3. Is Dehnhard's thesis correct that De Sp. S. 9 depends on De sp. for its
JOHN M. RIST
It is not clear how much of this would be acceptable to Henry and Schwyzer, whose Index testium still suggests that Basil in De Sp. S. is using Plotinus directly, though Gribomont253 and (apparently) Danielou254 have accepted the thesis that it is only De sp., not Plotinus, that is the immediate Neoplatonic source to be found in De Sp. S. At any rate,
Dehnhard's book has re-emphasized that the relationship between De sp. and De Sp. S. is at the very centre of the problem of the relationship between Basil and Plotinus. All the relevant texts deserve to be scrutinized again, at the very least to check on the claims originally made by Henry in the light of more recent comment. Where decisive evidence has already been accumulated, I shall not linger; yet certain points need further clarification.
It has always been believed that Ennead 5.1 is the Plotinian text which Basil is most likely to have known. It is in De sp. that this treatise is used especially, and there is no need to go over again the ground covered by Henry and Dehnhard: De sp. makes very extensive use of Ennead 5.1.
Five questions, however, immediately arise:
1. What is the significance, if any, of the fact that De sp. only uses 5.1 ?
2. Is the author oïDe sp. Basil, and if not, who is he?
3. Is Dehnhard's thesis correct that De Sp. S. 9 depends on De sp. for its Plotinian material?
4. Can we now assert that there is no Plotinian influence in De Sp. S. outside chapter 9 ?
5. Does Basil in De Sp. S. use Plotinus directly at all?
If these matters can be clarified, one can turn to the possibility of other Neoplatonic influences on Basil, thence to the wider and more general question of Basil's use of Plato and earlier Platonists.
Β. DE SPIRITU AND ENNEAD 5.1
There is no reason to believe that the author of De sp. uses any text of Plotinus other than Ennead. 5.1. There is, however, equally no immediate reason to assume that he knew no other text of Plotinus than Ennead 5.1.
Now we have already observed that 5.1 is one of the two texts of Plotinus which are used by Eusebius of Caesarea in his Praeparatio evangelica. It is therefore quite possible that, if the author of De sp. knows more
253 J. Gribomont, review of Dehnhard, RHE 60 (1965) 492; (also, idem, "Intransigencia e irenismo en S. Basilio," ETrin 9 [1975] 240 n. 61).
254 J. Danielou, review of Dehnhard. p. 161.