There is no base superstition which Abamnon does not
unconsciously justify. And yet he is rapidly losing sight of the real
eternal human germs of truth round which those superstitions clustered,
and is really further from truth and reason than old Homer or Hesiod,
because further from the simple, universal, everyday facts, and
relations, and duties of man, which are, after all, among the most
mysterious, and also among the most sacred objects which man can
contemplate.
It was not wonderful, however, that Neoplatonism took the course it did.
Spirit, they felt rightly, was meant to rule matter; it was to be freed
from matter only for that very purpose. No one could well deny that.
The philosopher, as he rose and became, according to Plotinus, a god, or
at least approached toward the gods, must partake of some mysterious and
transcendental power. No one could well deny that conclusion, granting
the premiss. But of what power? What had he to show as the result of
his intimate communion with an unseen Being? The Christian Schools, who
held that the spiritual is the moral, answered accordingly. He must
show righteousness, and love, and peace in a Holy Spirit. That is the
likeness of God.
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