Page:Life of plotinus by porphyry.pdf/14

 a personal, original view, applying Ammonius' method to the investigation of every problem.

He was quick to absorb; a few words sufficed him to make clear the significance of some profound theory and so to pass on. After hearing Longinus' work On Causes, and his Philarchaios, he remarked: "Longinus is a man of letters, but in no sense a philosopher."

One day Origen came to the conference-room; Plotinus blushed deeply and was on the point of bringing his lecture to an end; when Origen begged him to continue, he said: "The zest dies down when the speaker feels that his hearers have nothing to learn from him."

15.

Once on Plato's feast I read a poem, "The Sacred Marriage"; my piece abounded in mystic doctrine conveyed in veiled words and was couched in terms of enthusiasm; someone exclaimed: "Porphyry has gone mad"; Plotinus said to me so that all might hear: "You have shown yourself at once poet, philosopher and hierophant."

The orator Diophanes one day read a justification of the Alcibiades of Plato's Banquet and maintained that the pupil, for the sake of advancement in virtue, should submit to the teacher without reserve, even to the extent of carnal commerce: Plotinus started up several times to leave the room but forced himself to remain; on the breaking up of the company he directed me to write a refutation. Diophanes refused to lend me his address and I had to depend on my recollection of his argument; but my refutation, delivered before the same audience, delighted Plotinus so much that during the very reading he repeatedly quoted: "So strike and be a light to men."

When Eubulus, the Platonic Successor, wrote from Athens, sending treatises on some questions in Platonism, Plotinus had the writings put into my hands with instructions to examine them and report to him upon them.

He paid some attention to the principles of Astronomy, though he did not study the subject very deeply on the mathematical side. He went more searchingly into Horoscopy; when once he was convinced