AUGUSTINE
Author(s): ROBERT J. O'CONNELL
Source: Traditio, Vol. 19 (1963), pp. 1-35
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27830741
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THE PLOTINIAN FALL OF THE SOUL IN ST. AUGUSTINE*
By ROBERT j. O'CONNELL, S.j.
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2 traditio
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THE PLOTINIAN FALL OF THE SOUL 3
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4 traditio
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THE PLOTINIAN FALL OF THE SOUL 5
God's justice, therefore, is put beyond man's complaint. But the hypothesis
is none other than that of a voluntary fall of the soul into the body, into ig
norance and difficulty, into a place of punishment. The divine Justice is
uncompromised precisely because the soul has chosen freely and consequently
deserves everything that follows from that free choice. One can only infer
that this choice is itself the sin for which the soul is punished, the sin preced
ing birth in this life on account of which it is embodied in a sensible universe:
the essence of what Augustine much later found to be Origen's position.
Consider now the difference between the third and fourth hypothesis:
either God has sent the soul without fault on its part, or the soul has sinned.
Starting from his pre-existence position, which of these two must Augustine
choose? His way of appending a hasty quandoquidem etiamsi eas ipse misisset28
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6 traditio
For it is precisely that doctrine of the soul, fallen, yet at the same time
sent, into a world which is simultaneously bad and beautiful, which led Br?hier
to speak of an 'undeniable contradiction' in Plotinus' thought.29 It arose
from his desire to remain a faithful exponent of the Platonic tradition in
its entirety. In his basic work on the subject, Ennead IV 8, on The Soul's
Descent into the Body he begins with a careful summary of the two conflict
29 La philosophie de Plotin (Paris 1928) 68. The entire chapter, pp. 47-69, is valuable
for an understanding of the diverse tensions in Plotinus' theory of the soul.
30 Sixth in the chronological order, this treatise is relatively early.
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THE PLOTINIAN FALL OF THE SOUL 7
ing sides of Plato's thought on the soul's immersion in the sensible universe,31
before proceeding to his own effort of reconciliation. The pessimistic accent
found in the Phaedo and the Phaedrus, whereby some ' fault ' of its own has
plunged the soul into matter, is balanced by the more optimistic view of the
Timaeus, where the demiurge, out of goodness, 'sends" the soul down into
the sensible universe to impart beauty to it, by conferring on it the intelligible
perfection of the Ideas.
Plotinus is, therefore, conscious of the ambivalence in the master's thought,
and that from the very beginning of his philosophical activity.32 He refuses
the privilege of taking a one-sided view of the matter33 ? at least on the
plane of reflective thought; but reflection and affectivity do not always har
monize. Thus there is a possibility that the ' shift of accent ' wrhich is generally
admitted in Plotinus' thought only complicates that original ambivalence,
allowing the pessimistic accent to dominate toward the beginning, and gradu
ally to give way to the more Stoic optimism which characterizes his riper
work.34 The turning point in this development Harder has placed at the
moment when Plotinus realized that his earlier views gave entirely too much
encouragement to the Gnostics who for a considerable time became the target
of his fiercest opposition.35 Thus, in his later works, he points much more
to the beauty of the sensible world, which so reflects the goodness of God
and the perfection of the Ideas that it must rightly be called God's 'youngest
child,' indeed, the 'manifest god.'36 The soul, consequently, is 'sent' to
confer beauty on this world: does it follow that it has not sinned and 'fallen'
into that world? Not in the least; the two theses remain true and still require
reconciliation, or, in Br?hier's term, perpetuate the undeniable contradiction.
And Plotinus must constantly renew his effort to show that fault is integrated
into the necessary operation of the immutable laws of the universe, that the
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8 traditio
soul's liberty and cosmic necessity are really one and the sam
that we are fallen because we desired to fall, but that mu
desire is itself put in us by the Logos which irresistibly rule
our returns.37
The very lucidity of Gilson's estimate of the situation, then
reason for examining his position. His analysis suggests th
coherence in Augustine's thought, that incoherence is the
troubled Plotinus, giving his doctrine a characteristic set of
which may serve to make it all the more identifiable if we f
in Augustine.
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the plotinian fall of the soul 9
very revealing on Augustine's working methods and perhaps also on his philosophic forma
tion. Plotinus, for example, combats the entelechy and harmony theories of the soul with
parallel arguments (ibid. 84 and 85); this seems to have led Augustine to assume (ibid. 17
that they were one and the same theory).
41 See Henry, Plotin, 138. Taking as a hypothesis that Augustine read this treatise be
fore Gassiciacum would, we suggest, illuminate some obscurities in those writings.
42 Art. cit. . 1, supra.
43 Or, if preferred, our method could be construed after the hypothetical fashion suggested
in n. 41. The fact that these treatises help explain obscurities in Augustine's text and in
the movement of his thought (without, however, deforming it) would itself constitute ev
dence of their relevance, to be confirmed, if possible, by further data of a more philologica
nature. See the methodological remarks in our former article, pp. 4-5 and nn. 21, 26, an
31.
44 Such expressions abound at Gassiciacum, see for example De ord. 1. 29 and 2. 30-1;
De b. vita 1-5; and J.J. O'Meara's edition of Against the Academics, AGW 12, notes 8 and 9
to Book 1, with references.
45 Enn. IV 8.1.
46 Cf. Enn. IV 8.5.17-29 and De b. vita 3-5 (three classes of souls) and Sol. 1. 23-25 (two
classes). Note especially Sol. 1.23, those in the higher class nec doctore indigent, sed sola
f?rtasse admonitione. His credere, sperare, amare satis est. But the notions of faith, hope
and charity (ibid. 12-14) bear careful examination.
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10 TRADITIO
For both authors, this ascent must start with the exercise of that Platon
reminiscence which revives the soul's former contact with the higher world,4
and Augustine's early emphasis on the purifying value of the disciplinae
liberales almost certainly stems from a Plotinian understanding of the intel
lectualist nature of this 'return of the soul.'48
Our reference treatise for the doctrine just exposed has been Ennead IV 8.
And the key term which Plotinus there uses to describe the soul's ideal statio
is a , drawn from Plato's Timaeus,^ and a classic expression in Ne
Platonism. Theiler has ably shown the importance of that notion in Augustine
works, at the same time endeavoring to demonstrate that Augustine foun
it, not in Plotinus, but in Porphyry.50 His uncompromising repudiation of
Plotinus as in any measure a direct source for Augustine's doctrine has met
with almost universal rejection, even on the part of those sympathetic towar
the hypothesis that Augustine was exposed to Porphyrian readings in additio
to those he admittedly made in Plotinus.51 However, the evidence for these
readings, as occurring before the De consensu evang?list?mra, remains entirely
indirect,52 whereas the circle of Plotinian treatises scholars have seen fit to
add to Augustine's early reading-list is once again expanding. Had Augustine
drawn the notion of a from Plotinus, then, where would he have
found it?
Oddly enough, in only two loci. The first of them is in Ennead III 2-3,
on Providence, which we know he read, but where the notion is found without
extended development.53 Its only other occurrence is in Ennead IV 8,54 where
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the plotinian fall of the soul 11
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12 TRADITIO
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THE PLOT I NI AN FALL OF THE SOUL 13
Now the most significant similarity between these texts is one of doctrinal
pattern: Plotinus' key term, a , is translated by the term medietas
animi, which Augustine paraphrases with the explanation that the soul is
'ordered' in meditullio quodam rerum (cf. a e ...).
The paragraph from the De Genesi then presents a finely compressed statement
of the doctrine presented in Ennead IV 8: the soul must supereminere, retain
her natural relation of governor of the sensible world, without letting it de
generate into an involvi, obrui, an implicatio (cf. e e ) earthly
pleasures. Her gaudium should remain spiritale, and Augustine has already
explained this as referring to the delights of intellectual contemplation,59
exactly in accordance with Plotinus' mind on the matter. So firmly has he
grasped the doctrine concerned, he can re-express it in terms reminiscent
of various other treatises, reminding us that the things in this spiritual world
really exist, those in the sensible universe not 'existing' in the true sense
of that term so that the dextera-sinistra couple furnishes a semi-biblical
hook for a perfectly Plotinian insight.60 The spiritual is, for both thinkers
what is prior, ante, while the corporeal is posterior, post,61 in a realm which
the soul should school herself to forget in order to revive that other kind of
memory, the Platonic reminiscence of the intelligible: again, good Plotinian
doctrine.62 The notion of an aversio whereby the soul has 'deserted' God,
59 De Genesi 1.30: the spiritual marriage of 'man' and 'woman,' symbolizing the rational
and sensible parts of human nature, was to bring forth spirituelles foetus immortalium gaudio
rum. It must be remembered that Augustine has already made the soul part of that "spir
itual creation" which is symbolized by the viridi agri (2.4) which is irrigated by the intel
ligible light of the Verbum (2.6).
60 Cf. Conf. 7.16-17, where Augustine's first step in his reflections on the libri platonieomm
is in terms of this classic Platonic distinction.
61 See, for example, Augustine's allusion to the hierarchy of beings in Conf. 3.9, the priora
opera Dei being the spiritalia, while the corporeal universe implicitly receives the denomi
nation of posteriora. The same distinction can be found frequently in Plotinus, but especially
relevant to Augustine's paradise image is its use in Enn. V 8.12-13, where the notions of
inferiority and (natural, not temporal) posteriority are linked.
62 As contained in Enn. IV 3.25ff., which Augustine read, and which K. Winkler finds
active at Cassiciacum: see 'La Th?orie augustinienne de la m?moire ? son point de d?part/
AM I. 511-19.
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14 traditio
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THE PLOTINIAN FALL OF THE SOUL 15
is what weakens the soul, draws her attention away from the vision of intelli
gible truth, and constitutes her fallen state.67
To the mechanism of that fall we shall return shortly; but for the moment
it must be remarked that one term in various forms suffices to describe man's
fallen state which Augustine sees as ensuing post peccatimi, in contrast with
the soul's existence ante peccatum.68 It is a vita mortalis, mors vit?lis; it is
hujus vitae mortalit?s, or, in more condensed form, it is, when compared with
the alia vita, simply mors.10 Augustine may well have found Plotinian en
couragement for selecting this term to capsule the properties of our fallen
situation;71 what is more manifest is that Plotinus, rather than Genesis, war
ranted his treating as consequences of our fall a number of elements which
67 Plotinus, therefore, would reject the thought of the soul's 'pure' spirituality; the soul
preserves a natural relation with the body and the sensible universe, but one which makes
it ideally present 'to' (not 'in') that universe, present in an absent sort of way.
68 Note the distinction: whereas the anima is the subject of peccatum (De Genesi 2.5:
antequam anima peccaret), the term homo seems more appropriate to our fallen condition:
only after that fall was there a homo labor?ns in terra, (ibid). Though obliged by the sacred
text to admit man as created from the clay of the earth, Augustine seems to reduce the
force of that admission with the immediate reminder that this was before he was transported
into paradise, ut a Verbo Dei consummaretur (ibid. 2.10.) This seems to mean that man's
creation was itself completed by that consummation, so that the normative divine idea
of man is that of a spiritual creature. Hence Augustine can say that the basic flaw of the
Manichaean anthropology arises from its starting point: multum errent qui post peccatum
consid?rent hominem, cum in hujus vitae mortalitatem damnatus est-, (ibid. 1.29). Add that
we look forward to a renovatio, a liberatio which Augustine terms a commutatio in angelicam
form?m (ibid. 1.29; 2.32), in virtue of which, by following the spiritual Adam, Christ, we
become once more the spiritual creation, the viride agri, having been restored to the paradise
which we lost by sin (2.10). Cf. De quant, animae 78, where the soul is naturally par angelo,
and inferior only in consequence of sin.
69 Conf. 1.7. Note the context: Augustine admits: nescio unde venerim hue; cf. ibid. 9:
die mihi, utrum alicui iam aetati meae mortuae successerit infantia mea ... fuine alicubi aut
aliquisl Thus, in a doubt which may be resolved as the Confessions proceeds, he leaves
the question open: Ibid. 10, he praises God de primordiis ET infantia mea, quae non memini.
70 Cf. De Genesi 1.29; (for other variations, ibid. 1.19. 26; 2.15, 38, 40). Compare De
lib. arb. 2.53, the culminating definition of sin, and De Genesi 2.15 where a similar com
pression is achieved, the term mors now standing for the entire complex of fallen-condition
properties.
71 Cf. Enn. IV 7.11 and ibid. 9, line 23, where the term is applied to wood and stone in
contrast with the soul. Augustine's distinction De imm. animae 16, between anima
animata-exanime, with the latter then termed mortuum, seems an echo of this terminology.
See also the coincidental but striking grouping of the same terms (wood, stone, death) in
the Plotinian original of Augustine's death-bed quotation, Enn. I 4.7.20-26: 'One that
sets great store by wood and stones, or, Zeus ! by mortality among mortals, cannot yet
be the proficient, whose estimate of death, we hold, must be that it is better than life in the
body. ' Such verbal correspondences mean very little to us; there is much evidence to suggest
that they meant a great deal to Augustine.
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16 TRADITIO
72 De Genesi 2.15.
78 Ibid. 1.30.
74 Ibid. 2.5, 6; cited belo
75 Ibid. 2.32, cited below
7? See note 68, supra.
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THE PLOTINIAN FALL OF THE SOUL 17
The adjustments Augustine has worked here are all in function of his
exegetical task and of the modification of problematic imposed by his Christian
preoccupations. None of them, however, can hide the fact that the inner
logic of Plotinus' position has been grasped with admirable acuity. Thus,
the use of reasoning is due to difficulties, perplexities, which are symbolized
by the 'thorns and thistles' of 'this life': e a a. This 'labor' Augustine
assures us, is what the author of Genesis must mean by Adam's punishment.
In the higher sphere of existence, (e e , e ), all our knowledge
was poured into us by that fons spoken of in Genesis, one that interiorly ir
rigated the viride agri which symbolizes the spiritual creation77 ? and at
this point the Augustinian manans reproduces Ficinus' translation of the
Plotinian . Having lost contact with this interior font, the soul
must turn outwards in its pursuit of truth:78 human words, all the work of
communication, symbol, advice and consultation (and this for Augustine
includes the entire regime of scriptural, prophetic and apostolic authority),
all these are consequences of the peccatum animae, the fall from paradise.
Remarkable is the fact that both authors entertain the idea of a body in the
paradisiac state, though a body of a transparency (perspicuitas, simplicitas,
cf. a a a a)79 such that everyone's inner thoughts are immediate
ly known to his companions there, no concealment or simulation being
possible.80 And it is significant that both describe this reciprocal awareness
77 De Genesi 2.10.
78 We have tried to show (art. cit. note 1, above, pp. 28-37) that in the Confessions Augustine
most often uses the Plotinian image of the 'Head' (Enn, VI 5.7.1-14)as the imaginative
backdrop of this intus-foras distinction. At this point in his career, however, and dealing
with the analogous but not identical concept of the intima, the corresponding image is drawn
rather from Enn. Ill 7, as we shall shortly see. Gf. note 68, above.
79 Gf. also the a of Plotinus' description of the fall in Enn. VI 4.14.25. Mackenna
renders the term suggestively with the phrase: 'We have lost that first simplicity, we are
become the dual thing.' (Italics ours).
80 De Genesi 2.23 develops this link between the "tunics of mortality" and the resulting
possibility of dissimulation and hypocrisy.
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18 traditio
The soul, therefore, retains even in paradise her natural relation to the
sensible: it is a radical degeneration of that relation which constitutes its
fallen state. And yet (and here Plotinus admits he is advancing a personal
opinion) the soul is never entirely fallen. His final suggestion in Ennead
IV 8 would have it that the soul's highest portion remains in unbroken contact
with the intelligible order, still engaged in contemplation.82 Of this highest
activity, our everyday consciousness would seem to bear not the slightest
trace. The objection from experience, therefore, is a normal one, and Plo
tinus must contend with it. In Ennead V 8 (on Intellectual Beauty) one of
his hearers poses the question squarely: how can the soul be in [the realm
of intellectual] beauty, and yet fail to see it?83
That question, allowing for modifications of problematic,84 is entirely anal
ogous to the difficulty which faces Augustine in the De musica. For both
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THE PLOTINIAN FALL OF THE SOUL 19
pacity on its part5 he advises his disciple, would be real cause for wonder. He then goes
on (ibid. 9-10) to elaborate (with help from Plotinus, we may think: see Enn. IV 4.22ff.
which Augustine seems to have interpreted in the light of additional suggestions in Enn.
I 4.10 where the present problematic is remarkably paralleled) his celebrated theory of
sensation as an active 'attention of the soul to the passio corporis.' That attention becomes
sharpest when the soul encounters some difficultas in its normal animating activity, one
which produces the distraction from the higher activity of contemplation which is traced
to its cause in De musica 6.37ff. The cause is, as one might guess, the fall of the soul.
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20 TRADITIO
his consensione to the cognate consensu. Vivid sense impressions leave ' shocks
rather than clear knowledge; they go with a state of sickness ? alien, unnatur
al, incongruous ? rather than with the more natural, ' familiar, ' congruous
state of health; their evidence, accordingly, is more deceptive on our re
ontological condition than informative. Their clamorous claim on our atten
tion both authors associate with disturbance, tension, ' otherness ' ? an
Augustine feels obliged to add an apologetic ut ita dicam to the alteritas which
he may well have found translating Plotinus' a ? a disrupted stat
contrasting with the companionate, tranquil 'unification' proper to health:
a tranquillity whose upper extreme is, in both authors, the soul's ability to
abstract entirely from bodily concerns.85 Thus Augustine's reminder in De
quantitate animae 79 that only those activities obtrude upon our attentio
which we exercise with greater difficulty. The truth of the matter may be
? potest esse ? that the soul is constantly engaged in all seven levels, eve
in the highest contemplative activity ? its noblest portion never, in Plotinus
term, having ' come down. ' For this reason, too, he has previously observed
that the souls' re-ascent resembles nothing more than a cessatio, less a kind
of knowing than a lack of it ? a e e ? a 'diminution of co
sciousness. '86 From this standpoint it becomes plain why Augustine has fel
obliged repeatedly to return to the subject of the soul's 'immobility' in, his
early works87 ? a corollary of the Plotinian teaching whereby the pinnacle
of the soul remains entirely at peace, tranquil and changeless in the empyrean
Potest esse: Augustine abstains from affirmation, and the uncertainty does
him credit. For Plotinus' doctrine ultimately implies the rejection of an
need of 'being saved.' Salvation is already an accomplished fact, and th
only thing the soul need do is grasp that fact by an effort of intellectual ascen
whose function is to bring consciousness into line with what her true onto
logical status unalterably is. But such was Augustine's enthusiasm for th
Neo-Platonic illumination of Milan, ? after which (Conf. 7.17) he could
more easily doubt his own existence ( ' a avr?v e e e e a ) tha
the reality of that Supernal Truth these books had told him of ? that i
took him some time to grasp the dangers of this implication of the master'
85 Compare De musica 6.49 and E . I 4.10, where (see note 84) absorption in intellectu
activity is shown to take our minds completely off any routine lower activity we may be
engaged in at the same time.
86 De quant, animae 55. On whether, in Plotinus' system, all elevation corresponds t
'diminution de conscience' (Br?hier, Enn?ades V 149, note 1?? propos of the exact
passage from Ennead V 8.11 cited above, p. 19), see H.R. Schwyzer's careful "'Bewuss
und 'unbewusst' bei Plotin" in Sources, 341-378. Augustine maybe excused for holding
as regards corporeal consciousness, essentially the same view as Br?hier.
87 See De imm. animae 3-4 (comparing with Enn. IV 7.9); De ord. 2. 3-7, 18-21.
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the plot in i an fall of the soul 21
88 This is one of the background implications in De ord. 2.11-13 and 18-21; the overt
question is whether the actions of the stultus (translate: 'sinner') are performed in ordine;
the real question is whether Deus omnia agit as the universality of Providence seems to
imply; cf. ibid. 1, 1, aut certe mala omnia Dei vol?ntate committi. Plotinus' formulation of
the problem is the same, cf. 'On Providence,' Enn. Ill 2.7, and 10, and 12; III 3.3, and
4, where he is unable to hide his acute embarassment before this question. In the De ord.
sections referred to (as well as in De ord. 2. 22-3), the only solution offered is that the actions
of the stultus do not elude God's logically subsequent ordering activity. What drives Augus
tine in both instances to point out the need of an ordo studiorum before being fit to gain
insight into such question is his own awareness that this is an escape from rather than a
solution of the questions which he has posed entirely too squarely to get out of it that easily.
He is looking for a scheme such that the sinner can commit sin, and God not commit
it, while at the same time the dualistic solution of the Manichees is foiled, and the exigencies
of participation theory are conscientiously observed.
89 See De lib. arb. 1.4: the statement of the question is beguiling if one takes voluntas
hi a chosiste manner. Augustine really wants to know how God can give us a free will whose
very free act is reducibly His, without making Him the auctor of the sins we commit.
90 De lib. arb. 2. 53; cf. Conf. 7.22 and De quant, animae 78. The structure of both thought
and image in all these texts is the same: our fall plunges us from the Summa, God, our 'com
mon' object of (contemplative) beatitude, into the ima of corporeal creation; and its root
is a 'turning away' from God through the proud desire to have something proprium. Why
this structure appeals to Augustine as his way out of the difficulty mentioned in notes 88
and 89, above, we shall see presently in connection with the pondus motif.
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22 TRADITIO
Starting with a r
of reality (just as P
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THE PLOTINIAN FALL OF THE SOUL 23
to sketch the fall as one which 'binds' us to the order of temporal realities.
The accent is characteristic of the De musica which stresses the fall into time
as much if not more than the fall into the body; but it reflects Plotinus' re
minder that the souls ' by their descent ... have put themselves into contact,
and they stand henceforth in harmonious association with the cosmic circuit, '
tied to it (cf. context) with ' bonds ' which Zeus the father periodically dissolves.
Fall and return are both, therefore, the work of the cosmic order, of that
providence which rules the periods of history (a cyclic conception which Augus
tine was later firmly to reject, and in explicit connection with this same text)95
' leading the things of this realm to be of one voice and plan with the Supreme '
so that Out of this concordance rises as it were one musical utterance.'
But in the section following (IV 3.13) Plotinus goes to some pains to show
that the inalterable law does not draw its power 'from without' but that it
is interior to the beings which execute it: its action is also theirs. How does
it operate ? ' Each several entity is overruled to go, duly and in order, towards
that place and kind to which it characteristically tends, that is towards the
image of its primal choice ... to which its individual constitution inclines it;
there is therefore no need of a sender ... of its own motion it descends ... as
by a magician's power or by some mighty traction ... neither under compul
sion nor of free will ' but more by a kind of ' leap of the nature as moves men
to the instinctive desire of sexual union or, in the case of some, to fine conduct. '
And Plotinus ends with another image, one which illumines both Augustine's
Delectatio ... quasi pondus est animae, and his curious exegesis of Genesis'
dimisit ilium:
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24 TRADITIO
each of his life's turnings he finds God has governed him by those stimuli
interni which are none other than his own profoundest inclinations, those
pondera in the deep heart of that mystery, man.97 For an understandin
of the Augustinian doctrine of freedom and grace, it would seem imperative
to ask how far he went in adopting the Plotinian problematic of freedom an
cosmic law which is suggested here.
Law and fault are, therefore, one: another extremely characteristic tension
in Plotinus' teaching can be found in Augustine as well, and related persuasivel
to a precise text which we have every evidence Augustine read. But wha
of the fault itself? Here another set of tensions greets us, for Plotinus' doc
trine is not entirely easy here. The root fault Plotinus designates by th
term a; the likelihood that a Latin, especially one interested in erectin
a Plotinian intellectus of the Biblical fides, would translate this with the ter
superbia, has already been suggested by students of the question.98
But the identity of that primal fault is more complex: we have seen alread
that Augustine relates it to a superbia whereby the soul, sibi arrogando quod
non est, chooses at the same time sua potentia tamquam sine Deo fru?." And
yet, in that very paragraph, he speaks of an 'implication' in terrenae cupidi
tates, in corporeae voluptates: are we to understand that the fault of superbia
is identical with a species of cupiditas^
This tension too is found in Plotinus, whose a frequently contain
a note of ' excessive zeal ' for the ordering of the sensible universe, not entirel
unconnected with the kind of desire for sense-delights which the Orphic stra
in the Platonic tradition, complicated by Plotinus' own semi-Gnostic leanings,
finds uniformly reprehensible.100 Thus, in the early treatise on beauty which
so struck Augustine, he describes the soul's ugliness ? ' dissolute, unrighteous,
teeming with all the lusts ... thinking only of the perishable and the base ...
97 Con f. 7.12: stimiilis internis; 4. 22, pondera; 7.23, pondus. The idea without the term
occurs frequently, e.g. 5. 14 and 23.
98 See W.M. Green, ' Initium omnis peccati superbia. Augustine on pride as the first
sin,' U. of California Publications in Classical Philology 13 (1949) 407-31. W. Theiler,
Porphyrios, 28, tries to show that the concept which he finds so important in both Augustin
and Plotinus, must therefore have been in the Porphyry who (he would have it) transmitte
Neo-Platonic thought to Augustine.
99 De Genesi 2.12, cited above, p. 12.
100 See the description of the fall in Enn. IV 8.4.11-28 in addition to the texts cited below
notes 101, 103. Note that a certain 'interference' was likely in Augustine's reading of al
these texts, so that he found the coloration of one in the occasionally more neutral languag
of the others.
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THE PLOTINIAN FALL OF THE SOUL 25
the friend of unclean pleasures'101 ? in terms which only too faithfully echoed
both Augustine's experience and the Manichaean revulsion toward the sexual
reproduction which they held to be the chief of all sins; and it is interresting
that they traced that sin to the principle of concupiscence, ,102 just as
Plotinus traces it, both here and in his last word on the question, to the alien
principle, matter.103 It is not, therefore, surprising that Augustine's first
serious efforts to seek out a definition of sin start with the terms libido and
cupiditas,10* and that his later efforts to make this emphasis rime with the
more Christian superbia, found the ambiguity of Plotinus' a ready and
waiting to help him. Even more relevant to the text which concerns us here,
is Plotinus' insistence at a number of points that matter is the primal evil,105
that consequently the initiative for the fall of the soul comes from below,
from that sensible universe which like an undisciplined 'rabble of pleasure,
desires and fears,' sets up a howling for the soul's attentions.106 This may
explain Augustine's curious insistence, not once but twice in the De Genesi
contra Manichaeos,107 that the only path temptation can take to the virile
ratio is the lower, animal 'feminine' principle in each of us.
There is, however, actually a triad of sins which dominate Augustine's
moral thinking from the De Genesi onwards. Theiler has underlined the im
portant r?le played in the De vera religione by what at first sight appears
to be the 'triple concupiscence' of St. John's first Epistle, and he has labored
to show that it reproduces a Neo-Platonic moral triad that 'must have been'
in Porphyry.108 Concupiscentia, curiositas and superbia are, assuredly, terms
which would seem to derive from the Johannine concupiscentia carnis, con
cupiscentia oculorum, and ambitio saeculi to which Augustine later on explicitly
relates them.109
But the only difficulty here is explaining the explanation. Why in the
world should Augustine have chosen, as his constant set of moral categories,
101 Enn. I 6.5.22ff. But see the following section as well, I 6.6.
102 See H.G. Puech, Le Manich?isme, son fondateur, sa doctrine (Paris 1949) 68-71 and
76-8. Note the relation of with concupiscence. Augustine claims to Honoratus that
he has conserved all he found true in Manichaeism: De utilitate credendi 36: quod apud
eos verum didiceram, teneo. Any understanding of his hardy effort to erect an intellectus
fidei must bear in mind that such a (legitimate in itself) intention carries risks with it.
103 Enn. I 8 (chronologically = 51st of the 54 treatises) which, as Br?hier notes (Enn?ades
I, 51) embodies the same theory of evil as the treatise on Beauty I. 6.
104 De lib. arb. 1.8ff.
105 See note 103 above.
106 Enn. VI 4.15.
107 De Genesi 2.20 and 39.
108 Porphyrios, 36ff. Gf. I Jo. 2. 15-16.
109 De musica 6.44.
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26 TRADITIO
110 Its presence in Porphyry Theiler must deduce from its presence in Plotinus; see note
98 above.
111 Ibid. 57. Theiler overlooks the adjustments Augustine must make in Plotinus in order
to achieve the provisional synthesis of the De vera religione. Some of the portions of his
work where that labor is most evident are, for that very reason, most illuminating on the
real sources he is remolding: hence the importance of the De Genesi contra Manichaeos,
which Theiler, like most scholars, accords only passing attention.
U2 See note 16. Bardy's arguments, be it observed, impose a later date for the second
book than for the first, but it remains quite possible that it was written shortly after the
De Genesi contra Manichaeos, De musica and De magistro, which show many analogies
with it.
113 Augustine is explaining the allegory of the seven days of creation, and is in the finale
of the first book. His formal exegetical task is over, and it is possible that this portion con
stitutes a conclusion added later.
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THE PLOTINIAN FALL OF THE SOUL 27
triadic structure which has been eliminated from our modern translations,
and he reads God's words as Pectore et ventre repes, et terram manducabis.lu
His taste for parallelism leads him to see in the condemnation of the serpent
a reference to the same sins as provoked the fall of the soul: the pectus means
pride, superbia; the venter refers to desiderium carnale. Alas, what is to be
made of the terram manducabisl Augustine hesitates: this, he suggests
at first, could refer once again to earthly ' cupidities. ' But the solution does
not satisfy: it involves duplicating the symbolic force of the venter. Only
then does the happy idea seem to occur to him that this third member arms
him with a neat sally against the materialism and sensism of his Manichaean
adversaries, and he proposes that
... vel certe genus tertium tentationis his verbis figuratur, quod est
curiositas. Terram enim qui manducat, profunda et tenebrosa p?n?tr?t,
et tarnen temporalia atque terrena. (2.27).
Examining its next occurrence, one is at first tempted to grant Theiler
that this notion might indeed have originally been directed against imagina
tion and imaged thinking, and that its Porphyrian pedigree might be showing.115
But in the case before us, as in so many instances, we must take into account
the exigencies of controversy: Augustine is hardly bashful in making adapta
tions when they serve the cause. Once arrived at the prophetica explanatio
of this same punishment, all his hesitation has left him; the triad is directed
squarely against what he conceives to be the major errors of the Manichees,
and it is this clearly polemic reference which has molded the triple concupis
cence into final shape:
Non enim decipit [diabolus] nisi aut superbos, qui sibi arrogantes quod
non sunt, cito credunt quod summi Dei et animae humanae una eademque
sit; aut desideriis carnalibus implicates, qui libenter audiunt quod quid
quid lascive faciunt, non ipsi faciunt sed gens tenebrarum; aut curiosos,
qui terrena sapiunt, et sp?ritalia terreno oculo inquirunt. (2.40)116
The likelihood is, therefore, that Augustine did not find this triad already
neatly packaged for him in Porphyry; but the question of the origin of curio
114 Gen. 2.14. The triad, in which the venter and pectus mentions are really a doublet,
seems to be one of those peculiarities of the translation Augustine is using; see De Genesi
2. 27.
115 If, that is, one admit with Theiler that Augustine's curiositas reflects a Porphyrian
polemic against the imagination, for which his major piece of evidence is the fact that it is
found in that connection in Augustine. We would suggest, on the contrary, that its terminal
function in Augustine is a result of sifting it through the anti-image analysis of Ennead VI
4-5, a process which had definitely anti-Manichaean point. See note 116, infra.
116 The main defect that Augustine finds in his former intellectual comportment is this
habit of inquiring into spiritalia terreno oculo; see Conf. 5.19 and our article (cited note 1
above) especially the texts cited in notes 13 and 33.
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28 TRADITIO
sitas still calls for resolution. We suggest that Augustine found it in the P
tinian treatise on Time and Eternity, Ennead III 7. And it is in the De musi
that Augustine briefly tips his hand and cues us in this direction.
Guitton has well characterized the preoccupation of the De musica wi
the title, 'Le Temps Po?tique,'117 for Augustineseems to have done little bu
transpose Plotinus' considerations on temporal measures, intervals, and the
relativity, into a series of metrical applications. All the soul's creative
tivity, in fact, he there links to an amor generalis actionis which urges her
create a 'mendacious' array of numbers in imitation of the immobile perfe
tion of the eternal world. In all this, the context of Ennead III 7 is faithfu
reflected;118 but as if to clear up any remaining doubts, Augustine gives a
etymological definition of curiositas wherein its Plotinian origin becom
manifest.
That definition, however, is rooted in a context which speaks of the fall of
the soul: what possible connection could there be here? Plotinus has described
the process of the fall in Ennead IV 8, without mentioning the term a.119
But, as Br?hier has alertly remarked,120 the description of the fall presented
in Ennead V 1.1 ? again, a treatise which we know Augustine read121 ? is
largely a r?sum? based on Ennead IV 8, in which the term a is explicitly
related to the description of the fall presented in the earlier treatise. But
there Plotinus adds another note as well: he mentions that the fall plunges
the soul into a sphere of 'genesis,' hence of time and becoming. On that
connection Augustine has seized, studied the description of the origin of time
in Ennead III 7, found there a potent image of the soul's fall, and, struck
117 See Le Temps et V?ternit? chez Plotin et saint Augustin (Paris 1933) 102-30. A cursory
examination of the eleventh book of the Confessions will suggest that the discussion of time
and eternity there follows quite faithfully the pattern of Plotinus' own treatise, III 7.
Notice, for instance, the picturesque observation in both authors (Enn. Ill 7.1 and Conf.
11.17) that 'time' seems a simple question until the question is actually put; Augustine's
definition of time, moreover, as a distentio animi (11.39) reproduces Plotinus' own a a
... , which occurs in Enn. Ill 7.11. 41, in the same section we are about to cite in parallel
with his description of the fall into time. The intermediate steps of the argument all follow
the pattern set by Plotinus, once it is seen how much Augustine manages to couch the ref
utation of contrary views in terms of the metrical observations which constitute his De
musica adaptation of this treatise.
118 Of which the last sentence of our text is simply a r?sum?; see Enn. Ill 7.11.
119 Enn. IV 8.41 Iff: the soul becomes 'partial and self-centered; in a weary desire of
standing apart they find their way, each to a place of its very own. ' Both underlined terms
(the translation is Mackenna's) stand for Plotinus' ea ; cf. Augustine's parallel insistence
on such terms as suum, proprium, ad seipsam in the texts (De Genesi 2.22 and 24) we are
about to examine.
120 Enn?ades, V 15 note 1 (referring to Enn. V 1.1).
121 Henry, Plotin, 127, confirmed by O'Meara, AGW 12, 161.
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THE PLOTINIAN FALL OF THE SOUL 29
Ennead V 1. De Gene
I. 1-8 : T? e a a e e 22: Vide
a a a e perbiam
e a a , a a e e e ut sub D
a a e e a a potestate
a ea a a e e ; A invident
e a a a ut suam
a a e cum Deo
e a e e a per quam
? a e ea - pora su
e a . a -
e e e e a 24: Quis
a e a , Dei, nisi
e a a ' a e amare qu
a , e a a a a mendaciu
a e a a e ... Ab eae
a , a a ea a e aversus e
e e e a ' ... et non d
Deo sed
Ennead III, 7.exsultat..
II, 12-29 : ... " e , conversu
e e a a et displic
e e a , a e bat aliqu
a e a e , imela me
a 9 e e e a a a e. the corru
e e a -
al a e a 6: Quand
? al e a a - irrigabatu
jecerat i
al a
e e , e e a , perb iae
e e a a , a e e - quoniam
a ae a e a a , tumescen
a e e ' e e , timo, be
e a a e pheticis e
a e a e a - et cinis
e a. *E e ? jecit inti
a ,
' e e e ? e I De mu
e a e e a ? - 39-40: A
, e a a a templata
a e a e e * e ' por ibus o
e a e - Avertit
e a nis ... et
e , quibus in
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30 TRADITIO
122 See our art. cit. note 1 above, especially pp. 18-20.
123 Ibid. pp. 21-27 and also here, notes 119 and 90, above. Note once again t
reinforce the importance of the proprium concept, at the same time com
to amalgamate their meanings into one that answers to his own compl
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THE PLOTINIAN FALL OF THE SOUL 31
to stand for the animal skins which symbolize the corruptible body conferred
on the soul after the fall: having lost the original transparency of the corpus
codeste, the soul is plunged into the realm of mendacium, and that for two
reasons: first, because the opacity of the corruptible body allows for simula
tion and concealment of private thoughts, and hence the deceptions of hypoc
risy; but secondly, and more fundamentally, because the entire corporeal
world is, for the Neo-Platonist, a 'lying image' of the superior, intelligible
world on which it is modelled.124 Among other things involved in the soul's
primal sin, however, is this desire to have a body, aliquid proprium, some
thing suum: and we are in the fourth hypothesis of the De libero arbitrio.
The play on interior versus exterior is common both to Plotinus and to
St. Paul, making it a choice item for the type of concordism to which Au
gustine is committed. We have attempted to show its meaning in terms of
Ennead VI 4-5125 with special reference to the Confessions; but its value here
is governed more by the relation to Ennead III 7 and notably to the image
of soul as a seed, desirous of ruling itself (se ipsi regerent: a e a
? ) and uncoiling its insides out to a 'weaker greatness,' an image
which Augustine has found evocative of that other, present in Ecclesiasticus,
whereby the proud man: projecit intima sua. Here, moreover, the process
is one of abandoning a spiritual unity in itself (a ' e e a ) to deploy
that unity in an outgoing search of the material non-self ( e a e
a a ), a close analogy of Plotinus' assurance in Ennead VI. 4-5,126 that the
' alien ' which cloaks us from without is really unconnected with our authentic
self, our true identity: the way of return to primal unity consists accord
ingly in abandoning that non-self which is non-being, the source of the eges tas
copiosa whose paradoxical structure recalls Plotinus' 'weaker greatness' here:
e a e e .127 The soul's sin, therefore, involves a loss of spirit
ual unity in both authors, a 'swelling outwards' into the spatialized world
of body, a distentio animi into the dispersion of time.128
Once again, the thought-movement of the text from Ennead III 7 is framed
by the notions of the soul's 'imitative' action, creative of an image of eter
nity: a reminder which brings us to the De musica text, where the same preoc
cupation is evident. In both authors, the fall from eternity to time is a fall
124 See Sol. 2.9ff where Augustine is working out this whole topic of veritas, falsitas and
mendacium in terms of image and reality.
125 Art. cit. note 1, above, pp. 29-37.
126 Showing a certain amount of interference from Enn. IV 3, the Plotinian theory of
language as arising from the fall into the opacity of the terrestrial body; see pp. pi. 18-19
above.
127 See Ennead VI 5.12 and art. cit., note 1 above.
128 por this distentio notion see note 118 above.
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32 traditio
Summary
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the plotinian fall of the soul 33
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34 TRADITIO
In 395, he felt most comfortable with the doctrine of the soul's pre-existen
and fall into the body, hence he may well treat of the final hypothesis wi
a great deal more sureness than the other three. It was, after all, the Plotin
solution which he found invaluable in combatting the Manichaean exeg
of Genesis. His later discomfort with Origenism, howrever, may have
him to touch up these passages somewhat, thus introducing a certain h
erogeneity of conception which only complicates the original difficulti
The second area of difficulty deals with Augustine's doctrine of faith an
reason. Norregaard has pointed129 to the disturbing fact that the exigency
for authority does not seem universal enough to cover Plato and Plotinus,
mention but those two. One can go further and show that Augustine seems
admit the existence of a 'few' who need no teacher, only an initial admonit
since their mental vision is clear enough for them merely to 'turn and see.'1
In the Plotinian hypothesis, the reason for that distinction becomes clear:
not all souls are equally fallen, not all stand therefore in equal need of auth
ity to speed them on their return.
Scholars, finally, are still discussing the problem of the unity of the Co
fessions. Why, specifically, does Augustine append those final three bo
of exegesis of Genesis?131 Augustine's real reason seems to have been more
profound?and complex?than the desire to demonstrate the lights
exegesis which God has conferred upon him. We have seen that the De Gen
contra Manichaeos furnishes in more than one instance the key to Augustin
anthropology. This is perfectly consonant writh the tradition whereby th
Hexaemeron was considered a classic locus in ancient exegesis for explain
man's place in creation, and the entire scheme of human history. The Sa
himself tells us that what Moses had primarily in view in these first chapte
was not a description of God's order or manner of creation, but the proph
explanation of the entire history of humanity132 ? a history in which ' Adam
seems to stand for each one of us.133 Augustine, it has been frequently sa
sees human history through the lens of that conversion experience he
portrayed in the Confessions: we would suggest in turn that he saw that e
perience itself in terms of a Plotinian exegesis of Genesis. His fall is typic
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THE PLOTINIAN FALL OF THE SOUL 35
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