Porphyry, Universal Soul and the Arabic Plotinus

Scholars working in the field of Graeco-Arabic Neoplatonism often discuss the role Porphyry, the editor of Plotinus, must be credited with in the formation of the Arabic Plotinian corpus. A note in this corpus apparently suggests that Porphyry provided a commentary to the so-called Theology of Aristotle, i.e., parts of some treatises of Enneads IV-VI. Consequently, Porphyry has been considered as responsible for the doctrinal shifts which affect the Arabic Plotinian paraphrase with respect to the original text. This article aims at submitting this hypothesis to trial on a specific doctrinal point where Porphyry parts company with Plotinus: the relationship between the Demiurgic Intellect and World Soul. The ancient doxographical sources testify that Porphyry, in his conviction to be in agreement with Plotinus, in fact parted company with him in so far as he merged the World Soul into the Demiurgic Intellect, while Plotinus always kept them apart. There are in the Enneads some baffling passages where the role of Intellect as the Demiurge of the sensible world is not clearly distinguishable from the role of World Soul. Notwithstanding that, these passages in the Arabic paraphrase do not bear any trace of the characteristically Porphyrian merging of World Soul into Intellect. The Arabic paraphrase of Plotinus text and its Arabic tradition