Abstract
In Plato’s corpus, the Greek word ἐξαίφνης appears precisely thirty-six times. Translated generally as “all of a sudden” or “the instant” in his Parmenides, ἐξαίφνης emerges in some of the most significant passages of Plato’s dialogues. Put simply, ἐξαίφνης connotes illumination of the highest realities and philosophical conversion experience. In addition to providing a review of Plato’s conception and use of ἐξαίφνης in Parmenides, Republic, Symposium, and the Seventh Letter, our paper brings an ancillary link to light. Namely, the appearance of ἐξαίφνης as a mark for conversion experiences in the New Testament’s Acts of the Apostles and Plotinus’s Enneads. We reveal how the same pattern and employment of ἐξαίφνης established by Plato emerge in both Acts and the Enneads. This pattern suggests a prolonged period of thinking and training, followed by a flash of understanding. Thus ἐξαίφνης, as evidenced by our survey of its strange instantiation in Plato’s dialogues and then subsequently in Acts and the Enneads, becomes a sign for enlightenment, assimilation with the divine, and conversion experience.
Highlights
IntroductionWill this be our life-long work, to convert to the pursuit of excellence those who have not yet converted so that they in turn may convert others? Plato, Clitophon 408e
Will this be our life-long work, to convert to the pursuit of excellence those who have not yet converted so that they in turn may convert others? Plato, Clitophon 408eThe earliest known civilization in human history tells of the dramatic conversion of Gilgamesh
The above examples offer a transcendent, otherworldly kind of conversion experience narrative, when Plato describes the illumination of the highest realities in his Seventh Letter, he warns those reading this account against “an exaggerated and foolish elation, as if they had discovered something grand” (341e5–6)
Summary
Will this be our life-long work, to convert to the pursuit of excellence those who have not yet converted so that they in turn may convert others? Plato, Clitophon 408e. A demanding exercise, and as a result, he gained an insight that prompted his return to Uruk, fate accepted, and the turning around of his life’s purpose In both religious and philosophical contexts, conversion involves a fundamental change or reorientation in one’s way of life and values. While Plato’s Parmenides offers the only conceptually sustained, thematic treatment of ἐξαίφνης in the dialogues, the most remarkable examples of the thirty-six appearances of ἐξαίφνης in Plato’s works illustrate a methodical, step-by-step process of philosophical education climaxing with a sudden and illuminating conversion experience. The cave allegory represents the crowning moment of the philosopher-king’s education and training, and if participation does happen in an instant, one could anticipate an appearance of ἐξαίφνης in Republic VII. Friendship and philosophical education sparks a sudden (ἐξαίφνης) illumination experience. The transformation of the true doctrine’s participant commences a new beginning as the participant emerges “on fire with philosophy” and capable of self-sustained study.
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