3. Thus the Soul, ever being illuminated, in turn herself illuminates
lower things that subsist only through her, like plants that feed on
dew, and which participate in life, each according to its capacity.
Likewise a fire heats the objects that surround it, each in proportion
to its nature. Now if such is the effect of fire whose power is
limited, while intelligible beings exert unlimited powers, how would
it be possible for these beings to exist without causing anything to
participate in their nature? Each of them must therefore communicate
some degree of its perfection to other beings. The Good would no longer
be the good, Intelligence would no longer be intelligence, the Soul
would no longer be soul, if, beneath that which possesses the first
degree of life, there was not some other thing which possessed the
second degree of life, and which subsisted only so long as subsists
He who occupies the first rank. It is therefore unavoidable that all
things (inferior to the First) must always exist in mutual dependence,
and that they be begotten, because they derive their existence from
some other source. They were not begotten at a definite moment. When
we affirm that they are begotten, we should say, they were begotten,
or, they shall be begotten. Nor will they be destroyed, unless they
are composed of elements in which they could be dissolved. Those
that are indissoluble will not perish. It may be objected that they
could be resolved into matter. But why should matter also not be
liable to be destroyed? If it were granted that matter was liable to
destruction, there was no necessity for its existence.[293] It may
be further objected that the existence of matter necessarily results
from the existence of other principles. In this case, this necessity
still subsists. If matter is to be considered as isolated (from the
intelligible world), then the divine principles also, instead of being
present everywhere,[294] will, as it were, be walled up in a limited
place.[295] But if the latter be impossible, then must matter be
illuminated (by the intelligible world).
BY A PUN ON INCLINATION, PLOTINOS SHOWS THAT THE WORLD-SOUL COULD
NOT HAVE GONE THROUGH THE DRAMA OF CREATION ATTRIBUTED TO SOPHIA AND
ACHAMOTH.
4. But in that case, the Soul created only because[296] she had lost
her wings. The universal Soul, however, could not have been subject to
such an accident. Those (Gnostics) who claim that she committed a fault
should explain the nature of that fault.[297] Why did this fall occur?
If she fell from all eternity, she must similarly remain in her fault;
if only at a determinate time, why not earlier? We however believe
that the Soul created the world not by inclining (towards matter), but
rather because she did not incline towards it. Thus to incline towards
matter the Soul would have forgotten the intelligible entities; but if
she had forgotten them, she could not have created the world (using
them as models). From what (models) would the soul have created the
world? She must have formed it according to the intelligible models
she had contemplated above. If she remembered them while creating, she
had not inclined (away from them towards matter). Neither did the Soul
have an obscure notion of the intelligibles; otherwise she would have
inclined herself towards them, to get a clear intuition of them. For if
she kept some memory of the intelligible world, why would she not have
wished to reascend therein?