Plotinus
204 – 270 Greek (Roman Egypt) philosopher, founder of Neoplatonism
Founder of Neoplatonism, the philosophy underlying much later Western esotericism.
- Religion
- Neoplatonism, a mystical philosophy describing reality as flowing from a single transcendent source called the One, with the soul able to return to it through contemplation.
- Affiliations
- Taught a philosophical school in Rome. His pupil Porphyry edited his writings into the Enneads.
Plotinus built a mystical system in which everything emanates from a single source, the One, and the soul can ascend back toward it through contemplation. His pupil Porphyry collected his lectures as the Enneads. Neoplatonism became one of the main channels through which mystical ideas passed into Christian, Islamic, and Renaissance esoteric thought.
Connections
- influenced Augustine of Hippo — Augustine credited Neoplatonism with freeing his thought before conversion.
- influenced Iamblichus — Built on Plotinus while adding ritual theurgy.
- influenced Iamblichus — Iamblichus took Neoplatonism in a more ritual and theurgic direction.
- influenced Marsilio Ficino — Ficino translated Plotinus and made Neoplatonism central to Renaissance thought.
- influenced Marsilio Ficino — Ficino's Latin Plotinus revived Neoplatonism.
- influenced Pythagoras — Pythagorean number mysticism fed into the Neoplatonism Plotinus developed.