2022
info:eu-repo/semantics/OpenAccess
Luciana Gabriela Soares Santoprete et al., « O mito de Urano, Cronos e Zeus como argumento antignostico em Plotino », HAL-SHS : histoire des religions, ID : 10670/1.3wf7ij
This paper seeks to elucidate Plotinus’ reference in Treatise 32, 3 to the term propátor, which can be translated simply as “grandfather”. A parallel study with the Gnostic manuscripts discovered in Nag Hammadi showed that this is a term used in several Gnostic texts to designate the First Principle. From this observation we observe that Plotinus’ defense of a hierarchy of three main levels of reality (the One, the Intellect, and the Soul) based on the myth of the “grandfather” Uranus, the “father” Kronos, and the “son” Zeus, takes on completely different dimensions, not only in Treatise 32, but also in the other treatises of the antignostic tetralogy as well as in the treatises before and after the tetralogy in which this myth is mentioned. We understand that Plotinus built a Platonic exegesis of the Hesiodic myth on which he establishes the fundamental principles of his ontology and epistemology with the aim of opposing the onto-epistemological principles conveyed in the Gnostic myths and of thus denouncing their misinterpretation of Plato’s teachings, the novelty of their myths, and their infidelity to the true Hellenic tradition.