The Dissertations of Maximus Tyrius

conviction that the most sublime truths are profaned when clearly unfolded to the vulgar. This must necessarily be the case; for, as Socrates observes in Plato, it is not lawful for the pure to be touched by the impure, and the multitude are neither purified from the defilements of vice nor from the darkness of twofold ignorance Twofold ignorance occurs when a man is ignorant of the fact that he is ignorant.. Hence, being doubly impure, it is as impossible for them to perceive the splendors of truth as it is for an eye buried in mire to survey the light of day.

The depth of this philosophy does not appear to have been perfectly penetrated by anyone other than the immediate disciples of Plato for more than five hundred years after its first propagation. For though Crantor, Atticus, Albinus, Galen, and Plutarch were men of great genius and made no common progress in philosophical attainments, they do not appear to have fully developed the profundity of Plato’s conceptions; they did not withdraw the veil which covers his secret