As Plotinos was in the habit of not even putting his name to his own
notes; as even in the times of Porphyry the actual authorship of much
that he wrote was already disputed; as even Porphyry acknowledges
principles and quotations were borrowed, we must discover Numenian
passages by their content, rather than by any external indications.
As the great majority of Numenius's works are irretrievably lost,
we may never hope to arrive at a final solution of the matter; and
we shall have to restrict ourselves to that which, in Plotinos, may
be identified by what Numenian fragments remain. What little we can
thus trace definitely will give us a right to draw the conclusion
to much more, and to the opinion that, especially in his Amelian
period, Plotinos was chiefly indebted to Numenian inspiration. We
can consider[591] the mention of Pythagoreans who had treated of the
intelligible as applying to Numenius, whose chief work was "On the
Good," and on the "Immateriality of the Soul."
The first class of passages will be such as bear explicit reference to
quotation from an ancient source. Of such we have five: "That is why
the Pythagoreans were, among each other, accustomed to refer to this
principle in a symbolic manner, calling him 'A-pollo,' which name means
a denial of manifoldness."[592] "That is the reason of the saying, 'The
ideas and numbers are born from the indefinite doubleness, and the
One;' for this is intelligence."[593] "That is why the ancients said
that ideas are essences and beings."[594] "Let us examine the (general)
view that evils cannot be destroyed, but are necessary."[595] "The
Divinity is above being."[596]
A sixth case is, "How manifoldness is derived from the First."[597]
A seventh case is the whole passage on the triunity of the divinity,
including the term "Father."[598]
Among doctrines said to be handed down from the ancient
philosophers[599] are the ascents and descents of souls[600] and the
migrations of souls into bodies other than human.[601] The soul is a
number.[602]
Moreover, Plotinos wrote a book on the Incorruptibility of the
soul,[603] as Numenius had done;[604] and both authors discuss the
incorporeity of qualities.[605]
Besides these passages where there is a definite expression of
dependence on earlier sources, there are two in which the verbal
similarity[606] is striking enough to justify their being considered
references: "Besides, no body could subsist without the power of the
universal Soul." "Because bodies, according to their own nature,
are changeable, inconstant, and infinitely divisible, and nothing
unchangeable remains in them, there is evidently need of a principle
that would lead them, gather them, and bind them fast together; and
this we name soul."[607] This similarity is so striking that it had
already been observed and noted by Bouillet. Compare "We consider that
all things called essences are composite, and that not a single one
of them is simple," with "Numenius, who believes that everything is
thoroughly mingled together, and that nothing is simple."[608]