It was a curious scene,a cosmopolitan confusion of Egypt,Rome,Isis,table-turning,the late Mr.Home,religion,and mummery,while Christian hymns of the early Church were being sung,perhaps in the garrets around,outside the Temple of Isis.The discovery that he had a god for his guardian angel gave Plotinus plenty of confidence in dealing with rival philosophers.For example,Alexandrinus Olympius,another mystic,tried magical arts against Plotinus.But Alexandrinus,suddenly doubling up during lecture with unaffected agony,cried,"Great virtue hath the soul of Plotinus,for my spells have returned against myself."As for Plotinus,he remarked among his disciples,"Now the body of Alexandrinus is collapsing like an empty purse."How diverting it would be,Lady Violet,if our modern controversialists had those accomplishments,and if Mr.Max Muller could,literally,"double up"Professor Whitney,or if any one could cause Peppmuller to collapse with his queer Homeric theory!
Plotinus had many such arts.A piece of jewellery was stolen from one of his protegees,a lady,and he detected the thief,a servant,by a glance.After being flogged within an inch of his life,the servant (perhaps to save the remaining inch)confessed all.
Once when Porphyry was at a distance,and was meditating suicide,Plotinus appeared at his side,saying,"This that thou schemest cometh not of the pure intellect,but of black humours,"and so sent Porphyry for change of air to Sicily.This was thoroughly good advice,but during the absence of the disciple the master died.
Porphyry did not see the great snake that glided into the wall when Plotinus expired;he only heard of the circumstance.Plotinus's last words were:"I am striving to release that which is divine within us,and to merge it in the universally divine."It is a strange mixture of philosophy and savage survival.The Zulus still believe that the souls of the dead reappear,like the soul of Plotinus,in the form of serpents.
Plotinus wrote against the paganizing Christians,or Gnostics.Like all great men,he was accused of plagiarism.A defence of great men accused of literary theft would be as valuable as Naude's work of a like name about magic.On his death the Delphic Oracle,in very second-rate hexameters,declared that Plotinus had become a demon.
Such was the life of Plotinus,a man of sense and virtue,and so modest that he would not allow his portrait to be painted.His character drew good men round him,his repute for supernatural virtues brought "fools into a circle."What he meant by his belief that four times he had,"whether in the body or out of the body,"been united with the Spirit of the world,who knows?What does Tennyson mean when he writes:
"So word by word,and line by line,The dead man touch'd me from the past,And all at once it seem'd at last His living soul was flashed on mine.
And mine in his was wound and whirl'd About empyreal heights of thought,And came on that which is,and caught The deep pulsations of the world."Mystery!We cannot fathom it;we know not the paths of the souls of Pascal and Gordon,of Plotinus and St.Paul.They are wise with a wisdom not of this world,or with a foolishness yet more wise.
In his practical philosophy Plotinus was an optimist,or at least he was at war with pessimism.
"They that love God bear lightly the ways of the world--bear lightly whatsoever befalls them of necessity in the general movement of things."He believed in a rest that remains for the people of God,"where they speak not one with the other;but,as we understand many things by the eyes only,so does soul read soul in heaven,where the spiritual body is pure,and nothing is hidden,and nothing feigned."The arguments by which these opinions are buttressed may be called metaphysical,and may be called worthless;the conviction,and the beauty of the language in which it is stated,remain immortal possessions.
Why such a man as Plotinus,with such ideas,remained a pagan,while Christianity offered him a sympathetic refuge,who can tell?
Probably natural conservatism,in him as in Dr.Johnson--conservatism and taste--caused his adherence to the forms at least of the older creeds.There was much to laugh at in Plotinus,and much to like.But if you read him in hopes of material for strange stories,you will be disappointed.Perhaps Lord Lytton and others who have invoked his name in fiction (like Vivian Grey in Lord Beaconsfield's tale)knew his name better than his doctrine.His "Enneads,"even as edited by his patient Boswell,Porphyry,are not very light subjects of study.