Taylor - Eleusianian and Bacchic Mysteries.pdf - Platonic Philosophy

Bacchic Mysteries. 123Fabricius, in his prolegomena to the life ofProclus. For nothing can be more obviousto everyreader of Plato than that in hisLaivs he treats of the social and politicalvirtues ;in his Phcedo, and seventh book ofthe Republic, of the purifying; and in hisTliceatetus, of the contemplativerand sublimervirtues. This observation is, indeed,so obvious, in the Phcedo, with respect to thepurifying virtues, that no one but a verbalcritic could read this dialogue and be insensible to its truth : for Socrates in the verybeginning expressly asserts that it is thebusiness of philosophers to study to die, andto be themselves dead,* and yet at the sametime reprobates suicide. What then can suchcealment of their real opinions. He describes Plotinus as a resuscitated Plato. Against the Academics,iii. 17-20.*Phcedo, 21. KivSovsoooai *( r/ P oao: wf/wow.v op&cog arctojAsvoi<p.Xo30-p-.a<; XsXY]{hvca ta? aUouc, or. OD^V aXXo auto-. eittrrjSeooooivYJ aTcoftvrjaxeiv is vcai isftvavai. I. e. For as many as rightly applythemselves to philosophy seem to have left others ignorant, thatthey themselves aim at nothing else than to die and to be dead."Elsewhere (31) Socrates says While we live, we shall ap:proach nearest to intuitive knowledge,if we hold no communionwith the body, except, what absolute necessity requires, nor sufferourselves to be pervaded by its nature, but purify ourselves fromit until God himself shall release us."