eriod; it brings about the dissolution of that which marked the
culminating point of ancient life, that which we are wont to call
specifically classic. The life of the spirit, till then conceived as a
member of an ordered world and subject to its laws, now freely passes
beyond these bounds, and attempts to mould, and even to create, the
universe from itself. No doubt the different attempts to realise this
desire reveal, for the most part, a deep gulf between will and deed;
usually ethical and religious requirements of the naive human
consciousness must replace universally creative spiritual power, but all
the insufficient and unsatisfactory elements of this period should not
obscure the fact that, in one instance, it reached the height of a great
philosophic achievement, in the case of Plotinus."]

[Footnote 456: Plotinus, even in his lifetime, was reproached with
having borrowed most of his system from Numenius. Porphyry, in his "Vita
Plotini", defended him against this reproach.]

[Footnote 457: On this sort of Trinity, see Bigg, "The Christian
Platonists of Alexandria," p. 248 f.]

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Adolph Harnack

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