"Let us flee, then, to the beloved Fatherland"

I would like to call attention to two points from neoplatonic literature, which reveal a new integrated system of thought applied to, and drawn from Homeric poetry. First, the point 22.27 from Vita Plotini by Porphyry. The best disciple of Plotinus repeats the verse ε 399, Odyssey, when Odysseus by swimming arrives in the island of Phaeacians: νήχ’ ἐπειγόμενος. Thus he reveals the main neoplatonic allegorical explanation of Odyssey: nostos, homecoming, of the soul. What infuses life into soul’s journey through the world of bodies and becoming, is the longing to return to Intellect, before entering the threshold of Good. Second, in the Enneads I.6.8.16-20 Plotinus himself describes exactly this nostalgia of the soul with the famous words “Let us flee, then, to the beloved Fatherland”. He refers to Odysseus who fled from the sorceries of Circe or Calypso, not content to linger for all the pleasure offered to his eyes and all the delight to sense. This flight according to the founder of Neoplatonism has as its destination the real Fatherland, which is There, whence we have come. The allegorical interpretation of Plotinus pertains not only the process of return (ἐπιστροφή) and rest (στάσις) inside One (Ithaca), but also the descent of the souls in the world of senses and deception, thus corresponding to the Iliad. The latter is identified especially with emanation (πρόοδος) of the hypostases from the One. By this way, the Homeric poems reflect the general dynamic structure of Neoplatonism.
The central significance of these two points becomes clear by the position they take in Robert Lamberton’s study, Homer the Theologian, since in the end of the chapters for Porphyrius and Plotinus there are exactly both these quotations respectively. In the case of Plotinus a line from Enn. V.9.1.20-21 added, which refers to a man who arrives in his well-governed land after a long journey.