100

to attain continually to the root of the richness, let us see again from the fruits, that is, from the works, the enlightenment of Socrates and Plato and those like them. From where, then, shall we precisely know this? Is it from the laws of illicit marriage, or from the deeds of pederasty, or from the doctrines concerning gods and demons and heroes, or from that poured-out monstrous tale of our souls, which sends them forth from heaven and transmigrates them, wandering on earth from bodies to unsuitable bodies before descending or ascending, as each of them was unfortunate or fortunate in its inclination?

Did not even the daimonion that attended Socrates, which he obeyed throughout his life, reveal to you, our philosopher, what their enlightenment was? Nor were you able to perceive from the serpent that appeared to the Platonic Plotinus as he was dying, what their enlightenment was and what the attendant daimonion was, which he, calling the divine within himself, as he says, strove to lead up to that divine both in life and at his death? But listen to Pythian Apollo and you will learn from where their enlightenment came; for when Amelius, the companion of Plotinus, asked where his soul had gone after he had departed life, Apollo himself "wove honeyed sounds for his gentle friend," and turning to the very soul of Plotinus, among other things, he sang this as well: "often have the immortals, granting a frequent ray of light, led the flights of your mind, striving by their own impulses along crooked paths, up through straight-coursing cycles and the boundless ambrosial way; now (p. 500) that you have been loosed from your tabernacle and left the tomb of your daemonic soul, you come now to the daemonic assembly."

Did you see from where their light comes and with whom he enrolls their souls? And what wonder is it if, with the father of lies, darkness is shown as light for the purpose of deceit, and names, the crooked and the straight, are deceitfully interchanged along with the things themselves? But you, who along with Apollo call those men enlightened, perhaps you might persuade us to live according to the precepts of Plato and Socrates, since when Proclus the Lycian was celebrating these rites annually, a light was once seen by his fellow initiates running around his head. But that light showed us again its origin, as did the creeping serpent that appeared around his very head when he was already dying, and he himself, while still alive, did not disdain to declare from where that light had shone upon him. For by using Chaldean purifications, as he himself says, he "conversed with luminous, self-revealed phantoms of Hecate"; "but the phantoms of Hecate," says the true theologian, "are dark." Do you see clearly how that light is darkness itself?

This, then, is a greater and clearer scandal than the former. For if we should accept that Socrates and Plato were seers of God, taught by God, and enlightened by God, just as you yourself claim, and that those who heard the divine declarations from them and believed are admirable and enviable on account of their choice and persuasion and reverence towards them, then we too must emulate them and believe those men, so that we might become, if not among the knowledgeable, at least among the admirable and blessed. So then, we shall approve divination among the best of human practices, and we would be shown to be pleasing to the most prophetic (p. 502) Phoebus, holding as certain the proclamation of our wisdom and its pre-eminence over many or all, a proclamation that is derived from there.

And what speech could still have the strength to recount the other forms of deceit and the string of wicked doctrines and the rubbish-heap of shameful and evil passions and the unholy stains impressed from these upon those who presume to call those men enlightened? Do you not hear the one who says, "Cast out for me the ideas of Plato,"

100

πιότητος διαρκῶς ἐφικέσθαι τῆς ρίζης, φέρ᾿ ἴδωμεν ἀπό τῶν καρπῶν αὖθις, δηλονότι τῶν ἔργων, τόν Σωκράτους καί Πλάτωνος καί τῶν κατ᾿ αὐτούς φωτισμόν. Πόθεν οὖν τοῦτον ἀκριβῶς ἐπιγνῶμεν; Ἆρ᾿ ἐκ τῶν νόμων τῆς ἀθεμιτογαμίας ἤ τῶν ἔργων τῆς παιδεραστίας ἤ τῶν περί θεούς καί δαίμονας καί ἥρως δογμάτων ἤ τῆς τῶν ψυχῶν ἡμῶν κατακεχυμένης τερατολογίας ἐκείνης, ἥ προχεῖ ταύτας οὐρανόθεν καί μετεγχεῖ, πλαζομένας ἐν γῆς ἀπό σωμάτων εἰς σώματα μή κατάλληλα πρίν καταδῦναι ἤ ἀναδῦναι, ὡς ἑκάστη τούτων ροπῆς ἐδυστύχησεν ἤ εὐμοίρησεν;

Οὐδέ τό συμπαρομαρτοῦν τῷ Σωκράτει δαιμόνιον, ᾧ καί διετέλει διά βίου πειθόμενος, ὑπέφηνέ σοι τῷ καθ᾿ ἡμᾶς φιλοσόφῳ τίς ἐκείνων ὁ φωτισμός; Οὐδ᾿ ὑπό τοῦ φανέντος δράκοντος, τοῦ πλατωνικοῦ θνήσκοντος Πλωτίνου, συνιδεῖν ἐδυνήθης τίς ἐκείνων ὁ φωτισμός καί τί τό συνόν ἐκείνοις δαιμόνιον, ὅ θεῖον ἐκεῖνος καλῶν τό ἐν αὐτῷ καθάπερ αὐτός λέγει, θεῖον ἀνάγειν ἔσπευδε πρός ἐκεῖνο καί διά βίου καί τελευτῶν; Ἀλλ᾿ ἄκουσον Ἀπόλλωνος τοῦ Πυθοῖ καί μαθήσῃ πόθεν ἐκείνοις ὁ φωτισμός˙ ἐρομένου γάρ Ἀμελίου τοῦ Πλωτίνου ἑταίρου, ποῦ κεχώρηκεν ἀποβεβιωκότος ἡ τούτου ψυχή, Ἀπόλλων αὐτός «ἀμφ᾿ ἀγανοῖο φίλοιο μελίχρους ὕφηνε φωνάς», καί πρός αὐτήν ἐπεστραμμένος τήν Πλωτίνου ψυχήν πρός τοῖς ἄλλοις ᾖσε καί ταῦτα˙ «πολλάκις σοῖο νόοιο βολάς λοξοῖσιν ἀταρποῖς ἱεμένας φορέεσθαι ἐρωῇσι σφετέρῃσιν, ὀρθοπόρου ἀνά κύκλους, ἄμβροτον τ᾿ οἶμον ἄπειραν ἀθάνατοι θαμινήν φαέων ἀκτῖνα πορόντες˙ νῦν (σελ. 500) δ᾿ ὅτε σκῆνος μέν λύσαο, σῆμα˙ δ᾿ ἔλειψας ψυχῆς δαιμονίης, μαθ᾿ ὁμήγυριν ἔρχεαι ἤδη δαιμονίην».

Εἶδες πόθεν ἐκείνων τό φῶς καί τίσι συντάττει τάς ἐκείνων ψυχάς; Τί δέ θαυμαστόν εἰ παρά τῷ τοῦ ψεύδους πατρί τό μέν σκότος πρός ἀπάτην δείκνυται φῶς, μεταβάλλει δ᾿ ἐψευσμένως εἰς ἄλληλα μετά τῶν πραγμάτων καί τά ὀνόματα, τό λοξόν τε καί τό ὀρθόν; Σύ δ᾿ ὁ μετά τοῦ Ἀπόλλωνος πεφωτισμένους ἐκείνους ἀνακαλῶν, τάχα κάι πλατώνεια καί σωκράτεια πείσαις ἄγειν ἡμᾶς, ἐπεί Πρόκλου τοῦ Λυκείου ταῦτ᾿ ἐπετείως ἄγοντος φῶς ὡράθη ποτέ τοῖς συμμύσταις τήν κεφαλήν αὐτοῦ περιθέον˙ ἀλλά τοῦτ᾿ ἔδειξεν ἡμῖν τό φῶς αὖθις ὅθεν ὁ περί τήν αὐτήν αὐτοῦ κεφαλήν φανείς ἕρπων δράκων, ἤδη τελευτῶντος αὐτοῦ, καί αὐτός δέ οὐκ ἀπηξίωσεν ἔτι περιών ἐξειπεῖν ὅθεν τό φῶς ἀνέλαμψεν ἐπ᾿αὐτόν ἐκεῖνο. Καθαρμοῖς γάρ χαλδαϊκοῖς, ὡς αὐτός φησι, χρώμενος «ἑκατικοῖς φάσμασι φωτοειδέσιν αὐτοπτουμένοις ὡμίλησε»˙ «τῆς δέ Ἑκάτης σκοτεινά» φησιν ὁ ἀληθής θεολόγος «τά φάσματα». Ὁρᾷς τρανῶς, ὅπως τό φῶς ἐκεῖνο σκότος ἐστίν αὐτόχρημα;

Τοῦτ᾿ ἄρα τοῦ προτέρου σκανδάλου μεῖζον καί ἐναργέστερον. Εἰ γάρ θεόπτας καί θεοδιδάκτους καί ὑπό Θεοῦ πεφωτισμένους εἶναι Σωκράτεις καί Πλάτωνος καταδεξαίμεθα, καθάπερ δικαιοῖς αὐτός, καί τούς παρά τούτων ἀκηκοότας τάς θείας ἀποφάνσεις καί πιστεύσαντας θαυμαστούς καί ζηλωτούς τῆς προαιρέσεως ἕνεκα καί πειθοῦς καί αἰδοῦς τῆς πρός ἐκείνους, ζηλοῦν καί ἡμᾶς ἀνάγκη τούτους καί πιστεύειν ἐκείνοις ὡς εἰ μή τῶν ἐπιστημόνων, τῶν γοῦν θαυμασίων καί μακαριστῶν γενοίμεθα. Ταῦτ᾿ ἄρα μαντείαν μέν τοῖς ἀρίστοις ἐγκρινοῦμεν τῶν ἐπιτηδευομένων ἐν ἀνθρώποις, ἀρεστοί δ᾿ ἀποφανθείημεν τῷ μαντικωτάτῳ (σελ.502) Φοίβῳ, τήν ἀνάρρησιν τῆς καθ᾿ ἡμᾶς σοφίας καί τοῦ κατ᾿ αὐτήν πολλῶν ἤ πάντων διαφέρειν ἐκεῖθεν ἀναδεδομένην ἔχοντες βεβαίαν.

Καί τίς ἄν ἔτ᾿ ἰσχύσαι καταλέξαι λόγος τά ἄλλα τῆς ἀπάτης εἴδη καί τόν ὁρμαθόν τῶν κακοδόξων δογμάτων καί τόν συρφετόν τῶν αἰσχρῶν καί πονηρῶν παθημάτων καί τάς ἀποματτομένας ἐκ τούτων ἀνιέρους κηλῖδας τοῖς πεφωτισμένους ἐκείνους ἀξιοῦσι λαλεῖν; Οὐκ ἀκούεις τοῦ λέγοντος, «βάλλε μοι Πλάτωνος τάς ἰδέας»,