PLOTINUS

IN
THE ISLAMIC WORLD

By Robert K. Clark

Wayfarer Press
P.O. Box 8451
Fremont, CA 94537
© 2013 by Robert K. Clark
All rights reserved.
 Preface

The influence of Plotinus on the Judeo-Christian mystical tradition is

relatively well known, but his influence on the philosophical and
mystical tradition of Islam has remained largely unnoticed. He was
almost unknown by name in the Islamic world of the Middle Ages,
but he nonetheless indirectly exerted a tremendous influence on Islamic
philosophers. In the few places that he is mentioned in Islamic
literature of the Middle Ages, it is as a commentator on Aristotle,
rather than as a Platonist or a philosopher of note in his own right.1
It has sometimes been claimed that Plotinus exercised the greatest
single influence on the formation of Muslim civilization as we have
come to know it. This would seem to be a bit of an exaggeration, but
there can be no doubt that his work and thought most profoundly
affected Muslim intellectual and spiritual life….If the world of Islam
was able to dominate intellectual life from India to the Atlantic Ocean
for many centuries, this can justly be ascribed to the fact that it had
found in the work of Plotinus and his spiritual descendants a
powerhouse which made it possible for it always to restore its creative
impulses.2

Plotinus’ influence on Islamic philosophical thought was indeed

profound, yet it was not recognized as such until recently, and it was
not brought about in a simple, straightforward manner. The Enneads
were not translated as such, suitably noting Plotinus’ authorship,
without variation or commentary. Rather, portions of the Enneads

1
The sparse references to Plotinus in Islamic literature are reviewed in F.
Rosenthal, ‘Plotinus in Islam: The Power of Anonymity’, in Plotino e il
Neoplatonismo in Oriente e in Occidente (Roma, 5-9 ottobre 1970), Atti del
Convergno internationale (Roma: Accademia Nazionale Dei Lincei, 1974),
pp. 437-42.
2
Ibid., p. 437.

1
were partially translated, and partially paraphrased, without ever
ascribing the original to Plotinus, and commentary was also inserted
which sometimes is in accord with the thought of Plotinus and
sometimes differs from it.
This essay examines the sources of Plotinus’ influence in the Islamic
World—the Arabic Plotinus Texts—their nature, their authorship, the
manner in which Plotinus’ thought was adapted in them to an Islamic
philosophical audience, and their impact.

The Arabic Plotinus Texts

and the Circle of al-Kindī

Plotinus’ thought affected the Islamic world, not only through his
Neoplatonic successors, including Porphyry and Proclus, but through
three works which derive from the Enneads iv-vi. These are: The
Theology of Aristotle, Sayings of the Greek Sage, and The Letter on
Divine Science.3 None of these works were attributed to Plotinus
himself, or acknowledge him in any way.

3
The Arabic texts of the shorter or Vulgate version of the Theology of
Aristotle, Sayings of the Greek Sage and The Letter on Divine Science are
contained in Abdurrahman Badawi, ed., Plotinus Apud Arabes (Cairo: 1955),
while English translations by Geoffrey Lewis are contained in P. Henry & H.R.
Schwyzer, eds., Plotini Opera, Tomus II: Enneades IV-V (Paris: Desclée de
Brouwer; Bruxelles: L’Édition Universelle, 1959). Some of the translations
from Sayings of the Greek Sage are those of Franz Rosenthal (see below),
adapted by Lewis to his chosen format. Portions of the translated texts are
printed facing the Greek text of the Enneads to which they correspond, rather
than in the order they follow in the Arabic. The Sayings of the Greek Sage is
also translated by Franz Rosenthal in F. Rosenthal, ‘Ash-Shaykh al-Yūnānī and
the Arabic Plotinus Source’, Orientalia 21 (1952), pp. 461-92; 22 (1953), pp.
370-400; 24 (1955), pp. 42-66, while portions of The Letter on Divine Science
are also translated into French in P. Kraus, ‘Plotin chez les Arabes: Remarques
sur un nouveau fragment de la paraphrase arabe des Ennéades’, Bulletin de

2
The three texts have significant linguistic and philosophical
similarities. Indeed, it is evident from the consistency of style and
viewpoint of the commentary/paraphrase portions that all three works
were parts of a common Arabic text, now lost, which dated from the
early part of the ninth century. This original common text may have
contained more material from the Enneads than has been transmitted
to us through them, perhaps even all of Enneads iv-vi in their entirety,
with further commentary/paraphrase.4
The translator of Plotinus was a Christian from Emessa in Western
Syria named Ibn Na‘īma al-Himsī. Al-Himsī was a member of the
circle of the philosopher al-Kindī in Baghdad,5 which was part of the
translation movement sponsored by the ‘Abbāsid caliphs which
produced a large number of Arabic versions of Greek philosophical
and scientific works, including a number of Neoplatonic works.6

l’Institut d’Égypte 23 (1941), pp. 263-95. The longer version of The Theology
of Aristotle has not as yet been published either in Arabic nor in English
translation, though some portions of the text, also translated into English, are
included in S.M. Stern, ‘Ibn Hasaday’s Neoplatonist: A Treatise on its
Influence on Isaac Israeli and the Longer Version of the Theology of Aristotle’,
Oriens 23-4 (1961), pp. 58-120. The shorter or Vulgate version of the
Theology of Aristotle is considered in the present essay.
4
F. W. Zimmerman, ‘The Origins of the So-Called Theology of Aristotle,’ in
Jill Kraye, et. al, Pseudo-Aristotle in the Middle Ages (London: The Warburg
Institute, 1986), pp. 126-27; Peter Adamson, The Arabic Plotinus: A Philosophical
Study of the Theology of Aristotle (London: Duckworth, 2002), p. 7.
5
G. Endress, Proclus Arabus: Zwanzig Abschnitte aus der Institutio
Theologica in arabischer Übersetzung (Beirut & Wiesbaden: Steiner Verlag,
1973), p. 186; Zimmerman, ‘The Origins of the So-Called Theology of
Aristotle,’ p. 118; Adamson, The Arabic Plotinus, pp. 7-9.
6
See Christina D’Ancona, ‘Greek into Arabic: Neoplatonism in translation’ in
Peter Adamson & Richard C. Taylor, eds., Cambridge Companion to Arabic
Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), Table 2.1, pp.
22-23, for a listing of a number of Neoplatonic writings available in Arabic. On
the translation movement, see Dimitri Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture:
The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early ‘Abbāsid
Society (2nd-4th/8th-10th centuries) (London & New York: Routledge, 1998).

3
Arabic translations from this period were sometimes made from the
original Greek and sometimes from Syriac, and while it had been
suggested that there may have been a Syriac intermediary for the
Arabic Plotinus texts,7 more recent research indicates that the texts
were translated directly from the Greek.8 In addition to the common
Arabic text derived from the Enneads, the circle of al-Kindī also
produced translations of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, De Caelo,
Meteorology, and some of Aristotle’s zoological works, Plato’s
Timaeus, Nicomachus’ Introduction to Arithmetic, as well as
paraphrases of several Platonic dialogues, including the Symposium,
Aristotle’s De Anima, Proclus’ Elements of Theology and a book
entitled the Book on the Pure Good,9 which was based on the
Elements of Theology and which was known in the West, where it
exercised a great deal of influence, under the title the Liber de Causis,
‘The Book of Causes’. The effect of the work generated by the circle
of al-Kindī was far-reaching and profound.10

7
See, for instance, Pierre Thillet, ‘Indices Porphyriens dans la ‘Théologie
d’Aristote’’, in Le Néoplatonisme, Royaumont 3-13 juin 1969 (Paris: CNRS,
1971), p. 293 and Pierre Thillet, ‘Note sur la Théologie d’Aristote’ in Luc
Brisson, et. al., Porphyre: La Vie de Plotin, tome 2 (Paris: J. Vrin, 1992), pp.
634-36.
8
Zimmerman, ‘The Origins of the So-Called Theology of Aristotle,’ pp. 113-
15. Occasional ‘Syriacisms’ may be accounted for by the fact that the
translator was a Syrian. Moreover, a consideration of the treatment which the
question of divine attributes receives in the paraphrase/commentary portion
of the Arabic Plotinus texts suggests that it was made in response to
contemporary Islamic theological debates. See Adamson, The Arabic
Plotinus, pp. 8-9, 165-70.
9
Gerhard Endress, ‘The Circle of al-Kindī: Early Arabic Translations from the
Greek and the Rise of Islamic Philosophy’, in The Ancient Tradition in
Christian and Islamic Hellenism, ed. G. Endress & R. Kruk (Leiden: Research
School CNWS, 1997), pp. 52-8; Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture, p. 145.
10
See especially the essay by Gerhard Endess, ‘The Circle of al-Kindī: Early
Arabic Translations from the Greek and the Rise of Islamic Philosophy’, pp.
43-76. Endress concludes: ‘If he [al-Kindī], his circle and his continuators
had not created the language of Arabic philosophy from Greek sources, the

4
 The Nature and Composition
of the Arabic Plotinus Texts11

The most influential of the three texts derived from Plotinus, The
Theology of Aristotle, of which there are two versions, gained
acceptance partly through its mistaken attribution to Aristotle, who
was more widely studied in the Islamic world than Plato.12 It dates
from the second half of the ninth century. It not only marks the
beginning of Neoplatonic influence on Islamic philosophy, but it also
remained the most important source for Neoplatonic ideas in the
Islamic world.13 While it is unclear where the title came from, it
certainly was not derived from Plotinus, who never uses the word
‘theology’, in the Enneads. It may have come from the
title of Proclus’ Elements of Theology, which was one of the texts
translated by the circle of al-Kindī, or it may even have been taken
from Aristotle himself, as theology was one of his expressions for
metaphysics.14 The second work was attributed only to ‘al-Shaykh al-

European West and the Arab world, from the Middle Ages until the present
day, would not have found a common language in trying to give names to the
principles of being and the condition of man.’
11
For more on the nature and composition of the Arabic Plotinus texts, see
Maroun Aouad, ‘La Théologie d’Aristote et autres textes du Plotinus
Arabus’, in Richard Goulet, ed., Dictionnaire des Philosophes Antiques
(Paris: CNRS, 1989), pp. 541-80.
12
See F.E. Peters, Aristotle and the Arabs: The Aristotelian Tradition in
Islam (New York: New York University Press, 1968). It is clear that the
translator, al-Himsī, knew that the author was not Aristotle. (Zimmerman,
‘The Origins of the So-Called Theology of Aristotle’, pp. 124-25.)
13
F. W. Zimmermann, ‘The Origins of the So-Called Theology of Aristotle,’
pp. 118 & 135; Adamson, Arabic Plotinus, p. 23.
14
Zimmerman, ‘The Origins of the Theology of Aristotle’, p. 189; J.H.
Sleeman & Gilbert Pollet, Lexicon Plotinianum (Leiden: Brill, 1980).
Porphyry also uses the word ‘theology’ in his Letter to Marcella (15). An
example of Aristotle’s use of the word ‘theology’ is the following passage from

5
Yūnānī’, ‘the Greek Sage’. The third work, The Letter on Divine
Science, was originally attributed to the philosopher al-Fārābī, but was
later shown to be derived from the Enneads.15
Each of these treatises combines the translation of passages from
Plotinus with paraphrases and amplifying commentary. The following
short passage affords an illustration:
The function of the rational soul is to cogitate and know, and to do
something else besides knowing: otherwise there would be no
difference between her and the mind. For the soul cogitates and
knows by being intellectual, that is, under the mind. The mind in her
is acquired. (Sayings of the Greek Sage I: 56)16

In the passage above, the portion of the Arabic text

translated/paraphrased from Ennead iv. 8. 3. 21-23 is in italics, while
the commentary portion is not italicized. The first sentence is
fundamentally a translation, with slight departures (e.g., ‘and to do
something else besides’ is ‘but not only’ in the Greek; ‘to
cogitate and know’ is ‘thinking’ or ‘intellection’). The last part
of the passage follows with further points which are not those in the
original of Plotinus.
A second passage provides an example of the use of paraphrase in the
Arabic Plotinus texts:

the Metaphysics, a work with which the author of the Prologue to the Theology
of Aristotle, probably al-Kindī himself, was clearly familiar. ‘Thus there will
be three speculative philosophies, mathematics, physics and theology (for it is
evident that if the divine is anywhere, it is in things of this kind)....Therefore
the speculative sciences are superior to the other sciences, and theology to the
other speculative sciences.’ Aristotle, Metaphysics VI 1026a. The translations
from the Greek of Aristotle, Plotinus, Porphyry, Proclus and Dionysius the
Areopagite, as well as from secondary French sources, cited in this essay are
those of the author, unless otherwise stated.
15
By Paul Kraus. See P. Kraus, ‘Plotin chez les Arabes’.
16
Translation by Geoffrey Lewis in Henry & Schwyzer, Plotini Opera, Tomus
II, p. 235.

6
 The Greek Sage said: Vision and the other senses attain the objects of
sense-perception only if (senses and objects) are connected through
the existence of an intermediary bodi(ly substance). Sense-perception
belongs to the sphere of the soul. While the soul is in the realm of the
intellect, it knows the intelligibilia and has no need of any bodi(ly
substance), in order to know them. However, while in the world of the
senses, it needs the body, in order to know the objects of sense
perception. (Sayings of the Greek Sage V: 1-3)17

In this passage, the portions in italics correspond only approximately to

Ennead vi. 5. 1. 3-10. They are more in the nature of a paraphrase,
supplemented with additional explanation.
The following passage from the Theology of Aristotle provides an
example of the use of direct translation from the Enneads, the addition
of terms which amplify or modify the meaning, with additional
commentary/explanation interjected, then followed by further
commentary/paraphrase:
The absolute One is the cause of all things and is not like any of the
things; rather, it is the beginning of the thing and is not the things;
rather, all things are in it and it is not in any of the things, for all things
flow forth from it; in it is their sustenance and support and to it is their
returning. If anyone says: How is it possible for the things to be from
the simple One, in which there is no duality or plurality in any
respect?, we reply: Because it is One, absolute and simple, containing
none of the things, and it being pure One all things flow forth from it.
For even though it has no being, being flows forth from it.
I say, abridging the argument, that while it is none of the things the
things all come from it. But, although all the things flow forth from it,
the first being, by which I mean the being of the mind, flow forth from
it first, without intermediary. Then there flow forth from it all the
beings of the things that are in the upper world and the lower world,

17
Translation by Rosenthal adapted by Lewis in Henry & Schwyzer, Plotini
Opera, Tomus II, p. 153.

7
 through the medium of the being of the mind and the intelligible
world. (Theology of Aristotle X: 1-3)18
In this passage, the portions in italics are basically direct translations
from Ennead v. 2. 1. 1-5., with additions, which modify the meaning
of the passage from Plotinus’ original. The last paragraph is
commentary. In the original Greek, Plotinus writes that ‘the One is all
things and none of them’,19 rather than that the One is the cause of all
things and is not like all things. These are but a few of the many
instances where the translated passage from Plotinus has been
modified in meaning from Plotinus’ original.

Non-Plotinian Elements in the Arabic Plotinus Texts

and Their Sources

While the Arabic Plotinus texts remain faithful in general in many

instances to the Enneads, there are significant departures which occur
both in the translation and in the commentary/paraphrase portions of
the texts. Scholars have both investigated some of these and
speculated as to what their source or sources might be. It is clear that the
transmission of Plotinus’ thought into the world of Islamic philosophy
was quite affected by the author of the paraphrase/commentary
portion of the texts. One of the greatest questions surrounding the
Arabic Plotinus texts has been: who was this author?
One scholar20 suggested that the Theology of Aristotle derived from
Plotinus’ oral commentary on selected treatises collected by his pupil
18
The translation is based on Lewis, in Henry and Schwyzer, Plotini Opera,
Tomus II, p. 291, supplemented with Adamson’s translation of the last
several lines of the first paragraph, and with the second paragraph modified
accordingly (Adamson, Arabic Plotinus, p. 130.)
19
Ennead v. 2. 1. 1.
20
Paul Henry, S.J., ‘Vers la reconstitution de l’enseignement oral de Plotin’,
Bulletin de la Classe des Lettres de l’Académie Royale de Belgique 23 (1937),
pp. 310-42.

8
Amelius prior to the editing of the treatises by Porphyry. Strong
objections were quickly raised against this suggestion,21 which was
eventually abandoned by its originator.22 A more widely accepted
theory has been that it was Porphyry, Plotinus’ pupil and editor, who
was the author.23 Porphyry mentions in his Life of Plotinus that he
had written commentaries on some of the Enneads at the urging of
friends who wanted clarification on some points.24 Also, the
inscription of the Theology of Aristotle states that it is ‘a book by
Aristotle the Philosopher, called in Greek theologia, i.e., theory of
divinity, expounded by Porphyry of Tyre.’25
Among the arguments put forward in support of the argument for
Porphyry being the author of the commentary/paraphrase are: 1) that the
doctrine of docta ignoranta, an ignorance or unknowing greater than
knowledge, which occurs in Book II of the Theology of Aristotle
corresponds to passages in Porphyry’s Starting Points to the
Intelligibles (or Sentences) and in the anonymous Commentary on the
21
By Henry’s own collaborator, Schwyzer. H.-R. Schwyzer, ‘Die
pseudoaristotelische Theologie und die Plotin-Ausgabe des Porphyrios’,
Reinisches Museum für Philologie 90 (1941), pp. 216-36.
22
Paul Henry, ‘The Oral Teaching of Plotinus’, Dionysius VI (1982), p. 5 n.
Among the other evidence weighing against this theory is the fact that the
Theology of Aristotle is clearly based on Porphyry’s edition of the Enneads.
As Porphyry remarks in his Life of Plotinus, Amelius sent the versions of the
Plotinus’ treatises which he possessed to Longinus, who found them full of
errors, and regretted that Amelius had not corrected the errors of the copyists, as
he saw it. (Porphyry, Life of Plotinus, 19. 20-23). Porphyry’s own edition of the
Enneads was not released until thirty years after his master’s death. (Marie-Odile
Goulet-Cazé, ‘L’arrière-plan scolaire de la Vie de Plotin’, in Luc Brisson, et.
al., eds., Porphyre, La Vie de Plotin (Paris: J. Vrin, 1982), tome I, p. 281.)
23
This thesis was especially propounded by Shlomo Pinès and Pierre Thillet.
See S. Pinès, ‘Les textes dits plotiniens et le courant ‘porphyrien’ dans le
néoplatonisme grec’, in Le Néoplatonisme, Royaumont 9-13 juin 1969 , pp. 303-
17 and P. Thillet, ‘Indices porphyriens dans la Théologie d’Aristote’, pp. 293-
302.
24
Porphyry, Life of Plotinus 26. 29-32.
25
Zimmerman, ‘The Origins of the Theology of Aristotle’, p. 118.

9
Parmenides which has also been attributed to Porphyry;26 and 2) that
the relationship of God to being in all three of the Arabic Plotinus’
texts parallels that of the Commentary on the Parmenides, which has
been attributed to Porphyry.27
The first of these arguments concerns docta ignoranta, ‘learned
ignorance’, an ignorance or unknowing which transcends knowledge.
Thus the Theology of Aristotle speaks of ‘an ignorance that is more
noble than any knowledge’.
Even if the soul imagines this world before it enters it, yet it imagines
it intellectually, and this act is ignorance not knowledge. Yet this
ignorance is more sublime than any knowledge, for the intellect is
ignorant of what is above it through an ignorance which is more noble
than knowledge. (Theology of Aristotle II: 47)28

The argument has been raised that the phrase ‘by an ignorance more
noble than knowledge’ in the Theology of Aristotle appears to have
been modelled on the Greek phrase in
Porphyry’s Starting Points to the Intelligibles, which is interpreted to
mean ‘an ignorance better than knowledge’.29 The second argument

26
This is the focal point of the essay by Pierre Thillet, ‘Indices Porphriens
dans la Théologie d’Aristote.’ The Greek text of the anonymous Commentary
on the Parmenides, with a French translation, is included in volume 2 of
Pierre Hadot, Porphyre et Victorinus (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1968),
where it is attributed to Porphyry.
27
The authorship of the anonymous Commentary on Plato’s Parmenides is
the subject of debate. For instance, a recent work suggests that it predates the
Enneads. See G. Bechtle, The Anonymous Commentary on Plato’s
‘Parmenides’ (Bern: Paul Haupt, 1999).
28
Translation by Lewis in Henry & Schwyzer, Plotini Opera, Tomus II, p, 71
and Adamson, The Arabic Plotinus, p. 89. The portions in italics correspond
approximately to Ennead iv. 4. 4. 10-11, while the balance of the passage,
including the phrase ‘an ignorance more noble than knowledge’, is
commentary/paraphrase.
29
Thillet, ‘Indices porphyriens dans la Théologie d’Aristote’, pp. 297-301.
The passage in Porphyry actually speaks of , non-intellection, rather

10
suggests that the fact that God is seen as ‘the First Being’ and ‘solely being’
in the Arabic Plotinus texts may be derived from Porphyry, the supposed
author of the anonymous Commentary on the Parmenides.
Thus the Arabic Plotinus texts declare:
that the First Creator is only one in all respects and that his being is an
originating being. (Theology of Aristotle X: 93)30

The First Creator is One by Himself, that is, he is solely being.

(Sayings of the Greek Sage 1:11)31

than , ignorance, or , unknowing, or the impossibility of

knowing. ‘Of that which is beyond Nous, many things are asserted in accord
with intellection, but it is beheld through a non-intellection greater than
intellection.’ (Porphyry, Launching Points to the Intelligibles 25. 1-2). See
also Adamson, The Arabic Plotinus, pp. 102-06.
30
Translation by Lewis in Henry & Schwyzer, Plotini Opera, Tomus II, p.
455. This is from the paraphrase/commentary portion of the text; there is no
corresponding Greek.
31
Pinès, ‘Les textes dits plotiniens et le courant’porphyrien’ dans le
néoplatonisme grec’, p. 306; Rosenthal, ‘Ash-Shaykh al-Yūnānī and the Arabic
Plotinus Source’, p. 439; Lewis in Henry & Schwyzer, Plotini Opera, Tomus II,
p. 281; and Adamson, The Arabic Plotinus, pp. 128 & 130. The part of the
passage in italics corresponds approximately with the Greek of Plotinus, while
the second part has been added. The Greek, however, does not use the term ‘First
Creator’, but only  ‘That [One] is solely one.’ (Ennead v.
1. 7. 20.) The attribution of being to the First is not unequivocally absolute in
the Arabic Plotinus. Thus the Theology of Aristotle also says that ‘even
though it has no being, being flows forth from it.’ (Theology of Aristotle X:
2, tr. Adamson, The Arabic Plotinus, p. 130.) The Greek parallel is Ennead
v. 2. 1. 6: ‘It [the One] is not being, but rather its generator.’ However the
adaptor is not willing to completely follow Plotinus in saying that God is not
being. ‘One might suppose that the Adaptor is trying to hold on to the idea
that God is being, though he is prepared to admit that God does not have
being, perhaps thinking that this would imply that God has being as
something external attributed to him.’ (Adamson, The Arabic Plotinus, p.
130). While the attribution of being to the highest was a generally well
accepted tenet in the Islamic world, it was not universally held. Ibn Sinā

11
 Intellect, even though it is in actuality, is an effect of the First Cause.
For it pours out form onto the soul by the power which comes into it
from the First Cause, which is the First Being.
(Theology of Aristotle III: 45-46.) 32
Similarly, in the anonymous Commentary on the Parmenides, the One
is spoken of as , ‘that alone which has being’,
and as ὄ , ‘that alone which really is’.33
It is actually by no means clear that these doctrines were derived from
Porphyry.34 The source of the doctrine of unknowing might have been

(Avicenna), for instance, said that God’s essence ‘can be no other than
being (anniyya).’ (Parviz Morewedge, tr., The Metaphysics of Avicenna (ibn
Sinā) (New York: Columbia University Press, 1973), p. 55). However the
Ismaili Neoplatonist Abu Ya’qub al-Sijistani wrote that: ‘As the totality of
differentiated and multiple existing things equals absolute being, both absolute
and dispersed being must be denied of the Creator, so that God remains omni
modo apart from being as well as from non-being....Being is not inherent in
the Creator in any manner whatsoever.’ (Abu Ya’Qub Sejestani, tr. Henry
Corbin, Le Dévoilement des choses cachées (Lagrasse: Verdier, 1988), p. 43.
32
Pinès, ‘Les textes dits plotiniens et le courant ‘porphrien’ dans le
néoplatonisme grec’, pp. 307-08; Lewis in Henry & Schwyzer, Plotini
Opera, Tomus II, pp. 205-07. This passage comes entirely from the
commentary/paraphrase portion of the text.
33
Commentary on the Parmenides IV.8 & IV.27.
34
See especially, Zimmerman, ‘The Origins of the So-called Theology of
Aristotle’, Peter Adamson, The Arabic Plotinus, pp. 102-06, 159-61, as well
as Peter Adamson, ‘Forms of Knowledge in the Arabic Plotinus’ in John
Inglis, ed., Medieval Philosophy and the Classical Tradition In Islam,
Judaism and Christianity (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 2002), pp. 118-
23. It is also noteworthy that, even though Porphyry’s name appears on the
inscription, Arabic sources did not ascribe the Theology of Aristotle to Porphyry.
Majid Fakhry, A History of Islamic Philosophy, 3rd Edition (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2004), p. 22. It has been suggested that the name of Plotinus may
have been part of the original inscription, later lost through scribal negligence or
physical damage to the text. In that case, Porphyry may have been mentioned as
the editor of the Enneads. Zimmerman, ‘The Origins of the so-called Theology of
Aristotle’, p. 120; Rosenthal, ‘Plotinus in Islam: The Power of Anonymity,’ p. 444.

12
Plotinus himself.35 In the second case, the passages in the Arabic
Plotinus texts in which being is attributed to the One are clearly not
derived from Plotinus. It is not, however, clear that they derive from
Porphyry or even from the Commentary on the Parmenides, whoever
its author was.36 Indeed, a passage in Porphyry’s Starting Points to
the Intelligibles suggests that Porphyry, like Plotinus, may have seen
God as prior to being:
God is everywhere and nowhere in all things which are posterior to
Him, but He alone is as He is and as He wills to be....All beings and
non-beings37 are from God and in God without He being Himself
either the beings or the non-beings.
(Porphyry, Starting Points to the Intelligibles 31. 3-9).

Furthermore, the contention that Porphyry was not only the source of
these points, but the author of the entire commentary/paraphrase
portion of the Arabic Plotinus texts is difficult to sustain in face of the
fact that much of it is not traceable to doctrines in Porphyry’s works
or in the Commentary on the Parmenides.38 Indeed, one of the
foremost proponents of the Porphyry hypothesis, who had previously
supported the thesis that the commentary/paraphrase came from a
Greek source,39 finally concluded that:

35
Adamson, Arabic Plotinus, pp. 102-06.
36
Ibid., pp. 159-61.
37
Such as matter. Porphyry, like Plotinus, sees matter as non-being. ‘The
properties of matter, according to the Ancients, are the following:
incorporeal, - for it is different than bodies - without life, - for it is neither
Nous nor soul nor living of itself, formless, without a formative principle
(logos), unbounded and powerless. On this account it is not a being, but a
non-being, not non-being like motion or non-being like rest, but truly non-
being.’ (Porphyry Starting Points to the Intelligibles 20. 1-5).
38
See, especially, Zimmerman, ‘The Origins of the So-Called Theology of
Aristotle’, pp. 131-35; Adamson, Arabic Plotinus, pp. 159-61.
39
Thillet, ‘Indices Porphriens dans la Théologie d’Aristote,’ p. 293.

13
 It is hardly possible that this text originates from a Greek author:
neither the characteristics of the language nor the philosophical
‘errors’ permit one to maintain such a hypothesis. 40

If there is a Greek source for the doctrine of unknowing and other

ideas in the Arabic Plotinus, it is more likely to be The Divine Names
of Dionysius the Areopagite than Porphyry.41 This work had been
translated into Syriac by Sergius of Reshayna who died in 536 A.D.
The translator of the three Arabic Plotinus texts, Ibn Nā‘ima al-Himsī,
was a Syrian, and would thus have been able to read the Syrian
translation. Moreover, ideas based on the Dionysian writings, either
directly or indirectly, were present in the philosophical thought of the
time when the Arabic Plotinus texts were composed.42
Certainly the two main tenets which were proposed as suggestive of
Porphyry being the author of the paraphrase/commentary portion of
the Arabic Plotinus - ascent to the One through unknowing or
ignorance and the attribution of being to the First - are to be found in
Dionysius. An example of the first is to be found, for instance, in the
Divine Names:
God is known through knowing and through unknowing…. Moreover
the most divine knowledge of God, that which comes through
unknowing, is from a union above Nous.
(Divine Names, Ch. VII, 872A-B)

In turn, Chapter V of the Divine Names speaks of God as being.

However, Dionysius states that the name ‘being’ is rightly applied ‘to

40
Thillet, ‘Note sur la Théologie d’Aristote’, p. 625.
41
This thesis is upheld especially in the works of Christina D’Ancona Costa.
42
Christina D’Ancona Costa, Recherches sur le Liber de Causis (Paris: J. Vrin,
1995), p. 117. A passage in al-Kindī’s own treatise On First Philosophy is
reflective of apophasis, the use of negation in the mystical approach to the
ultimate reality, which occurs in the Dionysian writings. See Alfred L. Ivry, tr.,
Al-Kindī’s Metaphysics: A Translation of Ya’qūb ibn Ishāq al-Kindī’s Treatise
‘ON FIRST PHILOSOPHY’ (fī al-Falsafah al-Ūlā) (Albany, N.Y.: State University
of New York Press, 1974), p. 112.

14
Him Who truly is’, that cause which is ‘above beings and non-
beings’.43 Indeed, Dionysius affirms that God is superessential, i.e.,
beyond being.
This treatise, then, seeks to celebrate the divine names of Providence
in its manifestation. It does not profess to describe the absolute
superessential goodness, life and wisdom of the absolute,
superessential deity which, as the Scripture says, 44 is established in
secret places beyond all goodness and deity and being and life and
wisdom. (Divine Names Ch. V 816C)

Thus, if Dionysius did serve as the source for the doctrine in the
Arabic Plotinus texts that God is being, it involved a very selective
adaptation which was purposefully made.
This use of selective adaptation is evident throughout the
commentary/paraphrase portion of the Arabic Plotinus texts, and in the
translation portion, as well. A comparison of a passage from the Letter
on Divine Science with the corresponding passage from the Enneads,
of which it is basically a translation, affords a good illustration of the
selective adaptation of Plotinus in the translation portion of the Arabic
Plotinus texts. The portions of the passage from the Letter on Divine
Science which correspond approximately with the Greek of the
Enneads are in italics, while the words added are in plain text:
Before all things there must be something without an intermediary and
different from the things after it, and it must be self-sufficient and not
mixed with the things, and it must be present to the things in some
way, and it must be one. It must not be something and then one, for
when a thing is one in this way the one in it is false and is not truly
one. Nor may it have any description, nor may knowledge attain to it
at all. It must be above every sensible and intelligible substance.
(Letter on Divine Science 159-61)45

43
Ibid., Ch. V 816B ‘to Him Who truly is’.
44
Psalms 18:11 and 81:7.
45
Translation by Lewis in Henry & Schwyzer, Plotini Opera, Tomus II, p. 333.

15
 There must be something simple before all things, and this must be
other than the things which are posterior to it, existing by itself, not
mixed with the things which derive from it, yet able to be present in a
different manner to these other things, being truly one, not something
else and then one. Accordingly it is false even to say of it that it is
one, for there is no concept or knowledge of it, and indeed it is said to
be beyond being. (Ennead v. 4. 1. 5-10)

Among the important differences between these texts are the

following: 1) Plotinus says that before all things there must be
something simple; the Letter on Divine Science says that before all
things there must be something without an intermediary; 2) Plotinus
says that it is false even to say that it is one, because there is no
knowledge or concept of it; the Letter on Divine Science says that a
thing that is something and then one is not truly one; and 3) Plotinus
says that the One is said to be beyond being, while the Letter on
Divine Science says that it is above every sensible and intelligible
substance.
The third of these differences is particularly significant. By adding
the words ‘every sensible and intelligible’, the adaptor has modified
the original meaning of Plotinus in such a way that it is now consistent
with other passages in the Arabic Plotinus texts on the subject of
being and the First. If the First is above every sensible and intelligible
substance, rather than beyond being, then it may certainly be ‘the First
being’ and ‘only being’, as the adaptor calls it. If Plotinus’ conception
of One as beyond being had been left unmodified, however, this
would have been in conflict with the idea of the First as ‘the First
being’ and ‘only being’.
Some of the adaptations in the Arabic Plotinus texts reveal an
‘Aristotelization’ of Plotinus. In particular, the adaptor drew on the
paraphrase of Aristotle’s De Anima, which was also a product of the
school of al-Kindī, in its interpretation of the soul and its relationship

16
with the body.46 He also drew on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, which had
also been translated by the school of al-Kindī.47 As well, the Plotinian
concept of the One, which in Its perfect simplicity and self-sufficiency
does not need to become conscious of Itself, in the Arabic Plotinus
texts becomes the ‘First Knower’.48
As one author noted: ‘perhaps the most striking features of the
paraphrase is that Plotinus’ One has been transformed into a Creator
God’.49 Thus the commentary/paraphrase portion of Sayings of the
Greek Sage states that ‘the Real One is the Creator of things’.50 There
are, of course, passages in the Enneads which speak of a Creator, but
in Plotinus’ philosophy this is Nous. Some of these are included in
the Arabic Plotinus texts, as well. For instance:
It is in his book called Timaeus that he says this. Then Plato speaks of
this world and praises it, saying that it is a sublime and blessed
substance and that it is from the good Creator that the soul comes into
this world. (Theology of Aristotle I: 41)
In the Timaeus, while speaking of this universe, Plato praises the Cosmos
and calls it a blessed god, and says that the soul was given by the
goodness of the Creator (demiurgos). (Ennead iv. 8. 1. 41-44)51

46
Zimmerman, ‘The Origins of the So-Called Theology of Aristotle’, p. 117;
Adamson, The Arabic Plotinus, pp. 49-68.
47
Adamson, The Arabic Plotinus, pp. 135-57.
48
Letter on Divine Science 123. (Lewis in Henry & Schwyzer, Plotini Opera,
Tomus II, p. 323). This transformation is discussed at length in Cristina
D’Ancona, ‘Divine and Human Knowledge in the Plotiniana Arabica’, in John
J. Cleary, ed., The Perennial Tradition of Neoplatonism (Louvain, Belgium:
Leuwen University Press, 1997), pp. 419-39. As Adamson has pointed out, the
motivation for this change may well be that, from the adaptor’s point of view,
‘if the First does not know, there can be no Providence.’ Peter Adamson,
‘Forms of Knowledge in the Arabic Plotinus’, p. 121.
49
Adamson, The Arabic Plotinus, p. 111.
50
Sayings of the Greek Sage I: 20. Translated by Lewis in Henry &
Schwyzer, Plotini Opera, Tomus II, p. 474.
51
Another illustration of selective adaptation in this passage is that ‘a blessed god’
in Plotinus and Plato has been changed into ‘a sublime and blessed substance’.

17
One example of the transformation of the One into a Creator God can
be shown by comparing the following passage from Sayings of a Greek
Sage and its corresponding passage from the Enneads:
The First Creator does not resemble any thing, because all things are
from Him and because He has no shape and no special, inherent form.
The First Creator is absolutely, i.e., He is mere being without any peculiar
attribute. (Sayings of the Greek Sage I: 10-11)52
The One is not among all things. All things are from the One, because
It is not confined by any shape. For the One is one only.
(Ennead v. 1. 7. 18-20)
Not only does the One become ‘the First Creator’, but being as well,
rather than one only. This purposeful alteration extends even to titles.
Thus the title of Ennead vi. 7, ‘How the Multitude of Ideas Subsists
and Concerning the Good’ becomes ‘Concerning the Creator and His
Origination of What He Originates and the State of Things with Him’
as the title of chapter V of The Theology of Aristotle.53
Many other examples could be cited, such as the following:
The First Creator sent the souls to the world of generation.
(Theology of Aristotle V: 1)54
God or one of the gods sent the souls into generation.
(Ennead vi. 7. 1. 1)

It is clear that from the foregoing that Plotinus’ original Enneads were
purposefully adapted in the Arabic Plotinus texts to the audience for
which they were intended, not only in the paraphrase/commentary
portions but in the portions which are by and large translations. A
preponderance of the evidence suggests that it is the translator, ibn
Nā‘ima who was responsible for this, with some editorial input from
al-Kindī and with stylistic improvement by Ahmad, the son of the

52
Translated by Lewis in Henry & Schwyzer, Plotini Opera, Tomus II, p. 281.
53
Ibid., p. 431.
54
Translated by Lewis in Henry & Schwyzer, Plotini Opera, Tomus II, p. 431.

18
Caliph al-Mu‘tasim, who was tutored by al-Kindī.55 While he largely
remained true, as well as sympathetic to, Plotinus, a study of the
Arabic Plotinus texts reveals an independently minded philosopher,
who was willing both to ‘correct’ Plotinus and introduce non-Plotinian
elements, whether his own or drawn from other sources, when he
thought it helpful to his purposes.
He brought to his task of translating Plotinus not only a knowledge of
Greek but also some knowledge of Greek philosophy, an awareness of
contemporary theological debates, and the willingness and ability to
devise original philosophical interpretations of his source text. 56

The Influence of the Arabic Plotinus Texts

The influence of the Arabic Plotinus texts was quite widespread in the
philosophical-religious milieu of the Islamic world, receptive to the
Neoplatonic ideas which they contained. The Theology of Aristotle, in
particular
was certainly the most famous work in this philosophical genre. It
was so frequently cited or quoted in Arabic that few serious scholars
of philosophical ideas, if any, can have missed reading it and being
influenced to a degree by it.57

55
G. L. Lewis, A Re-examination of the So-Called ‘Theology of Aristotle’,
unpublished Ph.D. dissertation (Oxford, 1949), pp. 1 & 4; Gutas, Greek Thought,
Arabic Culture, p. 125; Zimmerman, ‘The Origins of the So-Called Theology of
Aristotle’, pp 18-19; 115-19; Adamson, The Arabic Plotinus, pp. 171-77.
56
Adamson, The Arabic Plotinus, p. 177. See also Zimmerman, ‘The
Origins of the So-Called Theology of Aristotle’, p. 230 n.72, and Adamson,
‘Forms of Knowledge in the Arabic Plotinus’, p. 122.
57
Paul E. Walker, Early Philosophical Shiism: The Ismaili Neoplatonism of
Abū Ya’qūb al-Sijistānī (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 41.

19
Ibn Sinā (Avicenna) wrote a commentary on it and al-Suhrawardī, the
founder of the Illuminationalist school, drew on it.58 It greatly
influenced al-Nasafī and al-Sijistāni ‘the Logician’ as well as other
Ismaili Neoplatonists, and had a deep effect on the thought of the
Brethren of Purity.59 Both Mulla Sadra and al-Fārābī were affected by
it, as were many others.60 Its influence was profound.
A lesser known instance of the influence of the Arabic Plotinus texts
is the Liber de Causis, The Book of Causes. This work was a twelfth
century Latin translation of The Book on the Pure Good and was, like
the Arabic Plotinus texts, a product of the school of al-Kindī. Unlike
the Arabic Plotinus texts, it was quite influential in the West,
especially in the 13th century, but remained little known in the Islamic
World. Aquinas and Albert the Great both wrote commentaries on it,
and Meister Eckhart cited it as an authority a number of times.61

58
Georges Vajda, tr., ‘Les notes d’Avicenne sur la ‘Theologie d’Aristote’,’
Revue Thomiste, LI (1951), pp. 346-407, and John Walbridge, The Leaven of
the Ancients: Suhrawardī and the Heritage of the Greeks (Albany, N.Y.:
State University of New York Press, 1989), pp. 133-37.
59
Paul E. Walker, Early Philosophical Shiism: The Ismaili Neoplatonism of Abū
Ya‘qūb al-Sijistānī, p. 41-42; Ian Richard Netton, Al-Fārābī and His School
(London and New York: Routledge), 1992, pp. 64-65; I. R. Netton, Muslim
Neoplatonists: An Introduction to the Thought of the Brethren of Purity (London:
Allen & Unwin, 1982), pp. 33-36.
60
James Winston Morris, tr., The Wisdom of the Throne: An Introduction to
the Philosophy of Mulla Sadra (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981),
pp. 142-44; Netton, Al-Fārābī and His School, p. 43; Therese-Anne Druart,
‘Al-Fārābī, Emanation, and Metaphysics’, in Parviz Morewedge, ed., Neoplatonism
and Islamic Thought (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1992),
pp. 132-34; Walker, Early Philosophical Shiism, p. 41; Aouad, ‘La Théologie
d’Aristote et autres textes du Plotinus Arabus’, pp. 580-90.
61
In his Parisian Questions and Prologues. See Armand A. Maurer, tr.,
Meister Eckhart, Parisian Questions and Prologues (Toronto: Pontifical
Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1974), pp. 45, 95, 97, 98 and 101. For a more
detailed exploration of the influence of the Liber de Causis, see Richard C.

20
Interestingly, while primarily related to thirty-seven of the
propositions from Proclus’ Elements of Theology, the Liber de Causis
was also clearly influenced by Plotinus through the Arabic Plotinus
texts.62 Significantly, the doctrine of being in the Liber de Causis is at
least partially the result of the influence of the Arabic Plotinus texts.63
In turn, the Liber de Causis appears to be a primary source for
Aquinas’ doctrine that God is being, as well as other themes in
Aquinas’ writings.64

Taylor, ‘The Liber de Causis: A Preliminary List of Extant MSS’, Bulletin de

philosophie médievale, 25 (1983), pp. 63-84.
62
Thus Propositions 9(8), 22(21), 4 and 5(4) of the Liber de Causis are based
on Plotinus, rather than Proclus. See Vincent A. Guagliardo et. al., trs., St.
Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Book of Causes (Washington, D.C.:
Catholic University of America Press, 1996), p. 28 n.1, p. 37 n.1, p. 64 n.1,
and p. 128 n.1, for the references to Lewis’ translation of the Plotinus Arabic
texts as well as to the Enneads. Aquinas was aware that it was Proclus,
rather than Aristotle, who was the primary source for the Liber de Causis and
identified most of the propositions in the Elements of Theology himself in his
commentary.
63
Endess, Proclus Arabus, p. 186; Adamson, Arabic Plotinus, pp. 8 & 179.
Cristina D’Ancona Costa, ‘La doctrine Néoplatonicienne de l’être entre
l’antiquité tardive et le moyen âge: Le Liber de Causis par rapport à ses sources,’
in Christina D’Ancona Costa, Recherches sur le Liber de Causis, pp. 141-54).
64
E. g., ‘Abstract being itself is the first cause whose substance is its own being.’
(Aquinas, Commentary on the Book of Causes, p. 16.) This doctrine in the
Theology of Aristotle and the Liber de Causis is clearly a departure from both
Plotinus and Proclus, who held that the One is beyond being, and an illustration
of the selective adaptation of Greek texts. See Richard C. Taylor, ‘Aquinas,
the Plotiniana Arabica, and the Metaphysics of Being and Actuality’,
Journal of the History of Ideas 59, (1998), pp. 241-64, for a fuller treatment
of the Arabic Plotinus as a source for the doctrine that God is being in
Aquinas. For a list of themes in the Liber de Causis with which Aquinas
concurs see pages xxx-xxi of Vincent Guagliardo’s introduction to Aquinas,
Commentary on the Book of Causes.

21
Another very significant instance of the influence of the Arabic
Plotinus is the following: in Proclus’ Elements of Theology, Being
precedes Nous:
Being is prior to Life, and Life is prior to Nous.
(Proclus, Elements of Theology, Proposition 101)

However the Liber de Causis follows Plotinus and the Arabic Plotinus
texts in affirming that intellect or Nous is the first subsisting nature
after the First.
Intelligence is the first created thing and is more similar to God, who
is sublime. (Liber de Causis 22(23). 173)65
Thus:
When he conceives of being-intellect as the first creature, ‘the most
similar to the sublime’, the author of the De Causis thus effaces
from his summary of the Elements one of the most characteristic
features of Proclian metaphysics.66

Instead, the reader is invited to ascribe to a more Plotinian view of

reality. This view of reality is further enhanced by the fact that the
author of the Liber de Causis has chosen as the basis of his text only
those propositions in Proclus’ Elements of Theology which coincide
with the Plotinian three hypostases and has eliminated or changed those
which concern the gods.67 An instance of the latter is Proposition
23(24) of the Liber de Causis:

65
Trans. Guagliardo, et. al. Aquinas, Commentary on the Book of Causes, p.
128. The numbering of the passage follows Dennis J. Brand, The Book of Causes
[Liber de Causis], revised edition (Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Marquette University
Press, 1984), p. 38. Proposition 134 from the Elements of Theology, which is the
proximate source for the Liber de Causis 22(23), contains no corresponding
passage.
66
D’Ancona Costa, ‘La doctrine Néoplatonicienne de l’être entre l’antiquité
tardive et le moyen âge: Le Liber de Causis par rapport à ses sources’, p. 137.
67
Propositions 114-120, 124, 125, 126, 128, 129, 131-34, 136, 142-155, 158,
and 159 of the Elements of Theology most directly consider the gods. The

22
 The First Cause exists in all things according to one disposition, but all
things do not exist in the First Cause according to one disposition.
(Liber de Causis 23(24). 176)68

In the corresponding passage in the Elements of Theology, however,

Proclus states that:
The gods are present to all things in the same manner; but all things
are not present in the same manner to the gods.
(Proclus, Elements of Theology, Proposition 142)

The primary substanding principles in Proclus’ Elements of Theology

are: a) the One, b) the gods, c) intelligences, and d) souls. By his
choice of propositions and selective elimination of anything
concerning the gods
…the author has, in effect, replaced the divine orders of Proclus by the
three hypostases of Plotinus. 69

The effect of this change was certainly of influence on the reader, as

well, such as Aquinas, who concurs that

sources in the Elements of Theology for Liber de Causis are Propositions 45-
48, 51, 55, 56, 70, 83, 88, 87, 92, 93, 95, 102, 103, 106, 107, 111, 116, 122,
123, 127, 134, 138, 142, 167-69, 171, 172, 173, 177, 182, 183, 195 and 201.
Only propositions 116, 134, and 142 of those propositions which most
concern the gods in Proclus’ Elements of Theology are included in the Liber
de Causis, and those in ways which have been altered to suit the author’s
intentions, as illustrated above.
68
Translation by Guagliardo, et. al., Aquinas, Commentary on the Book of
Causes, p. 134 and Brand, The Book of Causes [Liber de Causis], p. 38. The
numbering of the passage is from Brand.
69
D’Ancona Costa, ‘La doctrine Néoplatonicienne de l’être entre l’antiquité
et le moyen âge: Le Liber de Causis par rapport à ses sources’, p. 153. These
hypostases were clearly not conceived of in identical terms by Plotinus and
the Arabic Plotinus texts. For instance, as has been shown, the first
hypostasis is beyond being in the former, but is the First Being in the latter.

23
 the universal causes of things are of three kinds: (1) the first cause,
which is God, (2) intelligences, and (3) souls. 70
Thus the Liber de Causis, at least partly through the influence of the
Arabic Plotinus texts, came to uphold both non-Plotinian ideas (God is
being), as well as fundamental Plotinian ideas (the three hypostases).
In turn, it passed these on to the West.

70
Aquinas, Commentary on the Book of Causes, p. 16.

24