Therefore we must ascend again towards the Good, the desired of every Soul. Anyone that has seen this, knows what I intend when I say it is beautiful. Even the desire of it is to be desired as a Good. To attain it is for those that will take the upward path, who will set all their forces towards it, who will divest themselves of all that we have put on in our descent: – so, to those that approach the Holy Celebrations of the Mysteries, there are appointed purifications and the laying aside of the garments worn before, and the entry in nakedness – until, passing on the upward way, all that is other than the God, each in the solitude of himself shall see that solitary-dwelling Existence, the Apart, the Unmingled, the Pure, that from which all things depend for which all look and live and act and know, the Source of Life and of Intellection and of Being. (Plotinus, The Enneads, Ennead I, Treatise 6, Chapter 7, in the Loeb Classical Library edition, translated by A.H. Armstrong.)
