Taylor - Eleusianian and Bacchic Mysteries.pdf - Platonic Philosophy

108 Bacchic Mysteries.But that this was actually the case, isevident from the following unequivocal testimony of Proclus : Ev arcof$sorcoXXa 3ssc <paivov~arxai TOTS [xsvTOV aoKov icpopepXiQtai cptoc,TOTS 5s s^ av-TOTS os sec.u lnallthe initiations and Mysteries, the gods exhibit many forms of themselves, and appearin a variety of shapes and sometimes, in:deed, a formless light * of themselves is heldforth to the view ;sometimes this light isaccording to a human form, and sometimesitproceeds into a different shape." t Thisassertion of divine visions in the Mysteries,Porphyry afterward declared that he witnessed four times,when near him, the soul or""intellectof Plotinus thus raised upto the First and Sovereign Good;also that he himself was onlyonce so elevated to the enosis or union with God, so as to haveglimpses of the eternal world. This did not occur till he wassixty-eight years of age. A. W.* /. e. a luminous appearance without any denned form or shapeof an object.tCommentary upon the Republic of Plato, page 380.