  The causality of the One was frequently explained in antiquity as an answer to the question, ‘How do we derive a many from the One?’ Although the answer provided by Plotinus and by other Neoplatonists is sometimes expressed in the language of ‘emanation’, it is very easy to mistake this for what it is not.  It is not intended to indicate either a temporal process or the unpacking or separating of a potentially complex unity.  Rather, the derivation was understood in terms of atemporal ontological dependence.