SOURCE: “Plotinus on Matter and Evil,” in Phronesis, Vol. 6, No. 2, 1961, pp. 154-66.

In the following essay, Rist attempts to defend Plotinus against the charge that his writings about the relationship between matter and evil are inconsistent.

In The Discussion which followed his paper “Plotien et les Gnostiques”,¹ M. Puech suggested that the language and thought of Plotinus concerning matter could be said to have developed. Before the break with the Gnostics which is revealed in Enneads 3.8, 5.8, 5,5, and 2.9, thinks M. Puech, Plotinus conceived of matter as a kind of evil substance, whereas he later came to regard it as “imaginée comme un miroir”. After questioning, he explained that he inclined to the view that Plotinus had reformed the pessimistic dualism that can be found in his earlier treatises, if not abandoned it altogether, and he was ready to accept the implication that after the break with the Gnostics...