Abstract

The Enneads are our main source for understanding Plotinus' philosophical architecture. In this work, the philosopher attempted to fully explain his own philosophical doctrine. However, there is a treatise in this work that gives the impression of being outside the philosophical architecture. This treatise, entitled Against the Gnostics, serves two different purposes for researchers. First, we have the opportunity to confirm the philosopher's own teaching through this treatise. Second, through Plotinos' objections to the Gnostics, we witness the heated debates of the time. Also, during this discussion we will have the opportunity to get to know the Gnostics from a philosopher's point of view. In this treatise, Plotinus develops a detailed counter-position to the Gnostics and directly refutes them. These are the main lines: The universe is the product of an evil creator and therefore completely evil; renunciation of earthly life with hatred and contempt for it; the doctrine that salvation from the material world can be granted only to a select group by grace. Plotinos developed both a radical rejection of these questions and solutions on how to understand them. In this paper, I would like to review this rejection on a textual basis for the first time.