Plotinus on Eternity

8 March 2024

Plotinus on Eternity

I named this blog ‘The Presence of Eternity.’  In the works of Plotinus the most lengthy discussion of the nature of eternity occurs in Ennead III.7, On Eternity and Time.  It is a complex analysis covering a number of topics.  Here is sections 5 and part of section 6 from that Ennead:

“But now, whenever, concentrating the attention of my soul on something, I am able to say this about it, or rather to see it as a thing of such a kind that nothing at all about it has ever come into being – for if it has, it is not always existing, or not always existing as a whole – is it, therefore, already eternal, if there is not also in it a nature of such a kind as to give an assurance about it that it will stay as it is and never become different, so that, if you look attentively at it again, you will find it as it was?”

Comment:  Eternity is perceived by the soul, not by the senses.  The senses perceive the changing material world.  Therefore, eternity can only be accessed through contemplation.  The soul can perceive, or recognize, or engage with, eternity because the soul is the presence of eternity in the ephemeral individual.

“What then, if one does not depart at all from one’s contemplation of it but stays in its company, wondering at its nature, and able to do so by a natural power which never fails?  Surely one would be (would one not?), oneself on the move towards eternity and never falling away from it at all, that one might be like it and eternal, contemplating eternity and the eternal by the eternal in oneself.”

Comment:  This is one of the most inspiring passages of the Enneads for me.  The ‘natural power which never fails’ is the presence of eternity within us, which is the soul.  I think that is what Plotinus means by “contemplating eternity and the eternal by the eternal in oneself.”

“If, then, what is in this state is eternal and always existing, that which does not fall away in any respect into another nature, which has life which it possesses already as a whole, which has not received any addition and is not now receiving any and will not receive any, then that which is in this state would be eternal, and everlastingness would be the corresponding condition of the substrate, existing from it and in it, and eternity the substrate with the corresponding condition appearing in it.”

Comment:  I understand ‘substrate’ in this sentence to refer to a necessary precondition for the appearance of something.  If in our contemplation we engage with the eternal we can do so because the necessary substrate of everlastingness of the world soul, and the eternity of the soul allow for this to happen.

“Hence eternity is a majestic thing, and thought declares it identical with the god; it declares it identical with this god [whom we have been describing – translator’s addition].  And eternity could be well described as a god proclaiming and manifesting himself as he is, that is, as being which is unshakeable and self-identical, and [always – translator’s addition] as it is, and firmly grounded in life.”

Comment:  I think Plotinus is unpacking how human beings react to the overwhelming majesty of the eternal in this sentence.  I think this is indicated by the phrase, “thought declares it identical with the god.”  Eternity itself is beyond our understanding, beyond our capacity for framing in concepts.  But in order to speak of it we will use terms like “majestic” and speak in terms of archetypes like “the god.”  From there we can think of god as ‘proclaiming and manifesting himself’ in our lives. 

Eternity is “firmly grounded in life” because no life would be possible without the eternal; all appearances require the presence of eternity, but eternity does not require any specific appearance in order to exist, or to be.

“But if we say that it is made up of many parts, there is no need to be surprised, for each of the beings There is many through its unending power, since endlessness, too, is not having any possibility of failing, and eternity is endless in the strict and proper sense, because it never expends anything of itself.”

Comment:  Here Plotinus is referring to how eternity manifests in the Noetic.  The Good and the One are pure unity; there is no manyness to be found in it.  In the Noetic differentiation first appears; the Noetic is sometimes referred to as the ‘one-many.’  What I think Plotinus is describing is how the eternal differentiates in the noetic; the eternal does so through its ‘unending power.’ 

I think of ‘eternity’ as another name for the One.  The One is the source of unity is the cosmos as a whole; both noetic and material realities.  The Eternal is the source of duration in the cosmos as a whole.  Without the Unity of the One nothing would exist.  And without the duration of the Eternal nothing would exist.  The unity of the One is the source of the existence of things in space.  The unity of the Eternal is the source of the existence of things in time.

In its purest sense, the Eternal resides in the fully transcendental and has no name.  In the realm of the noetic the eternal manifests as the never-not-existing realities that transcend material existence.  In material existence, the eternal manifests first as the everlastingness of the world soul, and then as the presence of the eternal in individual living beings.

“And if someone were in this way to speak of eternity as a life which is here and now endless because it is total and expends nothing of itself, since it has no past or future – for if it had, it would not now be a total life – he would be near to defining it . . .”

Comment:  Eternity is endless life, life that is transcendental.  Eternity is beyond time with no past or future.  Eternity is a vast field which nourishes the appearance of all existing things and to which all existing things return.

“Now since the nature which is of this kind, altogether beautiful and everlasting in this way, is around the One and comes from it and is directed toward it, in no way going out from it but always abiding around it and in it, and living according to it; and since this was stated by Plato, as I think finely and with deep meaning and not to no purpose, in these words of his ‘as eternity remains in one,’ the intention of which is not merely that eternity brings itself into unity with relation to itself, but that it is the life, always the same, of real being around the One; this, then, is what we are seeking; and abiding like this is being eternity.”

Comment:  This unpacks the relationship between Eternity and the One.  Eternity is around the One, come from the One, is directed toward the one, but Eternity does not leave, or ‘go out from’ the One.  Eternity lives in accordance with the One.  It is Eternity that grants life to Noetic Being, Life, and Mind.

Becoming aware of the presence of Eternity is becoming aware of the Good, the One, and the Beautiful.  Follow the light of the soul to its source and there is the Presence of Eternity, the Presence of Beauty, the Presence of Unity, the Presence and source of all that is Good. 

(Plotinus, Ennead III.7.5 & 6, On Eternity and Time, translated by A. H. Armstrong, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1967, pages 311-313, ISBN: 9780674994874)