Page:The religion of Plutarch, a pagan creed of apostolic times; an essay (IA religionofplutar00oakeiala).pdf/121

 God should be contained in discourses connected more or less with the temples and traditions of the god. In the discussion, for instance, on the syllable "E" written over the narrow entrance of the Amphictyonic Temple at Delphi, Ammonius is represented as expressing views of the Divine Nature which are unsurpassed for sublimity in any other part of Plutarch's writings, or even in Greek literature generally. We quote them here as embodying Plutarch's beliefs on the Unity, Eternity, and Absoluteness of the Divine Nature. "Not then a number, nor an arrangement, nor a conjunction or any other part of speech, do I think the inscription signifies. It is rather a complete and concise form of address, an invocation of the God, bringing the speaker with the very word, into a conscious recognition of His power. The God salutes each of us, as we approach His shrine, with the great text, 'Know thyself,' which is His way of saying [Greek: chaire] to us; and we in our turn, replying to the God, say [Greek: ei]—'Thou art,' thus expressing our belief in His true and pure and incommunicable virtue of absolute being. Now we must admit that God absolutely is; not that he is with reference to any period of time, but with reference to an immovable, immutable, timeless eternity, before which there was nothing, after which there is nothing, in respect to which there is neither future nor past, than which there is nothing older or younger. But being Unity, the Unity that he is now is the same Unity with which he occupies eternity; and nothing