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,
[Greek:
. . . . . paroithe de pallas Athene
Chryseon lychnon echrusa phars perikalles epoiei.]

Before thee Pallas Athene bore a golden cresset and cast a most lovely
light. Telemachus having observed that certainly some one of the celestial
gods was present,
[Greek:
Emala tis deos endon, of ouranon euryn echousi.]

Verily some God is within, of those that hold the wide heaven. Ulysses
says in reply, "Be silent, restrain your intellect (i.e. even cease to
energize intellectually), and speak not."
[Greek:
Siga, kai kata son noon ischana, med' ereeine.]

Hold thy peace and keep all this in thine heart and ask not hereof.
--Book 19, Odyssey.

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 triad, that he is not to be connumerated
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 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 so