Plotino – Tratado 19,6 (I, 2, 6) — As virtudes da alma purificada.

L’homme parvenu à l’état que nous venons de décrire ne commet plus de fautes pareilles : il en est corrigé. Mais le but auquel il aspire, ce n’est point de ne pas faillir, c’est d’être dieu. S’il laisse encore se produire en lui quelqu’un des mouvements irréfléchis dont nous avons parlé, il sera à la fois dieu et démon ; il sera un être double, ou plutôt il aura en lui un principe d’une autre nature [l’intelligence], dont la vertu différera également de la sienne. Si, au contraire, il n’est plus troublé par aucun de ces mouvements, il sera uniquement dieu; il sera un de ces dieux qui forment le cortège du Premier. C’est un dieu de cette nature qui est venu d’en haut habiter en nous. Redevenir ce qu’il était originairement, c’est vivre dans ce monde supérieur. Celui qui s’est élevé jusque-là habite avec l’intelligence pure et s’y assimile autant que possible. Aussi n’éprouve-t-il plus aucune de ces émotions, ne fait-il aucune de ces actions que désapprouverait le principe supérieur, qui désormais est son seul maître.

Que devient chaque vertu pour un tel être? Pour lui, la sagesse consiste à contempler les essences que l’intelligence possède, essences avec lesquelles l’intelligence est en quelque sorte en contact. Il y a deux espèces de sagesse, dont l’une est propre à l’intelligence, l’autre à l’âme : c’est dans la dernière seule qu’il y a vertu. Qu’y a-t-il donc dans l’intelligence? L’acte [de la pensée] et l’essence. L’image de cette essence, qu’on voit ici-bas dans un être d’une autre nature, c’est la vertu qui en émane. II n’y a en effet dans l’intelligence ni la justice absolue, ni aucune des vertus proprement dites; il n’y eu a que le type. Ce qui en dérive dans l’âme est la vertu : car la vertu est l’attribut. d’un être particulier. L’intelligible, au contraire, n’appartient qu’à lui-même, n’est l’attribut d’aucun être particulier.

Si la justice consiste à remplir sa fonction propre, implique-t-elle toujours multiplicité? Assurément, si elle est dans un principe qui a plusieurs parties [l’âme humaine, dans laquelle on distingue plusieurs facultés] ; mais son essence est dans l’accomplissement de la fonction propre à chaque être, lors même qu’elle se trouve dans un principe qui est un [l’Intelligence]. La justice absolue et véritable consiste dans l’action que dirige sur lui-même le principe qui est un, dans lequel on ne peut distinguer de parties.

A ce degré supérieur, la justice consiste à diriger l’action de l’âme vers l’intelligence; la tempérance est la conversion intime de l’âme vers l’intelligence ; le courage est l’impassibilité, par laquelle l’âme devient semblable à ce qu’elle contemple, puisque l’intelligence est impassible par sa nature. Or cette impassibilité, l’âme la tient de la vertu qui l’empêche de partager les passions du principe inférieur auquel elle est associée.

THE GOAL OF PURIFICATION IS SECOND DIVINITY, INTELLIGENCE.

6. A man who has achieved such a state no longer commits such faults; for he has become corrected.

But his desired goal is not to cease failing, but to be divine. In case he still allows within himself the occurrence of some of the above-mentioned unreflecting impulses, he will be simultaneously divinity and guardian, a double being; or rather, he will contain a principle of another nature (Intelligence), whose virtue will likewise differ from his. If, however, he be not troubled by any of those motions, he will be wholly divine; he will be one of those divinities “who (as Plato said) form the attending escort of the First.” It is a divinity of such a nature that has come down from above to dwell in us. To become again what one was originally, is to live in this superior world. He who has achieved that height dwells with pure Intelligence, and assimilates himself thereto as far as possible. Consequently, he feels none of those emotions, nor does he any more commit any actions, which would be disapproved of by the superior principle who henceforth is his only master.

THE HIGHER VIRTUES MERGE INTO WISDOM.

For such a being the separate virtues merge. For him, wisdom consists in contemplating the (essences) possessed by Intelligence, and with which Intelligence is in contact. There are two kinds of wisdom, one being proper to intelligence, the other to the soul; only in the latter may we speak of virtue. In the Intelligence exists only the energy (of thought), and its essence. The image of this essence, seen here below in a being of another nature, is the virtue which emanates from it. In Intelligence, indeed, resides neither absolute justice, nor any of those genuinely so-called virtues; nothing is left but their type. Its derivative in the soul is virtue; for virtue is the attribute of an individual being. On the contrary, the intelligible belongs to itself only, and is the attribute of no particular being.

INCARNATE JUSTICE IS INDIVIDUAL; IF ABSOLUTE, IT IS INDIVISIBLE.

Must justice ever imply multiplicity if it consist in fulfilling its proper function? Surely, as long as it inheres in a principle with several parts (such as a human soul, in which several functions may be, distinguished); but its essence lies in the accomplishment of the function proper to every being, even when inhering in a unitary principle (such as Intelligence). Absolute and veritable Justice consists in the self- -directed action of an unitary Principle, in which no parts can be distinguished.

THE HIGHER FORMS. OF THE VIRTUES.

This higher realm, justice consists in directing the action of the soul towards intelligence; temperance is the intimate conversion of the soul towards intelligence; courage is the (suggestive fascination) or impassibility, by which the soul becomes similar to that which it contemplates; since it is natural for intelligence to be impassible. Now the soul derives this impassibility from the virtue which hinders her from sharing the passions of the lower principle with which she is associated.

6. In all this there is no sin- there is only matter of discipline- but our concern is not merely to be sinless but to be God.

As long as there is any such involuntary action, the nature is twofold, God and Demi-God, or rather God in association with a nature of a lower power: when all the involuntary is suppressed, there is God unmingled, a Divine Being of those that follow upon The First.

For, at this height, the man is the very being that came from the Supreme. The primal excellence restored, the essential man is There: entering this sphere, he has associated himself with the reasoning phase of his nature and this he will lead up into likeness with his highest self, as far as earthly mind is capable, so that if possible it shall never be inclined to, and at the least never adopt, any course displeasing to its overlord.

What form, then, does virtue take in one so lofty?

It appears as Wisdom, which consists in the contemplation of all that exists in the Intellectual-Principle, and as the immediate presence of the Intellectual-Principle itself.

And each of these has two modes or aspects: there is Wisdom as it is in the Intellectual-Principle and as in the Soul; and there is the Intellectual-Principle as it is present to itself and as it is present to the Soul: this gives what in the Soul is Virtue, in the Supreme not Virtue.

In the Supreme, then, what is it?

Its proper Act and Its Essence.

That Act and Essence of the Supreme, manifested in a new form, constitute the virtue of this sphere. For the Supreme is not self-existent justice, or the Absolute of any defined virtue: it is, so to speak, an exemplar, the source of what in the soul becomes virtue: for virtue is dependent, seated in something not itself; the Supreme is self-standing, independent.

But taking Rectitude to be the due ordering of faculty, does it not always imply the existence of diverse parts?

No: There is a Rectitude of Diversity appropriate to what has parts, but there is another, not less Rectitude than the former though it resides in a Unity. And the authentic Absolute-Rectitude is the Act of a Unity upon itself, of a Unity in which there is no this and that and the other.

On this principle, the supreme Rectitude of the Soul is that it direct its Act towards the Intellectual-Principle: its Restraint (Sophrosyne) is its inward bending towards the Intellectual-Principle; its Fortitude is its being impassive in the likeness of That towards which its gaze is set, Whose nature comports an impassivity which the Soul acquires by virtue and must acquire if it is not to be at the mercy of every state arising in its less noble companion.

VI. In conduct of this kind, therefore, there is no sin, but a correction of the man. Nevertheless the endeavour is not to be without sin, but to be a God 1. Hence, if any thing among the above mentioned particulars should be done without deliberation, such a one will be both a God and a daemon, being a twofold character; or rather, having another with him, possessing another virtue. But if nothing is done unadvisedly, he will be a God alone. He will however be a God in the number of those that follow the first; for he it is who came from thence. And if he becomes by himself such as he came, he is still there. But coming hither, he will associate with intellect; and will assimilate this to himself ², according to the power of it. Hence, if possible, he will not be agitated, nor do any thing which may be displeasing to the master [intellect]. What, therefore, is each of the virtues to such a man as this? Wisdom, indeed, will consist in the contemplation of what intellect contains. But he will possess intellect by contact. Each of the virtues, however, is twofold ; for each is both in intellect and in soul. And in intellect, indeed, each is not [properly] virtue, but virtue is in soul. What, then, is it in intellect ? The energy of intellect, and that which is. But here that which is in another, is virtue derived from thence. For justice itself, and each of the virtues, are not in intellect such as they are here, but they are as it were paradigms. But that which proceeds from each of these into the soul, is virtue. For virtue pertains to a certain thing. But each thing itself pertains to itself, and not to any thing else. With respect to justice, however, if it is the performance of appropriate duty, does it always consist in a multitude of parts ? Or does not one kind consist in multitude, when there are many parts of it, but the other is entirely the performance of appropriate duty, though it should be one thing. True justice itself, therefore, is the energy of one thing towards itself, in which there is not another and another. Hence justice in the soul is to energize in a greater degree intellectually. But temperance is an inward conversion to intellect. And fortitude is apathy, according to a similitude of that to which the soul looks, and which is naturally impassive. But soul is impassive from virtue, in order that she may not sympathize with her subordinate associate.