Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

202 THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOMsensuous and supersensuous world. He is so stronglyconvinced of their existence that he not only creditsthe simplest stories of demon apparitions, but canhimself tell of such apparitions, which he has had ina waking state. The human soul likewise is of divineessence, but is imprisoned in the body during itsearthly life, and experiences a sort of dream-state, outof which it only incompletely wakes to the remembranceof its true being. It is only in the future lifethat it may hope for a purer knowledge of the truth,and an immediate intuition of " the divine." Maximussees in the many kinds of divination a proof of thedivine care for man, / uniting f^j it as he does with thefreedom of the will by the assumption that only whatis necessary is foretold unconditionally. Sensuousrepresentations of the godhead by images and mythsare defended as helps which most men need, and poetsare praised on this ground as being the most ancientphilosophers. The particular form of the image isin itself indifferent, but Maximus finds his people'sartistic preference of the human form the worthiest.Syria was the mother of Maximus, and Africa producedin Apuleius of Mad aura one very similar to himin philosophical character. Hel names as the firstgrounds of being the Godhead, Matter, and Ideas.The Godhead, the perfect Spirit, is ineffable and immense,exalted not only above all passion, but alsoabove all activity. Ideas are simple and eternal forms,the incorporeal patterns of things. Next to God andthe Ideas, he calls Eeason, or Mind, and the Soul, abeing of higher nature, though we are not to seek inhim for a definite gradation of divine forces. LikeMaximus he places gods and demons between the1 This analysis is from Zeller, v. 190.