VII. Let us, therefore, reascend to the good itself, which every soul desires; and in which it can alone find perfect repose. For, if any one shall become acquainted with this source of beauty, he will then know what I say, and after what manner he is beautiful. Indeed, whatever is desirable is a kind of good, since to this desire tends. But they alone pursue true good, who rise to intelligible beauty; and so far only tend to good itself, as far as they lay aside the deformed vestments of matter, with which they became connected in their descent. Just as those who penetrate into the holy retreats of sacred mysteries, are first purified, and then divest themselves of their garments, until some one, by such a process, having dismissed every thing foreign from the God, by himself alone, beholds the solitary principle of the universe, sincere, simple, and pure, from which all things depend, and to whose transcendent perfections the eyes of all intelligent natures are directed, as the proper cause of being, life and intelligence. With what ardent love, with what strong desire will he who enjoys this transporting vision be inflamed, while vehemently affecting to become one with this supreme beauty? For thus it is ordained, that he who does not yet perceive him, yet desires him as good: but he who enjoys the vision, is enraptured with his beauty; and is equally filled with admiration and delight. Hence, such a one is agitated with a salutary astonishment; is affected with the highest and truest love; derides vehement affections, and inferior loves, and despises the beauty which he once approved. Such, too, is the condition of those, who, on perceiving the forms of gods or daemons, no longer esteems the fairest of corporeal forms. What then must be the condition of that being, who beholds the beautiful itself? In itself perfectly pure,1 not confined by any corporeal bond, neither existing in the heavens, nor in the earth, nor to be imaged by the most lovely form imagination can conceive; since these are all adventitious and mixt, and mere secondary beauties, proceeding from the beautiful itself. If, then, any one should ever behold that which is the source of munificence to others, remaining in itself, while it communicates to all, and receiving nothing, because possessing an inexhaustible fullness; and should so abide in the intuition, as to become similar to his nature, what more of beauty can such a one desire? For such beauty, since it is supreme in dignity and excellence, cannot fail of rendering its votaries lovely and fair. Add too, that since the object of contest to souls, is the highest beauty, we should strive for its acquisition with unabated ardor, lest we should be deserted of that blissful contemplation, which whoever pursues in the right way, becomes blessed from the happy vision; and which he who does not obtain, is unavoidably unhappy. For the miserable man, is not he who neglects to pursue fair colours, and beautiful corporeal forms; who is deprived of power, and falls from dominion and empire; but he alone who is destitute of this divine possession, for which the ample dominion of the earth and sea, and the still more extended empire of the heavens, must be relinquished and forgot, if, despising and leaving these far behind, we ever intend to arrive at the substantial felicity, by beholding the beautiful itself.
In itself perfectly pure. This is analogous to the description of the beautiful in the latter part of Diotima’s Speech in the Banquet; a speech which is surely unequalled, both for elegance of composition and sublimity of sentiment. Indeed, all the disciples of Plato arc remarkable for nothing so much as their profound and exalted conceptions of the Deity; and he who can read the works of Plotinus and Proclus in particular, and afterwards pity the weakness and erroneousness of their opinions on this subject, may be fairly presumed to be himself equally an object of pity and contempt. ↩