/lit/ - Literature

>>18371376
Plato:
“Insofar as it has a property the same, it has a property that is not of another kind; and if it has a property that is not of another kind, it is not unlike; and if not unlike, it is like. But insofar as it has a property other, it has a property that is of another kind; and if it has a property that is of another kind, it is unlike.”—“That’s true.”—“So because the one is the same as the others and because it is different, on both grounds and either, it would be both like and unlike the others.”—“Certainly.”
“So, in the same way, it will be like and unlike itself as well. Since in fact it was shown to be both different from itself and the same as itself, on both grounds and either, won’t it be shown to be both like and unlike itself?”—“Necessarily.”

Plotinus:
God is cause of Himself; for Himself and of Himself He is what He is, the first self, transcendently The Self. Lovable, very love, the Supreme is also self-love in that He is lovely no otherwise than from Himself and in Himself. Self-presence can hold only in the identity of associated with associating; since, in the Supreme, associated and associating are one, seeker and sought one the sought serving as Hypostasis and substrate of the seeker—once more God’s being and his seeking are identical: once more, then, the Supreme is the self-producing, sovereign of Himself, not happening to be as some extern willed but existing as He wills it.

Iamblichus:
Prior to the true beings and to the universal principles there is the one god, prior cause even of the first god and king, remaining unmoved in the singularity of his own unity. For no object of intellection is linked to him, nor anything else. He is established as a paradigm for the self-fathering, self-generating and only-fathered God who is true Good; for it is something greater and primary, and fount of all things, and basic root of all the first objects of intellection, which are the forms. From this One
there has autonomously shone forth the self-sufficient god, for which reason he is termed “father of himself” and “principle of himself”; for he is first principle and god of gods, a monad springing from the One, pre-essential and first principle of essence. For from him springs essentiality and essence, for which reason he is termed “father of essence”; he himself is pre-essential being, the first principle of the intelligible realm, for which reason he is termed “principle of intellection.”

Damascius: pic related.