O termo daimon foi traduzido de diversas maneiras: “espírito” (Armstrong). “espírito celeste” (MacKenna). “demônio” (Faggin e Igal) e ainda outros por “gênio”. Sommerman prefere não traduzi-lo, mas transliterá-lo, pois traduzi-lo por “espírito” lhe parece reduzir um pouco a abrangência do termo conforme definido no Tratado 15 (neste caso “gênio” seria melhor) e traduzi-lo por “demônio” remeteria imediatamente o imaginário do leitor ao oposto do significado deste termo na tradição platônica e neoplatônica, segundo Sommerman. Em outra nota de sua tradução de alguns tratados, Sommerman afirma que as traduções mais precisas para esse termo seriam “anjo guardião” ou “gênio”.
‘The Gods’ are frequently mentioned in the Enneads: the words are generally little more than a fossil survival, an accident of language not a reality of thought. Where, however, Plotinus names Ouranos (Caelus), Kronos (Saturn), Zeus (Jupiter), he indicates the three Hypostases of the Divine-Being: this is part of his general assumption that all his system is contained already in the most ancient knowledge of the world.
Where we meet ‘The Gods’ without any specification we are to understand, according to the context: sometimes the entire Divine Order; sometimes the Divine-Thoughts, The Ideas or Archetypes; sometimes exalted Beings vaguely understood to exist above man as ministers of the Supreme; sometimes the stars and earth, thought of, at least in their soul-part, as Divine-Beings; sometimes the words indicate, vaguely, the souls of lofty men; sometimes there is some vague, sleepy acceptance of the popular notion of the Olympian personalities.
The DAIMONES are, strictly speaking, lofty powers beneath the ‘Gods’: in practice they are often confounded with the Gods: the same word is translated here, according to context and English connotation, by ‘Supernals’, Celestials, Divine Spirits, Blessed Spirits.
(Stephen MacKenna)