has the privilege of being a “being” (or, essence). Intelligence sees that, as it itself is divisible, it derives from the One, which is indivisible, all the entities it possesses, life and thought; because the One is not any of these things. Everything indeed is derived from the One, because it is not contained in a determinate form; it simply is the One, while in the order of beings Intelligence is all things. Consequently the One is not any of the things that Intelligence contains; it is only the principle from which all of them are derived. That is why they are “being,” for they are already determined, and each has a kind of shape. Existence should be com-templated, not in indétermination, but on the contrary in determination and rest. Now, for Intelligible entities, rest consists in determination, and shape by which they subsist.

MYTHS OF SATURN, JUPITER AND RHEA.

The Intelligence that deserves to be called the purest intelligence, therefore, cannot have been born from any source, other than the firsfirst Principle. It must, from its birth, have begotten all beings, all the beauty of ideas, all the intelligible deities; for it is full of the things it has begotten; it devours them in the sense that it itself retains all of them, that it does not allow them to fall into matter, nor be born of Rhea. That is the meaning of the mysteries and myths; “Saturn, the wisest of the divinities, was born before Jupiter, and devoured his children.” Here Saturn represents intelligence, big with its conceptions, and perfectly pure. They add, “Jupiter, as soon as he was grown, in his turn begat.” As soon as Intelligence is perfect, it begets the Soul, by the mere fact of its being perfect, and because so great a power cannot remain sterile. Here again the begotten being had to be inferior to its principle, had to represent its image, had, by itself, to be indeterminate, and had later to be determined and formed by the principle that begat it. What Intelligence begets is a reason, a hypostatic form of existence whose nature it is to reason. The latter moves around Intelligence; is the light that surrounds it, the ray that springs from it. On the one hand it is bound to Intelligence, fills itself with it; enjoys it, participates in it, deriving its intellectual operations from it. On the other hand, it is, in contact with inferior things, or rather, begets them. Being thus begotten by the Soul, these things are necessarily less good than the Soul, as we shall further explain. The sphere of divine things ends with the Soul.

VII. But we say that intellect is the image of this most excellent nature. For it is necessary to speak more clearly. In the first place, indeed, it is necessary that intellect should in a certain respect be generated, and preserve [in itself] much of its generator; and also that it should have such a similitude to it, as light has to the sun. Its generator, however, is not intellect. How therefore did he generate intellect [so far as it is intellect] ? May we not say, because intellect, by conversion, looks to him ? But the vision itself is intellect. For that which apprehends another thing, is either sense or intellect. And sense indeed may be compared to a line, but the other gnostic powers of the soul to a circle. A circle, however, of this kind is as it were partible. But this is not the case with intellect. Or may we not say that this also is one ? But the one here is the power of all things. Hence intelligence surveys those things of which it is the power, divided as it were from the power; for otherwise it would not be intellect. For intellect now possesses from itself a co-sensation as it were of the great extent of its power; in which power, its essence, consists. Intellect, therefore, through itself defines its own being, by a power derived from him [i.e. from the first God,] and perceives that essence is as it were one of the parts of and from him, and that it is corroborated by him, and perfected by and from him into essence. It sees, however, itself derived from thence, as something which is as it were partible from that which is impartible; and not only itself, but life, and intellection, and all things, because the first God is nothing of all things. For on this account all things are from him, because he is not detained by a certain form. For he is one alone. And intellect, indeed, in the order of beings is all things. But he on this account is none of the things which are in intellect; and all things which have a subsistence among beings are derived from him. Hence also these are essences. For they are now definite, and each possesses as it were a form. Being, however, ought not to be surveyed in that which is as it were indefinite, but as fixed by bound and permanency. But permanency in intelligibles is circumscription and form, in which also they receive their hypostasis. This intellect, therefore, which deserves the appellation of the most pure intellect, and which is of the genus of intelligibles, originates from no other source than the firsfirst principle. And being now generated, it generates together with itself beings, all the beauty of ideas, and all the intelligible Gods. Being, likewise, full of the things which it generates, and as it were absorbing its progeny, it again contains them in itself, and does not suffer them to fall into matter, nor to be nourished by Rhea, as the mysteries and the fables about the Gods obscurely indicate. For they say that Saturn the most wise God was born prior to Jupiter, and that he again contains the things which he generates, in himself, so far as he is full, and an intellect characterized by purity. But after this they say that he generated Jupiter, who was now a boy [i.e., pure and full]. For intellect, being a perfect intellect, generates souL For being perfect it is requisite that it should generate, and since it is so great a power that it should not be un-prolific. Neither here, however, is it possible that the thing generated should be more excellent than the generator ; but being inferior, it is necessary that it should be an image of it. In a similar manner it is requisite that it should be indefinite, but bounded, and as it were invested with form by its generator. But the progeny of intellect is a certain reason, and an hypostasis which energizes dianoetically. This, however, is that which is moved about intellect, is the light of intellect,⁵ and a vestigie suspended from it. Hence, according to one part of itself it is conjoined with it, and on this account it is replete with and enjoys it, participates of, and intellectually perceives it; but according to another part, it comes into contact with things posterior to itself, or rather, generates them, and which are necessarily inferior to soul. About these, however, we shall speak hereafter. And as far as to these is the progression of divine natures.

7. We must be more explicit:

The Intellectual-Principle stands as the image of The One, firstly because there is a certain necessity that the first should have its offspring, carrying onward much of its quality, in other words that there be something in its likeness as the sun’s rays tell of the sun. Yet The One is not an Intellectual-Principle; how then does it engender an Intellectual-Principle?

Simply by the fact that in its self-quest it has vision: this very seeing is the Intellectual-Principle. Any perception of the external indicates either sensation or intellection, sensation symbolized by a line, intellection by a circle… [corrupt passage].

Of course the divisibility belonging to the circle does not apply to the Intellectual-Principle; all, there too, is a unity, though a unity which is the potentiality of all existence.

The items of this potentiality the divine intellection brings out, so to speak, from the unity and knows them in detail, as it must if it is to be an intellectual principle.

It has besides a consciousness, as it were, within itself of this same potentiality; it knows that it can of itself beget an hypostasis and can determine its own Being by the virtue emanating from its prior; it knows that its nature is in some sense a definite part of the content of that First; that it thence derives its essence, that its strength lies there and that its Being takes perfection as a derivative and a recipient from the First. It sees that, as a member of the realm of division and part, it receives life and intellection and all else it has and is, from the undivided and partless, since that First is no member of existence, but can be the source of all on condition only of being held down by no one distinctive shape but remaining the undeflected unity.

[(CORRUPT) – Thus it would be the entire universe but that…]

And so the First is not a thing among the things contained by the Intellectual-Principle though the source of all. In virtue of this source, things of the later order are essential beings; for from that fact there is determination; each has its form: what has being cannot be envisaged as outside of limit; the nature must be held fast by boundary and fixity; though to the Intellectual Beings this fixity is no more than determination and form, the foundations of their substantial existence.

A being of this quality, like the Intellectual-Principle, must be felt to be worthy of the all-pure: it could not derive from any other than from the firsfirst prinprinciple of all; as it comes into existence, all other beings must be simultaneously engendered – all the beauty of the Ideas, all the Gods of the Intellectual realm. And it still remains pregnant with this offspring; for it has, so to speak, drawn all within itself again, holding them lest they fall away towards Matter to be “brought up in the House of Rhea” [in the realm of flux]. This is the meaning hidden in the Mysteries, and in the Myths of the gods: Kronos, as the wisest, exists before Zeus; he must absorb his offspring that, full within himself, he may be also an Intellectual-Principle manifest in some product of his plenty; afterwards, the myth proceeds, Kronos engenders Zeus, who already exists as the [necessary and eternal] outcome of the plenty there; in other words the offspring of the Divine Intellect, perfect within itself, is Soul [the life-principle carrying forward the Ideas in the Divine Mind].

Now, even in the Divine the engendered could not be the very highest; it must be a lesser, an image; it will be undetermined, as the Divine is, but will receive determination, and, so to speak, its shaping idea, from the progenitor.

Yet any offspring of the Intellectual-Principle must be a Reason-Principle; the thought of the Divine Mind must be a substantial existence: such then is that [Soul] which circles about the Divine Mind, its light, its image inseparably attached to it: on the upper level united with it, filled from it, enjoying it, participant in its nature, intellective with it, but on the lower level in contact with the realm beneath itself, or, rather, generating in turn an offspring which must lie beneath; of this lower we will treat later; so far we deal still with the Divine.