Lateinische frühchristliche Autoren

This chapter traces the reception of Plotinus among Western Christian authors in Late Antiquity who wrote in Latin. Methodically, it is often difficult to distinguish direct Plotinian influence from a general Neoplatonic or Platonizing coloring. Marius Victorinus employs the triad of Being, Life and Intellection taken from the Sophist to solve the problems of Trinitarian theology; he combines Plotinian elements with Platonic material of unclear provenance. Ambrose of Milan adapts or paraphrases passages from Plotinus on happiness, love and the Good, mostly in an ethical or Christological context. Augustine certainly read Plotinus but also engaged with Porphyry. In his ideas on the immateriality and spirituality of God, on evil as privation of goodness, on the soul’s longing for the transcendent and on God’s causality in the world inspiration from Plotinus is unmistakable, whose notions are however significantly modified and Christianized. In Boethius and other later Christian authors direct use of the Enneads can hardly ever be ascertained.