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Sixth Ennead

Plotinus

Stephen MacKenna (1930)

Plotinus, the third-century founder of Neoplatonism, taught in Rome in the time of Gallienus; his philosophical writings were edited after his death by his pupil Porphyry into six groups of nine treatises — the Enneads. The Sixth Ennead, the culmination of the collection, treats the kinds of being, the omnipresence of the Authentic Existent, numbers, free will, and the ascent to the One or the Good. Plotinus's metaphysics of emanation from a transcendent First Principle shaped late-antique philosophy and, through Augustine and the pseudo-Dionysius, decisively influenced Christian mysticism and medieval theology. This edition uses the canonical Stephen MacKenna translation (1917–1930), whose fifth volume carrying the Sixth Ennead appeared in 1930.

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Contents

1. Book I
2. Book II
3. Book III
4. Book IV
5. Book V
6. Book VI
7. Book VII
8. Book VIII
9. Book IX