Curiously, in the fifth Ennead we see Plotinus assert the following:
The evil that has overtaken them has its source in self-will, in the entry into the sphere of process, and in the primal differentiation with the desire for self ownership. They conceived a pleasure in this freedom and largely indulged their own motion; thus they were hurried down the wrong path, and in the end, drifting further and further, they came to lose even the thought of their origin in the Divine.
It would seem that in this sense Plotinus anticipated and even inspired the theology of Augustine, who beleived that all human souls were fallen because of an originary pride. I don't find this idea to be entirely separate from the Gnostic account of Sophia's desire to imitate God, and later Yaldabaoth's creation of the physical world, despite Plotinus' objection to Gnostics for believing that the universe is inherently corrupt. I think that has interesting implications for Plotinus, not many of which I find favourable.
