Plotinus' Last Words

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Plotinus’ Last Words:

His one-time student Eustochius, who was also a doctor, reportedly arrived at Plotinus’ death bed just in time to hear his last words – as related by Porphyry in his Vita Plotinus. There has been much debate as to the meaning of these words, largely due to some variations in manuscripts, but also due the inability to decipher completely any one meaning. G.W. Most recently has argued that the key to the last words, is actually found in Plotinus’ penultimate words: “Still I’m waiting for you.” [sè éti periménō]

The variations of Plotinus’ final statement, in which it is hoped he expressed the core of his philosophy, are translated by G.W. Most as follows:

…and he then said, “Still I’m waiting for you”, and having said that he was trying to restore the divine in us back up to the divine in the All…he sent up his soul.

and,

…and he then said, “Still I’m waiting for you”, and having told him, "[personally] Try to restore the divine in us back up to the divine in the All"……he sent up his soul.

and,

…and he then said, “Still I’m waiting for you”, and having said, “You try [second person plural] to restore the divine in us back up to the divine in the All"……he sent up his soul.

What may seem an academics’ quibbling over emendations and transmission, actually seems to be resolvable by leaving, or recognizing, the ambiguity within the text itself – without emendations towards clarity. What G.W. Most draws our attention to is the curious nature of Plotinus’ penultimate words, a fact that some translators have simply translated away, ignoring the odd construction. Eustochius has come seventy kilometers only to arrive nearly too late; and as he enters, Plotinus tells him not, “Finally you have arrived”, or even “I have been waiting for you”, but rather, “Still I am waiting for you.” What follows need neither be decided to be: an injunction to Eustochius, or other pupils, to continue his work, nor a declaration of the nature of the work itself that Plotinus has been and at even at death is conducting. The penultimate words, “Still I am waiting for you,” said in the presence of the newly arrived Eustochius subsume both meanings. Plotinus’ philosophizing can be seen as the very act of such waiting, from the synchronic position of the “All”. It is a gnomically nested: I am (and have been) trying to ‘return the divine in us back to the divine in the All’, and in so doing I am (and have been) waiting for you ‘to try to return the divine in us back up to the divine in the All’.

What is interesting in this is the religio-political theoretical consequence that leaves no man/woman behind, implicit within the field of the rational itself. While utopian Idealism is often painted as a Top Down imposition of meaning, here it is expressed immanently, unfolding within discourse itself. As Plotinus dies he signals both the nature of what he has-done/is-doing, and the imperative that such doing exacts upon those who have studied him. What it reads as is,

“Still I am waiting for you,” and having declared, “trying (infinitive) to lead-up (anagein) the divine in us back to the divine in the All”…he sent up his soul.

What this seems to reflect is a Spinoza-like subsumption of the entirety within the domain and project of philosophical illumination. The (I)/(you) distinction that is making the “attempt”, which is ambiguous in the text, is actually a boundary-dissolution implied in Plotinus’ philosophy of the “All”. And it is, synchronically, from the end-of-time that he seems to speak.

This point is further emphasized, or perhaps clarified, by the words with which the Neo-Platonist Synesius ends a letter of his, thinking of Plotinus’ final breath nearly a century later,

“…philosophize, that is restore (ánage) the divine in you back up to the first-born divine.”

To what extent when one philosophizes, in any regard, is one “still waiting for” others, by the very virtue of the coherence of one’s speech and thought? Is there not a synchronic space that is opened up even in the most differential of discourses, the “chora” in which it is to be delivered? Such a space (or ends) is the presumption of an imperative that seems to ground the very act of speech and writing from Plato onwards.

Dunamis

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Hello F(r)iends,

Do you think it is possible that at the end Plotinus was convinced that it is the duty of “All” to restore the divine in “All”? Is the “you” he is waiting for in actuality the “all”?

Which may be similar to what you described below (If I have not misunderstood):

I am compelled to ask what the “divine in us” is… or more accurately, how Plotinus defined the “divine in us”. I ask because this philosophy of the “All” is very appealing.

Interesting question of which I sadly would be unable to answer… I can only relate my own troubles to express myself in speech or thought about the philosophy which I attempt to espouse. In that sense, I am “still waiting for you” as well…

-Thirst

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Dunamis writes:

I would ask, is the “return to the divine” a state of being discoverable of mind? I realize that we are bound by language and concept in expression, but does this neccessarily lead us to discovery of our divine nature?

JT

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Nick A has the recipe. Its only slightly more complicated than a good Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe, but takes a much slower baking process. :wink:

Dunamis

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Dunamis answers:

Hmmm, I think I’ll settle for the chocolate chip cookies. I’ve never had the patience for long cooking times… Of course, I’ve cooked up some terrible tasting cookies in my day. :laughing:

JT

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Plotinus was perhaps the foremost Neo-Platonist on the Classical World. He turned Plato’s ideas, as found in his dialogues and the descendant school, into a System of thought. Most contemporary Spiritualist thinking borrows its conceptions from Plotinus in one way or another. Essentially what he thought was that the All was the thing of greatest reality, a Totality which we gain access to through the Mind (Nous). To philosophize is to move from our fragmented, less “real”, state to that of the All. The “divine” is that Totality. And it has its seeds in “us”. So to philosophize is to move from the less real to the more real, from falsity to Truth. What is interesting, and this is a Platonic point, is that to discuss, coordinate, express and agree is just this kind of progression. This seems to be what Plotinus was saying in his ambiguous last words. They appear to be words that can be read either way – that he was leading up the divine in us back to the All, or that his student, and therefore all should. The very act of converse, (and commerce), seems to imply such a progression. The problems seem to come when a certain kind of finality is imposed prematurely upon the process. This is Transcendental thinking. Plotinus often worked from the metaphor of reflected light. One is to stand, act, conceive in such a way that the Light is reflected, and that in this way, “your” light then is reflected to others. In this manner one does not so much copy the way that one should be, but rather more like how a mirror allows light to shine off of you, through you, one reflects what is everywhere. Anyways, that’s a bit of his thinking. These metaphors have in our age been taken up by the soft-and-mushy, so I can’t say that I like them that much. But yes, Plotinus, I believe, did not find distinction between the work that he was doing, and the work that those who studied him were or should be doing.

Dunamis

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The true meaning of his last statement revealed for the first time here!

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Of course if you read a tad more Plato you might know which Greek philosopher this is in reference to, but why slow your retreat from concepts and words into pictures. :smiley:

Dunamis

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So, are you trying to tell me that he wasn’t waiting for a pizza? I’ve got good sources on this…be careful!

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Just look up Socrates’ last words, and you might have clue to the cartoons you peruse.

Dunamis

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I know a bit more of these ideas through their application in Jewish mysticism. The idea there seems to be of a regress, a return of the imperfection emanations of light to the perfect source of light.

This is bound up here in the word “restore.” The All prefigures the multitude. Whatever Divinity you have is not yours, you did not create it, nor do you literally own it. It is more like on loan to you. You are the guardian of the light, its caretaker and custodian.

In the text, “Still I am waiting for you” who is addressing whom? Who is doing the waiting and for whom is one waiting? Perhaps Soul is await for the man. Perhaps the All is waiting for Soul. But Soul is still here, circling again and again.

Meanwhile, many believers know the immanence in time of the ultimate restoration for they can feel the sensation of wondrous dread, and awful anticipation. They probably see the ultimate restoration as a one time, literal and historical event. Certainly it is coming soon. That sensation can sustain one through the trials of an otherwise painfully ordinary life.

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Hey D! I drew that cartoon freehand with a mouse to cheer you up! I’ll read up on it. Don’t be cranky!

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Cheers.

Dunamis

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It took me an hour :unamused: !

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Hello F(r)iends,

Yes. It is very appealing. Is the All an imagined level of totality that is unreachable and infinite? Does Plotinus imagine that we have strayed from the All? Thus: he has been, as you phrased it “trying to ‘return the divine in us back to the divine in the All’”. In a manner of speaking, Plotinus charges those who philosophize to restore us back to the divine…

-Thirst4Learning

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Crito, I went halvesies on a pizza with Asclepius; will you remember to skimp him on the tip?

-Socrates

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Dunamis

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All other responses feel free to PM me.

Dunamis

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The emphasis on the rational and the idea, the activity of thinking and philosophy, as Plotinus imports, is the same thing Spinoza is getting to with his notion of adequate knowledge. I think for both, they model existence as the totality of its conceptions and therefore the more knowledge is had, the greater the expression of existence. There has to be minds for this to take place, consequently, the mind is what is important and is for both a “divine” extension of the world and the universe.

Besides, what sense is made of anything without thinking? Someone has to do the thinking when we’re not around for existence to exist, right? That would have to be God?

That’s deep.

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“In a manner of speaking, Plotinus charges those who philosophize to restore us back to the divine…”

Given how broad a concept “philosophize” is, that interp doesn’t tell us much about the act of coming into the divine. Perhaps we should narrow down the acts which qualify as philosophizing in this context. And thinking Socratically, I’d have to ask, is there such a thing as a sort of philosophizing that brings us further away from the divine in the ALL and more deeply entrenched in the divine in ourselves?

And now for the dumb Gamer part, but it must be said that while the wretch was rotting and stinking in tuberculin hell, he may have not been thinking clearly. Why is this statement presumed to be so loaded and significant when it could have meant a number of things?

If he was lonely and isolated during the last days, he may have felt morose and anxious from “waiting” for company to be found by his side. When company finally arrives, the anxiety of waiting oddly lingers, and thus he states “I’m STILL waiting for you…” (even though you are here, I feel as though you are not near enough, alas, I still feel alone, isolated, still I wait…) So it could have merely been an expression of feeling.

Or maybe he’s talking of the great Truth…in his last moments he marvels that the crux of mystery still has not revealed itself…though it is so close he can almost smell it…or is that his limb rotting from leprosy…he just doesn’t know. He’s still waiting for you…You…Mysterium Tremendum.

It seems pretty clear what he’s saying about bringing our divinity into that of the all, and I do appreciate your reading of it, Dunamis, and how the choice of language adheres to the rules of the philosophy itself, which is ultimately a run-of-the-mill expression of faith in the form of a fairly common metaphor.