Note 61 — ON ABSTINENCE FROM ANIMAL FOOD. BOOK THE SECOND.

This expression of “approaching alone to the alone God,” Porphyry derived from his master, the great Plotinus, who divinely concludes his Enneads as follows:—και ουτω θεων και ανθρωπων θειων και ευδαιμονων βιος, απαλλαγη των αλλων των τῃδε, ανηδονος των τῃδε, φυγη μονου προς μονον—i.e. “This, therefore, is the life of the Gods, and of divine and happy men, a liberation from all terrene concerns, a life unaccompanied by human pleasures, and a flight of the alone to the alone.”