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miracles of the other, and only sought to invalidate their authority by referring them to evil spirits, we cannot wonder at the frequency of the claim, on the one hand to miraculous gifts, on the other to theurgic power. But Julian, like Plotinus and Porphyry, rose above the mysteries of common theurgy, and upon Mount Casius in Syria, was admitted to communion with the Supreme God.

We have already seen that Julian was attracted to Maximus Ephesius, by the report which Eusebius Myndius made of his theurgic power. He related, that, in the temple of Hecate, Maximus by incantations, accompanied with the burning of a few grains of frankincense, caused the image of the goddess to smile, and lightning to descend and set fire to the torches in her hands. Under the Christian emperors, as long as the Platonic sect was strong enough to be an object of suspicion, theurgists were compelled to conceal their rites and operations. Proclus at last laid claim to all the powers of his predecessors. By his prayers, offered in the temple of Æsculapius, the daughter of Asclepigenia was revived from the very point of death. In one vision the spirit of Plutarchus appeared to him, and revealed the term of his life; and in another, Syrianus forbade him to write commentaries on the Orphic hymns. In his youth, when he was dangerously ill, Apollo Telesphorus appeared to him, and restored him to health by touching his head, and so vanished; and in his later life, Esculapius came and kissed his knees in a fit of the gout, and the disease never returned. This instance of Divine favour, Proclus could never relate without tears. By incantation and the use of the magic iynx, he relieved Attica from drought; he stopped an earthquake; and, as a symbol of the divinity of his exalted nature, Rufinus, a man of rank, upon casually entering his school, saw his head surrounded with a glory. Isidorus, one of the last teachers of the Platonic sect, was one of the last monuments of its magic. He was bathing with his friend Asclepiodotus in the Mæander, and they were carried away by the stream: but Asclepiodotus found means to turn his eyes to the sun, and utter an invocation to Mithras, and they were immediately conveyed to land.

It is not at all our purpose to assume the Platonic chair, and to become teachers of the theurgic art. Its principles and details may be found in the work of Iamblichus upon the Mysteries. In the second section, especially, he explains the different modes in which Gods, Archangels, Angels, Dæmons, Archons, Heroes, and Spirits, appear; and enters at great length into the variety of their forms, and the different degrees and species of light with which their apparitions are

accompanied. It is even amusing to see his familiarity with all sorts of superhuman beings. Of the nature and offices of these beings, there is a tolerably lucid account translated from Porphyry, in Taylor's Dissertation on the Orphic Theology, PP: 58 64.

Note. This Essay was originally designed for an Introduction to the Romance of Eros and Anteros; but it has gradually grown into a separate article of no inconsiderable length. The Romance was suggested by a display of magical power, related in the life of the Philosopher Iamblichus, where he is said to have raised from two fountains Eros and Anteros, or the Genii of Love and Reciprocal Love; and it was thought advisable to prefix to it some illustrations of the philosophy and superstition of the last age of Paganism.

H. M.

EROS AND ANTEROS,

A Platonistic Romance.

"He who from out their fountain dwellings raised

Eros and Anteros at Gadara."-LORD BYRON's Manfred.

EUMOLPUS and Eucharis were a youth and virgin of Grecian descent, whose parents dwelt in Palestine, in the city of Tiberias. Eucharis was the fairest of the maidens, and Eumolpus the most beautiful of the youths. They were born in contiguous houses, and in infancy had played together on the terraced roofs. Together they had amused themselves with the mimicry of labour amidst the festivities of the vintage; or, while Eucharis sat nestling in the bowers formed by the low and spreading vines, Eumolpus wandered among the rows to cull the richest clusters for her little basket. He wove garlands of vine-leaves for her hair, and twined for her a little thyrsus; and then with shouts and laughter they sported like the Bacchanals, whom Eucharis had seen embossed upon her father's wine-cups. Hand-in-hand the children wandered along the shore of the smooth and limpid lake*; and Eumolpus picked up the little twisted shells, and strung them into necklaces and bracelets for his beautiful companion. Their parents delighted to see them dance together in the evening; and when Eucharis had braided her long raven hair, and stained with crimson dye the nails of her

* See an account of the Buccinum Galilæum, found on the shores of the lake of Tiberias, in Dr. Clarke's Travels, Part ii. chap. xiv p. 473.

hands and naked snow-white feet, she twined round her ancles the chains of shells which Eumolpus had given her, and listened with childish pleasure as their ringing kept time to her light and graceful motions. Eucharis was still a child, when Eumolpus had almost passed the age of boyhood. He was distinguished by his grace and agility in the exercises of the Grecian Palæstra; but he had acquired also the accomplishments of eastern countries. With a slight bridle he could manage the most fiery horse, and suddenly stop or turn him in the midst of his impetuous career. At full speed he could hurl the javelin with unerring certainty; and his delight was to astonish Eucharis by the strength with which he drew the bow, and the ease with which his arrows overtopped the highest palms. His thirst of knowledge was insatiable. He mastered with facility all that could be taught him by the sagest instructors of Tiberias; and he came home in the evening to amuse his little wondering play-fellow with Plato's golden dreams of the Elysian Fields, the Atlantic Island, or, the Music of the Spheres. His tutors predicted that he would be a great philosopher; and that so promising a genius might not want cultivation, his parents resolved that he should receive the instructions of wisdom in the schools of Antioch. He bade farewell to his friends at Tiberias; and tears stood in the eyes of the graceful youth, not only when he parted from his parents, but when the little girl, with whom he had spent so many happy childish hours, flung her arms round his neck, and, kissing him for the last time, told him to come back soon, that they might again ramble together on the borders of the lake.

Eumolpus went, but he returned not soon. Eager in the pursuit of knowledge, he became dissatisfied with the philosophers of Antioch, and passed to Greece and Rome. He mused over the visions of the Athenian Mystic by the banks of the Ilissus, and beneath the plane-trees of the Academy; and perused the sceptical speculations of his Roman rival amidst the ruined porticos of the deserted Tusculan. When he had satiated himself with the collected wisdom of the capital of the world, he sailed for Asia, and his parents with eagerness awaited his return. Eumolpus, however, came not; and years were added to his absence, before he arrived in an Alexandrian vessel at Cæsarea, and bent his way to his humble birth-place. He had bewildered himself in the mysterious speculations which Pythagoras and Plato had borrowed from the wisdom of the east; and he had resolved himself to accomplish the mighty pilgrimage to the sources of the troubled and polluted stream of divine and human knowledge. He had watched the stars in the ancient Chaldee land, and, amidst

the ruins of Babylon, had gathered from the remnant of a scattered race the relics of their forgotten science. He had deciphered the characters of elder time engraven in the halfburnt and blackened temples of Persepolis. He had worshipped with the Bactrian Magi at the fountains of eternal fire, and had been initiated in the secret wisdom of Zoroaster. From the Brachmans he had learned the three-fold mystery of the Creator*, the Preserver, and the Destroyer; and he had beheld their gigantic figurest, older than all traditionary antiquity, rudely sculptured in the depths of the holy vaults of Elephanta: or, on the banks of the Ganges, he unrolled the silken scrolls which enfolded the speculations of Vyasat, till he doubted whether this material world, with all its pomp and beauty, were aught but an idea of the One Universal Mind. With the merchants of Taprobana and Barygaza, who conveyed to the western world the spices and the gems of their unknown regions, he had crossed the Erythræan ocean, and had inhaled the balmy odours of the Sabæan shore. He had shared the perils of their voyage amidst the coral rocks of the Arabian Gulf and weary of his wanderings, after worshipping in the temples of Isis and Serapis, he returned from Alexandria to that home, and those friends, whose memory he had fondly cherished in his voluntary exile.

Eight years had passed since Eucharis wept at his departure; and they had changed the little playful girl into a woman of majestic beauty. Her forehead was high and thoughtful; her laughing eyes were saddened into a look of sweet austerity; the habitual expression of her delicatelyformed mouth seemed calm but pensive silence; her figure was tall and stately; and every step and action was full of graceful dignity. Upon him also eight years had worked their changes. He was no longer the beautiful youth, who, in the wantonness of boyish frolic had assumed a female garb, and mingled undiscovered in the choral dances of the grove of Daphne. His cheek was pale, his brow bronzed; and his vigils and his wanderings had left on it the traces of thought and suffering. His figure was moulded with all the firmness and precision of manly strength. His short black beard curled strongly round his haughty lips; and there was a restless flashing in his dark and overshadowed eyes, betokening thoughts which he held not in common with other men. Eucharis had

* Brahma, Veeshnu, and Seeva.

The cavern of Elephanta bears no resemblance to any other Hindoo works; but the three figures in its recess are supposed to represent the three great divinities.

See a beautiful sketch of the philosophy of Vyasa, in Mr. Grant's Poem on the Restoration of Learning in the East,

dwelt in his memory only as the play-thing of his boyish fondness; from her mind, amidst the habitual intercourse of domestic affection, the remembrance of the beautiful youth had been almost obliterated. They met with even more than the strangeness of strangers; and parted with a coldness that formed a painful contrast to their last farewell. But Eumolpus was determined to love; and soon began to trace in the beautiful woman a resemblance to the girl whose image had remained impressed upon his mind. All the lineaments of that image, to which there was no longer an answering reality, became fainter and fainter in his fancy; and he thought of Eucharis only as he now saw her, in all the loveliness of womanly beauty and reserve. He did not indeed forget their childish fondness; but he loved her with all the passionate ardour of his enthusiastic temper. Eucharis was terrified by his vehemence; and the more earnest the expression of his feelings, the more reserved and cold she seemed to become. She might at first, perhaps, shrink instinctively, when one who was now a stranger, assumed the language of an object of early and familiar affection. There might, perhaps, be a mixture of feminine caprice and pride in the disdain with which she regarded the young philosopher, whose researches and adventures had made him the theme of every tongue. She would not seem even to shun him. With indifference she beheld his approach and his departure. With indifference she mingled with him in general society. With indifference she listened to the vows, which with low melodious voice he breathed into her solitary ear. She would not even seem to perceive that she was the envy and the wonder of all the virgins of Tiberias. It was in vain that Eumolpus spoke of their childish sports. It was in vain that he told of all his wanderings; of the gorgeous cities and the beautiful wildernesses in which he had sojourned; of temples, towers, and palaces; of endless groves of spices, and islands of perpetual bloom; of rivers, to which Jordan was but a bubbling rill; and mountains at whose feet Libanus with all its cedars would be scarcely distinguished from the plain. It was in vain that he called up the wild sweet airs of many a distant land upon the slant chords of the Syrian harp, and adapted to their various harmony the praises of his beautiful mistress. Even the music of the spheres could not move her now; and he gained nothing but a cold and weary smile, when his philosophical enthusiasm betrayed him into an encomium of the wisdom of the † Zendavesta, or the institutions of the Indian

*Juven. Sat. iii. v. 63.

+ The Manual of the Philosophy of Zoroaster.

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