PLOTINUS. THE LATER PLATONISTS. 291 



peopled by philosophers, and governed by the laws of Plato's ideal His intended 

 commonwealth. Various illnesses and infirmities, occasioned, perhaps, or^hTioso? 18 ' 

 by his neglect of his health, filled with pain his latter days. When picai 

 he felt his end drawing nigh, he said, in the language of his philosophy, co 

 " I strive to return the divine principle within me to the Divine Being 

 who animates the universe." He died in the year 270, in his sixty- 

 sixth year. 1 



Longinus acknowledged that he could not understand many of the 

 subjects treated of by Plotinus, but that he loved beyond measure and 

 venerated his manner of writing, the variety of his knowledge, and the 

 philosophical arrangement of his questions. 2 His mind, naturally 

 ardent and enthusiastic, appears to have been deeply tinged with 

 fanaticism ; and his ecstatic contemplations, or pretended visions of 

 the Supreme Being, bear a resemblance to the wild extravagances of 

 modern mystics. To express the most profound contempt for the cor- 

 poreal prison in which the soul, an emanation from the Divine nature, 

 is confined, and to aspire by a high degree of mental elevation and 

 illumination to an union with the God who fills the universe, seems 

 not to have been entirely peculiar to the later Platonists. " In all 

 ages," as Locke remarks, " men, in whom melancholy has mixed with 

 devotion, or whose conceit of themselves has raised them into an 

 opinion of a greater familiarity with God, and a nearer admittance to 

 His favour than is afforded to others, have often flattered themselves 

 with a persuasion of an immediate intercourse with the Deity, and 

 frequent communications from the Divine Spirit." 3 



The Plotinian school was propagated by many eminent men. Succession of 

 Amelius (whose true .name was Gentilianus), a Tuscan, in the year sc 1 hooi? tmian 

 246, embraced the principles, and drew up in writing some of the in- Amelias, 

 structions of Plotinus. One of the books which he wrote was to show 

 the difference between the doctrine of Numenius and that of Plotinus, 

 in answer to the accusation brought against the latter of having 

 borrowed from the former. But the most distinguished of its members Porphyry, 

 was Porphyry 4 (or in Syrian, Malchus), a Tyrian, born in the year 



1 4>TJcras Tretpatrflat rb ev rj/juv Qslov avdyeiv irpbs rb ev T$ iravTi Qtiov. 

 (Porphyr. Vit. Plotin.) The Life of Plotinus, by Porphyry, gives an account of 

 his familiar spirit, and represents him as possessed of miraculous powers. See Bayle, 

 Diet. Hist. 



2 Ap. Porphyr. Vit. Plotin. The only Latin translation of Plotinus is that of 

 Marsil. Ficinus. The first Greek and Latin edition is that of P. Perna, 1580. A 

 complete critical edition of his works, which is much wanted, has been undertaken 

 by the learned Fred. Creuzer, professor at Heidelburg, who has already published 

 an edition of the book De Pulchro, with a revised translation, notes, and a com- 

 mentary. 



3 Essay on the Human Understanding, book iv. c. 19. 



4 St. Jerome calls him Bataneotes. " Ce mot a fort tourmente les interpretes. 

 S'agit-il de Be'ten ou Basan en Palestine, comme le suppose Baronius ? Faut-il 

 voir dans Batane'ote une alteration de Bt0uj/iwT7js, Bithynien ; ou de Btoflavaros, 

 sce'le'rat ; ou de BaA.avectJTTjs, curieux, affaire' ; ou de BoTcwajimjs, mangeur 

 d'herbes, selon le regime de Pythagore, ou bien 1' equivalent de nouveau Battus, et 



u2 



