Was Plotinus a Magician ?

Abstract

ISUPPOSE that most Plotinian scholars would agree with judgement of Dodds 1 The creator of Neoplatonism was neither a magician nor pace certain modern writers a theurgist .... Not that he denied efficacy of magic (could any man of third century deny it?). But it did not interest him. He saw in it merely an application to mean personal ends of the true magic which is sum of love and hatred in universe, mysterious and truly admirable Oetax which makes cosmos one; men marvel at human yoiltEa. more than at magic of nature only because it is less familiar (Enneads 4. 4. 3 7-40) . But Dodds's judgement has recently been challenged by Dr. P. Merlan in a most stimulating article2 entitled and Magic, which might be described as an extremely able speech for prosecution of on charge not only of being interested in magic but of actually practising it. I do not believe that Merlan proves his case, and I think it is worth trying to show in some detail why he does not, as his article provides a useful opportunity for a re-examination of evidence which illuminates some important aspects of Plotinus's thought. Merlan's method is to relate three incidents recorded by Porphyry in tenth chapter of his Life of to cemin passages in Enneads whose true meaning he thinks incidents enable us to discern. He begins with affair of which he summarises as follows: Olympius, a fellow-philosopher envious of Plotinus's intellectual superiority tried to harm him by magic spells. He did so by directing star-rays against him. But he had soon to give up, because he found that soul of was powerful enough not only to resist these spells but even to turn them back on his enemy so that they were harming him. A weird story. And as if he wanted to prove that it was not only a kind of legend about Plotinus, Porphyry adds: Plotinus knew very well when Olympius was making his attempts. He used to tell that in such moments his intestines were violently contracting. Merlan's last sentence is an interpretation rather than a translation of Prophyry's picturesque phrase ?eycdv ocu'p -ro aM?cx 'r6Ocq 'ra arta VTLO &XeaOtt T&V tisX&V 0CU'T4A pO XX auv0XLob0kvdY)v. But I am prepared to agree that he is quite probably right in following Harder's reference

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 85 citations exist upstream.