Plotino – Tratado 10,3 (V, 1, 3) — O Intelecto engendra a Alma e lhe é ao mesmo tempo superior e anterior

3. Tal es el preciado y divino objeto que constituye el alma. Con su valiosa ayuda buscarás a Dios y te acercarás a él; pues, no está tan lejos como para que no puedas alcanzarlo, ni son muchos, tampoco, los seres intermedios. Considera, pues, como la parte más divina de esta alma divina aquella que se halla más próxima al ser superior con el cual y por el cual se explica el alma. Porque aun siendo tal como la ha mostrado nuestro razonamiento, es realmente una cierta imagen de la Inteligencia. Y así como el discurso expresado por la palabra es la imagen del verbo interior del alma, así también ella es la expresión de la Inteligencia y la plena actividad por la cual, la Inteligencia produce la vida para que subsistan los demás seres. No de otro modo que en el fuego se da el calor que es propio de él y, asimismo, el calor que proporciona a las otras cosas.

Conviene considerar el alma que se encuentra en la Inteligencia como algo que no fluye, sino que permanece, en tanto diremos de la otra alma que tiene existencia propia. El alma, pues, que proviene de la Inteligencia, es un alma intelectual cuya inteligencia se manifiesta en los razonamientos y cuya perfección le viene de allí mismo, de ese padre que la alimenta pero que, con todo, no la ha engendrado tan perfecta como lo es él. Su existencia le viene sin duda de la Inteligencia y su razón se encuentra en acto cuando a contempla. Porque actúa verdaderamente cuando contempla sus propios pensamientos en la inteligencia que tiene dentro de sí. Convendrá que añadamos que los únicos actos del alma son los actos intelectuales que se dan en su interior; así, todo lo que recibe de fuera resulta ser peor y una indudable pasión para el alma. He aquí que la Inteligencia la hace todavía más divina, precisamente por ser su padre y por encontrarse presente en ella. No hay entre ambas otra cosa que una diferencia de esencia, como si una, la que viene a continuación, fuese un receptáculo, y la otra, en cambio, una forma ¹. Al ser la materia de la Inteligencia tiene también que ser bella, inteligente y simple, como lo es la Inteligencia. Con lo que se hace manifiesto que la Inteligencia es superior al alma de que tratamos.

[3] Puisque l’essence de l’âme est si divine et si précieuse, sois persuadé que par elle tu peux atteindre Dieu ; avec elle élève-toi à lui. Tu n’auras pas à le chercher loin de toi ; il n’y a pas entre lui et toi plusieurs intermédiaires. Afin de l’atteindre, prends pour guide la partie la plus divine et la plus haute de l’âme, la puissance dont elle procède et par laquelle elle touche au monde intelligible (13). En effet, malgré la dignité que nous venons de lui reconnaître, l’âme n’est que l’image de l’Intelligence : comme le verbe extérieur [la parole] est l’image du verbe [intérieur] de l’âme, l’âme est elle-même le verbe et l’acte de l’Intelligence (14). Elle est la vie qui s’en échappe pour former une autre hypostase, de même qu’il y a dans le feu la chaleur latente qui constitue son essence et la chaleur qui en rayonne à l’extérieur. Cependant, l’âme ne sort pas tout entière du sein de l’Intelligence; elle y demeure en partie, mais elle forme une essence distincte d’elle. Procédant de l’Intelligence, l’âme est intellectuelle, et la manifestation de sa puissance intellectuelle est la raison discursive. L’âme tient sa perfection de l’Intelligence comme elle en tient son existence; c’est en regard de l’Intelligence seule qu’elle est imparfaite. Elle est donc l’hypostase qui procède de l’Intelligence, et quand elle la contemple, elle est la raison en acte. En effet, quand l’âme contemple l’Intelligence, elle possède intimement les choses qu’elle pense, elle tire de son propre fonds les actes qu’elle produit; seuls, ces actes intellectuels et purs lui sont vraiment propres. Ceux qui sont d’une nature inférieure viennent d’un principe étranger; ce sont des passions.

L’Intelligence rend donc l’âme plus divine, parce qu’elle l’engendre et qu’elle lui accorde sa présence. Rien ne sépare l’une de l’autre que la distinction de leur essence. L’âme est avec l’Intelligence dans le même rapport que la matière avec la forme (15). Or la matière même de l’Intelligence est belle parce qu’elle a une forme intellectuelle (νοειδής) et qu’elle est simple. Quelle n’est donc pas la grandeur de l’Intelligence puisqu’elle est plus grande encore que l’âme !

THE SOUL AS THE HYPOSTATIC ACTUALIZATION OF INTELLIGENCE.

3. Since the nature of the Soul is so divine and precious, you may be assured of being able to reach the divinity through her; with her you can ascend to Him. You will not need to search for Him far from yourself; nor will there be several intermediaries between yourself and Him. To reach Him, take as guide the divinest and highest part of the Soul, the power from which she proceeds, and by which she impinges on the intelligible world. Indeed, in spite of the divinity which we have attributed to her, the Soul is no more than an image of Intelligence. As the exterior word (speech) is the image of the (interior) word (of thought?) of the soul, the Soul herself is the word and actualization of Intelligence. She is the life which escapes from Intelligence to form another hypostatic form of existence, just as the fire contains the latent heat which constitutes its essence (“being”), and also the heat that radiates from it outside. Nevertheless, the Soul does not entirely issue from within Intelligence; she does partly reside therein, but also forms (a nature) distinct therefrom. As the Soul proceeds from Intelligence, she is intelligible; and the manifestation of her intellectual power is discursive reason. From Intelligence the Soul derives her perfection, as well as her existence; only in comparison with Intelligence does the Soul seem imperfect. The Soul, therefore, is the hypostatic substance that proceeds from Intelligence, and when the Soul contemplates Intelligence the soul is reason actualized. Indeed, while the soul contemplates Intelligence, the Soul intimately possesses the things she thinks; from her own resources she draws the actualizations she produces; these intellectual and pure actualizations are indeed the Soul’s only characteristic activities. Those of an inferior nature really proceed from a foreign principle; they are passions.

THE SOUL’S RELATION TO INTELLIGENCE IS THAT OF MATTER TO FORM.

Intelligence therefore, makes the Soul diviner, because Intelligence (as a father) begets the Soul, and grants its (helpful) presence to the Soul. Nothing intervenes between them but the distinction between their natures. The Soul is to Intelligence in the same relation as that obtaining between form and matter. Now the very matter of Intelligence is beautiful because it has an intellectual form, and is simple. How great then, must Intelligence be, if it be still greater than the Soul.

III. Hence, as the soul is so honourable and divine a thing, now confiding in a cause of this kind, ascend with it to divinity. For you will not be very distant from him; nor are the intermediate natures many. In this, therefore, which is divine, receive that part which is more divine, viz. the vicinity of the soul to that which is supernal, to which the soul is posterior, and from which it proceeds. For though it is so great a thing as we have demonstrated it to be, yet it is a certain image of intellect. And, just as external discourse is an image of the discursive energy within the soul, after the same manner, soul, and the whole of its energy, are the discourse of intellect, and a life which it emits in order to the hypostasis of another thing; just as in fire, the inherent heat of it is one thing, and the heat which it imparts another. It is necessary, however, to assume there, not a life flowing forth, but partly abiding in intellect, and partly giving subsistence to another life. Hence, since soul is derived from intellect, it is intellectual, and the intellect of soul is conversant with discursive energies. And again, the perfection of soul is from intellect, as from a father that nourishes it, who generated soul, as with reference to himself, not perfect. This hypostasis, therefore, is from intellect, and is also reason in energy when it perceives intellect. For when it looks to intellect, it possesses internally, and appropriately, the things which it understands, and the energies which it performs. And it is necessary to call those energies alone the energies of the soul, which are intellectual and dwell with it. But its subordinate energies have an external source, and are the passions of a soul of this kind. Intellect, therefore, causes the soul to be more divine, both because it is the father of it, and because it is present with it. For there is nothing between them, except the difference of one with reference to the other, soul being successive to, and the recipient of intellect; but intellect subsisting as form. The matter also of intellect is beautiful, since it has the form of intellect, and is simple. The great excellence, however, of intellect, is manifest from this, that though soul is such as we have described it to be, yet it is surpassed by intellect.

3. The Soul once seen to be thus precious, thus divine, you may hold the faith that by its possession you are already nearing God: in the strength of this power make upwards towards Him: at no great distance you must attain: there is not much between.

But over this divine, there is still a diviner: grasp the upward neighbour of the soul, its prior and source.

Soul, for all the worth we have shown to belong to it, is yet a secondary, an image of the Intellectual-Principle: reason uttered is an image of the reason stored within the soul, and in the same way soul is an utterance of the Intellectual-Principle: it is even the total of its activity, the entire stream of life sent forth by that Principle to the production of further being; it is the forthgoing heat of a fire which has also heat essentially inherent. But within the Supreme we must see energy not as an overflow but in the double aspect of integral inherence with the establishment of a new being. Sprung, in other words, from the Intellectual-Principle, Soul is intellective, but with an intellection operation by the method of reasonings: for its perfecting it must look to that Divine Mind, which may be thought of as a father watching over the development of his child born imperfect in comparison with himself.

Thus its substantial existence comes from the Intellectual-Principle; and the Reason within it becomes Act in virtue of its contemplation of that prior; for its thought and act are its own intimate possession when it looks to the Supreme Intelligence; those only are soul-acts which are of this intellective nature and are determined by its own character; all that is less noble is foreign [traceable to Matter] and is accidental to the soul in the course of its peculiar task.

In two ways, then, the Intellectual-Principle enhances the divine quality of the soul, as father and as immanent presence; nothing separates them but the fact that they are not one and the same, that there is succession, that over against a recipient there stands the ideal-form received; but this recipient, Matter to the Supreme Intelligence, is also noble as being at once informed by divine intellect and uncompounded.

What the Intellectual-Principle must be is carried in the single word that Soul, itself so great, is still inferior.