5.1.6: For the soul now knows that these things must be, but longs to answer the question repeated discussed also by the ancient philosophers***, how from the One, if it is such as we say it is, anything else, whether a multiplicity or a dyad or a number, came into existence, and why it did not on the contrary remain by itself, but such a great multiplicity flowed from it as that which is seen to exist in beings, but which we think it right to refer back to the One. **Let us speak of it in this way, first invoking God himself, not in spoken words, but stretching ourselves out with our soul into prayer ot him, able in this way to pray alone to him alone.** [ou logwi gegwnwi, alla thi psychhi ekteinasin heautous eis euchhn pros ekeinon].' Not with the word, which becomes, but with the soul, stretching ourselves toward him in prayer.
Armstrong notes: 'The only explicit reference to genuine prayer in Plotinus (though his whole philosophy is prayer in this sense)'
NOTE ALSO that this is the Ennead which allegedly inspires the Vision at Ostia, - and is linguistically tied to Timaeus on that point, the 'sea of the body'. Ethereal thesis on ostia
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