Note 020 The Platonists admired the beginning of the Gospel of St. John, as containing an exact transcript of their own principles. Augustine, The City of God, x. 29. Amelius apud Cyril. advers Julian 1. viii. p. 283. But in the third and fourth centuries the Platonists of Alexandria might improve their Trinity by the secret study of the Christian theology.

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Note to Chapter 21 of Decline and Fall by Gibbon