read further in the Bhagavad Gita, “The state of all beings before birth is unmanifest; their middle state manifest; their state after death is again unmanifest” (2.28), and also, “But higher than the Unmanifest is another Unmanifest Being, everlasting, which perisheth not when all creatures perish” (8.20). And in the Politeia (usually translated as Republic), Plato employs the example of the Sun, which makes the things we see visible and also causes the processes of generation, growth, and nourishment, without itself being such a process. In the same way, the Good (which the Neoplatonists identify with the One) is the source of the intelligibility of the objects of knowledge, as well as of their being and reality, while in itself it is beyond that reality, being superior to it in dignity and power (Pol, 509b). From these statements we learn that the One is beyond all manifestation, even though all existing things (i.e., the many) receive their being from it.
The Manifestation of Being
How and whence does Being (i.e., the totality of beings) arise? This question was pondered per excellence by the late Hellenic thinkers of the early Christian era, including Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Proclus. Since the eighteenth century they have been called Neoplatonists by Western scholars, although they viewed themselves as loyal Platonists. It has been convincingly argued that the modern distinction between Plato and Neoplatonism is utterly erroneous. The founders of modern philosophical hermeneutics rejected the Neoplatonist thesis of harmony between Plato and Aristotle, in the arrogant belief that they understood Plato better than his disciples of the late Classical era did.30
By drawing together the cosmologies of Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics, and enriching it with his own penetrating insights, Plotinus presents an all-embracing cosmology in the Enneads (from the Greek ennea, ‘nine’; the work consists of fifty-four treatises arranged in six groups of nine each). To begin with, Plotinus distinguishes between four modes of being: The One, the Intellect, the Soul, and matter. The first three modes of being are intelligible (i.e., accessible to the mind only) and named hypostases (hypostaseis, the plural of hypostasis), comprising a divine Trinity. The Greek term hypostasis translates as ‘anything set under, or a support’; from which is derived the meanings of subsistence or substance.31 For Plotinus, the primary hypostases are the fundamental realities underlying the cosmos. He explains: “There is the One beyond Being; next, there is Being and Intellect; and third, there is the nature of the Soul” (Enneads, V.1.10). This scheme is attributed to Plato, who understood that the Intellect comes from the Good (i.e., the One), and the Soul comes from the Intellect (Enneads, V.1.8).
According to Plato and the Neoplatonists, the universe is produced through the imposition of order onto pre-cosmic disorder. It is significant that the Greek word kosmos means order, ornament, and decoration, and ultimately the world or universe (Latin, mundus), from its perfect arrangement. Its opposite in Greek is chaos, which means the unformed mass and/or infinite space. This is posited by Hesiod as the initial state of existence.32 We could say that the divine Creator fashions the world by transforming chaos into cosmos. Plato describes this creative activity in detail in his dialogue Timaeus, of which more later.
One of the most important Greek theologians, Basil of Caesarea (fourth century), wrote that God (Greek, Theos) created everything by drawing it out of nothing, or non-being. However, it has recently been commented that this ‘nothingness’ should not be confused with non-existence. Basil depicts this state as follows: “It appears, indeed, that even before this world an order of things existed of which our mind can form an idea, but of which we can say nothing . . . The birth of the world was preceded by a condition of things suitable for the exercise of supernatural powers, outstripping the limits of time, eternal and infinite” (Hex I, 5). In other words, the ‘nothing’ out of which God creates is an imperceptible condition that precedes the creation of the observable universe. Thus, in the early Christian understanding the creation of the world entails a transition from the non-perceptive to the perceptible.33
According to the immensely influential Latin theologian Augustine (who served as Bishop of Hippo in North Africa from 395 until 430), God is the opposite of non-being. To begin with, God is the Supreme Being. Next, He gave being in various degrees to all things that He created ‘from nothing’ (Latin, ex nihilo). Augustine adds, “To that Nature which supremely is, therefore, and by Whom all else was made, no nature is contrary save that which is not; for that which is contrary to what is, is not-being. And so, there is no being contrary to God, the Supreme Being, and the Author of all beings of whatever kind” (De civ Dei, XII.2). In this theological understanding, God is the highest or ultimate Reality, as opposed to the unreality of non-being. And in one of his polemical works against the Manichaeans, the Latin theologian depicts Being in terms virtually identical to those of Parmenides: being is that which always exists in the same way; it is in every way like itself; it cannot be injured or changed; and it is not subject to time.34
Another influential figure in Christian thought is the mystical theologian writing under the pseudonym of Dionysius the Areopagite (one of St Paul’s first converts in Athens; Acts 17:34). Perceptively utilizing Neoplatonic categories in his exposition of Christian doctrine, Dionysius writes in the Divine Names that the Good (i.e., the One) is the source of all that exists: archetypes, heavenly beings, souls, animals, plants, and inanimate matter (DN, 4:1, 2). This pre-existent Supreme Being is the cause and source of all eternity, all time, and every kind of being. Everything participates in this Being, which precedes the entities that participate in it (DN, 5:5). This includes souls, which receive their being and well-being from the pre-existent Being (DN, 5:8). Ultimately, Dionysius writes, just as every number participates in unity, so everything participates in the One. The One precedes oneness and multiplicity, whereas the latter only exists through participation in the One (DN, 13:2). In other words, in the relation between the One and the many, the latter receive their reality from the One, which is the ultimate Source of all that exists.
With his penetrating intellect, Maximus the Confessor (seventh century) developed a theistic cosmology which is formulated in Neoplatonic and Aristotelian terms. In his important work Difficult Passages (known as Ambigua in Latin), Maximus writes that God’s creative activity establishes five concentric spheres of being. The first division is between uncreated nature (God) and created nature; the latter is divided into the intelligible universe and the sensible universe; the latter is divided into heaven and earth; the latter is divided into the inhabited earth and paradise; and finally, humankind is divided into male and female.35 And since all these divisions are brought about by God, it implies that gender differentiation is the will of God and any subversion thereof is an offence against the cosmic order.
One of the most thoughtful investigations into being and non-being from a Platonist Christian perspective has been undertaken by the Irish philosopher John Scottus Eriugena, who achieved renown while working at the Carolingian court of the ninth century. In his magnum opus, the Periphyseon (subtitled On the Division of Nature), this enigmatic yet brilliant thinker presents an all-inclusive world-view in terms of being and non-being. Continuing the ontology of Parmenides, he declares the fundamental division of reality, or nature (Latin, natura), as between that which is and that which is not (Per I, 441). Eriugena was probably influenced herein also by Dionysius the Areopagite (whose complete writings he had earlier translated into Latin), who made a similar distinction between ‘all things that are and that are not’ (Greek, panta ouk onta kai onta) in his influential Mystical Theology.36
However, for Eriugena the division of reality into things that are and things that are not is not a static one, since it could be interpreted according to five different modes (Per I, 443–445): (i) All things that are intelligible or sensible (being) and all things that are beyond thought and
