IV. Plato as a Mystic

The Platonic view of the universe sets out to be knowledge that by its very nature is religion. It brings knowledge into relation with the highest to which man can attain through his feelings. Plato admits the validity of such knowledge only when feeling may be completely satisfied in it. It is then not abstract knowledge, it is the substance of life. It is a higher man within man, that man of which the personality iS only an image. Within man himself is born a being who surpasses him, the archetypal man; and this is another secret of the Mysteries brought to expression in the Platonic philosophy. Hippolytus, one of the Church Fathers, alludes to this secret: “This is the great secret of the Samothracians (who were guardians of a certain Mystery-cult), which cannot be expressed and which only the initiates know. But these latter Speak in detail of Adam, as the primordial, archetypal man.”