FOURTH ENNEAD, BOOK THREE.
Psychological Questions.
B. WHY AND HOW DO SOULS DESCEND INTO BODIES?
- two kinds of transmigration.
- study of first incarnation.
- how the universe is animated by the world soul.
- the world-soul progressively informs all things.
- the universal soul as model of reason, as intermediary and interpreter.
- souls are not cut off from intelligence during their descent and ascent.
- why souls take on different kinds of bodies.
- how souls come to descend.
- by a pun on “world” and “adornment,” plotinos shows men add to the beauty of the world.
- by a pun on “prometheus” and “providence,” plotinos employs the myth of pandora.
- why many souls succumb to the law of the order of the universe.
- the significance of misfortunes and punishments.
- from the intelligible world, souls first go into heaven.
- the descending graduations of existence.
GUTHRIE, K. S. Plotinus: Complete Works: In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four Periods. [single Volume, Unabridged]. [s.l.] CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2017.