This Strange Creature: Plato and Conversion Experiences

Abstract

In Plato’s corpus, the Greek word ἐξαίφνης appears precisely thirty-six times. Translated generally as “all of a sudden” or “the instant” in his Parmenides, ἐξαίφνης emerges in some of the most significant passages of Plato’s dialogues. Put simply, ἐξαίφνης connotes illumination of the highest realities and philosophical conversion experience. In addition to providing a review of Plato’s conception and use of ἐξαίφνης in Parmenides, Republic, Symposium, and the Seventh Letter, our paper brings an ancillary link to light. Namely, the appearance of ἐξαίφνης as a mark for conversion experiences in the New Testament’s Acts of the Apostles and Plotinus’s Enneads. We reveal how the same pattern and employment of ἐξαίφνης established by Plato emerge in both Acts and the Enneads. This pattern suggests a prolonged period of thinking and training, followed by a flash of understanding. Thus ἐξαίφνης, as evidenced by our survey of its strange instantiation in Plato’s dialogues and then subsequently in Acts and the Enneads, becomes a sign for enlightenment, assimilation with the divine, and conversion experience.

1. Introduction

Will this be our life-long work, simply to convert to the pursuit of excellence those who have not yet converted so that they in turn may convert others?

Plato, Clitophon 408e

The earliest known civilization in human history tells of the dramatic conversion of Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh ruled the magnificent city of Uruk with a tyrannical hand. Half God and half mortal, he terrorized all who opposed him, ruling by fear rather than by law. When his only friend, Enkidu, was killed, Gilgamesh plunged into the depths of depression. The thought of life-ending mortality seemed incomprehensible to him. After days of inconsolable grief, he vowed to conquer death itself by seeking the one mortal who was granted eternal life—Utnapishtim, the sole survivor of the great Sumerian flood. On his quest, he was warned: “No man born of woman has done what you have asked. No mortal man has gone into the mountain with its twelve leagues of darkness. In it there is no light, and the heart is oppressed with darkness”. Gilgamesh resolved to take the arduous journey through 36 miles of dark depression, weakened physically and mentally distraught, until he finally saw the light. A lovely spirit guide said to him:

“Gilgamesh, where are you hurrying to? You will never find the life you are looking for. When the gods created man they allotted to him death, but life they retained for their own keeping. As for you, Gilgamesh, fill your belly with good things; day and night, dance, be merry, rejoice. Let your clothes be fresh, bathe yourself in water, cherish the little child that holds your hand, and make your wife happy in your embrace; for this too is the lot of man”.

Gilgamesh’s quest for immortality was unsuccessful. It was just beyond his grasp, and according to the cuneiform tablets, he accepted his fate and returned to Uruk. But he was then different. The arduous journey did not grant him immortality, but Gilgamesh did achieve an illumination of the human condition, and by this measure, he experienced a conversion experience, a reorientation of his life.

Examples of reorientation—conversion experiences—abound in ancient literature, from Gilgamesh to St. Augustine in Book VIII of his Confessions (Augustine 1998). By “conversion experience,” we mean a profound change from one way of life to another. In other words, we use the term as it is commonly and etymologically understood, as a “turning around”.1 Gilgamesh underwent an ordeal, a demanding exercise, and as a result, he gained an insight that prompted his return to Uruk, fate accepted, and the turning around of his life’s purpose. In both religious and philosophical contexts, conversion involves a fundamental change or reorientation in one’s way of life and values. The enlightened one reorganizes her life and priorities according to a newly discovered conception of the good, irrespective of whether the conception derives from a religious teaching or philosophical reflection.2 Her perspective changes such that she now regards her previous values and way of life as less valuable than they once seemed. Similarly, she now sees a new set of values and way of life as more worthy than what formerly appeared.

Moreover, the convert recognizes such a reorientation as highly beneficial. In general, then, conversion or illumination experiences embrace the notion of beneficial change, and this is the operative meaning in the examples to follow. Thus, for the purposes of this paper, we use the expressions “conversion experience” and “illumination experience” interchangeably, and they simply designate a beneficial change from ignorance to wisdom, sin to righteousness, from a worse way of life to a better one, or all of these at once. Importantly, this notion of beneficial change is at play in Plato’s dialogues, and we shall see Plato’s model materialize in subsequent ancient religious and philosophical texts as evidenced by the appearance of the Greek ἐξαίφνης.

Relative to the vast scholarship concerning the concepts and doctrines accepted conventionally as key to understanding Plato’s philosophy, few examine his strange use of ἐξαίφνης.3 Translated generally as “suddenly” or in Parmenides as “the instant,” ἐξαίφνης surfaces in some of the most crucial and well-known passages of Plato’s dialogues. In Republic VII, the liberated prisoner “suddenly” (ἐξαίφνης) rises and looks up “toward the light” of the Good (515c6–7). In his Seventh Letter, Plato describes philosophical illumination as happening “suddenly” (ἐξαίφνης), just as a scintillating flash issues forth from a newly lit fire (341c8-d1). Likewise, in Symposium, the true lover, who, “in the right order and correctly,” grasps beautiful things, “all of a sudden” (ἐξαίφνης) catches a glimpse of Beauty itself (210e6–211a1). While Plato’s Parmenides offers the only conceptually sustained, thematic treatment of ἐξαίφνης in the dialogues, the most remarkable examples of the thirty-six appearances of ἐξαίφνης in Plato’s works illustrate a methodical, step-by-step process of philosophical education climaxing with a sudden and illuminating conversion experience. Said another way, ἐξαίφνης signifies the climax of the hard work entailed in the rigorous Platonic dialectic.

In addition to providing a review of Plato’s conception and use of ἐξαίφνης in Parmenides, Republic, Symposium, and the Seventh Letter, the following brings an ancillary link to light, namely, the appearance of ἐξαίφνης as a mark for conversion experiences in Acts of the Apostles and Plotinus’s Enneads. We reveal how the same pattern and employment of ἐξαίφνης established by Plato emerge in both Acts and the Enneads. Simply put, this pattern suggests a prolonged period of thinking and training, followed by a flash of understanding and conversion experience.

2. Ἐξαίφνης in Plato’s Dialogues

Ἐξαίφνης appears fifty-nine times in extant Greek works previous to or contemporaneous with Plato. Homer’s Iliad features the earliest appearances. In addition to Homer, ἐξαίφνης appears in Aesop, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Thucydides, Herodotus, Isocrates, Aristophanes, and Xenophon, among others. Upon examining these passages, the broad brushstrokes of a pattern emerge. Nearly every appearance of ἐξαίφνης in extant Greek literature prior to and contemporaneous with Plato reveals the following: (1) a swift transformation or change and (2) negative consequences resulting from this swift transformation or change. Thus, the appearances of ἐξαίφνης prior to Plato show the term held a menacing connotation.4 In other words, events happening “suddenly” generally produced tragic results.

Plato maintains the element of transformation with respect to ἐξαίφνης, but he reorients the tragic association typically accompanying the term. For Plato, ἐξαίφνης becomes a sign of enlightenment or illumination of the highest realities, e.g., the Platonic Forms or Ideas. The lengthy character and intellectual training exemplifying Plato’s notion of philosophical education reaches its zenith with a sudden reorientation, or conversion, of the soul. Consequently, an understanding of Plato’s philosophical project and the protreptic nature of education requires a familiarity with Plato’s peculiar use of ἐξαίφνης. In what follows, we survey four instances of the term in Plato’s works, which illustrate how ἐξαίφνης represents reorientation and the peak of philosophical enlightenment.

2.1. Ἐξαίφνης in Plato’s Parmenides

Plato’s Parmenides offers the only sustained treatment of ἐξαίφνης in the dialogues. A whole host of questions involving the Ideas and participation (μέθεξις) arise when discussing Parmenides and the so-called “later dialogues,” e.g., Theaetetus, Sophist, Statesman, etc., and the purpose of this paper precludes a comprehensive examination of these questions. Nevertheless, the nature of the ensuing analysis compels us to state our position clearly and concisely regarding the status of the Ideas and participation. In general terms, we maintain the Ideas are not merely isolated, standalone, and immoveable entities but require a relational, interactive dynamic as well. In other words, the Ideas must in some sense move and participate with each other.5 Despite the orthodox view concerning the immobility of the Ideas, the Ideas considered in motu corresponds nicely with the Visitor’s suggestive question from Plato’s Sophist 248e7–249a2: “But for heaven’s sake, are we going to be convinced that it’s true that change, life, soul, and intelligence are not present in that which wholly is, and that it neither lives nor thinks, but stays changeless, solemn, and holy, without any understanding?” Furthermore, we contend participation is understood best by taking a top-down approach, i.e., determining how the Ideas participate with each other sheds lights on how all participants, including humans, might participate in the Ideas. Finally, we maintain the Parmenides affirms the necessity of relational Ideas, and the treatment of ἐξαίφνης offers a key to understanding how the Ideas participate with one another.6

Translated as “the sudden” or “the instant,” ἐξαίφνης surfaces in the critical third hypothesis of the training exercise constituting the latter two-thirds of the dialogue. While interpretations of the dialogue vary considerably, most scholars agree the third hypothesis—or “hypothesis IIa” or “appendix” or “insert hypothesis”—is highly significant.7 Again, this is the only passage in all of Plato’s dialogues that explains the curious function and phenomenon of ἐξαίφνης. As the lone numbered hypothesis, the ἐξαίφνης section of Parmenides commences rather strangely: “Let’s speak of it yet a third (τρίτον) time,” begins Parmenides (155e4).8 A few moments later, Parmenides employs rest and motion to identify the perplexities surrounding transition from one state to another. Because, as Parmenides wonders, if something must always be either in motion or at rest, exactly “when” does this transition occur? Since something must always be in either motion or rest, the moment of change requires a suspension of both rest and motion to complete the transition. If change cannot occur in time, then it must happen in “no time” at all.

Is there, then, this strange (ἄτοπον) thing in which it might be, just when it changes?—What strange (ἄτοπον) thing?—The instant (τὸ ἐξαίφνης). The instant (ἐξαίφνης) seems to signify something such that changing occurs from it to each of two states. For a thing doesn’t change from rest while rest continues, or from motion while motion continues. Rather, this strange creature (αὕτη φύσις ἄτοπός), the instant (ἐξαίφνης), lurks between motion and rest—being in no time at all—and to it and from it the moving thing changes to resting and the resting thing changes to moving.—It looks that way.—And the one, if in fact it both rests and moves, could change to each state—for only in this way could it do both. But in changing, it changes at an instant (ἐξαίφνης), and when it changes, it would be in no time at all, and just then it would be neither in motion nor at rest.—No, it wouldn’t.

(156d1–156e7)

In other words, “the instant” (τὸ ἐξαίφνης) of the third hypothesis of Parmenides allows for and facilitates participation among the Ideas themselves, e.g., from rest to motion and motion to rest. As Parmenides suggests, “this strange creature”—the instant (τὸ ἐξαίφνης)—makes change and participation among the Ideas possible. In τὸ ἐξαίφνης, an Idea would be neither at rest nor in motion, and this peculiar timelessness would provide an “opening” through which the transition from motion to rest could proceed without obtaining either rest or motion because neither state emerges in the instant.9 Thus, the interplay or participation between and among the Ideas happens suddenly, in an instant (ἐξαίφνης).

The instant animates the Ideas as they move “into” and “out of” τὸ ἐξαίφνης, and when considered from this timeless perspective, the Ideas are the static, fixed, eternal beings as conventionally understood. The Ideas, however, to be at all, must in some sense move. In other words, any Idea must share or participate in Being in order to be. Thus, an Idea must instantiate another Idea by way of participation through the instant. An Idea participating in another Idea goes “outside itself,” so to speak, to another Idea, and thus, it changes or undergoes a kind of transition from the limited one of the first hypothesis to the unlimited one of the second hypothesis, only not at different times but eternally. The Ideas must forever enter “within” and emerge “from” the timeless instant in order to be or participate in Being itself.10 When considered from this perspective, i.e., while “in” the instant, the Ideas are the conventionally understood eternal, timeless, unchanging Forms. Changeable, perceptible things manifest this activity by becoming other (or changing) temporally, and they are, “a moving image of eternity” (Timaeus, 37d5). Put another way, the becoming of perceptible things mirrors the being of the intelligible Ideas. Ultimately, the instant (τὸ ἐξαίφνης) functions as the locus of this dynamic activity: participation.

As mentioned above, Parmenides presents the only sustained, thematic treatment of ἐξαίφνης in the dialogues, but as demonstrated in the brief survey below, Plato consistently employs ἐξαίφνης in celebrated passages of other dialogues, and we contend these appearances signify human cognition or participation with the Ideas. While in the Parmenides, “the instant” symbolizes metaphysical change and participation among the Ideas, its emergence in other dialogues signifies psychological change as humans catch sight of the Ideas and reorient their lives.

2.2. Ἐξαίφνης in Republic

Justice and goodness enliven the discussion in Plato’s Republic. To establish goodness in Kallipolis, the beautiful city, the philosopher-king must become good or see the Good (τὸ ἀγαθόν), as he alone will possess the requisite training and capacity “to embrace the thing itself” (480a10–11). Plato both describes the training prosaically, e.g., rigorous studies in arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, practical political affairs, etc., and poetically in Republic VII. The poetic account of the philosopher-king’s training constitutes the most famous myth in Plato’s corpus and probably the most well-known passage in the history of philosophy: the allegory of the cave. The cave allegory represents the crowning moment of the philosopher-king’s education and training, and if participation does indeed happen in an instant, then one could anticipate an appearance of ἐξαίφνης in Republic VII.

The allegory of the cave begins with Socrates’s “strange (ἄτοπον) image” of “strange (ἁτόπους) prisoners” who are held captive in a cave and unaware of the illusions making up their shared reality (515a2). Socrates claims his tale concerns the “effect of education and of the lack of it on our nature,” and perhaps most chillingly: these “strange” prisoners are just “like us” (514a1–2 and 515a2). Fortuitously, a prisoner becomes unchained, and ἐξαίφνης appears at this moment of liberation. Unbound and “suddenly” (ἐξαίφνης) forced to rise, the prisoner struggles to turn his head and “look up toward the light” (515c6–7). The prisoner is “pained and irritated” when forced up the “rough, steep path” out of the cave and into the sunlight (515e5–7). Before long, he would see the sun itself and grasp how it directs and “governs everything in the visible world” (516b4–8). He would understand the sun, i.e., the Good, causes all things. He would know the Idea of the Good, acknowledging it as the source of “truth and understanding” and all that is “correct and beautiful” (517c1–4). Ultimately, Plato’s use of ἐξαίφνης at the precise moment of liberation in the cave allegory reflects its appearance in Parmenides. Sudden change is operative in both. In Parmenides, τὸ ἐξαίφνης symbolizes participation as the Ideas separate and combine with each other, while in the allegory of the cave, ἐξαίφνης signifies the moment when the philosopher “ascends that ascent” and sees the Good itself (519a10).11

2.3. Ἐξαίφνης in Symposium

Plato’s encomium to love (ἔρως), Symposium, finds Socrates introducing a soothsayer from Mantinea, a woman named Diotima, who taught him the “art of love” (τὰ ἐρωτικά) (201d2–5). Ἐξαίφνης emerges in Symposium right before Diotima reveals the goal of all loving. She insists that Socrates “pay attention” as she proceeds to disclose how “all of a sudden” (ἐξαίφνης) the properly guided lover will “catch sight” of something “wonderfully beautiful” (210e3–7).

Diotima’s account of the true nature of love concludes with an erotic ascension—parallel to the ascent described in the allegory of the cave—and the revelation of “the final and highest mystery” (210a3). According to Diotima, the lover desires one body and gives birth to beautiful ideas, and this, in turn, leads him to acknowledge the beauty of all bodies. He then realizes that beautiful souls possess even more beauty than bodies, and the beauty of these souls is due to the laws and customs of the city. Next, his gaze centers upon the many kinds of knowledge cultivating the beautiful customs and laws. Recognizing the beauty of knowledge itself, he is inspired to give birth to “many gloriously beautiful ideas and theories, in unstinting love of wisdom” (210d1–6). At this point, Diotima instructs Socrates to listen closely as she is about to reveal the purpose to those who have been guided thus far in “matters of love” (τὰ ἐρωτικά) (210e4).12 The true lover, who “in the right order and correctly,” grasped beautiful things will “all of a sudden” (ἐξαίφνης) catch a glimpse of something divine: Beauty itself (210e6–211a1).13 Unlike beautiful things, Beauty itself always is, and in phrasing reminiscent of the training exercise of Parmenides, Diotima claims Beauty itself “neither comes to be nor passes away, neither waxes nor wanes” (211a2–3).14 Beauty itself is “always one in form” and unconditionally beautiful and “not anywhere,” as it is remains “itself by itself with itself” (αὐτὸ καθ’ αὑτό) (211b1–3). The lover begins with beautiful things, and “using them like rising stairs,” ascends to Beauty itself, and finally, “he comes to know just what it is to be beautiful” (211c4–8).15 Thus, Diotima’s account of love and the Beautiful climaxes with the lover assimilating to the beloved: Beauty itself. “If any human being could become immortal,” Diotima concludes, then it would be him “who has given birth to true virtue and nourished it” (212a8–212b1). Hence, ἐξαίφνης appears at the highpoint of the Symposium as Plato describes a spiritual awakening or illumination experience.

2.4. Ἐξαίφνης in Seventh Letter

Plato’s Seventh Letter illustrates the power and necessity of friendship. In his opening address to “the friends and followers of Dion,” Plato attempts to persuade the supporters of the now deceased Dion to refrain from a violent revolt against the Syracuse regime headed by Dionysius II.16 In doing so, Plato offers an autobiographical account of his own political ambitions as a young man and his and Dion’s prior attempts at reforming both Syracuse and the whole of Sicily by instituting the best laws.17 Following a brief description of the aftermath of the Peloponnesian war and the events leading to the execution of his “friend Socrates” (325b6), Plato reveals that through reflection and maturity, he realized “it was impossible to do anything without friends” (325d1).18

Amid what secondary sources often refer to as the “epistemological digression,” Plato introduces the “true doctrine” (λόγος ἀληθής)—a methodical, step-by-step process examining name, definition, image, knowledge, and the object itself—which generates ascending levels of understanding (342a3). He claims he has explained the true doctrine before, but he elects to explain it once more so the friends of Dion might gain a better understanding of philosophical education. The earnest back-and-forth, give-and-take discussion of friends doing philosophy is crucial. In the end, progress in the true doctrine results in a conversion of sorts insofar as this philosophical friendship generates a life of self-sustained philosophical activity. Plato depicts the shared intensity and central aim of the friendship as follows: “after long-continued intercourse between teacher and pupil in joint pursuit of the subject, suddenly (ἐξαίφνης), like light flashing forth when a fire is kindled, it is born in the soul and straightaway nourishes itself” (341c8-d1). Thus, friendship and philosophical education sparks a sudden (ἐξαίφνης) illumination experience.19 The transformation of the true doctrine’s participant commences a new beginning as the participant emerges “on fire with philosophy” and capable of self-sustained study.20

2.5. The Meaning of Ἐξαίφνης in Plato’s Works

While the fifty-nine appearances of ἐξαίφνης in extant Greek literature prior to and contemporaneous with Plato often evince a foreboding quality, Plato’s use of “the sudden” demonstrates a radical shift in meaning and significance. In the Seventh Letter, ἐξαίφνης represents the sudden illumination experience stimulating and solidifying the philosopher’s desire to pursue wisdom with a burning enthusiasm, just as ἐξαίφνης in the Symposium signifies the sudden revelation of Beauty itself. The allegory of the cave from Republic VII finds ἐξαίφνης marking the moment of emancipation as the prisoner is compelled suddenly to look toward the light of the Good itself, while in Plato’s Parmenides, ἐξαίφνης functions as the “the instant”—the peculiar place of participation—eternally animating the Ideas. Thus, Plato alters the significance of ἐξαίφνης and transforms it into a symbol for the sudden flash of insight that crystallizes the climactic conversion experience engendered by philosophical education.21

The most remarkable examples of the thirty-six appearances of ἐξαίφνης in Plato’s works illustrate a methodical, step-by-step process of philosophical education climaxing with a sudden and dramatic conversion experience. This conversion experience mirrors the way the Ideas participate with each other in “the instant” (τὸ ἐξαίφνης) of the third hypothesis of Parmenides. The flash of illumination—“this strange creature” (αὕτη φύσις ἄτοπός)—constitutes the peak of the disciplined, orderly climb exemplified by the hard work of character and intellectual training involved in philosophical education. The sudden and striking reorientation “turns the whole soul until it is able to study that which is and the brightest thing that is, namely, the one we call the Good” (Republic VII, 518c7-d1). If we are diligent, thoughtful, and persistent with philosophical exercises, then with equal parts good fortune and good will, perhaps a strange and sudden insight might come to light.

3. Ἐξαίφνης in Acts of the Apostles

The New Testament, composed originally in common (κοινῇ) Greek in the latter half of the first century C.E. and early decades of the second, remains the foundational text of Christianity. Because it was both written in antiquity and in Greek, it stands to reason those figures of speech and tropes characteristic of the ancient Greek philosophical and literary tradition would find their way into Christianity’s central text. A product of its time, the New Testament’s emergence in antiquity determined its rhetorical and literary approach. As Alexander (2001, p. 1029) reveals:

Late first century philosophical literature shows that there was a real interest in presenting the lives of the philosophers as templates for living the philosophical life, especially the life (and even more the death) of the martyr-philosopher Socrates. A number of details in Acts would recall this paradigm for Greek-educated readers.

One such detail is the use of ἐξαίφνης. It appears five times in the New Testament, and all the appearances bear a striking similarity to Plato’s use of the term.22 We highlight the two appearances of ἐξαίφνης in Acts to demonstrate the parallel with Plato.

Immediately following the canonical gospels, Acts serves to connect the gospels to Paul’s letters. Largely thought to be written by the same Luke of the gospel tradition, Acts presents a smooth transition from the life of Jesus Christ to the earliest Christian community. It holds a special place as the link between Christ’s ministry in the gospels and the nascent establishment of Christianity and subsequent proliferation of the religion throughout the Greco-Roman world. The pivotal moment of Acts, and indeed Christianity itself, involves Paul’s celebrated conversion experience on the road to Damascus.

This crucial moment mirrors the appearances of ἐξαίφνης in Plato’s dialogues insofar as it chronicles a conversion experience as an abrupt flash of understanding quite like the sudden illumination experiences described in Plato’s Seventh Letter, Republic, and Symposium.23 Acts 9 begins with Paul seeking letters from the high priest that would implicate those belonging to a nascent form of Jewish Christianity called “the Way”. Paul intends to marshal these early Christians in Damascus and return them to Jerusalem to face persecution. Consequently, Acts 9:3 depicts Paul’s experience as follows: “And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly (ἐξαίφνης) there shined round about him a light from heaven”. Jesus addresses Paul and questions his activities. Christ then commands him to enter Damascus to await further instructions, “and for three days [Paul] was without sight, and neither ate nor drank” (Acts 9:9). Paul’s transformation is, as Alexander (2001, p. 1039) contends, “a complete change of direction” or simply, a conversion experience.

Likewise, in Acts 22:6, Paul retells his sudden change of direction: “While I was on my way and approaching Damascus, about noon a great light from heaven suddenly (ἐξαίφνης) shone about me”. Paul testifies this otherworldly light was “blinding” (Acts 22:11), just as the sun, i.e., the Good, dazzled the liberated prisoner in Plato’s allegory of the cave.24 Furthermore, in much the same way that Plato describes the sudden reorientation of the soul after a lengthy training process, Paul’s conversion, though sudden and miraculous, was preceded by a preparative phase. “The actual explosion was sudden,” writes Ferris 1954, 118, “but there was a long fuse burning under the surface which had been lighted years before, and gradually the flame crept nearer and nearer to the explosive center”. The fact the author of Acts finds Paul’s sudden conversion experience in 9:3 worthy of restating in 22:6 indicates its significance for both the ostensible author, Luke, and the early history of Christianity. It is also highly suggestive insofar as these biblical verses parallel Plato’s paradigm: prolonged period of thinking, sudden (ἐξαίφνης) illumination experience, and profound reorientation.

4. Ἐξαίφνης in Plotinus’ Enneads

The Platonist par excellence of late antiquity, Plotinus, exhibits a similar employment of ἐξαίφνης. Though Plotinus’s treatment of ἐξαίφνης is comparatively limited—it materializes in his Enneads only nine times—the positioning of these appearances in contexts mirroring those found in Plato’s dialogues suggests, perhaps at the very least, an homage of sorts. In what follows, we demonstrate Plotinus’s corresponding treatment of ἐξαίφνης to reveal how it functions as a key term in his philosophical project.

Like Plato, Plotinus inserts ἐξαίφνης in passages depicting the peak of philosophical enlightenment. Many of these appearances relate to the vision of the One, or Good. Plotinus unveils the uniformity of the One and the Good in II.9.5–6: “When we speak of the One and when we speak of the Good we must recognize an identical nature; we must affirm that they are the same”. The Plotinian One-Good unites the One of Plato’s Parmenides and the Good from Republic.25 As noted above, both Parmenides and Republic feature significant appearances of ἐξαίφνης. Rather than considering himself an originator of a distinct philosophy, however, Plotinus viewed his life’s work as bringing Platonism to its full and most explicit fruition. In what follows below, we isolate five appearances of ἐξαίφνης from Enneads V and VI to disclose how Plotinus utilizes this term in ways strikingly similar to those from Plato’s dialogues featured above (Plotinus 1984).

4.1. Ἐξαίφνης in Enneads V.3: “On the Knowing Hypostases and That Which Is Beyond”

The fifth Ennead as assembled and arranged by Plotinus’s student, Porphyry, concerns self-knowledge and intelligible reality. Here, Plotinus ruminates on the relation between human intellect and the Divine Intellect itself. On the one hand, he does not consider it “strange” (ἄτοπον) to conclude the soul lacks the capacity to think itself. On the other hand, it would indeed be “strange” (ἄτοπον) to conclude the intellect lacks this capacity for self-knowing (V.1.18–19).

V.1 illuminates the three primary hypostases or transcendent sources of reality, i.e., the One-Good, the Divine Intellect, and the World Soul, while V.2 sheds further light on the doctrine and clarifies the continuity of Plotinus’s emanation theory. Plotinus then explains how the human intellect unites with the Divine Intellect in V.3 and how this unity relates to self-knowledge.26 Nevertheless, this is not the terminus of Plotinus’s project. Ultimately, one must move beyond the Divine Intellect and embrace the One-Good. The conclusion of Ennead V’s third tractate (V.3.17) depicts this immediate and ineffable illumination experience:

The soul runs over all truths, and all the same shuns the truths we know if someone tries to express them in words and discursive thought; for discursive thought, in order to express anything in words, has to consider one thing after another: this is the method of description; but how can one describe the absolutely simple? But it is enough if the intellect comes into contact with it; but when it has done so, while the contact lasts, it is absolutely impossible, nor has it time to speak; but it is afterwards that it is able to reason about it. One must believe when one has seen, when the soul suddenly (ἐξαίφνης) takes light: for this is from him and he is it; we must think that he is present when, like another god whom someone called to his house, he comes and brings light to us: for if he had not come, he would not have brought the light.

Echoing the ἐξαίφνης examples in Plato’s works, Plotinus offers an account of a noetic ascent climaxing with sudden enlightenment. In Plato’s Symposium, Diotima describes the “sudden” (ἐξαίφνης) emergence of Beauty itself leading one to know “just what it is to be beautiful,” while Plotinus speaks of the soul “suddenly” (ἐξαίφνης) experiencing the One-Good and reasoning afterwards about what it means to be good.27

4.2. Ἐξαίφνης in Enneads V.5: “That Intelligibles Are Not Outside the Intellect, and the Good”

Likewise, in V.5.3, Plotinus equates the vision of the One-Good, i.e., “the First,” with a hierarchical sequence of beauty analogous to the ladder of love passages from Plato’s Symposium:

For the First in its progress could not take its stand upon something soulless, nor immediately upon Soul, but there must be an inconceivable beauty going out before it, as in the procession before a great king the lesser ranks go first, and then in succession the greater and after them the yet more majestic and the court which has still more of royal dignity, and then those who are honored next after the king; and after all these the great king himself is suddenly (ἐξαίφνης) revealed, and the people pray and prostrate themselves before him.

In V.5.7, Plotinus writes of Divine Intellect coalescing with the One in a mystical fusion:

Just so Intellect, veiling itself from other things and drawing itself inward, when it is not looking at anything will see a light, not a distinct light in something different from itself, but suddenly (ἐξαίφνης) appearing, alone by itself in independent purity, so that Intellect is at a loss to know whence it has appeared, whether it has come from outside or within, and after it has gone away will say, ‘It was within, and yet it was not within.’

The above passages reflect accounts of mystical experiences generally insofar as they depict the spiritual synthesis obtaining between what once were two separate entities. Hadot 1998, 58, describes this spiritual event—the union of self and the One-Good—as founded upon the equivalence of the One-Good and the self’s “pure, simple, undecomposable presence”. Stated another way, this spiritual synthesis equates to Platonic participation.

4.3. Ἐξαίφνης in Enneads VI.7: “The Forms and the Good”

In VI.7.34, Plotinus describes further the soul’s assimilation with the One-Good. The passage below presents the most explicit integration of soul and the Good in the Plotinian corpus. “Once the soul has no more possessions, and has stripped herself of all form,” writes Hadot 1998, 57, “she is at one with the object of her love and becomes the Good. She is the Good”. Again, the soul’s assimilation to the Good parallels with Platonic participation, especially with Diotima’s account in Symposium. Like Plato, Plotinus captures the abrupt nature of this event with ἐξαίφνης:

But when the soul has good fortune with it, and it comes to it, or rather, being there already, appears, when that soul turns away from the things that are there, and has prepared by making itself as beautiful as possible and has come to likeness—the preparation and the adornment are clearly understood, I think, by those who are preparing themselves—and it sees it in itself suddenly (ἐξαίφνης) appearing—for there is nothing between, nor are there still two but both are one; nor could you still make a distinction while it is present; lovers and their beloveds here below imitate this in their will to be united—it does not still perceive its body, that it is in it, and does not speak of itself as anything else, not man, or living thing, or being, or all, for the contemplation of these would be somehow disturbing, and it has no time for them nor wants them, but it has been seeking it, and meets that when it is present, and looks at that instead of itself; but it has not even time to see who the soul is that looks. There, truly, it would not exchange this for anything in the world, not even if someone handed over the whole universe to it, because there is nothing still better, and nothing that is more a good; for it does not run up higher, and all the other things are on its way down, even if they are in the realm of above. So then it has the ability to judge rightly and to know that this is what it desired, and to establish that there is nothing better than it.

The inclusion of ἐξαίφνης and the poetic construal of “both are one” suggests Platonic participation. Furthermore, the above passage might very well be an instance of Plotinus hinting at his own mystical experiences. According to Porphyry, Plotinus achieved this mystical union four times during his life. Plotinus himself states in Enneads IV.8.1: “Many times it has happened: Lifted out of the body into myself; becoming external to all other things; beholding a marvelous beauty; then, more than ever, assured of community with the loftiest order; living the noblest life, acquiring identity with the Divine”. Again, the context and language reflect the passages from Plato’s dialogues that suggest participation with the Idea as happening “all of a sudden” (ἐξαίφνης).

In addition, from “The Forms and the Good” Plotinus writes in VI.7.36:

It is there that one lets all study go; up to a point one has been led along and settled firmly in beauty and as far as this one thinks that in which one is, but is carried out of it by the surge of a wave of Intellect itself and lifted on high by a kind of swell and sees suddenly (ἐξαίφνης), not seeing how, but the vision fills his eyes with light and does not make him see something else by it, but the light itself is what he sees.

Philosophical progress in Plotinus’s system generates the same sudden illumination experience as depicted in the ἐξαίφνης passages of Plato’s dialogues. In his commentary on the above passage from Ennead VI, Hadot 1998, 62, explains, “For Plotinus, as for Plato, vision consists in contact between the inner light of the eye and exterior light. Yet Plotinus concludes from this that when vision becomes spiritual, there is no longer any distinction between inner and outer light”. This assimilation process—represented conceptually with the appearance of ἐξαίφνης—delineates Plotinus’s account of the soul’s ascent to the divine described by Plato in the passages discussed above.

5. Ἐξαίφνης in Plato, Acts, and Plotinus

Plotinus’s use of ἐξαίφνης mirrors Plato’s insofar as both philosophers employ it as a sign for a transformative illumination experience, although of the two, only Plato—in his Parmenides—offers a conceptual treatment of the term. Both thinkers describe the assimilation of Idea and soul (although Plotinus does so much more explicitly), and both describe the pivotal moment of interiorization with ἐξαίφνης as the byword instantiating this mystical union.

From the thematic presentation of “the instant” (τὸ ἐξαίφνης) in Parmenides, to the prisoner “suddenly” (ἐξαίφνης) liberated in the allegory of the cave, to the revelation of Beauty itself happening “all of a sudden” (ἐξαίφνης) in Symposium, to the peak of philosophical education “suddenly” (ἐξαίφνης) coming into view in the Seventh Letter, ἐξαίφνης pops up in some of the most notable passages of Plato’s works. Likewise, Paul’s conversion experience on the road to Damascus repeated twice in Acts of the Apostles and accompanied both times by ἐξαίφνης, echoes Plato’s use of the term. Furthermore, in Plotinus’s Enneads, ἐξαίφνης surfaces in V.3.17 when the soul “suddenly” (ἐξαίφνης) receives the light of the One-Good, in V.5.3 as the majestic One-Good “suddenly” (ἐξαίφνης) reveals itself, in V.5.7 when the self and the One-Good “suddenly” (ἐξαίφνης) assimilate, again in VI.7.34 as the soul “suddenly” (ἐξαίφνης) embraces the One-Good, and finally in VI.7.36 as the spiritually immanent self “suddenly” (ἐξαίφνης) merges with the divine transcendence of the One-Good.

Whether Plato inspired succeeding thinkers regarding the use of ἐξαίφνης or if these curious subsequent appearances of the term signify a shared insight lingers as an open question. On the one hand, the question concerning the intention of the author of Acts and if he was indeed consciously trading upon Plato’s notion of ἐξαίφνης remains unanswerable, highly suggestive though it may be. On the other hand, Plotinus’s appropriation of Plato’s philosophy is undeniable, as Plotinus himself readily acknowledges in V.1.8: “these statements of ours are not new; they do not belong to the present time, but were made long ago, not explicitly, and what we have said in this discussion has been an interpretation of them, relying on Plato’s own writings for evidence that these views are ancient”. Whether Plotinus’s understanding of Platonic philosophy corresponds to Plato’s own or if Neoplatonism is an altogether new and distinctive philosophy, of course, remains a matter of scholarly dispute. Nevertheless, as the most renowned Platonist of late antiquity, Plotinus saw his life’s work as clarifying and communicating Plato’s thought for a new generation of philosophers. Like Plato, he sought and discovered eternity in the transitory. Thus, the emergence of “this strange creature”—ἐξαίφνης—in his Enneads should come as no surprise.

6. Conclusions

Although the above examples offer a transcendent, otherworldly kind of conversion experience narrative, when Plato describes the illumination of the highest realities in his Seventh Letter, he warns those reading this account against “an exaggerated and foolish elation, as if they had discovered something grand” (341e5–6). Likewise, we believe something approximating conversion experiences occur rather frequently in all aspects of everyday life.28 For example, it occurs when we suddenly understand a concept or an argument we previously struggled to grasp or when we have an insight about a particular topic, e.g., human nature, the problem of evil, etc., that we have been studying for some time.

On the other end of the spectrum, the illumination experience can also take the form of a mystical, ecstatic, profound encounter with the divine described in the passages from Plato, Paul’s conversion experience in Acts, and Plotinus’ Enneads. Presumably, we can undergo a range of different conversion experiences from the more ordinary ones in the classroom to the more extraordinary ones described in these texts. Nevertheless, the common denominator would seem to be a “flash of lightning illumining the darkness,” as Augustine describes it in his City of God (Augustine 1950, IX.16).29 Thus, “illumination” and “conversion” need not designate one specific type of experience but rather an entire range or spectrum of experiences. Perhaps we all partake of certain smoldering truths, which, like a spark, might ignite suddenly and illuminate a different way.30