Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato

...the air, and the universe itself, be still. And let all things extend us with a tranquil power to communion with the ineffable Something too great or sacred to be expressed in words.. Let us also standing there, having transcended the intelligible The realm of pure thought and forms, beyond physical perception. (if we contain any thing of this kind), and with nearly closed eyes adoring as it were the rising sun, since it is not lawful for any being whatever intently to behold him,—let us survey the sun whence the light of the intelligible gods proceeds, emerging, as the poets say, from the bosom of the ocean; and again from this divine tranquillity descending into intellect, and from intellect employing the reasonings of the soul, let us relate to ourselves what the natures are from which in this progression we shall consider the first God as exempt. And let us as it were celebrate him, not as establishing the earth and the heavens, nor as giving subsistence to souls, and the generations of all animals; for he produced these indeed, but among the last of things. But prior to these, let us celebrate him as unfolding into light the whole intelligible and intellectual genus of gods, together with all the supermundane Existing above or beyond the physical world. and mundane divinities as, the God of all gods, the Unity of all unities, and beyond the first adyta The innermost, most sacred parts of a temple; here used metaphorically for the deepest mysteries of the divine.—as more ineffable than all silence, and more unknown than all essence,—as holy among the holies, and concealed in the intelligible gods.” Such is the piety, such the sublimity, and magnificence of conception, with which the Platonic philosophers speak of that which is in reality in every respect ineffable, when they presume to speak about it, extending the ineffable parturitions of the soul to the ineffable cosensation of the incomprehensible one.

From this sublime veneration of this most awful nature, which, as is noticed in the extracts from The text reads "Damascus," but refers to Damascius (c. 458–538 AD), the last head of the Neoplatonist Academy in Athens. Damascius, induced the most ancient theologists, philosophers, and poets, to be entirely silent concerning it, arose the great reverence which the ancients paid to the divinities even of a mundane characteristic, or from whom bodies are suspended, considering them also as partaking of the nature of the ineffable, and as so many links of the truly golden chain of deity. Hence we find in the Odyssey, when Ulysses and Telemachus are removing the arms from the walls of the palace of Ithaca, and Minerva going before them with her golden lamp fills all the place with a divine light: original Greek: "παροιθε δε παλλας Αθηνη Χρυσεον λυχνον εχουσα φαος περικαλλες εποιει"

Telemachus having observed that certainly some one of the celestial gods was present: original Greek: "Η μαλα τις θεος ενδον, οι ουρανον ευρυν εχουσι"

Ulysses says in reply, “Be silent, restrain your intellect (i.e. even cease to energize intellectually), and speak not.” original Greek: "Σιγα, και κατα σον νοον ισχανα, μηδ' ερεεινε"

Lastly, from all that has been said, it must, I think, be immediately obvious to every one whose mental eye is not entirely blinded, that there can be no such thing as a trinity in the theology of Plato, in any respect analogous to the Christian Trinity. For the highest God, according to Plato, as we have largely shown from irresistible evidence, is so far from being a part of a consubsistent Sharing the same substance or essence. triad, that he is not to be connumerated Counted or grouped together with others. with any thing; but is so perfectly exempt from all multitude, that he is even beyond being; and he so ineffably transcends all relation and habitude, that language is in reality subverted about him, and knowledge refunded into ignorance. What that trinity however is in the theology of Plato, which doubtless gave birth to the Christian, will be evident to the intelligent from the notes on the Parmenides, and the extracts, from Damascius. And thus much for the doctrine of Plato concerning the principle of things, and his immediate offspring, the great importance of which will, I doubt not, be a sufficient apology for the length of this discussion.

In the next place, following Proclus (412–485 AD) and Olympiodorus the Younger (c. 495–570 AD) were influential Neoplatonist commentators who sought to preserve and explain Plato's mystical teachings. Proclus and Olympiodorus as our guides, let us consider the mode according to which Plato teaches us mystic conceptions of divine natures: for he appears not to have pursued every where the same mode of doctrine about these; but sometimes according to a divinely inspired energy, and at other