Select Works of Plotinus — trans. Thomas Taylor
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despised, and will not be beloved, though it is the immutable work of God, a glorious fabric, a good compounded with a multiform variety of images, a machine of the will of God, who in his work gave his suffrage without envy, that all things should be one. It is also a multiform collected heap, capable of being venerated, praised and loved by those that behold it. For darkness shall be preferred to light, and death shall be judged to be more useful than life. No one shall lookup to heaven. The religious man shall be accounted insane, the irre¬ ligious shall be thought wise , the furious brave , and the worst of men shall be considered a good man . For the soul and all things about it, by which it is either naturally immortal, or conceives that it shall attain to immortality, conformably to what I have explained to you, shall not only be the subject of laughter, but shall be considered as vanity. Believe me, like¬ wise , that a capital punishment shall be appointed for him who applies himself to the religion of intellect. New statutes and new laws shall be established , and nothing religious or which is worthy of heaven*, or celestial concerns , shall be heard , or be¬ lieved by the mind. There will be a lamentable departure ofp. 555 spectator of what will follow, He, likewise, then learnt some particulars about Osiris which would the Gods from men ,1 noxious angels % will alone remain , xvho being mingled with human nature will violently impel the mise¬ rable men [of that time\ to war, to rapine , to fraud , and to every thing contrary to the nature of the soul. Then the earth shall be in a preternatural state, the sea shall not be sailed in, nor shall the heavens accord with the course of the stars, nor the course of the stars continue in the heavens. Every divine voice shall be dumb by a necessary silence , the fruits of the earth shall be corrupted, nor shall the earth be prolific, and the air itself shall languish with a sorrowful torpor. These events and such an old age of the world as this shall take place, such irreligion, inordination, and unreasonableness of all good. When all these things shall happen, O Asclepius, thenlhat lord and father, the God who is first in power, and the one governor of the world, looking into the manners and voluntary deeds [of men], and by his will which is the benignity of God, resist¬ ing vices, and recalling the error arising from the corruption of all things, washing away likewise all malignity, by a de¬ luge, or consuming it by fire, or bringing it to an end by dis» ease and pestilence his will which is the benignity of God, resist¬ ing vices, and recalling the error arising from the corruption of all things, washing away likewise all malignity, by a de¬ luge, or consuming it by fire, or bringing it to an end by dis» ease and pestilence dispersed in different places, will recall the
* Proclus finding that this was partially the case in his time, says prophetically in the Introduction to his MS. Commentary on the Par¬ menides of Plato, τούτον tyw φαιην ay τύπον φιλοσοφίας ιις ανθξωπους ιλθιιν cr’ ιυίξγισια των TijSt -^vy^wv, α,ντι των αγαλματων, αντί των ιΐξων, αντί της ύλης αγισταας άντης , και σωτήριας apyyyov τοις yi νυν ουσιν ανΟξωποις, και τοις %ισ ανθις γινησο (Λίνοις. i. e, tc With respect to this form of philosophy [viz. of the philosophy of Plato], I should say that it came to men for the benefit of terrestrial souls; that it might be instead of statues, in¬ stead of temples, instead of the whole of sacred institutions , and the leader of salvation both to the men that now are , and to those that shall exist hereafter ”
a i. e. Evil daemons.
p. 556
shortly happen, and others which would take place at some greater distance of time, viz. when the boy world to its ancient form, in order that the world itself may ap¬ pear to be an adorable and admirable production, and God the fabricator and restorer of so great a work, may be cele¬ brated by all that shall then exist* with frequent solemn praises and benedictions. For this geniture 1 of the world, is the re¬ formation of all good things, and the most holy and religious restitution of the nature of it, the course of time being accom¬ plished ; * since time is perpetual, and always was without a beginning. For the will of God is without beginning, is always the same, and is every where eternal.”
Of this very remarkable extract, it is necessary to observe in the first place, that it was principally made by me from the edition of the Asclepian Dialogue, by Ficinus, as he appears to have had a more correct manuscript in his possession than any that have been consulted by more modem editors. Of this the learned, and at the same time philosophic, reader, will be immediately convinced, by comparing this extract with the same part of that dialogue in the most modern editions of it.
1 By the geniture of the world, the greater apucatastasis is signified, as is evident from Julius Firmicus; which restoration of things to their pristine state is, according to that author, accomplished in the space of three hundred thousand years.
tions of it.
1 By the geniture of the world, the greater apucatastasis is signified, as is evident from Julius Firmicus; which restoration of things to their pristine state is, according to that author, accomplished in the space of three hundred thousand years. This great period compre¬ hends in itself, according to Petosyris and Necepso, six less periods, the last of which is under the dominion of Mercury, and abounds with improbity of every kind and inventions full of evil. “ Quia nobile ingenium in homine,” (says Firmicus) u unum vitae cursum servare non potest, ex variis institutis moribusque confusis malitiae crevit improbitas, et vitae scelerum flagitia, gens hominum hoc tempore, facinorosis machinationibus, et invenit et tradidit. Hac ex causa, ultimum tem¬ pos Mercuric tradendum putaverunt, ut ad imitationem istius syderis, inventa plena malitia, gens hominum conciperet potestatem.”
α i. e. A mundane period being finished.
Horns would chuse as his associate in battle^ a wolf instead of a lion. But who the wolf is3 is a
In the second place, that this dialogue is of genuine antiquity and no forgery, is, I think, unquestionably evident from neither Lactantius nor Augustin having any doubt of its authenticity, though it was their interest to have proved it to be spurious if they could, because it predicts, which is the third thing espe¬ cially deserving of remark, that the memorials of the martyrs should succeed in the place of the temples of the Gods. Hence Augustin concludes this to be a prophecy or prediction made instinctu fallacis spirit us y by the instinct or suggestion of a de¬ ceitful spirit. But that this prediction was accomplished is evident, as Dr. Cudworth observes in his True Intellectual System of the Universe, p. 329· from the following passages of Theodoret, which I shall quote as translated by the Doctor. Si Now the martyrs have utterly abolished and blotted out of the minds of men, the memory of those who were formerly called Gods." And again, “ Our Lord hath now brought his dead (i. e. his martyrs) into the room and place (i. e. into the temples) of the Gods ; whom he hath sent away empty, and bestowed their honour upon these his martyrs. For now, in¬ stead of the festivals of Jupiter and Bacchus, are celebrated those of Peter and Paul, Thomas and Sergius, and other holy martyrs." Antoninus, the philosopher, also, according to Eunapius, predicted the very same thing, viz.