Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

2/0 THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOMthe world of which they are cognisant, matter being itsgeneral foundation. At the same time he did awaywith that original duality of principles, and deducedin the last resort everything from one supreme cause.But his invisible world was triply graduated. Firstthere was the Primal Bein^, exalted above all existenceand thought: secondly, there was Mind, comprehendingthe pure thoughts into which it parts itself : thirdly,there was Soul, the supersensuous being which has apropensity to Matter. In these three principles heincluded all the powers of the invisible world.As to the conception of the Primal Being by Plo-tinus it may be 1 summed up in the triple descriptionof the Infinite, the One and Good, and the AbsoluteCause of all things And In this lie seemi to haveemployed in fact the three philosophical methods forreaching the knowledge of God, though he nevernames them, the way of negation, the way of emi-nence, and the way of causality, which afterwardscame, through the so-called Dionysius Areopagites, intousage in the Christian schools. The conception ofthe Infinite belongs to the first way, that of the Oneand the Good to the second way, that of AbsoluteCausality to the third way It2 is especially inthe last that his conception becomes intelligible : aswhen he says, that only the conclusion from ect tocause leads us to the Primal ^^^^^B^ Being. As the Good isnot seldom described as the cause of all things, so itis called infinite power, the power from which everythingis derived. It is this3 point of view whichespecially rules in Plotinus the relation of the finite tothe infinite. As * the Primal Being is conceived to beefficient power, it necessarily produces another down1 Zeller, v. 429. 2 Ibid. v. 439. 3 Ibid. v. 440. 4 Ibid. v. 441.