[102:1] "Tidings have reached us that Valerian has been defeated, and is now in the hands of Sapor. The threats of Franks and Allemanni, of Goths and Persians, are alike terrible by turns to our degenerate Rome." (Plotinus to Flaccus; quoted by Vaughan in his Half hours with Mystics, p. 63.)
[103:1] The element of ecstacy which could have appealed to some minds was thrown into the background by the later teachers of Neo-Platonism, so that it became a mere system of thought having no human interest. Says Whittaker:—"The mystical ecstacy was not found by the later teachers of the school easier to attain, but more difficult; and the tendency became more and more to regard it as all but unattainable on earth." Neo-Platonism, p. 101.
[107:1] Sura 2, v. 146.
[108:1] Sura 2, v. 2.
[108:2] Sura 51, v. 20, 21.
[108:3] Sura 50, v. 15.
[108:4] Sura 24, v. 35.
[108:5] Sura 42, v. 9.
[109:1] Sura 17; v. 87.
[109:2] Sura 88; v. 20.