I5-9E

CHIEF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHIES. ^

NEOPLATONISM

BY

BIQG,

13.

D.

CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD.

PUBLISHED UNDER. THE DIRECTION OF THE GENERAL LITERATURE COMMITTEE.

4

LONDON:
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE,
NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE,
W.C.
;

43;

QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C

BRIGHTON: NEW YORK: E. &

129,
J.

NORTH STREET.

B.

YOUNG

& CO.

1895.

RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED, LONDON & BUNGAY.

CONTENTS
CHAP.
I.

STOICISM

9
.27

II.

THE PYTHAGOREANS

III.

THE PLATONISTS, ATTICUS,

PLATONISTS,

ETC.

46.

IV.

NIGRINUS, .DION

CHRYSOS63
81

TOMUS
V."

PLUTARCH
CELSUS
...
...

VI.
VII.
viii.

98
119

THE NEOPLATONIC TRINITY

"HELLENISM"

IX.

X.
XI.

THE GNOSTICS AND APOLOGISTS THE ALEXANDRINES

PLOTINUS
1
I.

80

XII.
XIII.

XIV.

THE WORLD -OF SENSE THE WORLD OF SENSE II. THE INTELLIGIBLE WORLD
DOCTRINE OF GOD
GOD, HIS

...

191

... ...

201
2I 3

XV.
XVI.
XVII.
XVIII.

225
...

NATURE AND OPERATIONS MAN IN NATURE ... THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL

24 I

25

259

Vlll

CONTENTS
PAGE

CHAP.

XIX.

ETHICS

...

266
273

XX.
XXI.
XXII.
XXIII.

ON BEAUTY
VISION
...

279
292

PORPHYRY
IAMBLICHUS AND THE MEN OF JULIAN THE SCHOOL OF ATHENS ... ... LATER INFLUENCE OF PLATONISM ON THE CHURCH ... ... ...

302
317

XXIV.

XXV.

334

NEOPLATONISM
STOICISM

IN

this little

volume

it

is

proposed to run over the

history of the later Platonism, a large

and

intricate

not possible subject. to enter fairly upon the task without a brief review of Stoicism. This school of thought, the Porch, as it is
it is

But, narrow as are our limits,

often called, from the Painted Porch at

its
first

Athens where

professors lectured, was founded in the third

century before Christ, by Zeno, Cleanthes and Chrysippus, and was predominant in Rome from the time
of

Nero

to

that

of

Marcus Aurelius.

It
still

affected

Platonism partly by direct influence, but

more by

way of
In

re-action.

days of Epictetus, under the Flavian emperors, the only schools, that could be regarded as serious rivals of Stoicism in the capital, were the
the

Academics and the Epicureans. disciples of Aristotle, were, he tells

hearted

Peripatetics,
us,

the

few and
all.

faint

Plato himself was hardly rea4 at

10

NEOPLATONISM

tarians in morals.

The Epicureans were atomists in science, and utili They taught that the world was made by the fortuitous aggregation of infinitesimally
small particles of matter, and they admitted no standard of right or wrong but pleasure. They did not deny

the existence of gods

but they held that the gods

were made
world.

in exactly the

same way

as everything else,

and took no
a careless

part whatever in the government of the They sat around their nectar," and lived
"

"

life."

Hence

regarded

as

atheists.

representatives of the doubters. They had learned from Plato himself to

distrust the senses,
to distrust reason.
judgment," or,

commonly The Academics, degenerate Academy of Plato, were universal

conflict of opinions
"

the Epicureans were

and from the

Their maxim was,

"

as Pliny expresses

it,

Suspend thy only one thing is

certain, that

nothing is certain." Epicureanism is not necessarily coarse. Men may in spite of be utilitarians without being swine,"
"

Horace.

But
its

it

is

Even

of

modern
Mill

social

necessarily selfish and relative. form the form given to it

by Mr.
his

J. S.
is

this is true.

Men differ in
is

their ideas

of what

agreeable,

and each

supreme judge

in

own

case.

Hence, though the pursuit of pleasure

it

may

establish a coterie,

cannot build a society or

organize a state.

Epictetus attacks Epicurus. He charges him with denying the great moral truth of But the natural brotherhood of man with man."
It is at this point that
"

These audacious now, he proceeds, see what happens who would destroy the obvious and wholethinkers,
!

STOICISM

1 1

some

facts

of

human

nature, are compelled

by that

very nature to assert the very facts which they deny. "What does Do not be mocked, Epicurus say?

There is no natural brotherhood good people. between one reasonable being and another, believe me. Those who tell you this are deluding you. Well, but what does it matter to you ? Let us be deluded.
Will you be any the worse off, if the rest of the world is a natural brotherhood, and that they ought zealously to cherish this faith ? Nay, it
believes that there
will

be

far better

and

safer for you.

?

Good
lie

sir,

why
our

trouble your head about us

Why

awake

for

sake?

Why

light

write books, lest

your lamp, and get up early, and we should be deluded into thinking

that the gods care for men, or lest we should imagine that the Good is something else, and not pleasure ? If
that be so, go to bed and sleep, live like the worm whose equal you make yourself; eat, drink, and snore. Why should you care what others think about these For what bond is there between us and things?
you?"

Epicurus takes pains to

Surely, says Epictetus,
it

make people
is

follow pleasure.

Nature herself who thus

smites
the

convicts

him out of his own mouth. With the same weapon the Stoic
of doubt.
"

apostles

If

were the slave of an

Academic, I would plague him finely, though I were to be flogged for it every day of my life. Bring me for the bath. I would take oil, boy, he would say,
fish-sauce,

and pour

it

over him.
fortune,
I

What

is

this?

he

would

cry.

By my

would answer,

my

NEOPLATONISM
tell

senses

me

that

it is oil.

my
this

barley-water.

Or again, Boy, give me would bring him a bason full of

*

brine.
is

Did

barley-water.

not call for barley-water? Yes, sir, Is not this brine, sirrah ?
?
it
*

not barley-water cries he in a fury, take

Why

Take
taste

it
it.

and smell

it,

and

And

what,

sir, is

O,

if

the good of that, if our senses deceive us ? I had three or four fellow-slaves of the same
as rnyself, I

mind

would make him hang himself or

that

recant."

It is the

same argument

with a grin against the idealist a man may question the existence of an objective cause of sensation without denying the reality of the
sensations themselves.

coxcombs urged Berkeley, and no doubt

"
"

But these lively passages show the position taken up by Stoicism against very clearly The Stoic agreed its two most formidable opponents.
with the Epicurean, that sense and reflection upon the data of sense are the two sources of all that we can be
said to

know.

As

against the Academic, he insisted

if

that both can be trusted,

we have learned

to use

against the Epicurean, he maintained aright. that reflection on the order of nature teaches us that

them

As

there

is

God

that reflection

on the mind of man

that reflection

teaches us that

it

contains a faculty, the reason or con

;

science, which ought to bear rule

on

life

shows that we are

to

one another.

owing certain duties The sum of these reflections is what

social beings,

the Stoic
great

meant by
" "

nature.

When
"

he enunciated his

maxim,

Live according to
state of nature

Nature,"

he was not
fhilosQ^

thinking of the

of the French

STOICISM

13

which we some phe, still less of the animal instincts times call natural. By Nature he intended that which is
best in man.
for thy
guide."
"

Follow

Nature,"

means,

"

take Reason

The Roman
in
this

Stoics cared

little

for theory, differing

in

probably from

their

brethren

Greece.

Epictetus impressed upon his disciples hardly anything beyond the necessity of strict moral discipline. Logic was useful in the last stage to clear the mind of correct false impressions, and read correctly cant," to
"

the lesson taught by experience ; yet, even for this limited purpose, its usefulness was dubious. Simple

men, he thought, were better without intellectual and accomplishments, which sometimes puzzled them,
sometimes puffed them up. Epictetus is particularly It emphatic in his disparagement of book-learning. in the bath, in bed, above all in fever and sick is
"

ness, that a

or

is a philosopher has no patience with the man who Books are time to read. complains that he has no a means to tranquillity, and where is the tranquil only is called if one is to fret and fume every time he
not."

man shows whether he

He

lity,

away from

his

books
that

Still

less

can he tolerate the

"

man who
a-crown
?

boasts that he

you not know

knows the whole volume

his Chrysippus.
is

Do

worth but

half-

And

he

who can

explain

it all is

worth no

spirit Marcus and be no more writes, "Pitch away your books, So too Musonius within." "Look distracted."

more than the

volume."

In the same

Rufus.
"

says,

Those who are to be true philosophers," he do not need many words, nor should young
"

14

NEOPLATONISM
attempt to learn
this welter

men

of theorems on which

the sophist plumes himself. In truth, this is enough to wear a man s life out. thing

kind of

What

is

most necessary and useful a farmer can

all

learn, for after

he
*

is

not always at
last

work."

These
that
if

God

words remind us of Tyndale s saying, spared his life, he would cause a boy that

driveth the plough to

than great
Bible and

doctors."

know more of the Scriptures Erasmus again, in the preface

"

to his Paraphrases, spoke in a similar strain of the

I long that the husbandman should sing portions of them to himself as he follows the plough that the weaver should hum them to the
its

contents.

tune of his shuttle

that the voyager should beguile ; with these stories the tedium of his journey."
Stoic,

Both thought Stoic is very close. necessary beliefs are few, and attainable by the simplest man, without any help from instruction or
that the
authority.
It

simplify and the

dogma.

Humanist, and Reformer were all anxious to The resemblance between Tyndale

Roman

may be

that the

Roman

Stoics did not wholly

creed, and this latitudinarianism enables them to smooth off many of its angles, and use language which, in their mouths, could have no real

believe their

own

Nevertheless the creed meaning. hundreds have read Epictetus and

is

there,

though

Marcus without

perceiving it. The Stoic theory of knowledge was very similar to that of Locke. What we know is, Firstly, a constant

stream of sensations, which

is

poured into us from

STOICISM
without

we form from
thirdly,

secondly, those general conceptions which sensations, such as a man, a cow

infers

propositions or judgments, which the mind from these conceptions. Sensations are the
:

whole raw material of thought there is nothing in the mind which does not come into it through the inlet of
the senses,
All the

mind

contributes

is

the power of

remembering, grouping, distinguishing.

they said,
writes
is
"like

letters

The mind, a sheet of paper that works." Sense upon it, and it shakes these letters

together into syllables, words, and sentences. Like the stomach, it receives food and digests it, but, in the
Stoic view, contributes nothing of its own. Nevertheless the Stoic, again like Locke, was a
realist.

He

but believed

"

did not doubt the truth of his senses, that it is the actual receiving of ideas

from without, that gives us notice of the existence of other things, and makes us know that something doth exist at that time without us, which causes that idea in
us,

how

though perhaps we neither know nor consider it does But he carried his principle further
it."

than Locke, and maintained that the objects of which we have cognizance by sense are the only real exist ences ; that nothing can be said to be unless it is

apparent to sense. The two great questions of ancient, and indeed of

all
is

philosophy, are

What

is

that which

is ?

and What
it is ?

that faculty (criterion)

by which we know that

Here, accordingly, the Platonist joined issue with the Stoic. The Platonist insisted that sense knows
nothing but sensations, and can
tell

us nothing what-

NEOPLATONISM

ever about the object that produces the sensations, just as the sight of the bright picture on the screen tells us nothing about the magic lantern behind the
screen.
"

It is

most

"

wonderful,"

says Plotinus,

that

the

Stoics,

who prove
is,

assert that that

everything by sense, should which sense has no power to grasp."

is

In

fact,

the Stoic realism

untenable, unless

we

are

justified,

on the ground of mere experience, in asserting that everything must have a cause. According to the Platonist, the word must introduces a law not of
matter but of mind.
a universal.

Experience cannot guarantee

We

are here on the great dividing line

The
"

of thought, where the two main schools part company. Stoic compared the mind to a sheet of paper
that
works,"

but did not accurately explain

how

it

works, whether it does, or does not, bring something of its own to the work. Upon this all turns.
Still

more vehemently did the Platonist object

is

to the

Stoic tenet, that the cause of sensation

really,

that which
"

and therefore

that

which alone,

exists.

They

"that which put in the forefront," says Plotinus again, ov ; not the has but a hypothetical existence (TO and true exist non-existent), as if it were the real
/*>}

ence, and put the last

is

first.

The reason
else."

is

that sense

and they rely upon it for the foundation of their principles, and everything According to the Platonist the marks of true existence are eternity and unchangeableness. But the object of sense is for
their guide,

As you put out your finger to touch it, ever shifting. Hence the one thing it has become something else. All else that exists, and can be known, is mind.

STOICISM
only in so
far as
it

exists,
life
it is

"participates"

in the true

of thought.

It

can be known, only

in so far as

as it is ordered knowable, that is to say, in so far for our knowledge by the indwelling and prepared mind. In itself it is neither Being nor Not-being,

the //} ov. but something that hovers between the two, and formless, infinite, without qualities It is

shapeless know that it exists in a sense, but of any kind. It must be there, but a bastard reasoning." only by

We

"

we know nothing about it. Thus to the Platonist the

"in

mind, to the Stoic it is terms of matter," the Platonist almost, mind terms expressed matter but not
"in

is object of knowledge The Stoic expressed matter.

altogether,

of

mind."

as different

and extension Spinoza regarded thought but the Stoic was modes of one substance,
"

an absolute materialist.
upon,"

are

he said, is excluded by this theory of Being.

is

Whatever acts or is acted a body." Both Theism and Deism

"

Accordingly

the Stoic was a Pantheist.

God, the absolute Being,

is

Himself material.
that
is is

He
His

aether, the finest air,

still

or

"spirit,"

"breath,"

but

has extension and shape, and

tangible.

The Stoics shape is the sphere, the perfect shape. in Him an active and a passive, force distinguished
and the manifestation of
force,

natura naturans and

natura naturata, but both were material. Out of God when at fixed intervals all things are evolved into Him,
;

the cycle
"

is

accomplished,

all

great

conflagration."

He

things are absorbed by a is immanent in the world,

is

and is

to the world

what the soul

to the body.

"

Mens

NEOPLATONISM

agitat

molem et magno se corpore miscet." The mode of creation or evolution was explained by the Logoi, or "words," which are a modification of the Platonic
Idea.

The Idea was at first conceived as a pattern or shape, which the Creator impressed upon matter, as a seal upon wax. The Word is a force, or principle of
a sort of seed (hence the spermatic Word), which fructifies matter and moulds it from within.
"

"

life,

God Himself
all

is

the

vital forces.

This
all

Word of words, the sum-total of mode of expression was after

Platonists,

wards adopted by
writers use
it

though the heathen

In Philo and only in a physical sense. Christian literature, and in a few non-Christian writers
like

Hermes Trismegistus, who show distinct traces of Christian influence, the Word is used as a Divine title,
meaning.
the Stoic, in fact, God was Natural Law, and his other name was Destiny. Thus we read in the

in a sense very unlike its Stoic

To

famous hymn of Cleanthes Lead me, O Zeus, and thou too, O Destiny, whithersoever ye have appointed
"

for me to go. And if I refuse

all

For

will follow

without hesitation.
but I shall follow

I shall

become
is

evil,

the

same."

Man

himself a part of the great

world-force, carried along in its all-embracing sweep, like a water-beetle in a torrent. He may struggle or he may let himself go, but the result is the same,

except

that, in the latter case,

is

he embraces

his

doom,

and so

at peace.

Stoics often use personal language of God. He cares for Father, King, our Escort in life. His martyr and servant. Epictetus sings the praises

The
is

He

STOICISM
of

19

For what else can I do, a lame old man ? were a nightingale I would play the part of a But now I am that of a swan. nightingale, if a swan

God

"

If I

a reasonable being.

must sing praises

to

God."

But

all

this

Cleanthes.

be understood in the sense of Such language, like much that we read

is

to

at the present
testifies to

day on the adoration of Nature, merely the impossibility of religion, or indeed of But emotion is personal, morality, without emotion. and we may say of Epictetus, what Epictetus said of

the Sceptics, that his own words proclaim the truth which his theory denies. Plotinus said of the Stoics,
to be in the they only brought God in, in order not really want Him. When Justin fashion." They did
that
"

Martyr
himself
I

set out
first

on the quest
"

after

truth,
"

to a Stoic,

but,"

says he,

when

he applied I found

could learn nothing from him about God (for he knew nothing himself, and maintained that this doctrine

was unnecessary),

I quitted

him and went

to
is

another."

The
the

religious

language of the Stoics

again in another way,

"

because by

God

deceptive they often mean

God within, the intelligence, which is to every man as a demon," or guardian angel. Indeed, they made no real difference between God and the soul. bit broken The soul was God, fragment,"
"a
"a

off"

Such a a piece of the extended and divisible Deity. part would be the same in kind as any other part, and hence the Stoic maintained that the wise man was in
no way
as
inferior to Zeus.
for
"Dion,"

they said,

"does

much

God

as

God

for

Dion."

Thus worship

becomes egotism.

20

NEOPLATONISM
Like

God

himself, the soul of

of the Stoics was material.

halation of the blood.
it

man in the opinion Some called it an ex

was

in

any

true sense immortal.

They could hardly hold that One of the signs

of the times was the craving for a future life, but the Pantheist could not satisfy .it. Indeed the later
Stoics
are

more

sceptical
all

than

their

forerunners.

Cleanthes held that

conflagration,

souls lived

on

till

when they would be absorbed

the cyclic into the

divine substance, the Heraclitean fire. Chrysippus confined this limited immortality to the souls of the wise ; but Epictetus passes the subject over without

a word.

Man
is

dies

to the well

broken.

the pitcher that went so often Aurelius doubts, but does not

actually deny.

At one time he speaks of the soul as death into the Seminal Word, the World Spirit; at another he calls death "perhaps an extinc tion, perhaps a change of abode."
absorbed
at
It is

is no place or for humility. Another way of ex pressing the same defect is to say that Stoicism leaves

obvious that in such a system there

for aspiration,

no room for Revelation. Locke too felt this difficulty. He was no Pantheist, but his sensational principles leave the human reason no other office than that of
verifying the credentials of the divine message.

God

mind
that

is

different

from our mind.

If

we

are sure

He

has spoken,

we must
it

as a mystery, though

has no

accept the utterance vital relation to the

painful inductions of experience.

ist

But the Panthe

made man
s

God

mind.

mind a homogeneous sample of There could be no mystery at all.

s

STOICISM

21

This to the
Stoicism.

Platonist

was

the

great

offence

of

The
called

disputed question, whether Stoicism is to be a religion, depends therefore on the prior

there

question, whether

can be a religion without

worship.
stern belief in a present

Pantheism cannot be hedonic, because it holds the God it cannot be altruistic,

;

because

its

God

is

within.

Hence

this system,

which

seems

to attain to

morality than it but practically the world

is

an absolute unity, no sooner touches God is the world ; splits into two.
is

against
is

God, because God

I.

also the

I,

and the world

"

against the

Hence
or, as

Stoicism issued

in defiance of

the world,

in

it

they often called it, the flesh." We may discern the first Western philosophy of suffering, for its

bent was clearly decided by that purpose.

find happiness, so the
runs.

Man

must

argument must be absolutely in his own power. But pleasure he cannot command pain he cannot avoid ;
ness
;

If so, happi

therefore he must renounce pleasure,

and bear pain

without
evil
;

wincing.

Externals

are

neither

good nor

happiness and misery depend entirely on our own will. We can think this if we choose, and, if we think so, it is so.
It
is

just here

that

Buddhism

joins
real,

hands with
the other as

Stoicism
unreal
;

One

regards the world as

"

but both are Pantheistic, and both are systems

Whosoever,"

of resistance.

said

Buddha,

"

shall

adhere unweariedly to this law and discipline, he shall cross the ocean of life, and make an end of sorrow."

22
"

NEOPLATONISM
:
!

And again Rise up sit up what advantage is there in your sleeping? To men ailing, pierced by the darts of sorrow, what sleep indeed can there be ? Sloth is defilement, to be ever heedless is defilement.
!

By

earnestness

sorrow"

and wisdom root out your darts of (Rhys Davids, Buddhism, pp. 79, 132). The and most inevitably
in its highest

resistance to pain implies the avoidance of pleasure,

which

inevitably,

form of love, leads to pain. This policy of defiance can only be carried out by withdrawing into the citadel of self. Hence both systems are strongly
individualistic.
"Be

lights

unto

yourselves,"

says

Buddha.
Pantheists,
ality.

"

Look

within,"

says the Stoic.

Both were
Both
not

and Pantheism seems

issue in

to destroy individu
self-assertion.

Yet both
be flouted.

extreme

refused to bear the burden of

life,

and

life

will

thus

But the

punishment of

his

Buddhist accepted the mistake with the amiable melan

choly of the Oriental, while the Stoic fought against it with the defiant self-reliance of the European. The
is seen most clearly in the patience, with which the Buddhist waited for a Nirvana to be at

difference

tained only after

"

many lives. The Stoic was always prepared to make his own Nirvana with his own knife. The door is always open," says Epictetus again and

again.

One

of the worst features of Stoicism

itself,

is

not

so

much

suicide in
last

as the theatrical effects with

which the

great act of defiance was deliberately

surrounded.

The

Stoics

had no grace, but they taught the manly

virtues of self-reliance, fortitude, justice, purity, truth,

STOICISM

23

and, in a way, renunciation with splendid emphasis.

But the
turn.
live

rift

in their

system makes
said Plutarch,

itself felt at
"that

"They teach,"

man

every should

according to

Nature.

Yet

all

that

we mean

in ordinary

play of our speech by Nature, rank among material and social environment, they And if these external circum indifferent.
all

the

things

stances,

which

in

themselves are of no import, turn

in killing himself. Surely against a man, he is justified not indifferent, but stupid, if she places is Nature can in no way beings in a scene that

thinking contribute

to

their

felicity,

and may lead

theory
evil,
is

to

their

self-destruction."

Again, evil in the Stoic If there were no Nature.

according to

there would be no

good

both are necessary to the constitution of the remarks the sage of Chaeronea, an whole. Yet," they a well-known saying of Goethe, ticipating
;
" "

spend

their

time in trying to jump off their

"

own

shadow."

Or again, Man they teach is a part of God yet some men are evil. As if the Deity were an animal whose legs should walk different ways." of man, but Epictetus insists on the sociability
;

Stoicism

is

the

most

unsociable

doctrine

ever

preached. friend, but tranquillity

Stoic

Pleasure can hardly be tasted without a The stands absolutely alone.

used magnificent language about the Worldwhich is full of friends City, the dear city of Zeus, much fruit in the enactments of and their words bore
;

the great Stoic lawyers.

But to him, as

to Carlyle,

24

NEOPLATONISM
"

mankind were
children as
"

mostly

fools."

snivelling
to cling

brats."

The
neck

Epictetus speaks of Stoic allowed no

;

weak hands
duties,

round

his

he would

suffer,

but for himself alone.

He

set a high value

;

on social

that they are

and discharged them faithfully but he taught mere relations," chance juxtapositions. A man must perform them, because it is the will of God, but they have no vital affinity to happiness.
"

They
very
"do

For the give experience, but nothing more. sorrows or sins of others the Stoic consoled himself
"

easily.

Such

men,"

says

Marcus Aurelius,
heard with the

such things of

necessity."

He

same placid smile of the infidelity of his wife, the martyrdom of Blandina, or the revolt of a province.

Had

he believed
Stoics

in the

would have thought more of the

immortality of the soul, he souls of others.

The

were

in

practice they insisted in the

that the will
is

theory determinists, but in most strenuous language

extent at least, that
it

free,

to this

can always, and at any moment, choose what is right. Not Zeus himself," says Epictetus, can conquer the will." Like a good king, a true father, he has
"
"

"

given us a will untrammelled, uncompelled; he has put it wholly in our own control, and not left even

himself the power to thwart or hinder It is curious to note the many points of similarity between Stoicism and Calvinism. The Stoics be
it."

lieved

in

instantaneous
"

conversion.

"

What,"

asks

if Lichas passed from vice to virtue Chrysippus, while hurled into the sea by Hercules like a stone

from a

"

sling ?

The words remind

us of the knight

STOICISM
"

25

between the stirrup and the who found mercy They divided mankind into two classes ground." who could do nothing right, and the the fool" "wise man who could do nothing wrong. They As well," they said, taught that all sins are equal.
:
"
"

"

"

be a mile under water as an

art,

inch."

They

dis

paraged literature and

assurance and final

and had disputes about Some of them perseverance.

of

were
In

antinomians

all

them

may be

called

solifidians.
its

finer

traits,

as

has often

been remarked,

Stoicism bears a striking, though superficial, resem blance to the Epistles of St. Paul, and it is, perhaps, more than a historical coincidence that its chief

was Tarsus. Few, if any, of its great were Greeks, and its whole tone was professors anti-Hellenic. But it was admirably suited to the
stronghold
rigid integrity of

the

thin abstractions of the old

Roman character, and to the Roman religion. Under

political

the early empire

dissenters
;

it

was the philosophy of the

for rebellion,
it

it

was framed
;

bear the sunshine

stifled

and could not ruined Seneca, and was itself

results, chief

by the purple of Aurelius. Stoicism left behind it many enduring

of which, for our purposes, are the Logos doctrine in physics, and in morals the conviction that man s

happiness must be sought in the perfection of his moral and intellectual nature. They inherited this
conviction from Socrates, but they deepened it im Their gospel is mensely, though in a one-sided way. that of the Strong Man, but it may be said that this

26 harsh
has

NEOPLATONISM
never been better preached
times.
in

evangel ancient or in

modern
is

Their

fault

that

they

refused
insists

to

accept

the

on finding perfect unity in this world, and the force with which it pulls together the subject and object results in their spring
facts.

teaching of

Pantheism

Hence it became evident ing more violently apart. that the point of union must be sought above, in the
conception of a
Not-I,
both.

God who made both the I and the who therefore is higher than either, and yet in Thus the craving of thought for the One is

satisfied,

made

and the opposition of mind and sense is susceptible of reconciliation ; there remains a
no longer a contradiction.
philosophical
is

difference, but

This

the

statement of the task

All the objections which
its

attempted by the Platonists.

rigorism,
its

they urged against the Porch,

with

individualism,
its

its

moral inconsistency,

incompatibility
in

in general, and with Hellenism flow from the same source. particular,

religion

II

THE PYTHAGOREANS

THE reaction against Stoicism was the work partly of the Pythagoreans, partly of the Platonists. The Plato himself names are not easy to distinguish.
"

pythagorized,"

and, towards the end of the second

century after
another.

Christ, the

two schools melt into one

Pythagoreanism were the love of sacred numbers and the ascetic life.
Pythagoras flourished
Christ,
in

The

distinctive features of

and Diogenes Laertius tells us those philosophers of his school were

"

the sixth century before that the last

whom

Aris-

toxenus

knew,"

of Tarentum.
Plato,

the disciples of Philolaus and Eurytus Philolaus was one of the teachers of

and the mystic arithmetic of the Timaeus prob comes from him. Another famous name is that ably
of Lysis, the tutor of Epaminondas. a treatise, no
Aristotle wrote

longer extant, on the Pythagoreans, and down to the end of the second century B.C. the sect attracted the attention of writers, among

whom

were Aristoxenus, Neanthes, Dicaearchus, and

Hermippus.

28

NEOPLATONISM

When we
and ceased

are told that the school disappeared, \ve

it

must understand that

to write.

renounced the

lecture-hall,

The Pythagorean

life

maintained

an apparently unbroken existence.

The
Christ,

earliest distinct traces of this ascetic discipline

meet us

in the literature of the fourth century before but they are at first connected rather with the name of Orpheus than with that of Pythagoras.

Herodotus

tells us,

that the Egyptian priests

would

not wear woollen garments in the temple, and were never buried in woollen,. agreeing in this with those
"

we call Orphics and Pythagoreans." Woollen garments were forbidden from some mystic dread of animal contamination. The Hippolytus of Euripides, the stepson of the wicked Phaedra, eats no flesh, and
that
lives in virgin chastity,

because he takes Orpheus

for

his king.

Plato

knew

a crowd of books ascribed to

Orpheus and Musaeus. Some thought that they were compiled, or interpolated, or invented by Onomacritus,

who tampered
It is

with

the

text

of

Homer, and was

for forgery.

banished from Athens by Hipparchus

curious that Aristophanes had nothing to say about these ascetics. They can hardly have been numerous in his day. hundred years later the

they are now distinctively called, afford great sport to the comic writers. The Pythago reans," says one of the characters in the Tarentines of

Pythagoreans, as

"

Alexis,

"as

we

hear,
life,

neither eat kitchen-stuff, nor

anything that has

"Well,
but,"

and they alone drink no

"

wine."

the

other replies,
eats
dogs."

Pythagorean, and he

"

Epicharides is a Aye, but not till

THE PYTHAGOREANS
he has
alive."

29

killed
"

them, and then they are no longer Eating dogs may be meant for demolish
"

"

ing

cynics."

The

wits

amused themselves with the

the
subtle disquisitions of

meagre

diet,

the silence,

the Pythagoreans, and even scoffed at

unwashed."

them

as

"the

This was hard, for they washed oftener

a long interval
Life.

than most people.

Again

after

we come

across

new

In Judaea it is thought by Zeller and Schiirer to have contributed to the rise of

evidence of the

Essenism.

In the West, Cato heard Nearchus, a

B.C.

Pythagorean, lecture at Tarentum in 209

translated the

Ennius

works of Epicharnms of Megara, a

comic poet of the fifth century, who interlarded his jokes with a dash of heavy philosophizing. Towards the end of the second or beginning of the
first

century before Christ, the school broke once

productiveness.

into literary

more About ninety Pytha

gorean treatises belonging to this period are enume rated by Zeller. They were nearly all pseudonymous.

Many

bore on their title-page names that belong to

the ancient history of the school, that of Pythagoras himself, of Brontinus his father-in-law, Theano his
wife,

Telauges his son.

Golden
in

A
a.

great

mass were attributed

to the old mathematician Archytas.

is

The

best

known
moral

the

Verses,

brief

collection
lines.

of

precepts

seventy-one hexameter

Another

famous

treatise is that of Ocellus

Lucanus, in which

a brief sketch

by some
tiful

of a pantheist system is succeeded quaint rules for the ensurance of a beau

progeny.

Ocellus

handed down

to the later

30

NEOPLATONISM

Platonic school the Aristotelian tenet of the eternity

of creation.

In the
in

first

Rome.

One

century of

B.C.
its

we

find

the school existing

P. Nigidius a voluminous

adherents was

Figulus, praetor and Pompeian,

writer,

who was

and enjoyed repute

Vatinius
is

as

astrologer,

prophet,

and magician.
boys.

charged by Cicero with

sacrificing little

calling himself a

Pythagorean, and
this,

If he really did

he was a mere necro

mancer.

Cicero himself wrote a Timaeus, in which

The Nigidius figures as one of the dramatis personae. learned Varro made frequent mention of Pythagoreanism, and the no less learned Alexander Polyhistor,

who

flourished at

Rome

between

B.C.

So and

B.C. 62,

has left us an account of certain Pythagorean Com mentaries, which are of particular value, because they
are thought to have been known to Aristotle, and in that case reach back beyond the apocryphal literature.

Pythagoras taught his disciples every evening, when What have I done they came back home, to say What duty have I done ? What have I left amiss ? Not to offer victims to the gods, but to undone?"
"

swear by worship only at bloodless altars; not to the gods, but to live so that all men would believe
their

To revere elders to honour gods before and heroes before men, and parents before all heroes, To live so with one another as to make other men. friends of enemies, and never to make enemies of
word.
;

friends.

To

call

nothing their own

;

to support the

law

to resist lawlessness
is

to destroy

that plant, nor any beast

not hurtful to man.

no cultivated That

THE PYTHAGOREANS

31

with uproarious modesty and discretion consist neither

To avoid fullness of face. laughter, nor with a sullen flesh ; to practise the memory ; neither to say nor do in a passion ; to respect all (or not at all)
anything kinds of augury; to sing hymns to the lyre, and To cherish a grateful remembrance of good men. avoid beans because they are windy, and so near akin
to things that

have

soul.

Wind and

soul,

it

should be
(-Trvevfia)

noted,
in

may be

expressed by the same word

Greek.

In respect of doctrines, Polyhistor tells us, his book of all things, taught that Monad was the beginning

and
the
is

that out

of the

Monad came
is,

into

being the

Indefinite Dyad, which

as

it

were, the matter for

Monad,

the Cause, to
it

work upon.

The Monad

constantly the ; The Indefinite Dyad, or reappears in this sense. Two, is matter not yet shaped and ordered. It will be noticed that Polyhistor s authority speaks of it as
is

One God

a phrase which

evolved out of the One, which

Platonism.

is

Pantheism and not

Out of the One and Two spring the other and from these points, lines, superficies, and numbers, solids. Hence the world we know, which is animated,
intelligent,

and
is

spherical.

In the middle of

it

is

the

earth,

which

also spherical
is

and inhabited

all

round,

so that what to us

down,

is

to the antipodes up.

Thus

all

science, physical

and mental,

is

resolved

into arithmetic

and geometry.

The Pythagoreans had

everything, just
to

observed the numerical relations of musical sounds,

and found
as

them the explanation of a modern savant finds the clue

in

eternity

in

32
evolution.

NEOPLATONISM

They would have been

in

terested

the

immensely in combination formulae of modern

chemistry.

Like ourselves, they measured the great

the little known. They regarded number not as the manifestation of law, but as the law itself. To the Platonist law was the Idea, the thought of

unknown by

God. Both numbers and ideas are immaterial, and thus they were readily confused. But the numbers were not only mathematical and scientific, they were also religious, and had a life of their own derived
from

Judaea and

Babylonia.

They were

tricksy

sprites,

and we

shall see

what they made of Platonism

is

in the end.

The
broken

soul,
off"

the

Commentaries proceed,
"cold

a
/

"bit

the aether,

aether"
it

(^i/x
is

being

supposed to come from \I/ux w but because the aether is immortal. It

)>

immortal,

is

divided into

three parts, situated in different parts of the

body;

the intelligence, which inhabits the brain, is alone After death the soul still wears properly immortal.
the shape of the body. Pure souls are conducted by Hermes to the Highest ; impure souls dwell in
"
"

solitude, each

by

itself,

cut off from

all

communion

with their kind,

chains."

heroes, and by them are sent dreams and prognostications of health and sickness to man and beast. To them appertain lustral arid rites, augury, and omens. propitiatory
called

The demons and

by the Furies in adamantine whole air is full of souls ; these are

"bound

The Commentaries,

as

they stand, show

signs of
to

Stoic influence, quote the Golden Verses,

and give

THE PYTHAGOREANS

33

God

Hebrew

title,

"the

Highest."

Their exact

nature and date are uncertain, but we may accept them as perhaps the oldest existing monument of

Pythagoreanism.

Like the Golden

Verses, they

form

a sort of catechism or

manual adapted
is

to be learned

by heart; the philosophy

imperfect.

archaic, confused,

and

The Pythagoreans were

"cold

spiritualists, yet,

can be seen that they had soul," it only imperfectly grasped what is meant by spirit. Their system was more a religion than a philosophy ; in fact, it was not a system, but a handful of leading
ideas,

from the

which were

allied

through

the

doctrine

of

numbers

to Pantheism, yet could readily

be adapted

to Platonism,

and were

finally

absorbed by that school.

I

They immortality, in transmigration, in communion with God they believed in the unity of God as the author of all. They had all, in One
;

believed in

taken

schools,
say,

Eleatic One, a mere abstraction of the and made it an object of worship, that is to they had grasped the relation of science to faith.

the

But with this deity of the reason, not of the conscience, they combined all the gods and demigods of Poly created gods of Plato, a long range of theism, the beings of mixed nature, ranging from seraphic good ness to devilish maleficence. All were to be wor
"

"

shipped and propitiated, though not in the same way. Equal honours must not be paid to gods and heroes. The gods are to be worshipped at all times
"

with holy words, white garments, and purity ; the heroes only in the afternoon." Purity is to be attained by baths and sprinklings, and by avoiding things that

34
defile
forth.

NEOPLATONISM
the touch of a corpse, unclean food, and so
Flesh, wine,

and marriage are not absolutely but abstinence is to be understood as a prohibited, We observe further a love of counsel of perfection.
music, a pitifulness, a tendency to socialism and to
mysticism, generally a touch of art, of affection, of romance, that lead us very far away from the rigid common sense of Stoicism. The Pythagorean was
in
"

contact with the

touched with

emotion,"

unseen, and his morality was or in other words, was

religious.

Paganism elected
agnosticism

This was, naturally, the ground on which to do battle with the Church. The
utter

of the Porch, with its enthusiasm, had no chance at all.

lack

of

in

Pythagoreanism seems to have had no existence Rome itself during the first or even the second
it made great progress come to us from a later

elsewhere.

century after Christ, though Its chief records

little careful sifting they yield a clear of the ideas that were coming into vogue picture between the times of Augustus and Marcus Aurelius.

date, but with a

We

Christian character, the

have to do with two romances of markedly antilives of Pythagoras and of

Apollonius of Tyana. There were scores of lives of Pythagoras, of which

three are extant by Diogenes Laertius, Porphyry, and The last is perhaps the very worst lamblichus.

biography in existence. The truth is, that scarcely It is anything is known about this famous man.
probable that he himself never put pen to paper, but even this is disputed.

THE PYTHAGOREANS

35

He

was born about 580

or, as

B.C.,

Samian,

some

said, a

Tyrrhenian

son of Mnesarchus, a domiciled at ;

in all

Samos, taught by Pherecydes of Syros, initiated

That he the Greek mysteries, and a great traveller. visited Egypt in the time of King Amasis is certain ; in later times he was said to have made acquaintance
with Arabs, Chaldees, Hebrews,
Indians, Galatians,
in a word, all the inspired peoples of the East.
his long-continued voyage,

From

he returned to Samos, but,

disgusted with the tyranny of Polycrates, and finding by experience that a prophet has no honour in his

own

flourishing city,

country, he emigrated to Croton in South Italy, a famous in particular for its school of
its

medicine and for

enforced
electric

athletes.

There

his teaching,

by
effect.

his

striking

personality,

produced an
adopted
into a sect, or

Men
The

flocked

to hear him,

his practices,

and formed themselves

result
"

brotherhood.
passionate

was a widespread
incontinence

and
dis

moral

reformation,

appeared, luxury became discredited, and women hastened to exchange their golden ornaments for the
simplest
violent
attire" A change so (Grote, iv. p. 541). would excite many enemies, and hostility was embittered by the political activity of the new sect. A popular insurrection was headed by Ninon and Kylon the Pythagoreans were attacked in the temple
;

of Apollo, or the house of Milo

set

the building was and many perished in the flames. What fire, became of Pythagoras himself no man knew, but in the time of Cicero his tomb was shown at Metapontum.
;

on

,/The sect never again attained to power, though, as

36

NEOPLATONISM

we have

seen, it continued in a way to exist both in and elsewhere. Italy That Pythagoras was regarded in very early times as endowed with miraculous powers there can be no doubt. Hermippus treats him as an impostor on this very account, and by so doing testifies to the

belief of his followers. Pythagoras not only taught the transmigration of souls, but professed to know what had happened to himself and to others in

that

previous existences. Xenophanes of Elea tells us, once seeing a dog beaten, he desired the striker
"

It is the soul of a friend of mine, Another story tells recognize by the voice." that the soul of Pythagoras had inhabited the body

to forbear, saying,

whom

of Hermotimus, and

Apollo

in that shape recognized in temple at Branchidae the shield which, as Euphorbus, he had wielded in the Trojan war. He had a golden thigh, like Pelops, which he once showed
s

to Abaris as a proof of his divine

mission.

Later

writers

Some

supernatural character. said that he was son not of Mnesarchus, but of

"

added

greatly to his

Apollo and Parthenis, the

virgin

mother,"

and there

was a widespread

belief that

avatar of the sun-god.

On

he was, at any rate, an one occasion, when he

on Mount Carmel, the sailors, for him in the boat below, saw him return to waiting them floating over rocks and precipices. He began

had

retired to pray

his ministry by causing a miraculous draught of fishes, cured diseases by incantations, appeared at one and the same time at Metapontum and Tauromenium, and

died

after a fast

prolonged for forty days.

He

was a

THE PYTHAGOREANS
brother to the birds and beasts
;

37

an ox, into the ear

of which he had whispered, never ate beans any more, and a wild eagle perched upon his wrist, and allowed him to stroke its feathers. He was lord even of

inanimate nature, and

when he was

crossing the river

"

to him, Hail, Nessus, or Caucasus, the waters cried to doubt some of lamblichus professes
Pythagoras."

these miracles,

and

tells his

brethren that they went

god nothing was in he wishes to leave is, that credible. impression such things were possibly true of Pythagoras, but However, the stories certainly not true of our Lord.
too
far, in

believing that of a

The

were current.

To

the

first

received account

ascribed the century may probably be of the constitution of the Pytha

about Diogenes Laertius says nothing gorean sect. writers represent it as a strictly organized it, but other

body consisting of two

silence,

or three distinct classes.

Of

these the highest alone, after a novitiate of five years were admitted to the inner secrets of the
school.

The

initiated

are
signs,
rests

said to have

one another by secret masons. The account

like those of the

recognized Free

upon an idea, which had that philosophy was like long been gaining ground, the mysteries, and that every great teacher must have
esoteric as well as exoteric doctrines,
is

doctrines, that
difficult,

to say,

which are not merely more

but

more sacred than others, so that it is a sin to reveal them to the outer world. That the school had a
compact form that it had the
is

particular

highly probable from its history ; form ascribed to it in im-

30
perial times,

NEOPLATONISM

is The statements exceedingly dubious. of lamblichus and Porphyry have probably no other

foundation than the

clothe his
"

fact, that Pythagoras delighted to moral teaching in a parabolic form, in as they were called. Such were the symbols
"

maxims,

"not

to

jump over
"

the

steelyard,"

"not

to sit

upon

bushel,"
"

not

to

admit swallows into the

fire

house,"

not to poke the

s

with a

"

sword,"

not

to turn

one

face back

upon a journey," the explanation

to the ingenious reader.

of which

may be commended
classes

But
useful

the

distiplina

which never did exist, and the arcani which to a certain extent did, were

weapons against the Church, which had a some what similar organization in the division into baptized and catechumens, and guarded the Eucharist from
all

but the

first.

of the most attractive features of Pythagoreanon which the biographers with justice lay great ism,
stress, are
its

Two

the high value

it

sets

upon

friendship,

and

respect for

women.
too well

and Phintias

is

The romantic story of Damon known to need repetition but

;

many
large

similar, if less beautiful,

;

anecdotes were current

in the school

how

Clinias of

Tarentum collected a

sum

Prorus

of money, and sailed to Cyrene to rescue from bankruptcy ; how another brother re

warded the good innkeeper, who had nursed and piously buried a destitute traveller. Pythagoras was
reputed to have taught, that
common,"
tf

friends

have
self,"

all

in

and

that

"

a friend

is

another

and he

bequeathed a generous brotherly spirit to his disciples. Women, too, were the object of special care. The

THE PYTHAGOREANS

39

in great esteem, and Pythagoreans held chastity It was no as a special grace. looked upon celibacy doubt a consequence of their regard for sexual and that they treated women with a reverence
purity,

tenderness

They

unknown otherwise in the ancient world. believed them to be as capable of inspiration as

betray cluded in what we

men. They numbered women among their martyrs, such as Timycha, who bit her tongue out rather than and seventeen women are in her husband
;

may

call

the calendar of saints

Down to the last women con given by lamblichus. tinued to occupy a conspicuous place in the history
of the school.

The biography
lar to that of

of Apollonius of

Tyana
also
it

is
is

very simi
impossible

Pythagoras.
fact

Here

to

discriminate
life

from

fiction.

The

long

and

tedious
the

composed by
of Julia
early
in

Philostratus, in obedience to

command
call

Domna,
the

the wife of the

third

Emperor
is

Severus,

quite

century,

what

Germans
pose.
sets

a Tendenz Roman, a novel with a pur

Hierocles, early in the fourth century, expressly and there can be no Apollonius against Christ, doubt that this comparison was in the mind of
Philostratus also.

quotes a fine saying of Apollonius When you wish to discipline yourself, and it is hot and you are thirsty, take a mouthful of cold water and This is the sole notice it out, and tell nobody."
:

Epictetus

"

spit

man. He is by a contemporary of this remarkable at the age of a said to have died about 98 A.D., He wrote books on Sacrifice, and on hundred.

40

NEOPLATONISM

tion of a few lines.

to

Astrological Prediction, which are lost with the excep collection of letters attributed

him remains, but is of doubtful authenticity. All that we know with certainty is, that he was regarded as a perfect model of the Pythagorean life, and that he was credited with miraculous powers. For this last fact we can quote the testimony of his enemies. Moeragenes charged him with bewildering Euphrates the Stoic, and Lucian classes him as an impostor with
Alexander of Abonoteichos.

We may notice here a point of some importance. The Pythagoreans, though they believed in witch
craft, or magic, like that of Horace s Canidia, regarded the black art with a certain aversion. The miracu

powers, which they claimed for their most eminent men, depended, like those of the Buddhists, on extreme asceticism, and were never harmful. Hence it was possible for the Platonist Celsus,
lous

though
Lucian,
It is

believer

in

miracles,

to

write

"against

magicians,"

and

to

sympathize with the Epicurean

delighted in running down a charlatan. easy to see how Origen was led into the mistake of regarding Celsus as himself an Epicurean. What

who

was asserted by some against Apollonius and Alex ander, and by others against our Lord, was that their
signs

and wonders were the proof not of

iddhi, of

white and beneficent

art, but of the black magic of the magus, or the prestidigitation of the goes. The distinction is subtle, for though black magic might not

be used to do harm,

it

was held lawful to employ

it

against the black magic of wicked people.

THE PYTHAGOREANS

41

The

clearest glimpse that

a.

we

obtain of Apollonius,
"

on Sacrifices," is afforded by passage from his book the learned Eusebius in his Praeparatio quoted by a man wishes to pay fitting service Evangelica. and by that means to be singled out as an to the
"If

Deity, and goodness, he must offer to object of divine grace is One and that God, whom we called the First, who be after whom only can the other deities above
all,

at recognized, no sacrifice

he must kindle no fire, nor promise any earthly thing. For He needs nothing, nor is not even from beings that are higher than we or nourished there any plant, any creature, produced free from pollution. To Him by earth or air, which is man must offer only the better word, I mean that
all
;
;

which

not uttered by the from the most Beautiful of

is

lips,
all,

and ask good things by the most beautiful

faculty that

This faculty is intelligence, Therefore to the great and which needs no organ. at all must be offered." supreme God no sacrifices

we

possess.

The

writer distinguishes, in a

way

that

is

already

familiar to us, between the

One God and

the lower

gods, heroes,

and demons.

Inferior deities might be

The Lord of the reek of sacrifice. propitiated with but receives nothing. Here we have the All gives all, of Theism, united to what the sublimest
conception Fathers of the "Church
rightly

regarded as

devil-

the paganism out of which worship, yet soaring above

it

sprang.

But observe the price

this

at

which the heathen bought

The Father has become the Ineff high needs nothing," and cannot able, the Absolute, who
vision.
"

42

NEOPLATONISM

be thought, can only be seen, as a bright light, by the rapt intelligence, that is, by the intuitive power of the mind. The prayer offered to Him is no spoken
petition, but
"the

better
in

word,"

the voiceless gaze of

all

ecstatic

communion,
this

which

consciousness

is

suspended as in a trance.

Compare
"

with the language of the Psalmist

For Thou
;

desirest not sacrifice, else

would

I give

it

Thee but Thou delightest not in burnt offerings. The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit a broken
;

and

God, shalt Thou not despise." The Pagan God desired no sacrifice; but he knew For broken hearts there nothing of troubled spirits. was Cybele, or Isis, or Demeter, with the wild frenzy
contrite heart,

of their mysteries. It was their function to deaden for a time, for they could not cure, the anguish of the

trembling soul.

How
deceiver,

far

it is

Apollonius was deceived, and how far needless to inquire. He lived habitually

in that borderland of imagination, which is peopled with the creatures of fancy, and where nothing but the strong curb of Christian morality can save men

from delusion.
life,

We

need not recount

his fictitious

which

is

very

much

a replica of that of Pythagoras.

One scene

When Domitian

only deserves notice, that of his Passion. began to persecute the philosophers,

Apollonius sailed to Italy to beard the tyrant.

He

was denounced by Euphrates, the Stoic Pharisee, and

charged with having sacrificed a boy, with pretending to be God, and with speaking against Caesar. He

was not betrayed by a

disciple

Celsus treated the

THE PYTHAGOREANS
treachery of Judas as a proof of the

43

impotence of

Our Lord, who had not succeeded in persuading even His nearest adherents but Damis and Demetrius, two apostles who fill the place of St. Peter and St. Thomas, who doubt but do not deny, follow him to see
the end.

mocked and
from
sight.

Apollonius appears before the Emperor, is ill-treated, and challenged to save himself
accepts the challenge, and vanishes Such, thinks Philostratus, should have

by a miracle.

He

been the behaviour of our Lord.

impossible.

The

cross was

crucified Saviour

was to the heathen

mind

same thing as an ass-headed God. time after the accession of Nerva, Apollonius ascended into heaven. At what precise date he
the

Some

received divine honours received

we cannot

say,

but that he

them is certain. Caracalla built him a shrine, and Aurelian was prevented from destroying Tyana by a vision of Apollonius, who came to inter
cede
for his birthplace.
visitor,

The Emperor recognized his because he had seen his statue in so many
of Philostratus
is marked by great and attacks the heathen

fanes.

The romance

bitterness against the Stoics,

priesthood for their blind, unreforming obstinacy. Its purpose is to advocate a new paganism, the pro gramme of which was the union of Church and State

under the Emperor as

of bloody sacrifices,

God

vicegerent, the abolition

mythologies were to

and Apollonius for Messiah. All be recognized, and if Christianity

would come

To

in, a place should be found for it. the Pythagoreans of the first century belong

44
also the

NEOPLATONISM

names of Moderatus of Gades in Spain, and Nicomachus of the Arabian Gerasa. The latter was a mathematician of some note, and speculated largely
in

the

religious

significance

of numbers.

Perhaps

the reader will like to

know

exactly what this means.

One

denotes God, Intelligence, Form, and in religion Apollo (d-7ro\\a = not many), the Sun, or Atlas.

But as

evolved from the One, it also signifies In the first aspect it is the Matter, Darkness, Chaos. in the second the female element in creation ; male,
all is
is

hence the Supreme

masculo-feminine.

With

Two

begins multiplicity, the antithesis of the many to the one ; hence, this again stands for Matter, and, in re
ligion, for Isis or

Three is the first true Aphrodite. exhibits the proportionate harmony of beginning, middle, and end; hence the sacred triplets which we see everywhere, in art, in science,
number, because
it

and

in theology.

Four was
five

also a mystery
?

are there

not four quarters of the sky

are five fingers

and

So was Five, for there senses ; and Seven, for this is

number of the planets. Greatest of all these sacred emblems was the Tetractys, by which the
the

Pythagoreans swore, but whether

thirty-six is uncertain.

it

was

four, ten, or

To

us

all this

seems incredibly

it gave a zest to the arid In pursuit of this will-of-thewisp the Pythagorean discovered geometry and the laws of music, as alchemists lighted upon chemistry,

childish, but at

any rate

science of numbers.

and

astrologers
find

on the science of the

stars.

Thus

men

One

kingdoms while searching for asses. other freak of Nicomachus is worth a word.

THE PYTHAGOREANS

45

The

and Ostanes, and Zoroaster Babylonians, he says, Change the gender call the stars flocks," ayeXm. and add a second g, and we have of this noun, and archangels the name of the angels," ayyeXoi, and of the demons. Angel is, of course, the stars
"
"

Greek word

for

"

messenger,"

but this was

far

too

simple an explanation for the Pythagorean. was used But, as a name for heavenly beings, angel
only in the of the Old.

Testament, and in the Greek version from one of these sources, probably from the Septuagint, that the word had come to the of Nicomachus. Perhaps it had reached

New

It is

knowledge

the ears even of Epictetus, for he says that "the from Zeus." Cynic is sent to man as an angel Here we seem to catch a glimpse of one of the
little

hidden pipes, through which a knowledge of the We see Bible was trickling into heathen thought. also the sensitiveness to Oriental influences, which

marked Pythagoreanism from

first

to last.

This

is

The the explanation of the Neoplatonist dualism. Greek ; his religion philosophy of Plotinus was purely
only was hybrid.

Ill

THE PLATONISTS,

ATTICUS, ETC.

WE

must now turn

to those

men whose work

it

was

to revive,

though with considerable differences, the distinctive teaching of Plato.

The

revolt against the sceptical conclusions of the

Academics was begun by Antiochus of Ascalon, whose lectures Cicero attended at Athens in 79 B.C. From him dates the reaction in favour of dogmatism, that is,
of the inculcation of definite systematic teaching. taught the Platonists once more to believe in
attainability of truth,

He
the

and gave them a

creed, the creed

of the master whose

It

name

they professed.

was long before the reaction gained a footing in Rome itself. Epictetus knew no readers of the
Republic except a few ladies of the emancipated type, who prattled about the marriage arrangements of the ideal state, much as their modern sisters do
"
"

about the dramas of Ibsen.

Down

to the

end of the

Flavian dynasty Roman society, or such part of it as cared to have a creed at all, was divided between

Epicureans who denied, Academics who doubted, and

THE PLATONISTS, ATTICUS,

Stoics

ETC.

47

who

affirmed but hardly reasoned.

in their ranks all the best

The

last

numbered
characters.

and strongest

Even in the Greek-speaking provinces, before Flavian times, we meet with no Platonist of eminence except the Alexandrian Philo, and the influence of this
remarkable

man

did not

make

itself felt

till

late in the

second century, when a school of Christian scholars had arisen in his native town, and his Judaism was

no longer absolutely
cyllidas,

unintelligible to a certain section

of the Neoplatonists.
are

The names

of Thrasylus, Der-

Moderatus, Areios, Didymus, and Eudorus,

little

of

literary

importance except for the student of last are history, and the dates of the two

uncertain.

Theon

of

Smyrna

(A.D.

20

rather to the roll of mathematicians.

140) belongs But, after the

with a

first Christian century, we begin to meet number of distinguished names. Plutarch was born in A.D. 48 Dion Chrysostom about A.D. 50. To

middle of the

the palmy days of the Antonines belong Favorinus, Calvisius Taurus, Nigrinus, Celsus, Atticus, Maximus About the Tyrius, and the famous physician Galen.
birth to Neoplatonism,

middle of the second century, the ideas, which gave! emerge in Albinus, or Alcinous

(there is some doubt as to his true name), and Apuleius, and take more and more distinct shape in Numenius and Ammonius Saccas. We have already observed the point of view from

which the Platonist opposed Stoicism. moral points of the sufficiency of virtue

On
for

the great

and the brotherhood of man

happiness the two schools were almost

48
in complete accord.

NEOPLATONISM

Even

in physics, so far as their

roads lay together, there was a certain agreement. The Platonist added the transcendence to the imma

difference.

nence of God, and hence arose a considerable religious But, in all that touched what we call

natural science, he borrowed very freely the language of his rival. What he complained of was, that Stoicism

could give no
that
it

sufficient

reason for

its

own conduct
to explain the

had no

religion,

and was unable

it

moral obligations that vehemence.

insisted

upon with such

A remarkable passage of Atticus, preserved by Eusebius in his Praeparatio Evangelica (xv. 4 9), will show the reader the attitude of Platonism towards
system of thought. Atticus belongs middle of the second century, and he is probably the Peripatetics, the school of Aristotle. writing against The main charge which he presses against Aristotle is,
to the

another great

that his morality

this defect

is

he finds

in

commonplace Deism, and

and the causes of

vagueness of
_-.

in the

his teaching as to the immortality of the soul.

...;

Aristotle regarded virtue as the

mean between two

emotional extremes attained by habit under the guid ance of reason. Happiness, he taught, was the supreme
object of man of happiness.
s

endeavour, and virtue is the chief cause But he allowed also a certain weight

to external goods, birth, wealth, health, beauty, and fortune generally. No one would call king Priam a happy man, and he would doubtless have added, no one

could give the name to

regards as a
"

St.

Paul.

This the Platonist

poor, low, vulgar,

womanish

"

idea of

THE PLATON1STS, ATTICUS,

happiness.
royal sceptre
It
"

ETC.

49

"takes

away from
fire

virtue

its

crown and

it

does not

the heart, and cannot

help the young and ardent. Virtue is no longer the "way to heaven," but a dull, earthly track, in which the fox

much chance as the eagle. Happiness itself becomes the sport of fortune a stroke of the clock gives it, and takes it away.
has as
;

The
the

Platonist

is

here in very close agreement with

is

Stoic.

Virtue

make, nor mar, the true

that

Earth can neither happiness. life of the soul. On this

is its

position, that righteousness

own
is

sufficient reward,

where the mind

is

right all

right, there
It

was no
the

difference

between the

two

schools.

was

teaching of Plato himself. Readers of the Republic will remember the famous passage, where he insists, that the
just

man

will

for his justice.

lies

be happy, though he should be crucified In ethics as in physics, the difference

fact,

not in the

but in the way in which the fact was

linked on to a higher truth. To the Platonist virtue is the way to heaven," to the Stoic it is not.
"

The
far as
it

criticism of Atticus,
goes.

it

may be added,

is

just as

morality of Aristotle is commonplace, because commonplace, untrue. Doing a thing ten and,
will

The

times over

not

make

us like

it,

if

the thing

is

disagreeable. But Atticus does not state the objection in the precise form that suggests itself at once to the

Christian reader of the Nicomachean Ethics.

fault lies in the very
is,

The initial

attempt to define

Happiness, that

For no man can define that which he has not attained, nor can we fathom the capacities
Perfection.

of our nature, until they have received their utmost

go
expansion.

NEOPLATONISM

The

Platonist saw

-this,

for

he placed

happiness
clearly, for

in the vision of

he attempted to brought back the limitation.

God, but he did not see it define God Himself, and so

And

further,

he omitted

to notice that the righteous man, of

Plato spoke, in spite, but in consequence, of might be happy not

his crucifixion.

whom

reason for this low-pitched morality Atticus discerned, and here again he was right, in the Deism

The

of Aristotle.

Deism regards God

as creating

and

it to itself. equipping the world, and then leaving Nature is, as it were, a watch, which He sends forth

from His hands so perfectly adjusted that

further interference.

it

needs no
;

Man

is

furnished with reason

and
"

this is his

only and

sufficient guide.

Like Epi

as curus, says Atticus, Aristotle represents the gods

spectators in a

theatre."

Epicurus
gether,"

"turned

the

Nay, he is worse for while gods out of the world alto

;

Aristotle

"imprisons

them
but
it

close

that they

enough do not care. was the general opinion. The Christian

to see

them in the world," brings and hear, and yet teaches This may be a harsh judgment,
fathers,

no doubt, gathered from writers like Atticus the view, which with one accord they express, that, according to
"

Aristotle,

providence

reaches

down

to the

moon,"

but

no further, and takes no count of what from them we have learned to call "sublunary" affairs. Deism
is

of course materialistic, because

it

limits

God

locally,

Platonist. and it was therefore Pantheism he could speak of with equanimity, for though he would not allow that God was in Nature,

abhorrent

to

the

THE PLATONISTS, ATTICUS,

ETC.

51

he insisted very strongly that Nature was in God.; But Deism turns the Infinite into "an absentee
landlord."

The
is

criticism of Atticus

may be

hostile, but

it is

not

practically unjust, for Aristotle,

"the

scribe of

nature,"

which has so often

certainly the author of that divorce from religion, left morality barren. Nor is it

unjust to say that Aristotle in effect denies the im His expressions are obscure mortality of the soul. and uncertain. The soul, which is in his view
sentient
as

merely
or,
it

and emotional,

is

an

"

entelechy,"

a form,

we should

say, a function of the

body, though
"a

may

bear to the body the relation of

sailor to his in afterwards

boat."

The

"

Intelligence (VOVQ)
doors,"

comes

from out of

and

is

imperishable and divine.

But, whatever these enigmatic utterances no use is made of them. Rewards and
aspiration, grace, the

may mean,

punishments,

future

The
ship

hope of infinite perfection in a wholly outside of the Peripatetic system. soul might as well be mortal, there is no "friend
life, lie

"

between
"

it

and God.

To
that

Atticus this indiffer

ence seemed dreadful.

the mortality is Platonic school ;
"

The
is

belief in the soul s

im
the

cement
all

holds

together

that

"great

and bright and

If the soul
in constant

ardent
truly

"

in virtue flows

from

this faith.

con and beauty, to which by its nature it belongs. To doubt its immortality is to doubt its existence, and such a doubt is a practical
die,

is, it

never can

and must be
truth,

tact with the world of

life,

denial of

all

fellowship between

God and man.

Thus Deism was found

as unsatisfying as Pantheism.

52

NEOPLATONISM

These two systems are philosophies, but not religions. first has no grace, and the second has no righteous ness. But the second century was anxiously groping about for grace and righteousness and the spread of Platonism was due not more to its speculative power,

The

than to the spiritual cravings of the age.

of wild religious emotion. passionate ; and the world

It
is

was a time

Heathenism
s

generally nerves were strained by

physical misery, which in some districts was very acute, by the influx of maddening Oriental fanaticisms, and no doubt also by antagonism to Christianity. In the

time of Hadrian, Oenomaus wrote a book against the Oracles, entitled The Charlatans Unmasked, a
little

later

Demonax

scoffed

at

the mysteries,

and

Lucian scoffed at everything. But these are isolated phenomena. The decadence of the Oracles, which
Plutarch lamented, was merely accidental, caused by the shifting of population and political change. Men were not less anxious to pry into the future, but they

had found out cheaper,

safer,

and baser methods

for

the satisfaction of their curiosity.

It is commonly said that the second century exhibits a marked advance in the direction of monotheism. This is by no means true. Philosophers spoke of One God, as they always had done, but they found at the same

time excellent reasons for worshipping every deity and every demon known to mythology. In the world
at large polytheism

had never been so rampant or

so degraded. The deification of men was one of the signs of the times. Not to reckon the Caesars,

Apollonius, Neryllinus, Antinous, and Alexander of

THE PLATONISTS, ATTICUS,

Abonoteichos, of
characters,
all

ETC.

53

whom

the two last were infamous

Peregrinus,

received divine honours.

another bad man, aspired to the same dignity.

The

mother of Dion Chrysostom was worshipped, and Men7 probably there were many similar instances.
as

addicted themselves- to particular divinities, but merely to the biggest and strongest of the supernatural
Naturally they were unable to distinguish Each nation
hierarchy,

powers.

one deity very accurately from another.

had

its

own

and these hierarchies were

The Zeus of Greece was con regarded as identical. fused with the Jupiter of Rome, the Osiris of Egypt,
the Baal of Phoenicia,

changed

in the

and the minor gods were inter same way. Mythologies were mixed
is

but not simplified.

The

true characteristic of the age

to

be found in

the eager craving for some kind of divine grace and some kind of divine righteousness. To the heathen mind these ideas necessarily assumed the shape of
possession, and a cere For these purposes the old Roman It lived on in Caesarreligion was absolutely useless. Roman history worship, which was no new thing
lustral

purifications, frenzied

monial moral law.

begins with the apotheosis of

devoid of

spiritual significance as

Romulus and was as our own ceremony

Caesarism typified the

of drinking the

Queen

health.

blessings of political unity, and the ancient Roman deities were all moral emblems of the same kind.

They were not persons but

has admirably shown.

abstractions, as
in

Mommsen

dead and gone.

any case they were The gods of Horace and Virgil are

But

54

NEOPLATONISM

Greek gods, though they bear Latin names, and under the Empire the real character of the indigenous Roman worship was known only to the antiquarian. This singular religious revolution was effected quite noiselessly, and even the writers, by whom it was
accomplished, do not seem to know what they were doing. They brought about for the two mythologies
of Greece and

Rome
to
all

the

same kind of

fusion, that

was
the

being applied reign of the Antonines.

known mythologies under

The

religion of the old

Romans had

fewer fables

and more morality than

peoples.

that of any

of the ancient

and

political virtues..

They worshipped the domestic, economic, Heaven was an exact copy of

the earthly state and household. Jupiter and Juno presided over all as Lord and Lady, Ops gave plenty, the

Penates watched

guarded the door.

life,

over the store-closet, Janus Every act and every condition of

great

good or

evil,

or

insignificant,

had

its

Salus sent health, and heavenly superintendent. But these thin abstractions neither Febris fevers.
lent

themselves

to

art

nor

ministered

emotions.

Hence came the peculiar charm Roman mind it was, in fact,

;

of Stoicism for the

the philosophic ex

But art and pression of the national religious bent. as they may be, are inseparable in emotion, dangerous

As civilization broadens, the long run from worship. the feelings and the imagination are quickened and

demand

nutriment, and, if this necessity cannot be supplied from native sources, it must be met by The influx of Greek and importations from abroad.

THE PLATONISTS, ATTICUS,

Oriental ideas, that
is

ETC.

55

to say, of art and of enthusiasm, one sense a deterioration, for it But in another certainly lowered the moral tone. aspect it may be regarded as an essential step in the

into

Rome, was

in

education of the race.

Emotion,

as

was natural

in

times

when man

passions were far

more

far East. Cybele, with Atys and her was brought from Phrygia, by decree of the Senate itself, in the agony of the Hannibalian In 186 B.C. the Bacchic orgies took root in war. Rome, produced the most intolerable wickedness of

was sought for mainly from the

frantic Galli,

in its

and rapid than now, keenest forms, and these came

violent

kinds, and were suppressed by the police with the most sanguinary rigour. From Egypt, in the latter days of the Republic, came I sis, Osiris, and Serapis.
all

expresses the old Roman contempt for the brute gods of the Nile, and their intrusion met with vehement opposition on the part of the authorities.
Virgil

On one

occasion the emperor Tiberius was so ex

asperated by a disgusting scandal, that he crucified the priests of Isis, pulled down the sanctuary, and

threw the statue of the goddess into the Tiber. But in the second century the struggle was abandoned, early

and temples of

Isis

were erected without

let

or hind

rance, even within the limits of the sacred pomoerium, that is to say, in the heart of the city of Rome.

About the same time the worship of the Persian

Mithra attained to great popularity.
"

Mithra,

the

Unconquered

Comrade,"

was

an

especial favourite with the army.

The

caves, in which

56

NEOPLATONISM

he was worshipped, are found wherever the Roman legions were stationed, in England and elsewhere. He belonged to the system of Zoroaster, which is still professed by the Parsees, and of all the ancient
non-Biblical
elevated.

most religions was the purest and Zoroastrianism tolerated no idols, and its

chief symbol was the sacred fire. Its governing idea is dualism. In this world we see an unceasing and
universal conflict between

Ormuzd
evil.

and Ahriman the

will

spirit

of
is

One day
is

the spirit of good, the good

triumph, and Mithra

the mediator, by

whom

the

victory will be achieved.

Hence he

represented on

the

monuments
in

as a youth slaying a bull,

and he was
is

worshipped
world,

caverns.

The cavern

this

dark

and the bull typifies the power of evil. Mithraism had rites of initiation, sacraments, a hierarchy, and a society. It was widely diffused and strongly
organized.
is little

But, except in the ecclesiastical writers,

of,

it

probably because it gave rise to no scandals, was sober in its ritual, and made no noise in the streets. Zoroastrianism, with much barbarous
superstition,

heard

combined a deep sense of moral

evil,

and

the pagan influences at work in the second century, it was, as far as we can judge, the most

of

all

wholesome.
worship was far more stirring, and far more It was built upon the well-known dangerous. myth, which tells how Osiris was slain by the wicked demon
Isis

Typhon, and how Isis his wife, with labour and sorrow, wandered over Egypt, gathering together the mutilated limbs of her murdered lord. Here again

THE PLATONISTS, ATTICUS,

we have the strife of good and sensuous and passionate form.
with a rattle in
evil,

ETC.

57
far

but in a

more
the

Isis

was represented

her hand, because she stirred

mind

to

frenzy.

calculated to

Every point in her worship was rouse and excite. There were masquerad
prolonged
fasts

ing processions in the streets like those of a

carnival,

there were

modern and elaborate

scenic representations by night. What these were we can only divine, but from our knowledge of the

Egyptian Ritual of the Dead, and from such books as Mr. Le Page Renoufs Hibbert Lectures, we can form an idea, which will not be far wrong. The sorrows of
Isis, the torments of the damned, the happiness the blessed, would be exhibited, with all the resources of the stage, before the eyes of spectators,
of"

up

to the pitch of excitement

by

fasting

wrought and expecta

tion. There they would see the crocodile lying in wait for the wretched soul that has not obeyed the

escape from his jaws. Besides the great mysteries, which had their gorgeous temples and crowds of worshippers in the great cities,
there were a host of

directions of the priest, and there they would learn the magic words, that enable the faithful to

little ones, bringing the cup of frenzy to the lips of peasants in out-of-the-way corners. The vagabond priest of the Syrian goddess wandered

from village to

village,

with an

ass

laden with

his

paraphernalia, and a couple of dancing boys. At each hamlet they set up their idol, performed a wild dance, gashing their arms with knives as they whirled madly about, and made a collection.

58

NEOPLATONISM

All these orgiastic worships inculcated the belief in future life, as it presents itself to the mind of barbarians. That is -to say, as a scene of woe where

yet

some kind of happiness may be procured by due

Isis, all

payment.
Zagreus are
the terror

Adonis,
of the

Thammuz,

Atys,

Dionysus

same family. They rest upon of the unseen and the tragedy of existence,

and they express these awful thoughts in fables of hideous deaths and savage mutilations. They are all
of great antiquity, belonging to the primary stratum of

and their renewed popularity in the second century must be regarded as a sort of volcanic upheaval of the hidden depths. They all played upon fear, and all were unable to turn fear to any moral end. They fulfilled the task which Aristotle assigns to
religious
belief,

tragedy, purging the breast from time to time of the swelling emotions of terror and pity, and so producing

a temporary calm. They told of a suffering God, and but what they taught a kind of atonement promised

men

to

bewail with frenzied lamentations was the

of
life.

suffering, not the sinfulness,

They

testify to

the deep unrest of the time and its readiness for better teaching, but what sort of character they tended to

shape we see in the case of Apuleius.

These maddening Oriental deities were not artistic and were not reasonable, and their worship was
generally regarded by the heathen themselves only as a kind of safety-valve, a means of discharging the
in perilous accumulation of religious melancholy shortest and safest way, by noise, and movement,

the

and

temporary

insanity.

On

all

these grounds they were

THE PLATONISTS, ATTICUS,

ETC.

59

as

viewed by the educated Greek with a certain reserve, upon the whole necessary and even salutary, yet not as possessing any high spiritual value. They be

longed to demons, not to gods, and, though the demons must be propitiated, because they can do us
harm, they are not the givers of the most precious These must be looked for in the reasonable gifts.
service of the

bright gods of
its
;

Olympus.

Greece too had

mysteries.

We know little

about

the rites of Eleusis

But the secret was well kept. they stood no doubt to those of Egypt in the same relation as the poetic tale of Demeter and Proserpine
to the ghastly

myth

of Osiris.

They had

the

same

office, that of providing

and

all

those states

anodynes for affliction, remorse, of mental disquiet, which under

But what the

Christian guidance lead to penitence.

educated Greek loved best were the serene and tranquil deities, who gave good things and never did harm, who
presided with benignity over of life, and were never hard
all

the joys and interests

upon their worshippers. and all the choir of poets, had sung of them. Homer, Pheidias, and artists innumerable, had made them
marble.

live in

Everywhere

their beautiful presence

was
the

visible, in

the lecture-halls of the university, in market-place of the town, by haunted grove

to all

and stream. They dispensed prosperity, and merriment.

Unfortunately
asters

men wisdom,
and
dis

men

are not always wise,

fast.

come

thick and

The Homeric frame

but
in

of

mind
the

suited the ideal

temperament of the Greek and

life,

bright

days of

times

of

distress

60

NEOPLATONISM

heathenism turned instantly into devil-worship. This was largely its character even in Greece, and almost
universal elsewhere.

When

the beloved Germanicus

died, the people cast the images of the Penates into

the gutter.

Such wild
not

revolt against the injustice

in

of

heaven

is

unknown

Roman

where
a

civilization is

backward.

Catholic countries, Renan has told us of

the

Breton blacksmith,
with

who
it

threatened to shoe
his

Virgin
recover.

red-hot

iron, if

daughter did not

In heathenism

At Rome, on the tomb of a young girl, following inscription Procope manus

"

was an every-day incident. is found the

levo contra
"

Deum qui me innocentem my hands against God, wholife."

sustulit,"

Procope, lift short my innocent cut

I,

Below

in protest.

a rude sculpture of two hands upraised Germanicus, the emperor Titus, Servianus
is

in the time of

died with
their

Hadrian, and the emperor Julian, all same indignant sense of injustice in hearts and on their lips. Even professed sceptics,
the

like Pliny the elder

and Lucan, believed

in the

most

hideous forms of magic.

Human

sacrifice

was not

unknown

the emperors Nero, Hadrian, Commodus, ; Didius Julianus, Heliogabalus, and Valerian were all
this crime.

charged with

So universal was the belief

in

witchcraft, that every

man

of remarkable attainments

was believed

to

have commerce with the infernal

St.

powers. a wide reputation

In the fourth century

among

the heathen,

Athanasius enjoyed and even among

art.

the Arians, for knowledge of the black

In the

second century people

in

country

districts

were as

much

afraid of

demons, as the inhabitants of an African

THE TLATONISTS, ATTICUS,

kraal often are, with
air

ETC.

good reason, of lions or elephants. of these malignant beings, ever ready to burst forth and injure. Religion was in the main a

The

was

full

the aid of

device for escaping from their clutches, or for enlisting more powerful deities by arts which the

This hag-ridden superstition was priests could teach. It underlies the necessary outcome of heathenism. all the art and poetry of the classic times. As soon as

men

left

Homer,

as soon as the

behind them the buoyant thoughtlessness of charm of life wore off, and the

question of the hereafter began to press, these frightful What we notice in the second century not the decay of faith, but the decline of other is,

dreams arose.

interests,

by which the inevitable tendency to devilhad been kept in check. Reason was just worship

strong

enough

to

rob

men

of

their

hopes,

but

absolutely powerless to correct their fears.

There is no reason whatever for supposing that the people at large had ceased to believe in the gods. The world was producing new deities in shoals, and even saints were forthcoming. Such was the aged
Chrysostom gives a charming and the Boeotian shepherd who was dis covered and exhibited by Herodes Atticus. Men called him Agathion, "the good angel," or Hercules,
description,
priestess of

whom Dion

because he spent his

life

in destroying wild beasts,

and

supposed him to be the son of the demigod Marathon. He would touch no food that had been prepared by a woman, and could detect by the smell whether female
fingers

had drawn the milk.

to

There were no doubt plenty of sceptics

be found

62
in fashionable
first

NEOPLATONISM

Roman

society,

especially during the

century, while the

memory

of the civil wars

still

endured, and Caligula, Nero, and Domitian reigned. But generally speaking, educated men felt towards the same way as Rudyard vulgar religion in much the s Baboo towards the Hindoo orgies, which he

Kipling

laughs
fidelity

at,

in though yet they drive him mad. Their was but skin deep, and they did not see how

irreconcilable their Stoic, or Peripatetic, or Epicurean

theories were with the very roots of the established

worship. In the second century this was clearly understood. Worship was felt to be a necessity, and the existing

forms were thought to be so closely interlaced with the national life, that, if destroyed, they could not be
replaced.

The

essential

factors

of

true

religion-

were all providence, prayei-j atonement, righteousness not a sounder philosophy Could to be found there.
purify all these ideas,

and bind them together

in a
?

reasonable unity, without pulling Could not heathenism be moralized?

down

a single altar

This was the problem of the Platonists, and ours to ascertain where and why they failed.

is

IV
PLATONISTS, NIGRINUS, DION CHRYSOSTOMUS

THE

Platonists of the latter half of the

first

and

the earlier half of the second century were not marked by any striking originality of thought, and do not

claim

a high place in the history of philosophy. Their interest is almost entirely religious. We shall
express the same thing better by saying, that they were the champions of Hellenism. Hellenism is
a

word very
habits

distinctive

of these

times

it

means

Greek

of

life

and

thinking.

The Greek

gods were inseparably associated with Greek culture. Their high priests were Homer, Solon, Pheidias,

Demosthenes.
the authors of

They were
all

the

arts,

the givers of civilization, all the sciences, the in-

spirers of Attic elegance in thought, expression, dress,

and manners. The age was not one of production its most characteristic offspring was the rhetorician.
But
it

may
less

call intellectualism,

was marked by a wide diffusion of what we and an ardent though taste

admiration of the old classical models.

The

universities

were crowded with students, new pro were established and endowed, and a fessorships

64
succession
of

NEOPLATONISM
Emperors, from

Nerva

to

Marcus

and Aurelius, vied with one another in condescension men of letters. The love of literature liberality towards was amazingly widespread in the old Greek world.
in a half-savage outpost like Olbia, on the shores of the Black Sea, the mass of the people are said to have known the Iliad by heart. Nor can there be

Even

much exaggeration
of
the
allusions perfectly

in this statement, for the

harangues

rhetoricians

were stuffed

full

of

Homeric

and quotations, and these must have been familiar to the popular audiences to which
is

they were addressed. The revival of Hellenism

the distinctive feature

of the second century, and with it went hand-in-hand the revival of Platonism, the most Hellenic of all
philosophies.

Epictetus

knew no
"

Platonists.

Calvisius

Taurus complains of the shoals of young men who wanted to plunge into idealism with unwashed feet,"
that
is,

without realizing the necessity of preparatory

Platonist would For, as St. Justin found, the to any one, that had not not explain his doctrines a regular training in abstract mathe been study.

through

matical science.

was

to regulate this

The task of the new philosophers movement by bringing philosophy

They did not want
and hoped
to

into line with religion.

to give

up

nor a single anything, not a single myth

desired
to purify morals,

altar.

They
this

effect

end

not, like the Stoics,

through rigid discipline, but

by the spread of education.

literature are of far higher

Hence

art,

science,

importance to them than

through these means that

to Epictetus, because

it

is

PLATONISTS, NIGRINUS, DION CHRYSOSTOMUS

65

But not through they proposed to make men better. these alone. held that the highest culture is in They

and

separable from, does in fact kindle, faith in the divine ; that this faith in turn quickens and deepens
life

the insight of the thinker.

the secret of

Thus worship becomes and the crown of philosophy. The

problem, as
spirit

enters

student must approach his his shrine, in the

reverence.

the

priest

of

holiness

and

They saw no

difficulty in the established

Polytheism.

the gods, and explain

fables about them.

All that was necessary was to graduate away a few of the more revolting

We

shall discern their

aims and methods best by

We will taking a group of representative names. It belongs begin with Lucian s sketch of Nigrinus. to the age of the Antonines, but we may place it first, because it gives so clear a picture of the moral
atmosphere of Platonism. When Lucian was on a
to
visit

to

Rome, he

called

pay

his

Though
mitted,

respects distinguished professor. personally unknown, he was immediately ad

into the
in

to

the

and ushered

presence of Nigrinus,

whom

he found seated

his library.

On

the table
;

and a globe round the room were book-cases surmounted by busts of the ancient sages. Nigrinus was in the talking vein, and began by lamenting to his bright young visitor the contrast between the vulgar bustle of Rome and the simplicity of his beloved Athens,

lay a sheet of geometrical diagrams

much

as

modern man

of letters might

May

fair

or Cheapside with the groves of

compare Magdalen
E

66

NEOPLATONISM
There
is

or the lime-walk of Trinity.

just this flavour

of

difference

perceptible, that
to shut himself

teach,

and not
is

Nigrinus wanted to up with his books.

philosopher, and to mix with the

Athens

the true

home

of the
is

there the delight of the teacher

throng of ardent youth, and mark the change that steals over the noisy freshman, as he takes his first

The genial bath in the mysteries of the absolute. old professor passes on from the abstract to the
concrete,
taste

and

illustrates

the restraining force of Attic

by an anecdote of a rich undergraduate, who had passed under his eye in the old days. He came to the University with a host of slaves, dressed and
bejewelled in the height of the mode, and strutted along the streets, thinking that all must admire and envy him. The Athenians set to work to teach him
better,
after all every
for not harshly, nor by open contradiction, one has a right to live as he pleases in

a free

city,

but by good-humoured jests and lightly

"

If he went to the bath with a troop glancing asides. He is afraid of attendants, he would hear a whisper
:

of being assassinated.
place, there
is

But the bath

in

is

a very quiet
here."

no real need of an army

If

he swaggered on the promenade he would be pursued by a ripple of undertoned banter Where does this See, spring is here already," or,
:
" "

purple and gold,

or, Perhaps they are his peacock come from ? mother s clothes." And so gradually the rings were laid aside, the gorgeous raiment was exchanged lor
"

"

simpler attire, the flowing locks were soberly trimmed, he and, before the young Fortunatus left the town,

PLATONISTS, NIGRINUS, DION CHRYSOSTOMUS

67

was

"much

better;

the

tone

of

the

place

had

educated

him."

interesting, because it helps to explain the intellectual change of the second century. It was a revival of Hellenism, a reaction against Romanism. The centre of thought was shifted from
is

This gay passage

the banks of the Tiber to those of the Ilissus, as it was probably shifted again a little later on to those

of

the

Nile.

When

Nigrinus

quitted

Athens

for

Rome, he felt as if he had left the light of the sun. The coarseness, the harsh vices, and shameless im
pudence of the
antithesis to
ligion

capital disgusted him.

The

natural

Roman

grossness

is

Stoicism, the re
intelligences.

of

rugged
of
of

wills

and
the

sceptical

Platonism
docile
pellucid

appealed
the

to

temperate,
;

cultivated,
is

nature
air

Greeks
not

its

breath

the the

Hellas,

the

miasma

of

Subura.

Another interesting figure is Dion of the Golden Mouth. Dion is far more of a rhetorician than of a philosopher, but on this very account he shows us more distinctly than anybody else the set of the
times,

new-born zeal for religion, the awakening of a true and thorough-going religious morality. Nay, in Dion we behold a very singular the
the

phenomenon,

gropings after the idea of a heathen church. He is almost the only writer of antiquity, who takes a keen, practical interest in social problems, and regards the elevation of the masses as a work.
first

religious

This

is

a church view, wholly different from the attitude

of Stoicism, which taught that individual conversion

68

NEOPLATONISM

was the one thing needful, and that material circum

first century Prusa (now Brussa), a moderate town of Bithynia, situated on the northern slopes of Mount Olympus.

stances did not signify in the least. Dion was born about the middle of the

in

He came
father

whom
His

of a wealthy equestrian family. His grand was a friend of the then reigning emperor, by he was presented with the Roman franchise.
Pasicrates, was recognized as the chief Prusa to the end of his life, and his mother

father,

citizen of

erected to

was so beloved, that a statue and temple had been He was at first a rhetorician or her.

sophist, and, like other

fession, spent his life in

members

of that curious pro

wandering from town to town. The rhetorician was one of the signs of the times, a
curious cross between an University Extension lecturer

and an operatic singer. We must remember,

that

in

the

second century

there were hardly any topics for a popular lecturer. All the Sophist could offer, was an exhibition of

about anything and every the subject the better. It thing ; was said of Swift, that he could have written finely
brilliant

extempore

talk

the

more

trivial

about a broomstick.
Sophist.

This was the ambition of the

Dion,

in his

younger days delivered

"

dis

as they were called, about a parrot and a gnat. plays," The merit of the orator lay in his readiness, his copi

ousness, his grandiloquence,

and the

skill

with which

he could interweave high-flown metaphors, appropriate or inappropriate allusions to Homer, and a dash of
philosophical or

moral instruction.

The

Sophists

PLATONISTS, NIGRINUS, DION CHRVSOSTOMUS

69

were

full of stagey ways, and affected great splendour of apparel. They dressed in character, and on one occasion Dion, who was a thin little man, appeared

in a lion-skin,

no doubt

to perorate

about Hercules.
practical
;

Latterly his style

became graver and more

but he retained his sophistical mannerisms to the end, and could hardly make a speech without assuring his

audience that
not

it

was quite extempore, and that he did

next.

know what was coming

About

this earlier stage in his career

we have
this

little

information, unless

we may accept as
before

historical a scene

described by Philostrattis.
ing author,

According to

Vespasian, just

romanc starting on his

expedition against Vitellius, gave audience at Alex andria to Euphrates the Stoic, Dion the Platonist, and

Apollonius the Pythagorean, and begged the advice of the three philosophers on the delicate question,

whether he should make himself emperor or not. Euphrates recommended him to re-establish the Republic; Dion preferred an oligarchy, but urged
Vespasian to leave the decision
people;
Apollonius
in the
"I

hands of the
not about

answered:

care

politics, for I

am

subject to the gods alone.

But

do

not wish the flock to perish for want of a just and

moderate

shepherd."

Vespasian wished to show his

gratitude by rich gifts to his three counsellors. Apol lonius refused all reward Dion begged the discharge of a philosophic friend, who in a rash
;

Lasthenes,

army ; Euphrates pulled out of his pocket a paper, which he had brought with him ready written, full of requests for himself and his

moment had

enlisted in the

70
friends.

NEOPLATONISM

The

passage

is

intended as a cut

at Stoicism

for

its

impractical

political

intransigence

and

its

inconsistent morality.

ing

In the reign of Domitian, Dion was in Rome, enjoy the intimate friendship of an illustrious man

This was nearly related to the Imperial family. to death by probably Flavius Sabinus, who was put
Domitian, A.D. 82. After this tragedy Dion fled from .Rome, whether banished by formal decree, or driven
forth

by horror and personal

his

fear, is uncertain.

What
it

he

calls

exile

lasted

thirteen

years,

and

is

Dion s praise that the touch of misfortune brought out the real goodness and sincerity of a somewhat He faced his adversity with cheerful nature.
flighty

resignation.

Often he had read, often he had about the temptations of wealth and the preached, Now if God allowed him, he blessings of poverty.

would

find out for himself,

how

the truth was.

The

Delphian Apollo spoke in verse, bade him the ends of the fully till he had come to
"

in prose, for the

prophet no longer do what he was doing man

earth."

And,

in reliance
life

upon

this behest,

Dion

set out to live the

of a wanderer, alone and in ragged garb, with of Plato and a nothing in his pocket but the Phaedo
his support partly speech of Demosthenes. He found manual labour as a gardener or a bathman, partly by by the alms of the charitable. this time of wandering we get but an occa

During

He tells us himself how, in sional glimpse of him. obedience to Apollo s command, he roamed as far as
where the Borysthenes or Olbia on the Black Sea,

PLATONISTS, NIGRINUS, DION CHRYSOSTOMUS

;t

men of the town crowded into the theatre to hear him discourse about the gods, though the battle-signal was flying from the walls, and their harness was on
their backs how he followed in the train of the army on the expedition against the Getae how towards the end of the time he met a holy priestess in a
;

country place in Greece, who prophesied the downfall of the tyrant, and the near end of his own sufferings. The death of Domitian delivered him from all appre
hensions.

Roman
to

At the moment Dion was near a large camp, and the excitement of the soldiery at
in

the news of the

issue

Emperor s assassination seemed likely mutiny and outrage. Dion cast off his
"

cloak

and sprang upon the

altar,

exclaiming,

But

he, the wily Odysseus, stripped off his rags "he

was

never without an appropriate verse of

Homer

and

succeeded

in bringing the turbulent legions

over to the

side of Nerva.

Dion in retirement during the short but under Trajan he emerged again, and was treated with great distinction. On one occa
Ill-health kept

reign of

Nerva

sion the soldier-emperor took him up in his triumphal I don t know what chariot, and said to him,
"

you

mean, but
set the

love you as
to his

myself."

Dion no doubt

compliment

goodness of nature against

In truth he did not always
himself,

the affront to his style.

quite

know what he meant

shortly caused
A.D.

and Trajan

civilities

acted upon this uncertainty of purpose in a

way that About

look

him

great chagrin.

100 he returned to his native town to after his property, which had become sadly

72

NEOPLATON1SM

Dion was still dilapidated during his long absence. a Sophist at heart, with all the love of magnificence
that

marked

his class,

and he allowed himself

to

be

seduced by the dream of doing for poor little Prusa what Herodes Atticus had done for Athens. Only,
while Herodes had spent lavishly of his

own enor

mous

beyond his golden Unfortunately things were just ripe for the tongue. most chimerical schemes. The Asiatic towns were agitated by the most furious rivalries, and Prusa was
wealth,
little

Dion had

capital

determined not to be

left

behind

in the race.

The

happy moment seemed to have arrived. There was the great Dion their townsman once more among them.

What might
effect ?

not

his

influence

with

the

Emperor
easily

Trajan
their

himself had
city
in

said

that

he wished

to

favour

every
to
set

way.

Dion

rebuilding persuaded Prusa it was an age of architectural extravagance on a scale of magnificence proportioned to the The work was begun, and splendid destiny in store.
great expenses incurred, but
all

his

townsmen

about

that

Trajan could
assize town,

be induced to do was to make Prusa an

to

add a hundred members

there the
central

to the

senate,

and

to

establish

offices

for

the adminis

tration of the Bithynian revenues.

This was a sad

Those who had hopes. subscriptions refused to pay up, and the promised proconsul exacted the money from the township at
blow
to
their

ambitious

The rate-payers were so exasperated by this unexpected turn of events, that they tried to set Dion s house on fire, and would have stoned the too perlarge.

PLATONISTS, NIGRINUS, DION CHRYSOSTOMUS

suasive orator to death,
if

73

they could have laid hands

upon him. Dion was evidently not a

took
this lesson too in

practical

man, but he
discarded the

good

part.

He

ambition to lead a vestry, quitted Prusa, and contented himself with the affectionate admiration, that to the
last

attended

upon
life

oratorical ability.

years

of his
his

unquestioned literary and appears to have spent the last chiefly at Rome, where Plutarch
his

He

was

friend

and Favorinus

his disciple,

and died

probably about A.D. 120. Dion was a born sophist, and

his orations are as a rule

too abstract and vague, and too verbose, to please the

modern

reader.

He

is

most

interesting,

when he

himself probably thought he was least so, in those speeches where he tells the amusing tale of his vexa
tions at Prusa.

Among

other misdeeds he had ordered

the demolition of an old smithy, which his opponents insisted ought to have been preserved, as the workshop
of the only distinguished artist in bronze, that the town had ever produced. Dion replied, that the place was so dilapidated, that every stroke of the hammer upon

the

anvil
s

threatened
heads.

to

workmen
there
is
!

But

it is

in his speeches.

it down upon the amazing how little reality How much he could have

bring

told us

He knew

Greek

life

no other man of
But
us

his

time did.

from top to bottom, as Yet there are only

five or six passages, that set

it is

before us what he saw.

due

to

Dion

to add, that these few notices tell

from anybody

more about the misery of the times, than we gather else. He had witnessed the terrible

74

NEOPLATONISM

poverty and depopulation of the country districts, and He thought earnestly about a remedy for the evil.

speaks with manly indignation of the horrible cancer of sexual impurity, which sapped the life of the heathen world. He does not regard these frightful sins with
rate

the horror or the sternness of a Christian, but at any he points them out and condemns them. Indeed

he

is

always wholesome and earnest.

Many

of his

orations were delivered with the very practical object of restoring peace between neighbouring towns, and
in his

most complimentary harangues there

of well-aimed admonition,
as

is

always

some point
Dion had

when he
spirit.

rebukes the Alexandrines

in short a

for their scurrilous tongues.

humane and philanthropic

ancients describe his later harangues as those of a statesman," and both epithets counsellor," He has many points of affinity with are deserved.
"

The

"a

is larger, more modern, more we may almost say. He has caught the Stoic idea of the World City, "the dear city of Zeus." Philosophy tells us of a good and loving communion between demons and men, wherein all the benefits of

Stoicism, but his view

Christian

"

citizenship

and law are granted, not indeed

beings."

to

the

brutes, but to all reasonable

It is far better

and

juster,

he

says,

than the boasted polity of Lycurgus,

which did not permit the Helots to become Spartans, and so fostered an undying enmity between the two. There is neither master nor slave in the city of God.

compares the world to the temple of Eleusis, in which, at one point in the celebration of the mysteries,
the initiated danced round the novice with torches in

He

PLATONISTS, NIGRINUS, DION CHRYSOSTOMUS

their hands.

75

So

in this beautiful universe, not

circle in

men

but

the immortal

Gods

rhythmic chorus round the

and

whole race of man, bearing with them night and day, Dull is the heart that all the lights of heaven.
celestial
fair,

cannot see that

fairest

band, and

Him

above
orders

all,

among many
this

who governs and

all

the wondrous show.

To Dion
Epictetus.

The
poor,

language meant more than it did to Stoic after all cared little for any but

the elect of his

own

conventicle.
in

But Dion

really

loved

the

and saw

their virtues

the best

The most attractive of his speeches is philosophy. the EuboiC) in which he paints their simplicity, their
generosity and trustfulness, their domestic affection and It is a picture of some poor folk earnest piety.

who were good

show, how
lot.

to him,

when he was shipwrecked on

it

the iron-bound coast of Euboea, and

is

meant

to

love and goodness can sweeten the hardest Nothing could be more tender than this charm

ing prose idyll,

and the

feeling

which inspires

it,

is

undoubtedly genuine.

As regards
Stoic

slavery again,

Dion repeats the usual

wise

commonplaces.

The

man

alone

is

free,

the bad

man

is

always a slave.

But here too he

penetrates
different

methods,

He considers the deeper into reality. in which men become slaves, and
all

pronounces them

unjust.

The time had

not yet
said.

come

for giving practical effect to such a truth as this,

and Dion did not always quite mean what he

He

recommends

the master not to pursue a runaway

slave.

If the slave,

he asks, can be happy without a

76
master,

NEOPLATONISM

who is supposed to be better than himself, cannot the master do without the slave, who is why supposed to be worse than himself? But, when on
his return

chattels

to Prusa he found that his own human had taken the opportunity of absconding, he

.manifests some, perhaps not unnatural, vexation.

Dion was an orator differing from other orators of method but in tone. After his exile he never again declaimed about parrots and gnats. A l his utterances are marked by moral seriousness. On this account men called him a philosopher. But he had no disciples, and never discussed. He became in fact a preacher, and we have to gather his philo sophical belief from those of his speeches, which most
his time, not in

Of these the nearly approach to the type of sermon. most remarkable is the Olympic, delivered at Olympia
in presence of the glorious statue of Zeus, the master

piece of Pheidias, which is in fact the text of his dis course. The speech is one of the best expositions of

Hellenism that we possess.

Dion enters upon his matter by an emphatic con demnation of Atheism and of Deism.

Many, he
they adore in what the
doctrine"

says,

are pleased to call Pleasure, a

up a bad god, what they womanish deity, whom the dark with cymbals and pipes. (This
have
set

is

Stoic

Hierocles

called
its

"

the

harlot

of Epicurus, what in

utilitarianism Carlyle scoffs at

frying-pan.")

"as

n.odern garb of the worship of the

jollity

We

should not grudge them their

their drinking songs.

if

their heresy

ended with

But

they have taken away our gods and banished them

PLATONISTS, NIGRINUS, DION CHRYSOSTOMUS

77

from the world, saying that there is no mind in the universe and no ruler over it ; no providence and no creator. They are worse than the Deistical Peripatetics,

who
child,

at

least

who

starts his

have some sort of god, if only like a hoop, and then lets it bowl along

by

itself.

Where are we to look for sounder doctrine? First and foremost to the testimony of the soul itself, the belief that is born in every man. Secondly and thirdly, to the corroboration of poets and legislators,
for there
is

no song, no

justice, without the inspiration

of God.

comes

Fourthly, to the teaching of Art. For whence the sense of beauty in form and colour, and to
it

what conclusions does

But here a
fair

lead us

the

shall we say of creations of the sculptor or the painter, of Pheidias or Zeuxis ? For they do not deliver the same
difficulty arises.

on? What

message as the verse of Homer, or the statutes of Solon.

The poet of human

ideal

song introduces into Olympus the tumult the law-giver s code embodies the passion
;

The breathing right. the glowing canvas, call up before us a figure marble, which is pure, beautiful, unchanging, but human. Can
of severe

unbending

this

be a worthy representation of

God ?
day.

Here we reach the burning question of the

How

was polytheism,

idolatry, to

be reconciled with

the reasonable service of an intelligent and spiritual To solve this problem we must call upon yet deity ? a fifth witness, the philosopher, whose orifice it is to
explain an J harmonize the superficial divergences of the other four ; we must have recourse, as we should

NKOPLATONISM

modern jargon, to the higher criticism. This Dion proceeds to do in his oratorical fashion by calling up the spirit of Pheidias to answer for his statue. Thou noblest and best of artists, he says, no man will deny that thou hast wrought a vision of wondrous delight for The most toil worn of all Greeks and all barbarians.
say in our

mankind, as he gazes on this statue of thine, would But hast forget all the woes and hardships of life.
thou wrought for us a shape worthy of
great and
grace,

God

For

lovely though

it

be, clothed in light

and

it is still the shape of man. Pheidias replies, that no human skill can adequately The gods are represent the majesty of the divine.

heaven ; they are the sun, moon, and stars. But these bright orbs do not satisfy the cravings of the heart. They are too simple and too far. Man wants
in

As infants in the dark stretch gods that he can touch. forth their hands and cry for their father or mother, so
"

men, loving the gods for their bounty and goodness, long to be with them, and speak to them." Hence the artless barbarians make gods of mountains or trees or
shapeless stones.

But the cultivated Greek needs

"

some fitting image of the divine intelligence. we turn to the human body, attaching to
which
is

Hence
that

God

for us the vessel of

striving

to

wisdom and utterance, the invisible and formless by represent

by the best symbol
in

visible form,

our

power."

If

the sculptor s art is limited in its vehicle of expres Poetry is sions, there is a gain even in its simplicity. full of life and movement, but it is wild and turbulent.
"

Homer

first

showed

to the

Greeks many beautiful

PLATONISTS, NfGRINUS, DION CHRYSOSTOMUS

79

images of

all

the gods,
fearful

clement, some
Hellas.

and of the great God of all, some and terrible. But my Zeus is
befits

calm and ever mild, as

art

the lord of peaceful

and the wise counsel of Elis, Him, by my I set up here, and majestic in his unclouded tranquil beauty, giver of life and wealth and all that is good,
father, saviour,

guardian of

all

mankind, as perfect a

counterfeit of the ineffable nature of

skill

God

as mortal

can
this

engrave."

passage we have the most plausible exposition of the Platonism of the second century, or the reformed

In

Paganism, as

it

is

sometimes

called, for they are

one
is

and the same

King.

thing.

The Gods
like

are

many, but one

They are
tales,

spiritual, just,

and beneficent, and

If

man must and can be

shocking
these

them.

Homer

tells

us

are

the forgeries of the poet,

to

who

lives

to please

and

astonish.

Reason and

true art are safe

and

sufficient guides.

Dion s plea for images is not without justice; what he defends is not idolatry, but In religious art. this again he went further than his contemporaries,

who

for the

most part admitted a

real presence of

it cannot be doubted, that they actually worshipped not only the work of men s hands, but shapeless stones, mountains, trees, and in Egypt beasts.

the god in the statue.

As

for the masses,

On the subject of the demons he says little or nothing. Spiritual beings are all god-like and good. Here too he was in advance of his times, and here too he did not see the state of things quite clearly. great part of the Greek ritual, and a still
larger

So

NEOPLATONISM
was devil-worship, and

part of the barbarian religions,

this

dark fact called

It

explanation.

was

causes, Polytheism

and

imperatively for some sort of the necessary result of two heathen notions of the divine

wrath

and the mode

in

which

it

was handled forms

in

generally one of the most significant features religious thought of the second century.

the

PLUTARCH

of a

PLUTARCH was as pure and amiable as Dion, and much higher order of ability. He was not an
and speaks of the Sophists with gentle dislike He was not even a philosopher, the sense in which we apply the term to Plato, or

orator,

for their insincerity.

in

Aristotle, or Locke. Philosophy was not his first, nor by any means his only, concern, and his principles are not always clear, He consistent, or developed.

belongs rather to the class of

men

critics, or essayists, or of letters, and in this he holds a foremost place.

Every subject that interested the mind of his time, is discussed in his voluminous pages, but the motive is almost always moral or All that he wrote religious.
is

marked by a sincere and

beautiful piety.

He

was

the most learned, chatty, and agreeable of men, and never said an unkind thing of any one, except the
historian Herodotus,

who was

as amiable as Plutarch

himself, but angered the Boeotian sage by disparage ment of the Boeotians. Plutarch loved his native
soil,

and deserted as it was in Jiis time by gods and men, he would not allow the world to forget, that it
F

82

NEOPLATONlSM

was the land of Cadmus, of Hesiod, of Pindar, of His one unfortunate Corinna, and Epaminondas.
treatise,
"on

the Malignity of
if

Herodotus,"

may be

pardoned ill-aimed, outburst of indig nation against the injustice of mankind, who spoke of his countrymen as Boeotian swine."
"

as a natural,

His

life,

like that of

most men of

letters, is little

known.
shorter
"The
it,

Not

that he courted obscurity.

One

of his

papers is on the maxim, "live forgotten." author of this adage," says Plutarch, "devised
forgotten."

that he might not be

But the tranquil

incidents.

life

of a

man

of the pen
A.D.

is

marked by few

He He

was born about

A.D. 48, in the reign of Claudius,

and died about

studied,

120, in the reign of Hadrian.

at Athens,

no doubt
a

under

"the

good

Peripatetic and an lectured at Rome as a young man,

Ammonius,"

Egyptian.

He

and

visited the

He had seen Alexandria capital again in later years. and Sparta but the greater part of his long life seems to have been spent almost entirely in his little native town of Chaeronea. There he was squire, mayor (or
;

archon), and priest, attending to the welfare of his tenants, managing the affairs of the community,

presiding at their sacrifices, passing the greater part of his time in his well-stored library, and making

occasional
is

excursions into the larger world. There about such a life. We something very English

consider Plutarch as a sort of Greek Kingsley. His family held a considerable position, and were His great-grandfather Nicarchus, his rich in ability.

may

grandfather Lamprias, his father, whose

name

is

not

PLUTARCH
recorded, his brothers

83

Timon and Lamprias, were all men of intelligence. Notwithstanding his retired life, he knew everybody that was worth knowing. Trajan
and Hadrian are said
to

have honoured him with

this

public dignities, and, though

uncertain, he appears both princes.
to

particular

fact

is

have enjoyed the esteem of

best

Plutarch

is

probably

still

known by

his Parallel

Lives, a series of biographical sketches, in

which he

depicted and

compared the great heroes of Greek

and
age,
less
all

Roman history side by side. In our scientific which thinks more of the general movement and of the individual life, which is highly impatient of
reflections,

moral

and

is

rather pleased

when

it

can prove that a fine saying was never uttered, or a fine deed never done, the Lives have become a grammar-school text. But, from the revival of Greek
to the time of Rousseau, they were

one of the most

in

popular books

in existence.

Montaigne delighted

them, Shakespeare drew the material for his Roman dramas from North s Translation, and Jeremy Taylor found in them an inexhaustible store of anecdote and
illustration.

kingdom
late

for

There he read, how Lysimachus sold his a draught of wine, and repented too

how Phocion, when the populace applauded ; him, turned to his friends and asked, "What folly
have
I
uttered?"

how Alexander
tear of his
;

"

said,

Antipater
blots out all

knows

not, that

one

mother

the libels he has written against me ; how the dying Pericles, when his weeping friends were praising, some
his eloquence,

some

his courage,

some

his victories,

84
raised his

NEOPLATONISM
head from the
little

pillow,

and

"

said,

What you

admire are
of
all

you

forget,

fortune ; the greatest things, or gifts of that no citizen ever wore black

through

me."

To

in Plutarch, as to Teufelsdrockh, the supreme

terest of history

he found human nature

was the humano-anecdotical. There at work on the most picturesque

always the same

and impressive

scale,

human

nature,

same lessons of piety, duty, always For our moderation, and kindliness. magnanimity,
teaching
the

present

purpose the

Lives

are

of

importance as

and amiability of their showing not only the learning attitude of the thought of author, but the changing
the time.
If

we

contrast this broad, social, artistic

view of
Caesar

life
it

with the sour Puritanism of the Stoic,

wiser and more
practical.

we

shall find
is

To

Epictetus

as to St.

the corrupter-general, the devil ; to Plutarch, for good, Paul, he is a minister of God

minister. though possibly a very unfaithful of antiquity handles the domestic No other writer

One of the affections with such insight as Plutarch. is the dialogue called Amatorius. best of his treatises

A incident of real life. suggested by a comical widow named Ismenodora, of great personal wealthy
It is

attractions

and

spotless character,

became enamoured

Her suitors young gentleman, Bacchon. and Bacchon, though not unwilling, -were furious, was afraid of the ridicule of his companions. when Ismenodora boldly Things were at a deadlock, cut the knot by carrying Bacchon off and marrying
of a poor

him

there

and

then.

This gives

rise to

a discussion

PLUTARCH
whether a
in

85
is

man ought
wife

to marry,

whether he
little

justified

marrying a

richer

and a

older than

himself,

and how he ought

to treat his wife.

The

dialogue is marked by its outspoken condemnation of that ghastly Greek vice, which cannot even be

named by
"In

Christian

lips,

but

still

more by
is

its

ex

quisite treatment
marriage,"

of the

subject
"it

of conjugal
better to
that of a

love.

says Plutarch,

love

than to

be

loved."

His tone

is

modern

The wife is to be not the mistress only, gentleman. but the friend and companion of the husband, and he overflows with anecdotes of the purity, the
courage,
the
in

generosity
his

marriage

character; it is This goes to the earthly, but of the heavenly liros. root of the matter, and it is hardly too much to
say,

of woman. Nor does view altogether lack a sacramental under the special care, not of the

that the

Amatorius

is

worth

on morality put together.

other heathen writings Plutarch s life was in strict

all

accordance with his professions. This difference of moral tone implies of course a difference of moral theory, and in the de virtute
morali Plutarch explains objections to Stoicism.
very clearly his
scientific

There
the
first

are,
is is

he says, two great moral antitheses; between the soul and the world, the
the
soul
itself,

second
desire.

in

between reason and

first,

The
vice
is

Stoics

admit the
the
soul

but

not

the

second.

They regard
"all

as practically one.

Hence

an error of judgment.
things are

Marcus Aurelius
that
is

taught that

opinion,"

to say,

86
that

NEOPLATONISM
moral
evil

consists

in

the mistaken idea that

Obviously then vice is a corrup pleasure is good. tion of the soul itself; in other words, of the God Thus Pantheism not only, as we have seen, within.

makes

all

possibility

bad men equally bad, but destroys all The whole soul is given of amendment.

up to evil, and there is absolutely nothing left, to which an appeal can be made. Plutarch admits both antitheses, but in a much The world is neither evil nor in modified form.
different.

Being the work of God,

it

must be

either

a blessing or a scene of trial. Similarly, in the soul reason and desire are distinguished not as opposites, though they may become so, but as superior and
inferior.

The
is

office

of reason

is

not to extirpate

affection, for

Affection

impossible, but to control it. the matter, reason the form, and each
this
is

moral virtue

may be regarded as a mean between two Thus extremes, the too much and the too little. between foolhardiness and is a mean courage
cowardice.

On

this

view each virtue

;

musical harmony

the tumult

becomes a kind of of sound is formed

and regulated by the art of the composer. But now earthly music may be better or worse according to the ideal of the artist, and the skill whereby he realizes
his ideal.

Where

the ideal
is

is

not absolutely master

of the material, the result

accompaniment and sign So it is with virtue. Plutarch divides men

classes, the

always discord, pain, the of effort and uncertainty.

into four

Temperate

in (o-^pwr), the saint,

whom

PLUTARCH
reason
is

87
is no longer any lower nature ; the

so

supreme that there

the
part

resistance

on

of

the

Continent and the Incontinent

(e y/v-par//c, axparrjc),

in

whom good and

this
is

evil are striving for the mastery,

first

predominating in the
the

and

evil in

good the second

region of free-will, as it is commonly called, of choice and its concomitants, shame, repent
ance, pain
;

and

lastly the

whom
To

evil

is

as absolute as

goodness

Intemperate, the bad, in in the saint.

moral virtues the good things of the as Plutarch called them, the gifts of the world, or, The musician gods, are necessary and helpful.
the
finer

cannot play without an instrument, and he can music with an organ than with a drum.
It is

make

theories lead.

obvious to what practical differences the two According to Plutarch a good wife is
to

blessing, according

Epictetus

she

is

thing

indifferent.

The
erring,

latter
"a

hopeless scorn as

looked upon a bad man with former cried to the fool," the
;

weak and

know

better."

You are children of God you For the Platonist held that reason is
"

never false;

it

changing

truths,"

may
but
of

sleep

it

the first, abiding, un and always knows what is right. It may be violently overcome by desire,
"contemplates

it is

men

never persuaded to assent to sin. The worst can be forced to give evidence against him
Platonist appeals to the testimonium

self.

The

animae
in

naturaliter

Christianas;
it

the

chief

defect

his

system is, that than moral.

is

aesthetic

and

intellectual rather

The

student will perceive, that in this analysis of

88

NEOPLATONISM

the practical virtues Plutarch has adopted bodily the The two agree again neces teaching of Aristotle. in setting the intellectual virtues above the sarily
practical.

reason, or
truth

too

merely their way of saying that or faith must regulate conduct, a dogma, But here obvious to need discussion.

This

is

and the begins the difference between the Peripatetic Platonist. Plutarch held that the reason (vovg), which
is

not, properly speaking, in the body,

is

because the

body

in

it,

was

in

immediate contact with the

divine,

saw the divine nature, and possessed the

reason, dogma, and faith are same thing. Thus sound learning and true godliness are Plutarch was almost more priest than identified. He would have said, that he was a philosopher.

divine thoughts.
different

Thus

names

for the

a priest. Religion is to philosopher, because he was him the crown of life, the source of all harmony and
unity.

Against

the

those,

who make
There

Epicureans he maintains, that pleasure the end, cannot live

pleasantly.

is

no pure joy without a

pious,

We have seen how he applied this grateful spirit. maxim to the blessing of domestic happiness, but he
learned
it

also

priestly duties in the

"

from the performance of his own temple of Apollo at Chaeronea.

see,"

Nothing that we
spirit

cheers the

more

nothing that we do, effectually than the sights and

he says,

"

actions of our worship, when we celebrate a festival, or dance in a choir, or attend at a sacrifice. For there
is

a good hope and

faith, that

the god will be pro

service,"

pitious

and favourably allow our

It is

on

PLUTARCH
the comforting nature of the belief

89

and on the natural

desire for perfection, that he rests the immortality of the soul, though he found it also in revelation.

Without religion then society

"

itself is

impossible.

Belief in the gods

is

the

first

and

chiefest thing, the

all
laws."

cement of

all society,

the bulwark of

Like

appeared between the marsh of superstition and the precipice of atheism. Atheism he regarded as a brutish way of
virtue, religion
"

to Plutarch as a golden

mean

thinking."

Superstition was as

bad as atheism.

"

For

the crushing fear of the gods is inseparable from the But elsewhere he wish, that there were no gods."

takes a wiser view.

that
all."

it
"

Few men fear the gods so much, were better they should not fear them at Most men, being unlearned, yet not wholly
"

bad, worship the gods with a certain dread, which is called superstition ; yet the fear is immensely out

weighed by hope and joy, and the filial feeling with which they pray for and receive good things as the
gift

of the

gods."

Superstition here means craven fear of the unseen. It tells a man that the gods act towards him like
tyrants,
"by

wrath
"As

or
it
it

favour."

This

is

not true.

God
chill

good. but to warm, so

not
to

is

is

the property of fire not to is the property of the good

to

Hence Plutarch was shocked by the Old Testament, of which he had a little indirect knowledge, because it speaks of the
benefit
harm."

wrath
simple.

of Jehovah.

God

is

beneficence pure and

Hellenism, intellectualism, recoiled from the popular devil-worship to the opposite ex*

Thus

90 treme of
in

NEOPLATONISM
geniality.

But Plutarch was a firm believer

by rewards and punish ments, both in this world and in the world to come. Those God renders to every man what he deserves. who are incurable He slays at once, because they harm others, and themselves most of all. To others
the divine government
"

He

allows a space for repentance.

For there

is

no

fear, lest

of Greece, each man, he thought, was bound to worship though It was not lawful to the deities of his native land.

By

any should escape His hands." gods Plutarch meant the gods

You see what a explain away their personality. of impiety gapes for us, if we turn the gods into gulf Nor were affections, or natural forces, or virtues."
"

they to be questioned.

"

If

you are going

will
altar,

to ask for

proof about each

sophistry
free

one,

every temple

you and every

shake with your

and leave

nothing
theist,

from
even

cavil."

No
Stoics,

Hellenist was a

monotheir
else.

not

the
as

who
as

for

all

Pantheism were
Like
all

superstitious

anybody

his school, Plutarch contented himself with

teaching

that

all

gods were pure, reasonable, and

all

good, and
Creator.

One above Thus the minor

that

was Father, Ruler, and

and

inferior beings, as

became dependent indeed they are in the Timtzus,

deities

acting as vicegerents of the Supreme.

Celsus

com

pares
calls

them to proconsuls, and Nicomachus of Gerasa them "archangels," a name which he must have

borrowed from the Bible.

Plutarch generally thinks and speaks of God under But at times he the old royal and paternal forms.

PLUTARCH

91

adopts the modern Pythagorean view, and identifies the Supreme with the absolute. One of the most
interesting of his dialogues is on the letter E, which was fixed on the walls in three different places of the

Delphic temple. The letter was shaped much as in our English alphabet, but it was called Ei, and this diphthong may mean "Thou art." Ammonius takes
/

the

name

explains

it

of the letter as a symbol of the Deity, and to mean "Thou art One." God is the
All-sufficient.

one substance, the Eternal, the

In this

adoption of the Pythagorean doctrine we find the first distinct step in the transition from Platonism to

Neoplatonism. But like Plato himself, Plutarch did not admit the eternity of creation as a necessary selfevolution of God. Another closely related doctrine,
that of Ecstasy, has not yet attained in his
definite position,

mind

the

which

it

occupies

in the

teaching of

Plotinus.

But he was a firm believer

in inspiration

and revelation of every kind. God manifests Himself by the heavenly graces of love and genius, by pre dictions, omens, dreams, by what we call possession, and by the ecstatic trance. Physical aids, the fumes
of a sacred fountain, or the steam of the Pythian cleft
are

sometimes
is

useful,

and

indeed

ordained

but

the great help

the preparation of the soul by quiet and detachment. Plutarch in fact believes in revela
tion in the Christian

sense,

and

in

enthusiasm and

trance in the Pagan sense, as he saw

them

actually

manifested, especially in his own land of Boeotia, but hardly touches on the philosophic trance of Plotinus, and exhibits no taint of the mesmerism of the later

N EOPLATONISM
of the Mysticism in the lower sense Neoplatonists. But he into his system. word is not yet welded
for others to kindle. carefully laid the fuel

We

shall certainly not

is

blame Plutarch
the

for believing

in revelation, which

necessary

corollary

of

man. belief in a God, who is wiser and better than have to notice is, that ecstasy is not, as But what we
Zeller

seems to have thought, a necessary complement

It
is,

of the doctrine of the absolute.

shows,

as

Plutarch

much

older than that doctrine, and quite inde

it.

pendent of

All that Neoplatonism did, was

sterile

to

make

ecstasy absolutely

by divesting
s

God

of

all relation to the world.

Down
elevating.
is

to this point

Plutarch

creed

is

pure and
"

It is intellectual, yet in the fine saying,

loved," it

It

better to love than to be

is

unconsciously
"

at

it is more one with the teaching of our Lord blessed to give than to receive." Noble and even holy in fact lives might be inspired by his teaching, and were so inspired. Nor so far does there seem to be The immoral myths, any great difficulty in his way. which Homer weaves about the persons of the
:

Plutarch Olympian gods, admitted of explanation. which colours yet compares them to the rainbow,
refracts the light of the sun.

They might be

gently

of a crude, semi-barbarous put aside as the fancies be treated as moral anthropomorphism, or they might
allegories.

Plutarch

Nevertheless there was a great difficulty ; doctrine was not a reform but a revolution,

and a conservative revolution, which is a contradiction He wanted to keep the whole ritual, and in terms,

PLUTARCH
yet transfigure
it

93

to put a Christian

head on a heathen

body. the ritual

This could not be done,

itself,

for there

was

that in

which made the junction impossible. What he wanted to get rid of was Magic. But the
belief in

Magic is the root from which Polytheism and dies only with the death of Polytheism. sprang, There were myths which could not be allegorized, and
rituals

general doctrine of the

which could not be brought under the unmixed beneficence of God.

They were

the frantic orgiastic cults which were con

nected with the names of Cybele, Dionysus Zagreus, Isis, Adonis, and many others. They had a certain

meaning, in so far as they gave barbarous expression to two great religious facts, the sense of sin and the need for an atonement. Platonism could not
religious

account for either of these facts, and was rather shocked by them. Nevertheless there they were in Hellenism itself, and some kind of explanation must be pro
vided.

This

difficulty

was met by the doctrine of

Demons.
different points of view.

Plutarch approaches this subject several times from In his Commentary on the

TimcRus he maintains that God, the Supreme Intelli gence, the One Word, as he elsewhere calls Him, did

not create either body or soul.

Chaos, Matter, the

Indefinite Dyad, already possessed both. What God did, was to infuse reason and form into this tumultuous

disorderly

life.

His work

is

compared

to that of a

musician,
it.

who does not

in the

create sound, but harmonizes

Thus
as in

is,

man, a double

World-animal, which is a deity, there principle, the infused divine

NEOPLATONISM
<)4

intelligence side
is

by side with lawless

s

desire.

This

last

the Evil Soul of Plato

laws.

Another remarkable
of
the

treatise is that

Oracles.

The decay

of the

On the Failing ancient seats of

Plutarch. prophecy lay heavy on the pious mind of How could God so change, he asked, as to withdraw from man this special mark of His favour, through

which so many blessings had been showered on Greece

in the great old

days

The

decline was unmistakable.

Boeotia had been

a land of inspiration ; now her glory was all but de The oracle of Teiresias at Orchomenos had parted.

been

At Ptous and since the great plague. browsed on the site of the fane. Deso Tegyra sheep lation had fallen on the famous oracles of Mopsus and

dumb

Amphilochus in Cilicia. Even at Delphi one Pythia did the work of the ancient three, and the responses were given no longer in verse but in bald prose. What
was the reason?
the gods
"

The rough-tongued Cynic

gone,"

said that

had packed up and

in

wrath at the
Others

wickedness of those who consulted them.

which sought a cause in the depopulation of Greece, could with was so terrible, that the whole country
difficulty

send three thousand hoplites into the

that the single state of
in

field,

the

same number

Megara had

despatched
Plataea.

the old days to fight the Persians at

Plutarch

himself

cannot accept either of

irreverent.
?

these

explanations.

To him they seemed

thought of his

But
held

what

will

be

own answer
by the gods

He

that oracles were given not

at all,

but by

PLUTARCH
the

95

demons who

wait

upon them. Their cessation might

by subterranean catastrophes

be accounted

for either

diverting those earthy fumes, which at Delphi and elsewhere excited the convulsions of the priestess, or

by the death of the

Demon

himself.

For these beings,

though long-lived, are not eternal. In the reign of Tiberius Caesar a mysterious voice had sounded from
Paxae, an
islet of the Echinades group, bidding an great Pan Egyptian mariner spread the news, that a Roman officer, while was dead." And Demetrius, on duty in an island on the coast of England, had witnessed a wild tumult in the sky, which, the people
"

told him, betokened the death of one of the princes of

the

air.

The demons, he
retribution.

tells

the agents of Providence,

us in this strange dialogue, are and epecially of the divine

befits not the higher gods, To chaste givers of wealth." the Demons belong the mysteries, and all the dark side of religious life. Black and ill-omened days, on

Such work
calls
"

whom Hesiod

"

which

men devour raw

flesh,

obscene cries at sacred

and beatings of the breast do not belong to the worship of any god, but are propitiatory rites to keep off evil demons." So with human sacrifices, and tales of barbarous lust, and stories of painful expiation, like that of Apollo after he had slain the
altars, fasts,

python.
Alastors.

All these belong to the

"hard

gods,"

the

The same
t/ie

Moon.

In the

idea recurs in the dialogue On the Face in moon are both heaven and hell.
their

There the good, after

appointed time of purgation,

NEOPLATONISM

become pure

in the Elysian plain Thither go the evil to be on the side next the sun. tormented in the shadow of that awful Face, which is
spirits,

and dwell

But the good return again to the face of Proserpine. Some of them air as demons. the spaces below the
sin

and abuse
trial

their

endure the

of

life

more powers these must once as man.

;

its repe of the doctrine of the Evil tition in another shape Soul. The wild Egyptian myth of the murder of Osiris

The fsis and

Osiris

is

remarkable chiefly for

by Typhon
against Isis

is

meant

to teach, that the world

is

the

work, not of one author, but of two.

Typhon

fights

and Osiris, Ormuzd. against

Greek
in

as

Ahriman

in Parsee theology

Plutarch traces the belief in demons literature and all over the world.

all

through
finds
it

He

in Hesiod, in Plato, in

Empedocles, in Xenocrates, the Stoic Chrysippus, and in the Atomist Demo;

critus

in Persia, in Thrace, in Phrygia, in

Egypt, in

Britain.

shipped

which wor might have added Rome, Fever and Mephitis. It was everywhere.

He

The most

sceptical wits

who

believed in devils.

Lucan

believed in nothing else and Pliny the Elder are

on this point as Apuleius. For the just as vulnerable "They sacrificed," vulgar there was no other faith. O
"

the Apostle says,

to

devils."

These

facts

do not

alter

our estimate of Plutarch

own character, but they are absolutely ruinous to his With what effect could he denounce those system. claimed as her tribute, when by vices, which Astarte these the side of the holy gods he himself enthroned

PLUTARCH
spirits

of darkness,

who must be
It

should do harm.

placated lest they

was through this breach that Lnnstian apologists stormed irresistibly in This part of Plutarch s doctrine
is

other aspects. It shows us that Gnosticism, of which the characteristic feature is the belief in an evil creator, was not so late in its

interesting also

commonly supposed, and

bearing on
the
letters of St. Paul.
It

this

appearance as is remark has an import-

authenticity of certain of the shows us again, that Hellenism :ould do nothing better with religious emotion than provide a sort of sink to The explanation carry it off. this fact goes down to the very root of the difference between Hellenism and the Gospel.

VI
CELSUS

SUCH was
It has

the Platonism of
itself free

the second century.

shaken

Academy, and

offers

from the scepticism of the to the world a definite body of

In

dogmatic teaching.
Its teaching is that of Plato, with a difference.

one aspect the difference is that between the original inspiration of genius, and the plodding industry of Platonism has passed the commentator or professor. from the free open air to the library. We see no
Socrates quickening the spark of divine truth in dull his art of souls, like that of Menon s slave, by

but Nigrinus musing among his books We hear no longer the inimitably globes. myths of the Phaedrus or the Republic, graceful those parables, as we may call them, in which
"

midwifery,"

and

"

"

dialectic divination, sober earnest,

and

airy fancy are

blended together

like the

hues of the rainbow.

We

miss the rare personality of Plato, so richly endowed both on the philosophic and on the sensuous side.

We miss the poetry and the sense of humour, and these influences have a serious bearing on the reality,
the practicality of speculation.

What

Plato gave as

CELSUS

99

a tale told by ancient sages, as a vision, a possibility, the allegory of the Charioteer, the story of Er,

son of Armenius, the poetical cosmogony of TimaeuSy has become part and parcel of the cut-and-dried teaching of the school. Philosophy has become impersonal, methodical, in a sense less
the
the
real.

great

Yet in another respect it is more charm of Plato is that he binds men

real.

The

to nothing.

men who want

But definiteness of thought is after all a necessity for to live and not to drift. Hence the
were driven, by the nature of things,

later Platonists

to ask their master precisely what he meant, to seize and define his leading thoughts, and as far as they

could to

bring his idealism into an orderly whole. Plato used vague language even of the Ideas. His followers explained them to mean not only the great
spiritual laws of beauty,

goodness, and truth, but the

actual patterns of existing things. They regarded God in the old-fashioned way as intelligent and good, yet

same time they spoke of Him as beyond and as existence," wanting nothing," the first of
at

the

"

"

these phrases implying that

He

does not think, and

of the

the

second that

He

has no consciousness

world, so that

nor good.
existing
statues,"

could really be neither intelligent Again, they conceived of the ideas as

the

He

outside

mind
must

of

God,

like

"golden

as Plotinus says, so that

wished to create
pattern,
it.

He

first

Deity look about for the

it

when

the

and perhaps not recognize

when He found

All these crudities are

found in Plato himself,

often side by side with hints of a different complexion.

I00

NEOPLATONISM
his followers did,

What

down

to the

middle of the

second century, was to

them, and
confusion.

select, reiterate,

and harden

They with ideal They could no longer play The deluge was upon them, and the republics. the existing State could be saved. question was, how
manner.
their zeal for the conservation of the established This is why, by the side of the two deities religion.

in this way to bring to light their inherent were more real again in another

Hence

and of their philosophy, the Supreme Intelligence the whole Pantheon the World-Spirit, they introduced and the of the popular mythology, the lower gods What found in Plato. This also they demons. from their master, is the clear them here

distinguishes had that the influence of the schools so far perception, to religion, that religion itself was been antagonistic that with it morality and general imperilled, and

culture

What they were in danger of perishing. to consolidate the various mythologies, desired was and to to retain the whole fabric of Polytheism,
philosopher, guard the self-respect a more enlightened him, not instead but in addition, of the

by giving

creed of his own.

How far could men possible? to build a system that might hope on these lines The question will be to rival the Gospel ? How
far

was

this

pretend

answered

Christianity
to

men. The by one of these very attack upon True Word of Celsus was an elaborate and it is still this position from
for us

precisely

be found almost entire

in the treatise

which Origen

wrote in reply.

CELSUS
It is

101
was, nor
is
it

uncertain

who Celsus

possible

to fix the date of his

He
to

book with absolute accuracy. mentions the apotheosis of Antinous, and seems

pression

speak of the devastation of Judaea after the sup of Barcochba s revolt towards the end of

the reign of Hadrian, though his words the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus.
facts

may

apply to

Beyond these
But

there

is

no very certain note of time.

persecution was raging against the Christians, and the Hence ship of the state was apparently in danger.

Keim

supposes that he wrote about 178

A.D., just

after the persecution of

Vienna, when Marcus Aurelius

was preparing
In
this

for his expedition against the Quadi. case he was probably the Celsus to whom

Lucian dedicated his exposure of the famous quack, Alexander of Abonoteichos.

He
fell

was undoubtedly a

Platonist,

though Origen

But

into the error of regarding him as an Epicurean. he was rather a cultivated man of the world,

There is a tone about him, keen, scornful, positive, practical, which seems to de note familiarity with affairs on a large scale and in

than a philosopher.

He writes like a clever pro - consul. high position. There is a ring of menace in his words. Like many another magistrate in those days, he condescends
to argue

to

the

and even to implore, but ends by pointing altar, and bidding the trembling Christian
But
it

bum
man,

incense or die.

is

characteristic of the

that he saw with the eye of a true

statesman

the dangers to which Aurelius was blind.

resolute, clear-sighted man, the

To

this

meek

pertinacity of the

102

NEOPLATONISM
;

down-trodden Church was ominous of catastrophe and his diatribe resolves itself into a sort of fierce
appeal to the Christians to have mercy on the Empire. They must make concessions like everybody else ;

they must if necessary be forced to make them, for the unity and very existence of the State are in
jeopardy. Celsus insists that he

knew

all

and

his information

is

indeed extensive, though

to

about Christianity, it does

not penetrate to a real appreciation of the points at

issue.
"

He
"

was awake
or

the

distinction

between
heretics,

the great

Catholic Church

and the

though

he sometimes confuses properly Christian teaching with the vagaries of an obscure Gnosticism, He had of which he knew more than Origen himself.
read the books of Genesis and Exodus, of Jonah and He had studied the four Gospels, and of Daniel. besides a general acquaintance with the possessed

phraseology of the whole Bible, which he

may have

acquired by reading or in conversation, for he had There is a highly talked]. with Christian priests. Celsus tells us involved here. interesting point

enough about the Catholic Church of his time to it was in all essentials the same then as now. The only articles in the Creed, with which he
assure us, that the explicitly deals, are the Incarnation,
Hell, and

Descent into
far

the

Resurrection

but

as

as

this

there was enlightened and bitter antagonist is aware, and never had been, any difference in the Church not, on these points. He knew the four Gospels, and the

four only, he alludes to the Epistles of St. Paul,

and

his

CELSUS
silence
is

103

the

New

Testament

no proof that he did not possess the rest of as well, because he mentions no

book that he could not strike. Thus this trenchant critic becomes one of the most effective of apologists, and his evidence is all the more important,
heathen
because there
is

really

no strong ground
revolt.

for dating his

book much

after the

Barcochba

Widely read

as he was, he

of none but ignorant Christians, and had never heard of Justin, Tatian, Athenagoras,

knew

refer

And he does not Melito, Miltiades, or Apollinaris. to the infamous charges of child-murder and

debauchery, which in the time of Aurelius were alleged

currently against the Christians.

The True Word

the
first is

falls

into

two

divisions, of

which

put into the mouth of a Jew, while in the second Celsus speaks in his o\\n voice. To the Jew
ascribed the task of attacking the person of our Part of what is here to be read, for instance, the Panthera legend, still exists in the Talmud, and
is

Lord.

no doubt guided by what he had actually The arrangement gave lips of Jews. him a double advantage. It enabled him to assail the moral character of our Lord under cover. When
Celsus
is

heard from the

in his own person he is much more temperate and conciliatory, "willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike/ Again, Celsus hated and scorned

he speaks

the Jews

beyond the power of expression.

"runaway

To him

they were

Egyptian slaves, who had never done anything worth speaking of;" their sacred books were mean and ridiculous to the last He
scoffs at

Egyptian beast-worship

degree. the Jews were

infi-

104
nitely

NEOPLATONISM
beneath the Egyptians, and the Christians were

renegade Jews, at whom their own kinsmen made a mock. This is why the Jew is called in to demolish
the Gospel, before Celsus takes up his parable, and, in a much less acrid tone, undertakes to show the

Christians the real truth, which they

not wholly

had missed though which they had missed precisely because

of their Jewishness.

The point insisted upon by the Jew is the weakness, the baseness, and the failure of the life of Jesus. He was the son of Panthera. The prophets foretold a
"

great

prince, lord of
;

all

the

earth,

all

nations,

all

armies

not a pestilent fellow like this." Compare His passion with that of Bacchus in Euripides. King Pentheus, who had dared to imprison the god, was
pieces for his impiety.

torn in

But Pontius Pilate

did not Christ then, at any rate, if not before, show His divine power, save Him self from this shame, and punish those who were out
suffered nothing.

Why

raging Himself and His Father

See

how on
thirst

the

Cross
the

He

craved for drink, unable to bear

fortitude.

with

commonest

And do

ye reproach us, ye

faithful ones,

because we do not count

agree with you that that we too might learn to bear chastisements
truth

Him a god, nor He bore all this for the good of man,
?

The

is, persuade any body, even His own disciples, He was punished thus. You will not surely say, that after He had failed to per

that after

He had

failed in life to

suade
there.

men here, He went to Hades to persuade men You may invent absurd apologies for Him but, if
;

they are to be heard, what

is

to prevent us

from regard-

CELSUS

105

ing any one, who has been condemned and died a miser able death, as a divine messenger ? It needs but suf
to say of any executed robber or was no robber but a god, for he foretold his fellow-robbers, -what he was to suffer." The evidence of miracles the Jew derides, on the
ficient

impudence
"

murderer

He

ground that our Lord Himself confessed that evil men them the evidence of prophecy, on the ground, that if He had known what He was to endure, He would have avoided it.
could perform
;

It

has been said that the gospel leaves us with the

bonus.

dilemma Aut Deus ant homo non

distinctly adopts

Celsus

the

second alternative
later Platonists,

Christ was

not a good man.

The

Porphyry and

Hierocles, had learned to use very different language, and preferred to argue, that the Church was unworthy of its Founder. But the True Word is valuable

on

this very account,

because

it

points

so

sharply the

antagonism between Hellenism and Hellenism was always aesthetic, Christianity. dighified, aristocratic, and abhorred suffering as a
Christ could not be God, personal degradation. just because He was crucified. It is curious to notice to what a depth of perplexity the clever Celsus was here reduced. If Christ had failed, why was he
writing

radical, inherent

book? There was no beauty in our Lord, that any Platonist should desire Him. It was still commonly believed in the Church, that our Lord s figure was plain and unattractive and this was a ground of offence, for personal grace had come to be regarded as a
his
;

necessary

106

NEOPLATONISM
for
;

adornment
as a Satyr

Socrates was ugly the philosopher. but the Greek Alexander traded largely
"

on

good looks. But the want of "wisdom was even more repulsive to Celsus than the want of
his

dignity.
"

On
is

this point
:

This

their cry

he will speak for himself. Let no educated man enter

for these things
if

in,

none
evil.

wise,

none prudent,
if

we count
any These

But
if

any be ignorant, any

let

foolish,

untaught,

any childish,

him come

boldly.

they count

and

it

is

worthy, just as they are, of their God, therefore obvious, that they can, and will,
fools,

and baseborn, and dullards, But and slaves, and silly women and children. is it wrong to be educated, and trained in the why best thoughts, and to be, and be known to be, wise ?
persuade only

How

does

all this
it

Why, does
truth ?

We

prevent a man from knowing God ? not rather help him in the attainment of all know the jugglers, who display their

and then send would not dare to come into a they company of sensible men, and there play their pranks ; but wherever they see lads, or a group of slaves, or a
abominable
tricks in the market-place,
;

round the hat

gathering of foolish fellows, thither they shoulder their

way, and there they show their wonders.

Just so

we

see in private houses wool-carders, cobblers, fullers, the most ignorant and the rudest fellows, never daring
to

open

their lips in the hearing of grave elders

;

or

No but they get the children and sensible masters. foolish wenches into a corner, and tell them wonderful
things
to
;

Do

not listen to your father or your tutor, but

me

they talk nonsense, they are dotards, so stuffed

CELSUS

107

up with

idle prejudices, that they neither

know, nor do,

to

anything right. live. Listen to

We
us,

alone

know how one ought

will

and you

be happy, and the

will prosper. And while they are talking in this should the tutor or the father pass by, if they are way, prudent they run away, but the hot-headed ones egg

house

the children on to rebellion.

is

We

cannot

tell

you what

good, they whisper, while father or the tutor is here, because they are bad men and will punish us. Come away with us into the women s apartments, or the
cobbler
all
s,

or the fuller
it.

shop, and then

we

will tell

you

about
"

The

priests of other mysteries,

he proceeds,

cry,

hand and discreet of tongue, ye that are pure of all stain, whose spirit knows no But guile, and whose life has been good and just. whom do these Christians invite? The sinner, the

Come, ye that

are clean of

foolish, the childish, the

unhappy.

These the King

!

dom

of

God

will

admit.

The

sinner

that

is

the

unjust, the thief, the burglar, the prisoner,

the robber
!

of temples and tombs. God sent to sinners

Why, it is a robber s invitation Not to the sinless ? Why,

being .without
sin?

what harm
unjust

is

there
if
he"

in

The

man

then,

wickedness,

God

brings himself low through his will receive, but the just, who practises
to

rightly administer justice, compel the prisoner to cease from wails and laments, lest But God, as it justice should be warped by pity.

virtue, and looks up receive. Men, who

Him

from the

first,

He

will

not

seems,

is

guided in His judgments, not by

truth, but

by

flattery."

108

NEOPLATONISM
things in ancient literature are

Few
manner

more

striking

than the picture, which Celsus gives us here, of the

which Christianity was burrowing its way There into the most guarded recesses of pagan life. were shoals of these obscure missionaries, many of
in

them doubtless very ignorant and very narrow, though many were neither one nor the other. Hermas and Blandina were slaves so were the popes Pius and
;

was the great Clement of Rome. So indeed were a multitude of distinguished heathen
Callistus
;

so possibly

philosophers, including Epictetus. of whom Celsus speaks men,"

The
with

"

sensible

denounced these humble servants magistrate, and clapped their hands, when they were

admiration, of God to the

What a torn in pieces by wild beasts in the arena. is afforded by his fierce scorn of the commentary
Kingdom of God upon the high-flown pagan phrases about the dear city of Zeus Celsus makes the mistake of supposing, that all But he makes the Christian teachers were ignorant.
!

still

gave
to

graver mistake of not asking what it was, that fullers and cobblers a power of persuasion denied the schools? Why did what he thought their
"

parrot cry, Believe, and thou shalt be saved," go home, where the doctrine of the Absolute passed unheeded?

Celsus himself supplies

that
"a

the answer.

He

believed,

sensible

man"

wants no Redeemer, that a

wicked

man must

not

come near God,

that

God

cannot forgive or pity, and that religion is an abstruse The science, which no "cobbler" can understand.
nature
of
evil,

the nature of God, could

only be

CELSUS
explained
to

109
the
let

philosophers
to

if

mechanic,

"

the

unhappy/ wanted
geometry,

be saved,

them

first

learn
ideas.

astronomy,
till

and

the

theory

of
"

Then, and not

God."

then, they might

hope

to see

Origen cuts through

in heart,

all this intellectual

"

one quotation from the Gospel,

system with Blessed are the pure

for they shall see God." Justin Martyr s Platonism was knocked to pieces by one question from the old man, whom he met on the sea-shore How can the intelligence of man see God, except it be adorned with the Holy Spirit ? Of human nature
:

the wise Greek was

heart

more ignorant than a

child.

The

unexplained riddle to him, a mere source of disturbance to the abstract laws of motion. To this day our knowledge of it is based that

was an

upon

mystery of the Cross, which Celsus derided. The Platonists were therefore wholly wrong in their
favourite contention, that there was nothing new in Christianity. To the heathen world sin was a new idea,

meekness a new virtue, and love a new law. Even were true that there is no saying in the Gospel to which some sort of parallel cannot be found
if it

elsewhere,
is

it

would not follow

that the

Gospel as a whole
thing,

not

new.

watch

is

new

though cog-wheels,

chains, and springs were all known before the first watch was made. If it were permissible to speak of our Lord for one moment as a scientific discoverer,

we might say

that

He

spiritual life in a set of

found the Supreme law of phenomena, which the Greek

had wholly neglected, and which even the Jew did not

110

NEOPLATONISM

understand, and that

He

thereby revolutionized

all

philosophy and

all ethics,

The same
his

unlovely spirit of scorn guides Celsus in treatment of the subject of revelation. Here
first

he differed from the Christian

position of man in nature. "The race of Jews and
like a string of bats, or ants

of

all

as to the

Christians,"

he

says,

"is

coming out of a hole, or round a pond, or worms met frogs squatting together in church in a corner of the mud, disputing which are
the more sinful, and saying God foretells everything to us. He leaves the whole world, the moving
:

heavens, and neglects the broad earth to live amongst us alone. To us alone He sends messengers without
cease, always

They

are

like

and next
likeness.
air,

to

scheming that we may be with Him. worms who say, There is a God, Him are we, His children and His
has
is

He
All

made

us lords of
;

all,

earth, water,

stars.

for our sake

all

is

appointed to

minister to us.
*

And now

the

Because some of us are sinners, God burn up the unjust, in order that the
eternal
life

worms go on to say, will come and

rest

may have

with Him.

"

as

Celsus more than once speaks of Christians and Jews worms," but his language is something more than
"

a mere outburst of
that the Bible

man
not.

as

its

Roman contempt. His point is, makes the whole universe revolve round He would centre, and that this is wrong.
man is much
him
chief of the animals
right as
in
;

even allow that

they eat him, with as

he eats them.

The bee

is

equal

to

social

wisdom, the

CELSUS

1 1 I

and the phoenix

All,

elephant in conscientiousness, the stork in filial piety, is altogether more wonderful. The

he concludes,

is

not

made

for

man any more

than

for lions, eagles,

or dolphins, but in order that this

And

work, may be complete in all its parts. he draws the inference, that God is no more angry with man than with apes or flies. Origen was so staggered by this language, that he
world, as
s

God

from

this

that

thought Celsus could be nothing but an Epicurean, an Atheist. Indeed, Celsus is altogether is, He misapprehends the position of his an wrong.
tagonists,

and he coarsely exaggerates one element Platonic theory, while leaving out of sight the considerations by which it was laboriously cor
of the
rected.

The
but
it

does regard

Bible does not say that all was made for man, man as the chiefest of all God s

visible works,

with which he

by virtue of the reason and conscience is endowed. He is the interpreter,

sense the
all

and

in

limited

ruler
for

of nature.

Almighty things He governs and cares for all ; purposes. the young lions that call upon Him. Yet
of man, that
that
"

created

His

The own good

feedeth
written

He
it is

"

he

is

little

lower than the

angels,"

and

all

crown

Man is the things are put under his feet." and king of the world, but we do not therefore
is

was made for him, or that his the one sole object, for which the world exists. Just so we say that the Czar is the Emperor of Russia, without meaning that Russia was called
affirm that the world

happiness

into existence for his

good

pleasure.

112

NEOPLATONISM
true Platonist could flatly

No
that

deny

all this.

They

allowed that

man was

Celsus ridicules, telligence, that he alone was immortal.

a phrase the image of God, that he alone possessed in

But
is

if

man by

virtue of his reason

it

and conscience
the whole

the chief of creation,

follows, that

must be ordered with some regard to the training and

development of those faculties. Each part has a meaning and value of its own, yet all strive towards the perfect fruit, and minister to its formation and
This nutriment, sometimes by their own destruction. can is the sole ground on which modern science
justify vivisection.

This again no true Platonist could flatly deny, though the school never attained to a consistent view
of
its own meaning. man was involved

The
in

subordination of nature to
to Stoicism,

their opposition

and

in their belief in Providence.

The

Stoics

main

tained that nature was indifferent, and had nothing at Plutarch replied, as we have seen, all to say to man.
that this

was not

true, that the

training-ground for
that the school

human

virtue

world was a proper and it is obvious ;

follows

must be constructed with a view to

the needs of the scholar,

The same

thing

from any conception of Providence. God cares for all the world, but He must care principally for that

which

is

principal.

He

an alien world and

Platonists were
that the world

left it to shift

cannot have flung reason into But the for itself.

and

it

hampered on many sides. They held is good, and yet that matter is evil seemed to them to follow that life, though a
;

CELSUS
school,

IIJ

is only a reformatory school, into which souls are sent to expiate the sins of a previous existence.

Again, the conception of God as Absolute was every day gaining the upper hand of the conception of God

God the Absolute wants nothing," and knows and cares for nothing. Here Platonism differs from Atheism only by its contention, that, though God neither knows nor cares for the world, the world knows and cares for God. But the Abso
as Father.
"

therefore

lute,

as

love

nor wrath.

Celsus rightly maintains, can feel neither He got over this difficulty, like

Plutarch, by assigning the administration of Provi dence entirely to the demons, "the masters of the Thus Polytheism prison-house," as he calls them.

becomes a

vital part of his monotheism, and the chief offence of Christianity is its crowning saying, that

God

is

Love.

Celsus held in

common

with

all his

school that the

world, being the work of the perfect able God, is itself perfect and

and unchange

was not of God

the
divine

it

Evil unchangeable. was the resistance of matter to

good and

Hence the quantity thought. evil in the world was invariable.

of

both
could

He

not therefore admit any kind of evolution. All truth has been known from the first, and the world can never be either better or worse. Hence there never

can be any reason for God to come and set it right. This is the only serious point that he makes against
the
"

Incarnation.
down,"

He

scoffs

at

the

idea

of

God

and leaving heaven vacant, in order coming to find out what He knew He scoffs again already.

114
at the flesh of

NEOPLATONISM

him

to

Our Lord, though Homer compelled admit that the gods had often appeared in
But, without giving up his philosophy, for the

human

shape.

he could not admit that there was any need

Incarnation.

Origen held that the world was growing worse, a view which at that particular period of history was by

no means without

foundation.

This

lends

some

appearance of force to the assertion of Celsus, that

the Bible represents with His own work,

God

as

issuing

perpetually interfering new and ever more

stringent appeals to sinners, and issuing them in vain. But the Christian teacher also saw horn God s purpose

broadens down through the Old Testament into the New, how the light waxes brighter and clearer through the long line of prophets and symbols to the rising
of the dayspring from on high. There is a deeper philosophy in the opening verses of the Epistle to
the Hebrews, than any that Celsus had grasped. He could not admit, that truth grows or is increased.

He hoped for revelations like all Platonists, but to him revelation signified not the gift of knowledge or
new
strength, but the

mere

sight of a Deity.

So much has been said of the influence of Greek

to notice that

philosophy upon the Church, that we should not omit evolution is a purely Christian idea.

To the Greek unity implied fixity, to the Christian it It involved the idea of a living and growing whole. was thus that the Church answered the Gnostics, who
regarded the Old Testament as false ; Athanasius explained the Incarnation.
it

was thus that

theology

From

CELSUS

115

this fruitful conception has passed into science, and from science it has made its way into philosophy.

The Church need not be afraid of its own child. The Resurrection of the Body Celsus rejects
profound
disdain.

with

Here again he labours under difficulties. The doctrine of the Church was not altogether what he makes it, nor does he fairly represent the state of opinion on his own side. Homer ascribes to the dwellers in Hades a material
though shadowy existence. Plato in the story of Er, the son of Armenius, represents the spirits as coming
in bodily shape, to cast lots for their
earth.

new

lives

upon

play so large a part in the system of Celsus, were corporeal. The gods, the sun, defhons,

The

who

moon, and
It

stars,

had proper bodies of

it

their

own, and

could assume

human shape when

so pleased them.

was generally allowed, that, till the spirit was finally purified from all taint of uncleanness, according to

Empedocles
its

for

"

30,000

hours,"

corporeity in
"

some
"

sense.

or cycles, it retained Many Platonists speak

of a

fifth

four, air,
terrestrial

or element besides the recognized earth, fire, and water, of which the super-

body

organism

is

composed.
at the
(<

But here again

Celsus allows his scornful

spirit to run

away with him.

or glorified

He makes

one brief gibe

seed,"

body, of the Epistle to the Corinthians, and directs his artillery solely against the belief in the resurrection of
"this
flesh."

He

insists

ing, that the tissues

brought together.
fulness of the belief.

on the absurdity of suppos once dissolved can ever again be But his chief point is the shame-

The body

is

unclean, disgusting,,

Il6
"a

NEOPLATONISM
miasma."

That God should ever unite Himself

is

with such a mass of corruption

thing; that
eyes"

the inconceivable

man

should hope to see

God

with

"these

is
"

"the

hope of

worms."

"They

say,"

he

adds,

that

with

God
is

nothing

is

impossible.

But

He
is

cannot do what
nature."

shameful, nor will

He

do what

against

The argument
belief,

of Celsus rests
flesh
is

that

the

devilish

upon the deep-seated thing, and to

spirit, this calls

Christians

who have

learned to look upon the body

notice, that here too,

as a worthy tabernacle of the Divine

for

no answer.

But we must

in the Resurrection of

the

Church dogma

the Body, as in Revelation, enfolded the germ of a philosophy

absolutely antagonistic to the whole current of Greek The way to that thought, and yet deeper and truer.

which the Hellenist sought in vain, lay through a right appreciation of his own flesh and blood. This Celsus might have learned from Christianity, in which
unity,

he could find
Its

"nothing

new."

Christianity, in fact,

was something absolutely new. rested on new motives, and implied new morality
;

standards
or

its

doctrines, though not as yet explained

to issue
in

co-ordinated, were destined

felt
"

new
the
is

Celsus philosophy. Christians with being

revolution
see
it

this,

and

he

taunts

revolutionists."

And what

if

not new

But he was too passionate

to

clearly.

He
by

forgot that, though a thing

may be
is

stupidly

put

"fullers

and

cobblers,"

it

not

necessarily stupid in
religion
is

itself.

He

forgot also that every

;

an inarticulate philosophy

indeed he did

CELSUS
not in the least understand
this,

I I

or he would never

possible to unite the Absolute with the demons, or the religion of Greece with that of

have thought
Egypt.

it

As it was, he thought it must surely be possible to convince these simple men of the error of their ways. They could not persist in the infatuation of worship
dead man," now that they ping "an impostor," had listened to the True Word. They must give up Jesus, and then the only question that could arise
"a

between himself and them, was the lawfulness This accordingly he proceeds demon-worship.

of
to

make as simple as possible. You say, he tells them, that you may not
masters.

serve two

But you are already doing so ; for you set You say, that Christ beside, and even above, God.

you may not eat

at

the

demon

table.

But you
;

cannot help it. They send you corn and wine is the water you drink, the air you breathe.
bless your

theirs

They

You

marriages, and comfort you in trouble. cannot refuse their benefits, unless you go out of

the world they govern.

How,
is

them due honour.

It

true,

then, can you refuse that God is to be

worshipped above all. But He permits and requires due observance to His agents, just as Caesar expects

men

to reverence his

own majesty

in the

person of

his pro-consuls.

If the Christian shrank from idolatry, Celsus comforted him with the assurance, that the statue was a mere symbol. But even here he cannot abstain

from a cruel

scoff.

Many of

the hot-headed Christians

Il8

NEOPLATONISM

eager for the martyr s crown, would strike the images of the gods, crying "See, I stand before your Zeus or
:

your Apollo,

curse

him and

do me no

harm."

"Yes."

buffet him, and he can answers Celsus "and do

;

you not see that we stand before your demon, and not only curse Him, but banish Him from land and sea? And you, His consecrated image, we bind and

and your demon, Son of God as you call Him, cannot defend you." It was too true; the demons had been fed with Christian blood, and the
crucify,

time for argument was surely past.

Celsus dwells

on the bright side of Hellenism, and no doubt it had a bright side but the persecuted Church knew too
;

well that murder, lust,

and malice belonged

to the

worship of the Greek gods as truly as feasting and music.

It
is

strange sight, to

see

this

proud

Roman

appeal to the patriotism of those, whom he was ready He must have credit to crucify for the Name s sake.
for

become
posed.

how dangerous the Church might he had looked a little deeper, he would have realized the futility of the compromise he pro In the last sentence of the True Word he
discerning
;

but,

if

catechism professes his intention to write a sort of for those Christians who listened to his reasoning, as

But he makes no doubt that many would. treatise does not appear to have been called for.

this

VII

THE NEOPLATONIC TRINITY

SOMEWHERE about
a change

came over Platonism

the middle of the second century

in its

two main

articles

-the

doctrine of
this

God and

the doctrine of the Ideas.

in the strict

Out of

change sprang Neoplatonism

sense of the term.

Plato distinguishes between two worlds, the invisible visible, the spiritual and the material. The first is the eternal pattern of the second ; the second

and the

exists only
first.

The

first

Becoming;

decay, and die.

participates reproduces, the the world of Being, the second of because here all things are born, grow,
in,"

as

it

is

does a carpenter make a bed ? He does not the idea, the notion. All the beds in the world are built with one purpose, express one thought, par

How

make

carpenter does given to him ; but he makes the bed in accordance with the idea. But whence did he It was given to get the idea ? him from above. There are two the ideal

ticipate in

one ruling conception.

the idea
that
is

The

not

make

the actual

and beds, and two makers of beds, God and the

carpenter.

2O

NEOPLATONISM

that

Ideas are not separable in the same way as things we can see or touch. They run into one another.

bed

is
is

Sleep

useful

a piece of furniture on which to take sleep. Thus all ideas usefulness is good. ;

culminate in the sovereign idea of the Good, the

all knowledge and all existence. Of this wonder of beauty which is the author of science and truth, and yet surpasses them in beauty," Socrates It cannot speaks in the sixth book of the Republic. be described, for it is far above the reach of mortal words. Long training in abstract science leads on to

fountain of
"

the

"

"hymn

of dialectics, to the metaphysical faculty,

that

is

to say, in which reason blends with the vision

It

of the poet and divination of the saint.

can only

be expressed dimly in a figure. It The sun is "the child of the Good,

begat in his

is

like the sun.

whom
sight,

the

Good

own

likeness, to be in the visible world,

in relation to sight

and the things of

what the

Good

is

in the intellectual

world in relation to mind

and the things of mind." But in itself it is beyond the sun, and beyond all being in majesty and power." These last words form the definition which Plotinus To him God is the Good. gives of the supreme God.
"

The same thought must

surely have crossed the

mind

of Plato himself, but for some reason he refrained from adopting it. This we see in the Timaeus, the
Platonic
11

Book of Genesis.
all

Jowett called the Timaeus

to

the

most obscure and repulsive

the writings of
obscurity,
Plato,"

the

modern

reader of

and the reader,

who does not mind

difficulty,

is is

whether the dialogue

puzzled by a further to be taken seriously

THE NEOPLATONIC TRINITY

121

But there can be or regarded as a mere jeu d? esprit. that the later Platonists took it very seriously indeed. They found in it the keystone of the Pla

no doubt

tonic system

and

if
its

Plato had a system at

all

it

is

certainly here that

themselves
relation of

felt,

leading principles should make for the subject is nothing less than the

the Timaeus
ideas.

God to the world and to man. Now in God is expressly distinguished from the
are the
"

They

eternal

pattern,"

to

which

God looked when He

It is

created the world.

obvious what a difficulty arises from this curious

If we are to press the psychological archaism. God thinks as man thinks. His thoughts are point, suggested by an external object, and He has no ideas
bit of

We can scarcely understand, how such a notion can ever have arisen. Plato abhorred sensa
of His own.
; yet it might be said, he has only translated sensationalism into heaven. But this strange defect adhered to the school for centuries, and Plutarch even

tionalism

There assigns a definite local habitation to the ideas. are a hundred and eighty-three worlds, he tells us, The space within is called arranged in a vast triangle.
the Plain of Truth, and here dwell the eternal Forms.
Plutarch,

however,

tells

us also, that

some held
little

intelligence to be the place of

Forms.

later

Ideas the thoughts of God. Yet later still Porphyry opposed Plotinus on this very point, insisting that the Ideas were "outside

Alcinous (or Albinus)

calls the

of the
times.

mind."

It

But Porphyry was already behind the had become evident, that this grotesque
Henceforth

conception was not tenable.

men

held

122
that
in

NEOPLATONISM

God

thinks His
live, is

own

thoughts, and that the world,

which we

a copy of the Divine Mind.

is

The

former of the two propositions

telian doctrine that
this
is

in fact the Aristo

Himself."

God

"

thinks

the

best

instance

of the

sense,
It is

in

Perhaps which

the

Neoplatonists were eclectic.

their

evident
in

how

greatly

native

system

gained

simplicity

and coherency by
formula.

this

adaptation of a Peripatetic

became

Side by side with this change, by which the Ideas finally the contents of the Divine Intelligence,

another was in progress, by which the number of the In divine Beings were increased from two to three.
the Timaeus there are two, the Creator and the WorldSpirit.

The

latter is called
"

"

created

heaven,"

a blessed

god,"

the only begotten and and is said to have

received soul and intelligence through the providence This is still in the main the position of of God.

But shortly afterwards we find the soul of the World-Spirit distinguished from its Intelligence. Thus we get a triplet Soul, Intelligence, and a higher
Plutarch.
Intelligence.

The

last

is

point, as neither

good nor

spoken of as One, as a evil because above both,

as having

no

differences,

nothing, conscious.

yet at the
It is the
it

no qualities, and wanting same time as mind and as self-

Cause, and yet

the position
is

is

Pythagorean Monad, the Absolute This is the Aristotelian Deity.

of the Second Platonic Epistle (which

known

quoted by Justin Martyr, but cannot have been to either Philo of Alexandria or Plutarch, and

probably came into existence not very early in the

THE NEOPLATONIC TRINITY

123

second century), apparently of Albinus and Apuleius, and certainly of Numenius of Apamea. Numenius was the first to speak distinctly of Three Gods. He was a and a
Syrian,

possibly

he was well acquainted with the Old Testament, quoted and allegorized the prophets, spoke of the Book of Genesis as a prophecy, and called Plato
"an

Jew

for

Atticizing

Moses."

By

this phrase,

which would have

all

shocked Celsus unutterably, he meant that ism could be evolved by skilful

the Pentateuch.
that

Platon-

interpretation out of

It becomes therefore not impossible, Numenius was acquainted with the works of

Philo of Alexandria, which were written with this very There is, however, no clear purpose. that he

proof

distinctively This Logos. has not been judged necessary to give in this little volume any account of the famous Alex andrian Jew. Philo lies altogether outside the line of
is

was, and a strong argument on the other side is to be found in the fact, that he did not give his second Deity the Philonian title of

why

it

development of heathen Platonism though he antici pated by more than a hundred years that onward step by which Alcinous identified the intelligible world with the mind of God.
;

was needed, before this physical be brought into a satis Two divine intelligences might have factory shape. been possible, if they had been endowed with mutual

One

further step

and

intellectual trinity could

This, however, was altogether repugnant to the Platonic notion of God wants nothing. Deity. He is Cause of All in a very peculiar not as
sense,

desire.

124

NEOPLATONISM
is

man

cause of his

own

actions, but as a
;

magnet

is

not an impelling, but an attracting cause. He is that, towards which all Hence there could not possibly be two things strive.
in iron filings

cause of

movement

equal or similar intelligences in the Divine world.

and there thought is movement fore the other cannot it is the stable point move," towards which the other s movement is directed, a
"
"

One

moves

"

(all

"),

"

point

and nothing more.

;

Hence

it

cannot be an

cannot be anything at all. It is as it intelligence were an ideal spot outside the whole realm of existence, towards which the whole realm of existence is drawn.
it

has no name; but we may call it the One, the Good, two names which express different ways of regarding the same mysterious fountain of all life.
It

Numenius, but

This idea was present to the minds of Alcinous and it was not clearly grasped. The extreme

could neither think nor

tion
It

elaboration with which Plotinus argues that the One exist, shows that the concep

was strange and repellent

to his

own

disciples.

to

was no doubt that philosopher, who gave final shape the Platonic Trinity Soul, Mind, and the One.

We

might say without absolute error that these

three represent the Platonic World-Spirit, the Aris totelian Deity, and the Pythagorean Monad, and that

we

find here at the top of

Neoplatonism a fusion of

Yet it is to be observed, three schools of thought. that there, is not .a single element in the new com
bination, which
is

not to be found in Plato himself.

defined

Plotinus

merely

and
tells

sequence, what the Timaeus

arranged in logical us about the Creator

THE NEOPLATONIC TRINITY

125

Mind, and the God of Nature, and what the Republic us about the Child of the Good, and the Good, which is "beyond all being." The Neoplatonists
tells

were eclectic only

in that sense, in

which

all

learned

and
their

historical thinkers

must be

so.

They developed

own system by

the aid of hints derived from

other schools.

As

Mommsen

regards their philosophy, they were purely Greek. indeed regards it as a transformation of

Western thought in the spirit of the East. Tennemann, Ritter, and Harnack take much the same
the other hand, Richter pronounces it a creation of Greek thought, on which "essentially the spiritual forces of the time naturally exercised an influence." And Vacherot, while noticing that Plutarch
view.

On

dabbled

in Oriental speculations
"an

such as Zoroastrian

dualism, finds in ^lotinus

the Greek
It
is

energetic reaction of the influences of the East." against a question not of individual thoughts, but

mind

of balance and temperament. The leading Neo platonists were not Greeks ; but this is true also of
the Stoics.

Again a certain impalpable

lies

Orientalism

Pythagoreanism metempsychosis, and in a general leaning towards mysticism, which in the former is strongly marked.

tinge of possibly at the very root of both and Platonism in the doctrine of

But
the

in

Neoplatonism as a system there

is

not one

single idea, that does not flow in a straight line

from

Plotinus is a meta dialogues of Plato himself. physician rather than a moralist, that is to say, he has moved on to a new field, but at no point has he lost

126

NEOPLATONISM
His modes of reasoning,
of
his
all

touch with his master.

phraseology,
precision, his

his his

the

character

intelligence,

aestheticism, are

intensely Greek.
if

He moves among

the clouds

but,

he does not

succeed in introducing scientific exactness among the airy forms that surround him, it is not for want of a
desperate struggle. It is not in their thought, but in their mysticism that we must seek for Oriental influences if they are to be found at all. Even here there was a Greek root.

Mysticism
is

is

of

all

countries and

all

times.

But there

a vast difference between

to

Hermes

tripping out of a

wood

meet Odysseus, or even the Pythoness raving on her tripod, and the ecstatic vision of the Absolute.
out of the others; but no doubt the

The one grew

growth was fostered and quickened by the increasing influence of the Mysteries and of these the most
;

powerful form was the Egyptian superstition of

Isis.

whether Mysticism in the shape given to it by the Neoplatonists, was essential to their system, or whether it was really a foreign
arises the question,

Here

adjunct, a branch at which they caught,

felt

their

Upon

when they begin to shake beneath their feet. this depends largely the view, which the reader
logic

will take, as to the value of their contribution to the

thought of the world. But we must postpone the point, till Plotinus has shown us what the Neoplatonic mystic was at its best. Vacherot, as we have seen, regards Neoplatonism as an energetic Teaction of Hellenism against foreign
influences.

These were no doubt of many kinds

but

THE NEOPLATONIC TRINITY

127

the most menacing were either directly Christian or We have seen the set in motion by Christianity.

angry alarm of Celsus at the growth of the Church. But the ship of the faith, as it ploughed its way

onward, disturbed the waters

far

and wide.

Many

new movement with curious eyes, attended Church, as we learn from the Shepherd of

men watched
Hermas,

the

to see

what went on there, and, without

assimilated
so

becoming
result
is

converts,

much

Christian

thought as

made them
up with

very bad

Hellenists.

The
often

was a

cluster of systems, in

which heathenism
it is

so jumbled

Christianity, that

difficult to

we know

They are what say which predominates. Gnosticism was in no case as Gnosticism.
;

it formed a tertium quid properly speaking Christian between the Church and other ways of thinking, and sides the necessity of closing it forced upon both

Neither their ranks and defining their position. Christian nor Hellenist would have anything to do
with
it.

Plotinus

is

just

as

emphatic

in

his

con

demnation of the Gnostic mingle-mangle as Irenaeus. In this way a peculiar interest attaches to the wild
rhapsody, that goes by the

name

of the Poemander of

Hermes
of

belongs probably to the Trismegistus. second century, and contains a most singular farrago
It

pantheism and Egyptian quasidrawn from the Book of the Dead. The philosophy
Pythagorean
is

style

just say, that

it is

whom we can he was once a reasonable being. But dotted throughout (not, as Zeller thought, in only
that of an opium-dreamer, of

two of the thirteen chapters) with Christian phrases,

128
uttered as in sleep

NEOPLATONISM

and it is the only pagan work, in ; which the second person of the Platonic Trinity is en titled the Logos. We see in it the absolute breakdown

We

of philosophy in face of the new problems of the age. see Christianity, like the fig-tree rooted in the
walls of a

Greek temple, loosening the

joints of the

masonry, and helping on the work of secular decay. But we learn from it also to appreciate the real power of Plotinus, by whose strong hand the battle was once

more

set in array,

and the

forces of disintegration

checked, at any rate for a time. It is not necessary to treat at any length of the He was an orator writings of Apuleius of Madaura.

and a romancer but not an

;

original thinker.

even

his
;

"

Milesian tale

"

of the Golden Ass

Indeed, is not

original

the framework and most of the incidents of

the story are borrowed, and the reputation of Apuleius rests chiefly on his style, which, with all its elaborate

euphuism,
to

peculiarly vile character

He was a man of and any one, who is inclined agree with Dr. Hatch in thinking that the im
is

not unpleasing.
;

morality of heathenism has been exaggerated, cannot do better than read through the Metamorphoses, and

compare

it

with

Tom Jones. The book

it

is all

the

more

instructive, because

was not meant to be instructive at all. Apuleius simply narrates and never moralizes, but the picture of life, which he gives, is several degrees
darker than that of Juvenal, a professed satirist. The book, however, has one redeeming feature, in This has of Cupid and Psyche. the

charming story

more than once been clothed

in

an English dress.

THE NEOPLATOM1C TRINITY

12c)

Mr. R. Bridges has turned it into graceful verse, and Thomas Taylor and William Adlington into plain
prose.

The

latter version

has been edited by Mr. A.

But this Lang, with a learned preface on folk-lore. artistic composition has very little indeed to do with
It is really a very elaborate of allegory, metaphysics without tears. piece Psyche, the youngest, fairest, and sweetest daughter

Hottentots or Zulus.

of a king, was beloved by Cupid, yet knew not that she was beloved. By the God s command Zephyr

bore her on his wings

down

the hideous mountain

It

precipices to his palace in a fairy glade beneath.

was the most beautiful palace ever seen, full of all There is nothing, that was kinds of glorious things.
"

not

there."

Here she was married

bridegroom
night.

to

Cupid.

But the heavenly

visited her only in the darkness of the

He was

loving and good as heart could desire,

but

straitly

charged her

never more
left

to
"

look upon
Otherwise,"

the two sisters she

said he,
grief,
"

had
utter

behind.

thou wilt bring upon

me

the most poignant

and on thyself

destruction."

Nevertheless poor Psyche could not rest content, and teased until she gained an unwilling consent. The two sisters came, full of spite and envy, and
malice.

poured into her yielding ears the forgeries of their own Psyche listened, and was lost. Resolved to

break through the mystery of her life, she took into her bridal chamber a covered lamp and a knife. In
the dead of night she bared the light, and beheld on the couch not the monster she feared, but the winged
i

30

NEOPLATONISM

son of Venus, in all the radiance of his divine beauty. But, as she hung enraptured above him, a drop of
scalding

him from
fully

upon Cupid s shoulder, and awakened The god upbraided her sorrow with her fatal treachery, and flew out of sight on
oil fell

his sleep.

his golden pinions.

Psyche,

Cupid

arrows,

who had wounded her thumb with one of now loved Love with her whole heart.

In her despair she would have drowned herself; but Pan, the shepherd god, who bestows the gift of divin ation, soothed her grief with hope, bidding her
pray.

So she

sets out

on her lonely pilgrimage

in quest of

First she Love, widowed, but no longer despairing. avenges herself on her two sisters, whom she drives to

self-destruction.

But the way

to

is

long,

and helpers there

are none.

She turns

Ceres, the

Queen

of the

Mysteries, she adores Juno, the goddess who softens the birth-pangs, but neither will protect her against the wrath of Venus, who is bent upon destroying the

mortal bride of her son.

At

last,

seeing

all

other

refuge vain, she makes submission, and casts herself She if received at at the feet of her mighty enemy. the palace gate by a handmaid named Habit, and

Yet here she scourged by Anxiety and Sorrow. least under the same roof with her beloved lord.

is

at

She shows her a and bids her separate huge heap them before nightfall according to their kinds. But a legion of little ants come to her relief, and the work

Venus

sets her

hard tasks to do.

of all sorts of grain,

is

done.

THE NEOPLATONIC TRINITY

ShS S C ma ded f b S a handful of wool fronff golden fleeces of from the the sheep beyond the river.

"

the sheep are

fierce,

canst cross the water in safety and gather the tufts of wool, that thou wi,t find sticking on the branches of the

Then thou

*l*^
is

rf

^.iS
and
will
"

noon," it on,

rend thee to

Again she
of Styx.
crystal vase

neighbouring grove

Here the

to fetch water from the dismal cataract

and gives
to

Last and hardest of

to

eagle befriends her; he it back into her hand

all

fills

her

go down

climb
o end stones the

/W
,

i^

f mteWi0n
-

labours, she is ordered Hades, and bring back from Proserpine At Wer Wh Se
f
fli
"

her

ending her woes, takes pity upon her the friendly ; begm to talk ; they warn her of all the s

Cements she had g!ng he -elf down, and

peri

She goes, and returns through perils unnumbered; but no sooner does she emerge into the light of day than cunosuy overcomes her. She lifts the lid; forth flfes

way and enjom her not

of

to

open the box.

s
"

"

lild

^^

Wh

m me

-,i
.

Cup.d

Shall vve nt e rpret the allegory ? Psyche is the Sou , ,s the love of the Ideal, the desire of the soul
i

132
for

NEOPLATONISM
God.
His palace, stored with
is

all

manner of
World, the

beautiful things,

Heaven, the

Intelligible

Divine

Mind
all

filled

patterns of

with the radiant Ideas, the eternal that is. But the Soul, prompted by its

two ugly

sisters

Anger and Desire,

rebels

it

will
;

not be
craves

content with the darkness of celestial light

for visible sensual beauty,

it

and

is

exiled to this earth to

atone for
soul which

its

folly.

Then begins
still

the

upward

path, for this

is

a choice

feels the prick of the

its

cannot make
that

home

below.

It

heavenly dart, and is saved from

despair by Pan the

tells
it,

Demon,

the spirit of prophecy,

;

who
and

heaven may be regained by prayer

impulse of repentance is to cast off the hateful influence of Anger and Desire.
the
first

are

But the ordinary consolations of ordinary religion insufficient for the gifted soul, which aspires
can help.
Neither the mysteries nor the Psyche frkist submit perforce to

to climb the heights.

gods

Venus, the mother of her darling, the patron lady of philosophic training, by which the heavenly love is

brought to the her friend, she

birth.
is first

By Venus, her enemy and yet chastened in the ]|ard school of

is,

Habit, Anxiety, and Sorrow, that

the aspiring soul.
tasks.

of moral discipline,

for the practical virtues are the necessary purgation of

Then
of

she

is

trained in intellectual
is

The heap

many

kinds of grain

the

multifarious pageant of sensation, which the busy ants,

wool

The golden the senses, arrange and discriminate. is the higher reflecting morality, which cannot be
till

garnered

the heat of the day

is

passed,

till

the storm

THE NEOPLATONIC TRINITY

and
stress of

33
of Styx
is

youth

is

over.
fitting

The water

symbol is the eagle, which alone of all creatures can gaze unabashed upon the sun. Then comes the descent into hell, and the
deadly sleep. What is this ? Is it that anguish of spirit, which St. John of the Cross called the Dark

Dialectic, of

which the

Night of the Soul, the black and horrible darkness which precedes the mystic s vision ? Or is it death ?
Perhaps
it is

both, for one

is

twin brother of the other.

At any

rate, in

the awakening that follows, the soul

clasps again the lover, to whom itonce proved faithless; and the issue of that embrace is not a mortal but an

immortal child, not base earthly Pleasure, but that Joy which can dwell in heaven.

VIII

WE
it

to the eve of the advent of Plotinus,

have now traced the history of Platonism down and at this point
well to pause,

may be

and

cast a glance

upon

its

great rival, the Christian

Church.

The two systems

were in many important points wonderfully alike, and Platonism on its religious side was remarkably catholic Yet it did not adopt one single lesson or eclectic. It remained to the last in its tone from the Gospel.
of

mind purely

aesthetic

and

intellectual, in its

morals

predominantly
heathen.

egotistic, in its
it

modes

Was
to

the

same

of worship purely with the Church, or are

we here
ideas?

of Greek recognize a distinct influence And if so, is it an influence that plays upon

the surface only, or does it reach inwards, and effect more or less of a transformation ? The question is embarrassed by the fact, that the two different classes of word Hellenism is used

by two different senses. To the one it sig nifies that which is true and permanent in Greek is local, heathenish, thought, to the other that which
writers in

and

transitory.

HELLENISM*
Both
rest

135

philosophies,

upon philosophy, and on antagonistic the former on Hegel, the latter on

Kant ; and the opposition of principle leads to different conceptions of history and different rules of criticism. To the former belong the Tubingen school, Baur and
Harnack Both claim Christianity as their property, and undertake to show by their own special methods how it came into existence, and how and in what order its documents were produced. The reader will see
;

Pfleiderer

to the latter the Ritschlian school,

and Hatch.

why Renan
believe."

said, that

"few

Before
to

we can

settle the

people have a right to dis date of St. John, it

is

would seem
Kant.
All

be necessary to regulate Hegel and

to

we can attempt here

convey some

idea of the difference between these two points of view. For the first we may take a well-known passage from
the philosophy of Clothes. Highest of all symbols are those wherein the Artist or Poet has risen into
"

Prophet, and

all

men can
;

recognize a present

God

and worship the same I mean religious Symbols. Various enough have been such religious Symbols, what we call Religions ; as a man stood in this stage of culture or the other, and could worse or better body-forth the Godlike some Symbols with a transient
;

intrinsic

ask to

many with only an what height man has carried

;
;

worth

extrinsic.
it

If

thou

in this

manner,

look on our divinest Symbol

and His

Life,
.
,

therefrom.

on Jesus of Nazareth, and His Biography, and what followed But, on the whole, as Time adds

the sacredness of Symbols, so likewise in his progress he at length defaces, or even desecrates
to

much

136

NEOPLATONISM
;

them
old."
"

and Symbols,

like all terrestrial garments,

wax

the Churches," says the natural products Pfleiderer, Carlyle recognized of the historical stage of culture reached by the
rites
all
"

In the dogmas and

of

peoples; to him they were the symbols in which the eternal idea must clothe itself for the consciousness
of every age." All this is in fact

platonism which

Neoplatonism, a Neofrom the ancient by the assimilation of the scientific doctrine of evolution, and
differs

modem

by the

partial assimilation of the Christian doctrine

of character.

Hence

there

are divergencies in the

midst of a strong general resemblance. The view of Carlyle, of Dr. Pfleiderer, of the Master of Balliol,
rests

upon metaphysics, on the

reason
;

possibility of

knowing

God by
of

regards religion as a whole, as the natural evolution of capacities implanted in the soul
it

man;
all

it

denies
religion

all

miraculous

interference;

it

regards

all

as

imperfect and

transitional

and

dogmas

as mythical

presentations, symbols

(Vorstellungen) of the eternal truth (BegrirT) ; yet it is optimistic, and believes that there are new and better
things in store.

On

this

view Hellenism

is

precisely Idealism.

There are many difficulties in such a conception of It is Christianity, which we may at least point out. the product of evolutionary, and makes of our Lord
"

the

age."

Yet the Jews rejected Him, and Judaism

itself

has gone on evolving

the
"higher

along

its

own

lines.

And
more

criticism" is

making

this evolution

HELLENISM
and

137

more difficult. Formerly we regarded the Promise as succeeded by the Law, and this by the Prophets, and it was possible to regard the light as
"

broadening slowly
first

down."

But modern writers treat

"

of

"

prophetism,"

then of the
is

night of le^alism,

and the development

Notions propounded almost two thousand years ago cannot be regarded as final by a Darwinian, either in dogma or in morals.
Dr. Pfleiderer
criticizes

of Christianity as "the not the language of evolution.

gone. absolute

Again, Hegel spoke

religion."

But

this is

and corrects even what he

allows to have been the genuine teaching of our Lord. But if Christianity is not absolute, in what direction is the advance to be made ? Those who have rejected dogma must now attack morality in order to
their

justify

own

principles.

And

will this
is

better things?

Dr. Pfleiderer holds that his view

evolution
is

optimistic.

But

not optimist. It may issue in degrada tion, and actually did so in the case of Judaism. But the main difficulty of this, as indeed of the
rival hypothesis, is that

of accounting for the peculiar

It cannot, explain apart from His personal claims, His teaching was not more subversive of the But still less can ruling ideas than that of the Essenes.

dignity attributed

to our Lord.

why He was crucified, because,

explain why the Church regarded Him as God. There is agreement upon this point, that unless Jesus had been deified, Christianity could never have been
it

a Jewish sect. Yet the Divinity must be held to be an illusion, a mere symbol of the eternity and universality of the truth which This Jesus
taught.

more than

138
illusion
is

NEOPLATONISM
generally regarded as originating with St. few, if any, traces of Hellenism, and

Paul,

who shows

completed by

St. John, who had perhaps heard of Philo. can permit ourselves only one remark on this most Dr. Pfleiderer builds not indeed the singular view.

We

truth, but the

and

beautiful but wholly false mythology,

whole power of Christianity, on a natural and proposes

to retain the

power while abolishing the mythology

that created

it.

Or may we hazard

a second remark.

According

to Dr. Pfleiderer, the deification of a

man

secured the triumph of Christianity.

deified Apollonius,

Yet the Platonists

and nothing happened. Idealism has the graces of breadth and sympathy.
and dogmas
"

It sees in rites

clothes/ beautiful forms

more beautiful truths, which in their abstract form would never have won their way into the hearts Renan and Victor Hugo adore Catholicism, of men. and would leave it intact as the religion of the
of
still

common
want
to

sort, just as

the Platonist did not in the least

the mysteries of Eleusis. Ritschlianism, on the other hand, regards these same rites and dogmas as stupid or cunning distortions,
interfere

with

into by which a primitive Protestantism was turned seems to be finding For this reason it Catholicism. favour with English Nonconformists, who welcome it
as an ally against
in
"

Sacerdotalism,"

as the horse called

the

man

to

help him

against .the stag, without

adequately weighing the consequences. Those who shrink from the difficulty of grappling
with Ritschl
of his
s

own

writings, will find a lucid

summary

teaching

in

a pamphlet

by G. Mielke, das

HELLENISM

139

Or they may be referred to System Albrecht Ritschls. Kaftan s Truth of the Christian Religion, which has been translated in Clark s series. Ritschlianism is a
free school,
its

adherents.
It is

and there are differences of detail among But its general position is well denned. based on the philosophy of Kant, who insisted
relativity

upon the
thinks as

of
it is

all

taught, perceives
it

what

Sense, he knowledge. constructed to grasp reason

;

cannot get be hind and correct either our perceptions or our reason
is

made

to reason.

We

ings.

We

must believe them; but cannot

tell

whether

they correspond to objective realities or not.

this destructive criticism

Yet

to

Kant admitted,
T

admit, one exception. the speculative reason

W hile
tell

seemed to the understanding and

or

open
"

to doubt, the practical

us nothing but what is moral reason grasps the

eternal

law of

right,

the

Here, then, Kant found the one thing certain, the one road up from the world of appearance to the world of reality,
categorical
ought,"

of

imperative conscience.

command,

or

the one proof of

But why argue from

this

God, freedom and immortality. one ? If it is generally wrong

to

effect to cause,

why
case?

should

sible in this all-important

will recollect his

be permis Readers of Heine

it

wicked scoff
followers

at this

sublime incon

sistency.

Kant

endeavour

Kaftan, for instance, thorough-going. science as contingent as anything else.

that

be more makes con When we say

to

men

"ought"

to

do

right,

we mean

simply, that

the world

is

so

built,

that

they cannot

be happy

without doing what

we

call right.

Nevertheless, the

140

NEOPLATONISM
way
up.

Ritschlian also must have a

in

This he finds

which guarantees the being, nature and Thus the Kantian of God and the soul. purpose come back again, but only in a religious metaphysics
Faith,

shape,

communication

only to religious men, and to the individual.

of Faith
s

only by

direct

The proof

message Kaftan

finds, in

con

formity with his general principles, not in speculation of any kind, but in History. know, from History,

We

that Jesus Christ brought to

man

the

full

revelation of

the Father

loving the doctrine of the

and planted it on earth in Atonement and in the institution

will,
"

Kingdom of God." We know, from History, that this doctrine and this institu tion do make men free. They include the sum of
of the Church, or
also

the highest knowledge attainable, that is to say, of moral and religious belief, the only kind of knowledge
that brings
all

man

into his true relation to

God.

Thus

lative,

is supernatural, aesthetical, mystical or specu can be brushed aside as of no religious value. But the Ritschlians regard all these elements in

that

common
Like

Christianity also as unhistorical, that

is

to

say, as later importations.

.a man who disarms the robber by going Ritschlianism makes peace with science by naked, excluding from the Kingdom of God all that science

can possibly dispute.

Yet, after

all,

it

makes the
"

work of Christ consist

of

in Revelation, in the imparting

"

some kind of knowledge, not in satisfaction and this moralizing of the Atonement is precisely
;

what

Dr.

Pfleiderer

regards

with

approbation as

HELLENISM
"Hellenism."

141

it

holds

But, with this far-reaching limitation, "In high view of the Person of Christ.

Him," says Kaftan, "faith has, Christ has for us the value of
"

God."

and recognizes, God." Such language

is

not

to

be taken to mean that

He

is

God, nor
this

indeed that
the

He

is

not.

If pressed
"

upon
it

point

Ritschlian

would
if
is

reply

Do

not ask.

We

cannot know; and,

avail.

we could know,
religion."

would not

Knowledge

not

In this austere system Hellenism means, firstly, the setting of knowledge above faith, or the co-ordination
of knowledge with faith ; secondly, all externalism or legalism in doctrine, in the sacraments, in ritual or

The Church is the kingdom of God, the body of those who have absolute faith in Christ, and
discipline.

there

is

a tendency to

of the Tares

deny that the significant Parable and the Wheat was really uttered by our

Lord.
It will

be seen that we have here an entirely dif

ferent,

indeed a contradictory, sense of the word Hellenism. To the Idealist this word signifies Platon-

ism, regarded as true.

To

the Ritschlian

it

signifies

partly Platonism, regarded as false,

but mainly the

influence of the unregenerate, or half-regenerate, world, which is always striving to get hold of the pure gospel

and

pull

it

down

to

its

own dead

level.

By

this

agency

the simple kingdom of God was transformed into the Catholic Church. There is no doubt a germ of truth
in this.

Worldliness is a vera causa of deterioration, else there would have been no Reformation, Ritschlianism
is

a truly religious

mode

of thought,

and

is

right again

142
in
is

NEOPLATONISM

maintaining that the grace of

the one thing that

God

in

Jesus Christ

makes

the Christian.

But what

difficulties arise

when these two truths are made the

!

foundation of a system Ritschlianism will have nothing to do with intellec did not reveal Dr. Hatch, tual belief.
" "

God,"

says

metaphysics,"

because Kant taught that the know

an Sick is impossible. We must ledge of the Ding schools. leave this point to be fought out by the rival is a metaphysician, and so is Dr. But Kant himself
Hatch.

They

limit metaphysics, in

what Heine and

all

in others think an arbitrary fashion, but they believe

God, a

soul, a revelation.

They

believe above

in

to the the moral law, and the moral law belongs And if metaphysics are no help to essence of Deity. without entering on disputed points, faith, we may ask,

why

in the Christ revealed the Father, or why St. Paul to the Philippians drew the lesson of humility, Epistle doctrine a lesson new to the heathen world, from the

of the pre-existence of Christ ? minimizes Again, the Ritschlian

faith. disciplinary aids to difference extraordinary

all

sacramental or

Here again we observe an

of

view between the two

schools.

The

"legalising

which Baur called Jewish,

becomes on the Ritschlian theory mainly or entirely But the truth is, that this vein of thought Hellenic. undoubted teaching of our is in the Gospels, in the
Lord Himself.
is

We

believe that

He
rate

instituted the
"

Catholic sacraments.
to

But

at

any

Catholicism

spoke of the Father as wages." as King or Master, and of His reward

be found wherever
"

He

HELLENISM
But
finally,

143
is,

the Ritschlian view

It

as Dr. Pfleiderer
that

rightly insists, pessimistic.

teaches

God

is

Father, but, like the

He

is

holy.

It

Greek Plutarch, it denies that sees in St. Bernard much more to

lament than to admire.

It regards St. Athanasius as having saved Christianity from complete Hellenization

the

by a definition which is radically absurd. It represents Church as the product of dull scholasticism and

bureaucrat,

uninspired moralism, the creation of the pedant, the and the man in the street. And to the

scientific world the remedy, which it proposes, will It invites men appear even worse than the disease. to go not forward, but back to a Gospel, of which

hardly any two of the critical school give the same account, a Gospel which had from the first so little
vitality, that
it

very days,
strongest.

when such

degenerated into an alien type in the life as it possessed was at the

The theology of the Church was not Hellenic. This Celsus shows beyond the possibility of doubt. Even Dr. Hatch does not assert that it is. What he main
tains in his curiously oblique Hibbert Lectures
is,

that

whatever
selves,
"

may be
"

said as to the definitions in

to
define,

them

the

"tendency"

and the further

tendency
conduct,
call the
is

to insist

upon
But

the definitions as affecting

it

Hellenic.

seems unreasonable to

process by one name, when we must call the result by another. Even the process was not that of the Greek schools, as was shown Mr. Gore in his

by

Bampton Lectures. And lastly, the insistence on agree ment in dogma was the very antipodes of Hellenism.

144

NEOPLATONISM
the Greek claimed was liberty of thought.

What

The

were persecuted was that very reason why Christians they were exclusive. We must use the word Hellenism in its proper which is rather that of the Idealist than that of
sense,

the Ritschlian, to denote that which

is

distinctively

Greek in thought, conduct, and religion. What Greek are to ask is how, and to what extent, properly
ideas affected the
selves
to

we

Church? But we must confine our

limits

the

discipline,

and

region of speculation. ritual lie outside the

Organization, of our

investigation.

IX
THE GNOSTICS AND APOLOGISTS
PLATONISM
ment.
St.
is

to

be found even

in the

New

Testa

Alexandrines. It answers to the creative Intelligence of Plotinus, but Word was not used by the heathen Platonists except in baser Stoic sense of natural force. Platonic Philonism may be detected also in the to the
Epistle

John gives to the Saviour the title of Logos itle borrowed most probably, though through what channels we know not, from the

Hebrews
(Phil.

commentators have fancied that Platonism underlay even a famous of St. Paul
>me

passage

ii.

belongs, at any rate in the usage of Plotinus, to the ideas, and to the second though not to the first god,

where the Apostle speaks of the the "shape" of man. Form

6, 7),

form

"

of

God

hmgs.
>f

But

slave,"

nr^oiHK.fo1 accidental.
It

shape only to visible Paul goes on to speak of the "form and the resemblance appears to be * purely
St.
"

strange, if it were otherwise. Some Christians were educated men, and why should they not express themselves in educated language, so far as it lent itself to their purpose? Philosophy is a

would be most

146

NEOPLATONISM
of reason, and
true.

mode

taught was destroy reason, or the language of reason, but to fulfil. In applying to Christ the Jewish Platonic title of

much of what Greek philosophy The Gospel was given not to

Logos,
at

John was following the example of St. Paul Athens, when he preached upon the Unknown
St.
"

God
unto

Whom

ye ignorantly worship,

Him

declare I

you."

When
Church

Hellenism endeavoured to thrust into the

its

creed notions at variance with

resisted.
It cast

living import, the

out Gnosticism.

The

history of this struggle, in spite of the dullness

is

of the details,

most

instructive.

Gnosticism was an
in the

attempt

to capture

the Church

interests

of

Hellenism, and would have

resulted, if successful, in

About this there is the destruction of Christianity. no dispute. But the Gnostics have been called the
"

first

theologians,"

tempted

to

do

in a hurry,

on the ground, that they only at what the Fathers succeeded

is,

in doing in

more

leisurely fashion, that

to foist

upon

the Church an alien and destructive system of meta Yet they certainly would have destroyed the physics.

Church, and the Fathers certainly did not. The history of Gnosticism extends from an uncer

somewhere about the Christian era to the end of the second century. After this time it ran off into other forms, especially Manichaeanism, which had
tain date,

a long

life,

and was known

in

to St.

Thomas Aquinas.
shifting

It

originated partly

the vast

and

mass of

Babylonian, Syrian, and Jewish angel lore, partly in the Zoroastrian doctrine of an evil and a good god.

THE GNOSTICS AND APOLOGISTS

147

tinged more or less with Greek philosophy, mainly Pythagorean or deeply Platonist. Pythagoreanism had Oriental affinities to

The phantasmagoria resulting was

begin with, and the foggy Eastern intellect saw no

difference

between the abstract conceptions of the

its

schools and the concrete shapes of

own mythology.

the later Platonists hardly kept the two apart ; the triads of lamblichus and Proclus are barely dis

Even

If we tinguishable from the Gnostic emanations. add to these considerations, what we learn from the

Shepherd Qi Hernias, or Lanciani s Pagan and Christian Rome, that there were numbers of people, who regarded the Church with an intelligent and not unfriendly
curiosity as the last
tian services

new

thing,

and

yet lived Gentile lives,

who attended the we have

Chris
all

the

conditions out of which Gnosticism arose.

It

pro

duced a multitude of
classification,

arbitrary systems,

which defy

because they are so arbitrary. They stretch away in a long line from the doors of the

Church to the vestibule of the pagan schools. None was properly Christian, and none was properly philo They were opposed at the one end by sophical. Irenaeus and Hippolytus, at the other by Plotintis and Zostrianus and Aquilinus, against whom Amelius.
the Neoplatonists wrote, are not otherwise known to us, but they belong to the same family as Basilides and

Valentinus.

The former were excommunicated by the

schools and the latter by the Church. The Gnostics started from the Platonic axiom, that

God

is

observation, that

good and nothing else, and from a fact of man s works are often evil. Like

148

NEOPLATONISM
they Evil

Platonism, indeed like all the Greek schools, would not admit that man makes his own evil.
therefore

must come from matter, and

spirit,

of the wicked

who

is the operation created the sensible world.

This

is,

in

fact,

the Persian Ahriman.

possibility of a
"

Even Plato
soul,"

had hinted
Plutarch, as
the

at the

bad

and
It is

we have

seen, held the

same

belief.

most

Gnosticism.

permanent and characteristic feature of Indeed, in Marcion it is almost the only

not a Christian doctrine goes without say
difficult as
it

one that

survives.

That
ing.

it is

It is

not even Greek,

may seem

to

draw the line between the Platonic theory of Matter and the Gnostic tenet of a god of matter. But it made a dogma of that, which to the Platonist was a
difficulty. Whatever might be the explanation of evil, it could not possibly be a god \ of this the Platonist felt no doubt. And the world is the work of God, and

therefore cannot be bad, though

it

may

fall

short of

the divine plan. Farther, the perceptions of sense are the condition of the higher intellectual knowledge. We gather our first ide is of God from the world itself.

What
the

first

then becomes of either religion or philosophy, if You step of the ladder is broken away ?
"

cannot become

good," says Plotinus, by despising the and the gods that are therein, and all beautiful world, The bad man despises God, and if he is not things. wholly bad, by despising God he will become The Gnostic, others said, wanted a sixth sense, for his natural five senses showed him nothing but the
so."

"

devil.

THE GNOSTICS AND APOLOGISTS

149

the Gnostic, theoretically, salvation meant en lightenment, or knowledge. But, from the point of view of practical religion, it meant deliverance from the clutches of a hostile external power. By the Christianizing sects this was held to be the work of

To

hidden mysteries of the cosmogonies. Yet not by His death, for they more or less denied the reality of the Passion, and not for all. There were three classes of men the earthly, or hylic, the psychic, and the spiritual ; the publican and sinner belong to the first, and must Their dualism perish eternally. led naturally to a harsh asceticism, for which also it
Jesus,

who brought

to light the

Wisdom, including

all

is

curious

to notice

self,

reproved them.

that Plotinus, an ascetic him There are indeed two kinds of

asceticism,
in

and what the Platonist says is entirely harmony with the sharp remark of Clement, who

observes of Basilides, that he hated the Creator though he ate His food, breathed His air, and in His world had the strange gospel of Gnosis preached to him. Gnostic asceticism starv ought to have led to

prompt

ation,

but

like all

fanaticism,

it

tended to produce

a result It issued exactly opposite to its principles. frequently in the most disgusting antinomianism, in which the rites of Aphrodite Pandemos were known
as
"spiritual

communion."

as well as the Christian Fathers.

Plotinus inevitably Jo magic. charges them with this also, not only because they cast out devils," but because they thought to com mand the divine favour by hymns, noises,
"

Porphyry notices this fact Yet further, the belief

a devil-god leads

"

breathings,

15

NEOPLATONISM
"

and whistlings

of a
is

"

technical

"

description.

What

the technique was

not

difficult to guess,

and Gnostic

amulets remain in plenty to illustrate. What Irenaeus tells us about Marcus is by no means mere Christian
prejudice, and is not to be compared, as Dr. Harnack compares it, to the Christian doctrine of the Eucharist even in its mediaeval shape. Indeed there is nothing
surprising in the history of the Church than the slightness of the degree, in which the prevalent belief in art-magic infected the sacraments. This alone is
sufficient to

more

show, how correct and thorough was the moral teaching of the Church. The Gnostics were the first regular commentators

on the

New

Testament.

themselves.
aeons,

Indeed they could not help Valentinus found in the plural word
St.

of which
in

Paul

is

rather fond, the

to

name

which

his

Emanations.

system belongs hierarchy of Heracleon the Basilidian discovered in

the

the husband, that was not a husband, of the Samaritan Woman her Pleroma or guardian angel. Books that

contained such mysteries obviously required to be turned over word by word ; the rebus was no good without a key. The Gnostics v/ere aided in their
search for the non-existent by allegorism, that fatal engine devised by pagans, who were ashamed of their

The Christians mythology, yet would not give it up. adopted it not from the Gnostics, but from Philo, or
the spirit of the age.

They wasted much time over

"

it ;

but they used

possessed,"

it

mainly to
is

to find, that
this

discover what they already to say, the New Testament

in the

Old, and in

they were not altogether wrong.

THE GNOSTICS AND APOLOGISTS The Gnostics appealed

also
to

151
tradition

secret

handed down from the Apostles. Against this the Church very naturally opposed her own tradition. What else could she do ?

The Gnostics were

"

also the

first
is,

practitioners of

the higher

criticism,"

the

first,

that

who applied sub

in

jective

canons to find

interpolations"

documents

that did not

ism."

Luke.

happen to suit their theory or "pragmat Thus Marcion mutilated the Gospel of St. Hellenism They were the first to find
" "

they called it Judaism and the Apostles (Iren.

in the teaching of our

iii.

Lord

2,

2),

and

to set

"Paulin-

ism

Catholicism," and to take philosophy against as the norm of what is possible or impossible for God,
"

"

and

to hold that belief in the facts of the creed

is

not

necessary for a Christian

or the Kantians are their

Whether the Church natural and lawful issue the

man.

reader

may

decide.

But, for
first

all

these reasons, the Gnostics were not the

theologians.

Those, who

call

them

so,

mean

that

they were the

first,

who attempted

to spoil the pure

But it is Gospel, by setting knowledge above faith. surely allowable to ask, of what kind was their know
ledge,

and what
the

fruits

it

bore

The answer must

The
evil

be,

that their Gnosis does not even pretend to

be derived

from

New

Testament.

god comes

from a foreign and hostile source. And certainly it cannot be denied, that Gnosticism had a tendency to express itself in forms of life, that were heathen

and not

Christian.

At best

it

as a half-way house, through which

may be regarded many pagans, like

152

NEOPLATON1SM
St.

Ambrosius or
Church.

Augustine, found their way into the

The second century is the age of the Apologists. They were men who, living in a time when everybody,
even emperors, professed to honour philosophy, that is to say truth, and when yet Christians were put to death
to truth, thought that they might venture plead for toleration. Christians, they maintained, were
for their

moral

men and good

citizens,

and

their

dogmas were
"What

not so unlike the conclusions of the schools as to call

for their extermination

by

fire

and sword.
"

we are punished for," they said, is merely the Name. You think that the Name is a cover for horrid crimes,
but

you will listen to reason, is not the case." Their object was to present Christianity from the
this, if

common-sense point of view, without using arguments that a heathen would not recognize, and without
going into needless
they present, of the
details.
life

Hence

the view, which

is

of the Church

by no means

complete. outline of the Liturgy.

In particular they give us only the merest

With one exception they abhorred the very name of The To them it meant rationalism. philosophy.
"
"

Greeks,"

says Aristides,

who

profess to be wise are

more

foolish than the

Chaldaeans."

Hermias wrote a
"

treatise full of bitter

mockery of the schools.

cries Tatian,
;
"

They
;

contradict one

another,"

what comes into

his

head

each utters just they hate each other they

receive large salaries from the

Emperor

in order that

for nothing." they may not wear their long beards Theophilus could not find the most ordinary truth in

THE GNOSTICS AND APOLOGISTS

their writings,
true,
it

153

is

for, if any of their sayings seem to be mingled with error." "Among

us,"

says

might find laymen, artisans, old women, showing by deed the benefit of their profes sion, even if they cannot explain by word the
"you

Athenagoras,

the schools with calling ignorance knowledge; if they had really known the truth, the Incarnation

the word

has

done them/

good

Irenaeus

charges

would

have been needless.

phers as
Justin
"patriarchs
is

Tertullian regards the philoso of heresy," "friends of

error."

had been a philosopher, before he became a Christian, and was no more ashamed of his philosophy, than he was of his Chris

an exception.

He

Even after his conversion he wore the tianity. garb of the schools, the blanket-cloak or pallium. He saw
Greek science part of the great Praeparatio EvanReason is the handmaid of faith. It
teaches
to love truth

gehca.

men
ledge,

and

to discern

it.

and sharpens that hunger and thirst for divine know which can only be satisfied by Him, who is the
This
is

It gives truth,

Light of the world.

fustm,

the general position of

and

it

leads

him

to dwell with

predominant

emphasis on the Johannine doctrine of the Logos which is the golden bridge between dialectic and
revelation.

The Word made

all

men,

is

in all

men

speaks truth to them, and saves them, if they will but follow His guidance. "They who have lived with the Word are Christians, even though they have be-n counted godless, such as Socrates, Heraclitus, and those like unto them among the Greeks." Since the proclamation of the Gospel, he held, that none could

154

NEOPLATONISM

be saved, unless he accepted Jesus as the Christ, that Still he was inclined to is, as the promised Messiah.

go so

far as to

extend the

name

of Christian to those

who, while they accepted Jesus as Christ, yet denied His eternal pre-existence and His miraculous birth,
because these could not be
not, that
is
"

demonstrated,"

could

to say, be
"For

Testament.
race,

proved exactly from the Old there are some," he says, "of our

who confess that He is Christ, but insist that He is man born of man. With them I do not concur;
we have been commanded by
Christ
in

and the majority agree with me, and would not say
so either, since

Himself not

to believe in the doctrines of

man, but

those things which were preached by the blessed prophets and by Himself." That is to say, Justin
regards the belief in the divinity of our Lord as rest ing on the authority of Christ Himself, and as not capable of absolute proof from the words of the Jewish
Scripture.

He

is

whom,

though not

thinking of the Ebionites, some of all, held that Jesus was mere man.
"

might perhaps be saved," pro vided that with their observance of the law they united

He

judged

that they

the confession of
insist

"

the Christ of

God,"

and did not

upon binding the law on Gentile converts. The belief of Justin himself was that of the Church
and
it

at large,

was

built

upon the Gospels.

Is

But here
in

there arises a question. the belief in our Lord

Hellenism to be found

Divinity, or in its disbelief? Again, did Hellenism cause the tolerance of Justin, or Accord the intolerance of other Christian teachers ?
s

ing to Celsus, neither the belief nor the intolerance

THE GNOSTICS AND APOLOGISTS

was Hellenic. But Celsus is
tolerance
is

155

According
right.

to Dr.

Hatch, both were.

is

The

belief

Christian;

the

Christian also;

but

it

marks the man

trained in the free atmosphere of the Hellenic schools.

In one respect, however, the Apologists undoubtedly philosophized. They are the first exponents of the

modern doctrine of the Freedom of the. Will. Dr. Hatch found the same teaching in Epictetus and the
later Stoics,

but in

accuracy.

No

this he did not display his usual Greek school ever held the same

language as the Christian Church. The Platonists did not regard the Will as a distinct faculty. They considered it as an inclination of

them we may say there were two wills, or instinctive desires: that of the mind for truth, that of the flesh for Aristotle made Will an gratification.
character.

To

independent mental
the selection of

act,

but confines

its

operation to
;

means towards

a given

end

how

the

given, the all-important question, he does not attempt to decide. The later Stoics, in spite of their fatalism, went a step this. The sensual
is

end

beyond

man,

judgment, absolutely any time. We are always free to be free, because the one end is open to choice. The Apologists, in their recoil from the Fatalism of the Stoics and Gnostics, went further still.
in our

they held, is the slave of his delusive fancies, and has no freedom at all. Yet there is such a thing as freedom. It is right and this is

power

at

Will,

they taught, is the independent faculty of choice it ; selects not the means only, but the end, and not one end only but both. Life and death are clearly set

156
before

NEOPLATONISM

men

in

God

Word, and each deliberately

chooses for himself either one or the other, either good or evil. Freewill in this sense belongs to men

and angels. For God, the end is fixed by the goodness of His Divine nature, but even He selects means.

The
It
is

origin of this doctrine

in

found

is undoubtedly Biblical. It was held as a both Testaments.

necessary corollary of the belief in Divine rewards and In the But it is absolutely un-Greek. punishments.
light

of this conception, moral evil

is

no longer a

disease, the view of all Hellenic schools without ex

ception, but a rebellion.

This

is

an entirely different

point

of

view,

and

its

moral

consequences

are

immense,

No

one seems ever

to

have suggested that the

is

counter doctrine of Grace

Hellenic, though

it

has

an obvious resemblance
heavenly Eros.
Jewish, and Grace

to the Platonic theory of the

;

Both are Biblical

is

but Freewill

is

more

more

Christian.

The

former,

we may say, is more ethical, the latter more religious. The predominance of one or the other gives rise to two
which are sometimes, though improperly, called by the names of Catholicism and Paulinism. Both exist side by side in the Gospels.
different aspects of Christianity,

We

find

them

in the titles of

God

as King, as Father;

in the offices of

our Lord
as a

as Saviour, as

Judge

in the

conception of heaven

hope

deferred, as

"wages,"

or as a present kingdom, as the peace and joy of the Holy Spirit ; in the view of the Christian life as a new
law, or as

freedom

in fear

and love
faith.

as motives

in

the antithesis of works

and

It is

probable that

THE GNOSTICS AND APOLOGISTS

St.

157

Peter and the majority of the Twelve inclined to more ethical view. St. John insists upon love almost to the destruction of Freewill, and St. Paul
the
carries the

doctrine of Grace

to

the very verge of

individualism.

The history of the Church has been marked by re actions of the one tendency against the other. The spirit of discipline is the first and most obvious need
it leads to dryness and formalism. these evils appear, the Christian mind turns instinctively to the love of St. John, the grace of St. Paul, and fills once more the empty bottles with wine. And as these again issue in their characteristic defects

of the Church, but

When

of vagueness of belief
law,

and disunion, the need of the which guarantees the freedom, again asserts itself.
first

The

be found

great revival of Paulinism or Johanninism is to at the end of the second century in Irenaeus

and the Alexandrines; the next in the theology of Athanasius the next in that of Augustine ; another at the Reformation ; and we are living at the close of
;

another.

In

all

these crises

we can

yet detect the influence

of the literae humaniores, of cultivated sympathetic thought, of poetry, philosophy in our own time of science also, acting in unison with the Spirit of God to break the fetters of conventionalism, and lift men into nearer communion with their Father and with
;

another. If Hellenism may be taken to mean the love of truth and beauty for their own sakes, and of all kinds of truth and beauty and this is, in fact, the noblest part of its this has been its
task, to

one

meaning remind the Church from time

appointed

to time that her

158

NEOPLATONISM
are intimately connected with,

dogmas spring from, and

But the great laws of physical and human nature. Hellenism also tells the Church, that those laws are
without any metaphysical and in this it is a bad counsellor.
all-sufficient
"
"

explanations,

X
THE ALEXANDRINES
CLEMENT, or we may call him St. Clement, lived from about 150 to about 213 Origen from about 185 to 254. The first was born in the middle of the reign
;

of Antoninus Pius

the second died in consequence of

his sufferings in the persecution of Decius.

Clement
Emperors.

would

remember

well

the

philosophic

Origen died just before the shameful disasters of

the reign of Gallienus. There were general persecu tions under Aurelius and Severus, and every now and

again the governors of particular provinces lighted the flame, as Arrius Antoninus under Commodus in Asia,

Scapula at Carthage under Caracalla, Serenianus in

Cappadocia under Maximin. But upon the whole, as Lanciani shows, Christian and heathen got on amaz
ingly well together.
i.n

The Ostian potter did not care the least whether his lamps should be decorated with Bacchus or with the Good Shepherd ; it was for
customers to
decide.

his

The

profession

of

the

Gospel was not more dangerous than many other

things
;

it

offered considerable prospect of gain to the

poor who could

get

upon the church-roll

to the clever

l6o

NEOPLATONISM
for office
;

who might hope

"

to all travellers,
"

who by

means of commendatory and comfortable quarters wherever they went. The Church was already a powerful and munificent cor its poration, and numberless parasites fed upon
letters

could secure free

simple-minded charity, like Peregrinus, whom Lucian Peace had led to laxity took for one of his butts.

and corruption.

Numbers

flocked into the

Church

heathen ways with them. Long before the end of the second century the Church had become a landowner. Pope Victor enjoyed influence

who brought

their

at the Imperial Court,

and from the time of Severus,

"

perhaps from that of St. Paul, there were many suckled Caracalla was Christians about the palace.

on Christian
the

milk."

Church a piece of land

Alexander Severus awarded to that was claimed by the

guild of licensed victuallers, quoted Christian maxims, thought highly of their mode of electing bishops, and
set

up a bust of Christ in his private chapel. The Emperor Philip is said to have been a Christian, and
It was the age of Gnosticism, of Noetianism, of Artemonite Unitarianism, of the Puritan revolts of Montanism and Novatianism, of the Easter and

to have submitted to Christian reproof.

Penance disputes.

These exciting topics called forth a host of learned writers, whose names are recorded in

the pages of Eusebius, from Hegesippus to Hippolytus. They insisted on the authority of the Scriptures and of ecclesiastical tradition they shaped the liturgy
;

and formed the canon they regulated the calendar with a view to the due observance of Easter they
;
;

THE ALEXANDRINES
;

l6l

reduced prophecy under rule they established the theory and practice of the sacrament of penance, and
of infant baptism
into
its final
;

and they brought the Episcopacy

that bishops should be was made good even at by bishops Alexandria in Clement s time. Monasticism had not It yet begun, but its principles were already at work. is hardly an exaggeration to say, that there was no

shape.

The law

consecrated

essential difference

time and that of the

tiation

between the Church of Origen s Middle Ages. Transubstanbelief,

was the prevalent

yet,

though the doctrine

of course, expressed in the technical language of the Latin schoolmen.

was not as

At

this crisis
It

drines.

began the activity of the great Alexanwas conditioned by a liberal education re

ceived in the famous catechetical school founded, under

the Bishop, possibly by the Apologist Athenagoras, but more probably by Pantaenus, a converted Stoic

hand, and, on the other, against the formalism of those whom Clement calls the Orthodoxasts," and Origen the simpler brethren." The object is to show that
"
"

philosopher, and by a double reaction, against Gnosti cism or semi-heathen intellectualism on the one

and pure faith are not enemies, but bring back to the Church the right of St. Paul and St. John. understanding The School of St. Mark produced many eminent names, notably the great Dionysius, in whom the
true philosophy
friends,

and

to

ing,

blessed spirit of peacemaking, the crown of true learn shone with the purest lustre. But we must con

fine ourselves to the

two most striking

figures, those O

162

NEOPLATONISM

Both were learned men, and of Clement and Origen. a good acquaintance with Greek literature, possessed
Numenius, Cronius and Harpocrahad possibly been a pupil of Ammonius Origen Saccas, who began life as a Christian and a porter on the quays, and ended it as a heathen and the most

down

to the time of

tion.

famous lecturer of the time.

of the
effable
first

Clement was,

to

some

extent, under the influence of Philo, the Jew Platonist

God from

In century, who distinguished the First the Second, and to the latter gave

the

title

of Logos or
this

Divine Intelligence.

For a

fuller

account of

eminent
to

man
refer

may, perhaps, venture

Platonists

the present writer to his Christian

But Philo s importance Both before and after may easily be overrated. Clement the philosophy of churchmen was drawn from heathen writers, and Clement s own mind was
of Alexandria.

shaped by teachers,

whom

he had learned to respect,

before he ever heard of the metaphysical Jew. In temperament the two great doctors were strongly Clement was a Greek, Origen a native opposed.

Clement appears to have been at first a Egyptian. heathen. Origen was son of the martyr Leonidas, like Timothy, learned the Scriptures as a child. and,
Clement was a

bom

orator

and friend of the Muses,

delighting in apt

everything in the
laisian

comedy
;

fine sayings, loving of literature, from the Rabe shape of Athens to the austere eloquence of

anecdotes and

the Schools

loving

indeed

thing, except perhaps labour.

everybody and every Yet he was a diligent

writer.

reader,

and a

prolific

though unmethodical

THE ALEXANDRINES

163

The

chief of his extant works

bags, or Miscellanies.
at that time,

is the Stromateis, Carpet This was a favourite book-title

used by

many

authors from Plutarch to

present the contrast between Gnosticism and the true Gnosis or Knowledge of the
Origen.
Its object is to

Catholic Church.
like
left

It flows
flat

on

in sinuous

meanders
is

a river through
unfinished at

and flowery meadows, and

the

last.

Origen,
erudite as

on the other hand, was

as

prince

of

schoolmen and scholars,

subtle as

Routh

or Tischendorf.

He

is

Aquinas, as a man of one

exposition,
toil,

book,

in a sense.

The

Bible,

its text, its

furnished him with the motive for incessant

and

he cared for nothing except in so far as it could be bent to this end. The charm of Hellenism, its belles
did not touch him. Even its philosophy he regarded with a certain disfavour. As a boy he coveted martyrdom he died a confessor. The first
lettres, its artj
\

part of his spiritual course he spent in the austerest

and his days and nights to the last were devoted to labours of which no Greek writer had any
asceticism,

There was iron in his mould, and it had conception. been heated in the furnace. But there was also a gran
deur and a tenderness, which gave him an extraordinary hold on the mind of his contemporaries. We know hardly anything of Clement, but almost all that
Origen did was chronicled by friends or foes. We must not attempt to give the long list of his For works, or the details of his well-known career. our purpose it is sufficient to say, that he was infinitely

more

laborious than

Clement, that he had passed

164

NEOPLATONISM

through deeper experiences, and that his intellect was

bolder, keener,
plined.
strikes

more comprehensive, and more

to
call

disci

Clement is apt him as what we

catch at
"

anything that

suggestive."

Origen

never forgets the relation of the part to the whole, never slurs over a difficulty, and his boldest flights are
generalizations.
It

may be on
its

this

account that he

is

much

less liberal

and much more

load

ecclesiastical than

Clement.

Learning, with

of facts,

is

the

ballast of speculation.

Like Justin, Clement found in the Gospel the true Truth, he held, is one shape under philosophy. There is one river of truth, but names. many
"

many
Truth

streams
is

fall

into

it

on

this side

and on

that."

like the corpse of

;

the Bacchants

Pentheus, torn asunder by each seizes a limb, and each thinks

;

she has the whole

a famous simile borrowed from

the Platonist Numenius.

Philosophy must not be

judged by the sins of the heathen, any more than It is the Christianity by the defects of Churchmen.
gift

of the

Word, and

its

natural fruit

is

not iniquity,

but

righteousness.

It
it

was
led

true
to

covenant,

and

justified

those
chaste

whom
lives.
utility.

and
it

live

has abiding
the

renounce idolatry Further, Clement held that Man must dedicate his whole
of his noblest faculties, to

nature,

best

efforts

God. He can neither understand the Scriptures, nor give a reason for the faith that is in him, nor do his duty in the world, without cultivated thought. Hence

Clement
sophize,"

calls

that

upon men and women alike to philo is to think, and if they can, to study.
"

THE ALEXANDRINES
They
are not to
fear
bogies,"

165

not to fancy that any

truth can hurt them.

that does

It is

the ghost of

harm, not the

reality.

knowledge True knowledge,

Gnosis, belongs not to the Gnostics, or Knowalls, rior to the schools, but to the Church, which has received the One Body in the Incarnation of the Divine Word.

praeparatio Evangelica. past work, but promises

the future,
if it will

Thus philosophy becomes something more than a Clement not only blesses its
it a place of high dignity in take service in the army of Christ.

Regarding the Creed as the expression of ultimate truth, he saw rays shoot out from it in all directions
to the furthest limits of

human

capacity.

Two

great

thoughts are combined of light towards the perfect day

idea,

in this view, the slow

(this

growing
s

was Justin

and

is

the

first

germ

of what

we

call

Evolution),
of
the

and an

infinite

growth of knowledge from a fixed and

stable centre.

The Incarnation

is

the

sum

all

past, and the promise of all the future. Clement s view was perhaps a little too

optimistic.

did not allow sufficiently for the love of battle, which cleaves to the old Adam even in matters of
research.

He

Nor did he
he
is

see clearly
"

issues in variety of character.

in so far as
righteous,"

how One

variety of belief

righteous man,
"

he

says,

does not

differ

from

hardly recognized any distinction between a good Stoic and a good Christian, though he himself makes love the secret of righteousness.
another."

He

He Origen, on the other hand, was a pessimist. thought that the world was growing worse, and this
vijvv increased, as
it

must always do, the positiveness

66

NEOPLATONJSM

of his disposition.

He

sets the Bible

much

higher,
"

and philosophy
he
"

much

lower, than Clement.

Few,"

says,

have taken of the spoils of the Egyptians

and made of them the furniture of the tabernacle." He knew Celsus, and looked upon Hellenism as a He hostile power to be conquered and stripped. took the gold and used it ; but it must first be cast
into the melting-pot.

This rule

is
;

guard against the it a little harshly.

silliest

eclecticism

a necessary safe but Origen puts

The
guished
i,

influence of Hellenism on these two distin

the Notion of
life

the
i.

men may be summed up under three heads, God; 2, the Morality of God; 3, of man in the Church.

As regards the Notion of God, Platonism rendered them signal service. It taught them what is meant by the words, God is a Spirit." To the Stoics, and to the popular understanding, the Deity was material, and this opinion prevailed for some time in the
"

Church.

We
the

find

traces of

it

in Irenaeus, in

Ter-

tullian, in the

Clementine Homilies, perhaps

in Melito,

and in monks.

anthropomorphism

of

the

Egyptian
divisible.

It leads logically either to

Tritheism, or to
is

Unitarianism.

That which

is

material

Three material things cannot be one. But God is One. The Platonists held that the Divine Being is of the
nature of thought, which
is

timeless

and

indivisible.

Three thoughts may very easily really and truly For instance, Justice, Wisdom, and Fortitude one. Wisdom is the are all the knowledge of the Good.
be

knowledge

in itself; Justice the

knowledge as applied

THE ALEXANDRINES
to

167
;

the distinction of

mine and thine

Fortitude the

same knowledge regarded

fear.

as resisting the impact of

They differ, according to the Platonist, not only in their contact with matter, in their mode of dealing with circumstance, but in themselves ; they are
distinct, yet they are one.

This
It
is

is

the great service of

Platonism to the Church.

in fact the

one step

from the Baptismal Formula to the Nicene Creed. Platonism thus supplied the wanted explanation of
the unity
it

and

co-eternity of the Divine

Persons, but

express the co-equality. Whether the subordination of Origen is traditional or

to

could not

be used

metaphysical may be open to question ; but there is no doubt whatever that to the Pagan schools the

word
in

"

hompousios

"

did not imply equality.

Indeed

the case of Deity this notion was expressly ex The Intelligence was inferior to the One, cluded. the Soul to the Intelligence, in virtue of the rule that The "the child is always worse than the father."
definition of Athanasius

was

in

no sense Greek.

It

rested

on

Scripture,

on the

religious
;

the Christian doctrine of redemption

experience, on in a word, on

a wholly different cycle of thought. But Clement was not content with
Egyptians."

"

spoiling the

In his lazy eclectic way he borrowed

from the schools the whole definition of the First and

Second Persons.

The Father
;

is

the

Monad, the
is

Pythagorean One, the Absolute

sciousness of the Father, the
ing.

the

Son

the con

One become

self-reflect

before him.

Others had used the same kind of language The doctrine of the Monad was not

68

NEOPLATONISM

contemporaries, as
difference

quite so abstract in the mind of Numenius and his it afterwards became ; but the main

was that they did not as yet discern clearly

it

what
not a

it

amounted

God
it

to. The Monad is a Cause, but has great physical but no religious

import;
barrier,

shapes a mystical philosophy, yet raises no

as

we

shall

see,

against
not,

the

most abject
not,

idolatry.

Clement could

and did

really

believe in this self-contradictory Deity, who has But he tried hard consciousness of the world. believe in
religious
it,

no
to

and

it

affected seriously his view of the

far

life.

Origen was

more

clear-sighted.

He

held that

has in Jesus, and from the world, a true though imperfect knowledge of the Father, and he could not allow that the Supreme was apathetic ;
"
"

man

"God,"

he

writes,

"has

2.

The

sight of sin

and

the passion of love." suffering led the Gnostics

to

to believe in an evil

God,

whom

they attributed
is

also the absurd function of punishing the evil that he

has caused.

but not
is

just.

The true God, they thought, The Alexandrines maintained

just, that

good,

that

He

His severity is merely the reverse of His fatherly love. And, as a corollary of this, they adopted the famous Platonic axiom, that the
both good and
object of
fell

all

punishment

is

to

amend.

There they
held, like all

into a grave inconsistency.

They

But the Church, that the seat of evil is in the will. the Platonic axiom is the outcome of a system, which teaches that sin has nothing to do with will, that the
soul

never chooses wrong, and that vice but a form of bodily disease, nothing
itself

is

THE ALEXANDRINES
These two theories of
evil are

169

wholly different, and

lead to two wholly different theories of punishment. If evil is disease, the cure is chastisement, and chastise

ment

is

cure.

By way

of medicine or by
if

way of surgery
is

the sufferer can be healed,

sufficient

time

allowed,

and ex hypothesi the soul

view, evil
will
it

is

immortal.

On
not

the other

is

rebellion against a law, the revolt of one

against another.
k
"

Ignorance

is

sin,

though

may be
I

the
"

the punishment of sin. Evil begins when will of the bad man sets itself against the
"

In this case the object the personified Law, in inflicting Sovereign, Punishment is the penalties is self-preservation.
of the ruler.
of the

Thou

shalt not

safeguard of Law, that is to say, of the unity, life, and welfare of the whole, and of the individual in and
It does not aim at amendment, through the whole. but at the maintenance of that law, which alone

can amend.
fact
if

That

this

is

so

is

evident from the

the sufferer refuses to acknowledge the that, of the law, his punishment only makes him justice
worse.

The inadequacy
obvious.
It

of

the

Platonic

theory

seems
to
;

teaches
unless
will

us

that

we have no

right

punish a

man
he

we

are sure that he will

amend

and

that, if

not amend, we must go on increas

ing the penalties

until
it

ad infinitum for the smallest offence, we have broken him down. Mild as it seems, leaves no place for either repentance or forgiveness.
is

Sin

ignorance, and ignorance

is

is

eternal,

because

so long as ignor ance endures, punishment must endure. But, if sin

the soul
inferior to

God.

And

17
is

NEOPLATON1SM
rebellion, then submission
is

peace.
for

No

further

punishment can be needed, except

the sake of

example, a consideration that may weigh with the State, whose laws are uncertain in their operation, but not with Almighty God.
of
Further, experience teaches us that the punishments God are not curative. Shame and remorse indeed

are so, but

these must be considered rather as the

life.

pangs of returning
punitive.

Nor again
Spirit, to

is

discipline, the

loving severity of the

Holy
"

The proper penalty of sin ness and indifference. God," it is written,

Pharaoh
s
heart."

be regarded as as such is hard

"

hardened These words shocked Origen inex

He felt that they could not be brought within the circle of his ideas ; but he could not see,
pressibly.

that this stubborn verse contained the very truth he

wanted.
In
this particular point

productive of great disasters.

that
"debtor

a mistaken theory has been It led the Church to

theory of
all

and

creditor"

sin, in

which

Luther discovered the taproot of

the mediaeval

It made Forgiveness corruptions. unmeaning. The Christian was forgiven once in Baptism, because all

previous sins had been committed "in ignorance"; but now that he had received the Light, he could never

be forgiven again.
fountain of

Further,

it

made

the Cross, the

pardon, an absolutely unintelligible For why did the spotless Lamb suffer if all mystery. or how could His sorrows suffering is medicinal ?
profit

those

who can be healed

only through their

own ?

THE ALEXANDRINES
These remarks apply more or
Nicene Church at large. Clement and Origen was
less

iyi
to

the ante-

The

peculiar
to

work of
the

merely

enlarge

prevalent belief in Purgatory into that of Universal Salvation, which is found in Clement, but was elabor

ated into a system by Origen.

It rests partly

on the on
to deal

corrective Platonic theory of punishment,

partly

the Aristotelian axiom, that justice binds

God

all men, which is quite as untenable. saw clearly, that in this world no such equality Origen rules, and could find no way of escape but by import

equally with

ing into Christian theology the whole Platonic account Antenatal sin and of the origin and destiny of man.
birth
"

upon

earth as
"

its

punishment, the descent of

freely

the purer souls

who come
by the

down

spirits

in prison, the resurrection of

itself

to help the an ethereal body

logos"

created for
soul,

"spermatic

of the

gradual rise through aeons and seons of further trials, the final consummation all this is
the

Neoplatonic, and all this Origen read into Scripture his method of allegorism. Origen s after eternity not to be wise above that falls under the warning

by

"

which

is

written."

His prior eternity

is

demolished

by a passage in Justin s Trypho "Are the souls man, "that this is the reason aware," asks the old
they are in fleshly bodies, and that they sinned I think not," replies Justin. "Then before birth ?

why
it

"

"

would seem,
are

that
I
if

chastisement.

Nay,

they cannot should not

they

profit

by

the

even

say, that

they

chastised,

do not perceive the

chastisement."

172

NEOPLATONISM
his

Yet Origen used

3.

Hellenism to defend a purely

Christian thesis, the morality of God.

in the Creed,

of

it

Both Clement and Origen were firm believers which they had received. Every article is to be found in Clement, and Origen wrote out
beginning of the

his regula fidei in the

De

Prinripiis.

But they were both, though Origen

in a less degree,

end of human

To both the supreme tinged with intellectualism. effort is the knowledge of God, and

heaven presents itself as that ideal world in which all mysteries will be explained, and reason, the noblest

added

part of man, will attain to perfect satisfaction. They that the road lay through Love, and in this the
Platonist agreed.
Christ,"

They added

also,

"through

Jesus

and from

this the Platonist

would not have

dissented, provided that

by Christ he might have been

allowed to understand the pure, divine, unembodied intelligence, which he recognized as a distinct Person
ality.

The

by
is

love,

question is, what is meant by knowledge, and by Jesus Christ? The Alexandrines
is

held that love

Platonic
;

of the ideal, not of the material

this

that

and that Jesus Christ is the ideal, and His Flesh was merely the veil of Godhead, a

necessary screen to prevent men s eyes from being blinded ; this again is half Platonic. As to knowledge, there was a very broad, practical difference. The
Christiai s

yet

it

held that the Gospel was a philosophy, was within the reach of old women." The
"

Platonist maintained, that no

unless he had taken a University degree, geometry and the laws of music. There

one could know God, and studied

is

plainly a

THE ALEXANDRINES
great difference of spirit here.
"contemplation,"

173
insist

Both sides
but

upon

"recollection,"

the

Christian

type
his

a Kempis, with the Bible on of Nigrinus, with his Nevertheless it is clear, diagrams and his Euclid. that neither knowledge nor love could be rightly
is

that of
;

Thomas

knees

the heathen that

understood, till Athanasius destroyed for ever the old Hellenic philosophic aversion to "the flesh."

But

in

many

points intellectualism

is

in

agreement

with the purest spirituality. The Alexandrines taught not only that God is our Father, but that the believer
is already His son. not as yet perfectly.

The kingdom
In
this

is

within, though

they were in harmony

"

with the general sentiment of the Church, which was the already praying, not for the coming, but for delay of the end," that the Divine Will might have

time

to

realize
life
is

itself

upon

earth.

The view
"a

that

perfect
vision,"

"wages,"

"a

crown,"

beatific

they had no wish to alter, because it is evidently just ; but they destroyed the gross, sensual conceptions of the heavenly banquet," which
"

attended

what

is

known

as

Chiliasm.

With

the

general frame and discipline of the Church, as it existed in their time, they had no desire to meddle.

Their sense of the need of unity was as strong as it well could be. They were not Protestants. But within the creed and within the discipline they insisted

on freedom

They held
but the

as the heritage of every true Christian. that in the Sacraments (here again their
in), it is

Platonism comes
spirit.

not the matter that profits,

the three orders,

They acknowledged

ry4

NEOPLATONISM

and did not in any way interfere with their official But Clement regards the Gnostic," the position. as the only earthly sacrificer, because true Christian,
"

and ascribes

he brings to the Father the offering of his own to the Gnostic the judgment of

spirit,

souls,

whether he be ordained or not.

not admit that the priest

Even Origen did could exercise the power

Indeed of the Keys, unless he were a holy man. this view is to be found in Cyprian and the Constitutiones Apostolicae.

Yet they were not Protestants,

and probably, even if they had lived in the days of Tetzel, would have stood rather with Contarini than with Luther. For they were content to buy freedom at the price of reserve, and recognized different types of Churchmanship. Both, but Clement more especi ally, divided the Christian experience into two kinds of life. In modem times we have divided it into two
kinds of Church.

In this the Alexandrines were, from one point From of view, restricting the doctrine of Freewill. another they were attempting to harmonize the
teaching of the whole Canon of the New Testament or perhaps we should rather say, to assign their
;

rightful influence to the teaching of St.

Paul and

St.

John. They pursued this not by grasping the inner harmony of Freewill and Grace, but by putting the latter on the top of the
former, so as to

aim

in true eclectic fashion,

make
is

it

The

inherent difficulty

grow out of it. of combining

two such was vastly

antitheses, which

already very great, increased by Platonism. Clement really takes his

THE ALEXANDRINES
start

175

and contemplative,

from the current distinction between practical or moral and intellectual, virtue.

philosophers, whom he followed, regarded the former as merely negative or purificatory. They break the hold of desire, and set the soul free. Affection

The

must be thus exterminated, the

"apathetic,"

spirit

must become

before
tlie

divine light of

can really see and love the Monad. This heathen intellectualit

ism threw over the imagination of Clement the same

sort of glamour, as scientific phraseology

sometimes

exercises at the present time. It led him to a mode of talking, which is a Christianized form of the
tale of Apuleius.

fairy

The two
fear

and

Lives are opposed, as law and freedom, love, symbol and truth, negative holiness

and

positive righteousness, freewill

as a reward,

and heaven

and grace, heaven as a frame of spirit. The

it

lower begins with faith in the sense of submission,

is

fostered by grace, in the sense of the external favour or help of God, and issues in holiness, or purification from desire. It is a life of struggle, sacrifice,

post

poned
basis

desire, "reasonable

self-love,"

and

its

scriptural

is

the Parable of the Talents.

But now, through obedience and growing reflection we learn to understand and to love. the
Gradually
"

servant becomes a son.

the light grows, with the Lord."
till

Temptations
is filled

fall

away, and

at last the believer is

one

spirit

Henceforth he
in

with,

upborne

this Life is no by, grace, longer favour or power, but loving communion. He attains to perfect Apathy, because no thought stirs against the Saviour s

which

!y6
mind.

NEOPLATONISM

He
it
;

doing

secrets.
sacrifice,

does God s will, because he cannot help he knows, because love is the key to all He has sacrificed even the consciousness of
is

and there

absolutely nothing

left

for
is

him
the
It
it

to desire, because in Christ

he has

all.

This

Disinterested

Love

so

famous in

later mysticism.

expresses itself in the "mystic paradox," better to be with Christ in hell, than- without

that

is

Him

in

heaven.

demands nothing but to be not pray the Beloved even allowed to love, and to cast a glance or a thought upon him. Like all mystics, Clement speaks of "silent prayer," he stopped short, and left the dream but at this

The

true mystic
will

point and the ing of dreams to the heathen Neoplatonists The reason is to be found partly Christian monks.
in the brightness of his disposition,

but

still

more

in

that spirit of godly fear, which tinged so deeply the devotion of the early Church. Men did not venture to

grasp at the Beatific Vision,

fired

till

their

heads had been

by sensuous allegorisms of the Song of Songs. No one can help loving Clement, yet it is difficult If he had hunted through not to be angry with him.

the dictionary of scientific jargon on purpose, he could word than hardly have picked out a more disastrous

Apathy.
"inner

But
way"

his

Two
all

Lives are the

Mystics,

"outer"

and

of

the

and the Church

would have been poorer without Thomas a Kempis. We may say that he has drawn the Lower Life in a and tolerance, not of worldly com spirit of charity

He wanted to find a place in the Kingdom promise. of God for those to whom their Christian pilgrimage

THE ALEXANDRINES
is

177

a battle, those

word
fire

who are in the just sense of the "apathetic," who feel sadly their own lack of and joy. To most of us probably Miss Rossetti s
are of those
faltering
life,

words go home
"We

Who

Of mortal

who tremble at Thy Word, walk in darkness towards our close by terrors curbed and spurred,

We

are of those.
stirred

Not ours the heart Thy loftiest love hath Not such as we Thy lily and Thy rose. Yet, Hope of those who hope with hope

We

deferred

are of

those."

Of

the Higher Life

may we
Clement

his Platonic affectation,

not say that, with is a true child of

all

St.

John ? His Apathy after all is the Love of the Last Supper, whereof the love between the Father and the Eternal Word is the archetype and fountain. Or
rather, what Clement calls Apathy, it has been termed Detachment in later is its concomitant. times,

The monks held

tion,

it

to lead not to the sanctificaall

but to the renunciation, of the Platonic taint crept in

Platonism, but shrank from

earthly

again.

ties. Here Clement held the

He

its extreme conclusions. was the most amiable and sociable of mankind.
is Its loins are unearthly. uplifted for the heavenly summons, shrinks not only from caresses and

Nevertheless, that love

girded,
its

ear

is

and

it

endearments, not directly spiritual from engrossing study, from the questions of the Its type is day." Mary, not Martha; Clement, not
but even from
all

labour which

is

"

Origen

and

its

work

is

to

fill

the reservoir, not to

irrigate the fields.

NEOPLATONISM

The main
is

fault in

Clement

description

is

that

it

too systematic.

Many

illustrious

Christians do no

to either of his categories. really belong side in the world, as they lie side

Lives

by

do

in the

Gospels, and
fear
in
love.

interlock.

There is ever Probably no one

love in fear
attained

and

"sonship"

the discipline of without passing through or Origen, or Wesley. the -servant," like Luther, Life is at once t But the conception of the Higher it is not disinterested ; ideal-love never can be It seems to exclude too narrow.
"

"

its

nature-and

sense of the Fatherhood those who, with the fullest fear of His Kingship. of God, combine the deepest the cry of St. Paul, "Woe It does not really explain scant the Gospel "-and it does is me if I preach not
!

justice

to those

whom we may
rulers,

call practical

saints,

the

great

scholars,

missionaries,

organizers,

philanthropists be considers The work of the Alexandrines must

of the Church.

materialism rather as a reformation, a reaction against hitherto than as an advance into and formalism,

unexplored regions. The reaction was conditioned by enlightenmei In form it Whence did this enlightenment come? was Platonic, in substance it was Evangelical. Partly
it

did it harmonized with the Gospel, partly where The reader must now decide for himself

not.
their

Platonism was

in fact the voice of the

Holy

Spirit,

where

it
it

the aspired beyond

led astray.

limits

of revelation,

where

They

above put knowledge

faith,

but even

this

is

THE ALEXANDRINES
not wrong unless the New Testament Wisdom is the fruit, and not the seed.
is

wrong, for

They may,

perhaps, have erred in attributing too high a value to the intellectual factor of Wisdom, and in depreciating to the same extent the other elements of the Christian character. It is a question of degree.
It is

not their

fault,

but their crowning merit, that

"

they welcomed knowledge as the ally of faith, and saw in God s children not one In type, but several. My Father s House are mansions."

many

XI
PLOTINUS

WE may
Emperor.

the chronology of exhibit in tabular form

Plotinus as given by
Regnal
Year.
.

PorphyryAge
of
Plot.

Severus

13

(205-6)

Plotinus born.

27

Becomes student
at

of

philosophy andria; attaches him

self to

Alex

remains with
years.

Ammonias, and him II

of Joins expedition Gordian against the the After Persians. es Emperor s defeat

capes to Antioch.
Philip (244-5) (246-7)

40
.-

Settles in

Rome.

Amelius joins him, and remains with him first 24 years, till the
year of Claudius. Ten years after his settlement in Rome, to Plotinus begins
write.

Gallienus

(253-4)

10

(262-3)

...

58

Porphyry,

who had
little

already been some time in Rome, is in troduced to Plotinus ;

remains with him six

years.

At this date Plotinus had written Enneads. While 21

him Porphyry was with he wrote 24 more.

PLOTINUS

l8l

E,npero,

Gallienus

...

15 (ab.)
I
...

267-8 about)

Porphyry
Sicily.

retires

to

Claudius

...

(268-9)

......

Plotinus
thither five

sends

him more EnPor

n
,,

"ads.

...

(269-70)...

66

Plotinus sends

phyry the remaining four Enneads, and dies towards the end of the
year.

The

dates do not

fit

with exact precision.

Porphyry

got at the birth-year by calculating backwards from the Either he placed the birth a year too late, or death.

he added a year

to his master s age.

He

did not

know

Plotinus would the day, nor even the month. never speak upon the subject, though he kept as
festivals the birthdays of Plato

seemed

to

be ashamed of

his

He and Socrates. and would not body,"

"

allow his portrait to be painted. There was, however, a likeness of him, taken by Carterius, a famous artist,

who was
Origen

Amelius, and stole the shy philosopher

tells us, that in

secretly introduced into the lecture-room s features.

by

the Scriptures none but bad

men
feast/

are recorded to have kept their birthdays as a

The

trait is

quite Platonic.
tell

But

it is

surprising

that

Porphyry does not even

us where Plotinus
Stiidas

was born.
left

According to Eunapius and

bit

he was

a native of Lycopolis, in Egypt.

this

Porphyry possibly
designedly.
in this

of

information

out

He
he

wanted

to

convey a touch of mystery, and

succeeded, for the learned Empress Eudocia, in her Bed of Violets written in the eleventh century, says,

g2

NEOPLATONISM

of no country, but Plotinus appears to have been some say he was a Lycopolite." mheri The Roman name Plotinus was possibly

The philosopher from Plotina, the wife of Trajan. a freedman a Copt, descended from may have been
of the Empress. no doubt At the age of twenty-seven, having course, he entered through the ordinary preparatory for the definite study the University of Alexandria,
of

philosophy. teacher after another, but

Here

he listened
"went

to

one famous
of sorrow,

away

full

with head hanging down." At At Saccas. him to the class-room of Ammonius This is the end of the lecture Plotinus exclaimed,
i

last a friend introduced

"

man

For eleven years he re famous teacher mained the attached disciple of this
I

was looking

for."

the tale of ( Our readers will remember that in could only be gathered and Psyche the golden wool and Aristotle after the heat of noonday, ^thought These to hear moral philosophy." young men unfit
"

words were seriously meant.

No

until he discussion of first principles ripe for the at which he was eligible attained the age of thirty, or the priesthood or for the consulate in the state,

one was thought had

the episcopate in the Church. to Plotinus was released from his allegiance his the death of the latter; but monius, probably by the With were not yet completed.

Am

Wanderjahre view of perfecting his experience by personal acquaint and Hindoos, ance with the wisdom of the Persians
of the he attached himself to the expedition
ill-

starred

PLOTINUS

183

Gordian. Gordian was murdered at the very outset of the campaign by Philip, and Plotinus returned imme Hence after a brief stay he made diately to Antioch.
his

remainder of his

he spent the only to die. At Alexandria he had acquired a knowledge of all

way

to

Rome.

In

the

capital

life,

leaving

it

forms of Greek thought, of Christianity, for Ammonius was a renegade, and of those bastard systems that

we know

as

Gnosticism.
all

What he had

deliberately

chosen, out of

this seething flood

of opinion, was

the teaching of the inspired porter, the new Platonism, the idealist religion, to be hereafter expanded by the patient labour of his devout and original mind.

Rome was exile to a student like Nigrinus ; but it was the fitting post for an apostle like Plotinus. Athens was impossible, because it was the seat of the Diadochus, the high-priest of conservative Platonism,

and in any case was too far distant from the centre of life. Plotinus was drawn to the banks of the Tiber by the

same motives as St. At Rome he lived

priest-philosopher. the poor, nor was
;

Paul.
for twenty-six years the life of a

He
it

possible for him

did not preach the gospel to to found a

Church but in life and in thought he was true to his high idealist creed. Knowledge he regarded as but the means to communion with a personal God, and to
the fuller performance of the Divine Will.
in privacy, disliking politics,

He

lived

and dissuading his friends from taking part in them, and exercised the strictest When he lay dying he refused to take self-discipline. a popular nostrum composed of the flesh of treacle,"
"

184

NEOPLATONISM

meat even adders, saying that he had never used the of domesticated animals ; and his sleep was of the
His friends were numerous and devoted, shortest. and included the Emperor Gallienus (who tolerated At one time he Christianity), and his wife Salonina.
is

said to

permission to refound a deserted

have obtained from his imperial patrons town in Campania,

which was
an ideal

to

be called Platonopolis, and governed as

Fortunately the project
fell

state.

through,

and Plotinus escaped the unpleasant experiences of Dio Chrysostom, and indeed of Plato himself. But
the fascination of his priestly character
"
"

is

best illus

men and women, when death drew near, brought to him their boys and girls, and property, and entrusted all to him His house was full as to a holy and divine guardian. of boys and maidens, among whom was Polemo, for whose education he was so careful that he would
listen to his

trated by the story of his Wards. of the noblest Many," says Porphyry,

go through the accounts

He endured even to school-boy verses. of his wards possessions,

and was most accurate and business-like, saying that, until they became philosophers, their property and revenues ought to be kept intact and secure." When they became philosophers, he hoped that they would renounce their wealth, like Rogatianus the senator, who gave away all his possessions, emanci pated his slaves, resigned the praetorship, and did not
keep even a roof
to sleep under.

Like a true priest again he was a peacemaker, and many a feud between the hot-blooded Roman nobles

PLOTINUS

185

class,

was composed by his influence. Among the official But this says Porphyry, he had no enemy.
popularity with the great raised him up adversaries the philosophers," who were for the most
"

among

Olympius, who had also been a pupil of Ammonias, and envied the success of his old class-mate, tried to bewitch him. But his
part a self-seeking race.
sorceries

recoiled

upon

his

own

pate,

and finding

than to do harm, he desisted. Plotinus revenged himself by comparing Olympius to an empty purse, a body without a soul.
that he
likely to suffer

was more

The meaning

of the story

is,

that Plotinus, as the

chosen servant of the One God, could not be hurt by the demons who were at the beck and call of Olympius.
In

many ways he enjoyed

special

marks of the Divine

in

favour.

Four times, while Porphyry was

Rome, did

Plotinus attain to the beatific vision.

To Porphyry

himself this grace was but once vouchsafed, and then not till his sixty-eighth year. Once, in the temple of
in the

summoned a demon to appear presence of Plotinus ; but to the great alarm of the enchanter, a god revealed himself. Plotinus could
Isis,

an Egyptian priest

read the secrets of the soul.

thief

Once he detected a
of a crowd of slaves.
live

by looking on the

faces

He
life.

foretold that

Polemo would
Porphyr/s

a brief and stormy

He

divined

intention
his

suicide; told

him the cause of

travel.

commit depression, and

to

ordered him to

died of a disease in the throat, at the country house of Zethus, in Campania, six miles from Minturnae.

He

When

the

end was

at

hand, he sent for

86

NEOPLATONISM

Eustochius,

who was

living

not

far

off at Puteoli.

Eustochius was long in coming, and when at last he I was waiting for entered the room Plotinus said,
"

you.

The
in

divine in

me

is

struggling to go
life,

up

to the

Divine
it

all."

Thus he

closed his

repeating, as

were, the ideal creed.

As he drew

his last breath,

a serpent crawled from under the bed, and vanished in a crevice of the wall.

He had always been a delicate man, suffering much from indigestion. He had a defective articulation, and stumbled over awkward words. When he spoke he perspired freely. He was as shy as a girl, and on
one occasion broke down
in his discourse,

because the

famous Origen (the heathen) was present. He had When Diophanes the autocratic ways of shy men.
read a paper in defence of impurity, Plotinus ordered

Porphyry to reply to defend himself.

it.

He

seldom condescended

to

Rome he taught a pact with Erennius and Origen not to vulgarize the doctrines of Ammonius by publication. During this period his lectures
For ten years
it

after his arrival in

said,

orally, having,

is

made

seem
"

to

have been of a loose conversational kind,

nonsense,"

with no order, and a good deal of

"

says

Amelius, think for

he were provoking his hearers to In this temporary abstention themselves."

as
if

from writing, we find a trace of the disciplina arcani, or Economy, which from the Platonic schools crept
into the Church.

Such reserve
books.

is, of course, impossible in an age of Erennius and Origen broke the pact, and

PLOTINUS

i8 7

Plotinus followed their example. Porphyry gives a curious account of his He could not literary method. spell correctly, wrote a very bad hand, and ran the words into one another. His sight was so weak that

he could never bear

to read over
till

what he had

written.

he had clearly arranged in his own mind all that he meant to Then he say. wrote as if copying from a book, and if interrupted would go on again from the point where he left off,

He did not put

pen

to paper,

as if nothing

had happened.

Porphyry speaks of the

terseness, the pregnancy, the passion, and enthusiasm of his style. shall convey the best impression to

We

an English reader by saying that

the
style of

it is

remarkably

like

grammar.
is

Browning There is no

in

its

subtlety

and lack of

difficult

word, but the whole

infinitely hard.

His school was more

class-room.

like a literary society

than a

Generally the course was to read a passage from some standard author, Severus, Cronius,
;

Numenius, Gaius, or Atticus among the Platonists

Aspasius,
patetics.

Alexander, or Adrastus

among

the Peri

Upon this text there would be free dis and the master would expound his views. Sometimes one of the disciples read an essay. Sometimes one of them would request the master to lecture on a special point, such as the union of the
cussion,

body. Occasionally distinguished Origen or Thaumasius, would attend, and there would be a sort of Out of these field-day.
visitors,

soul

with

the

like

discussions grew the Enneads, so called from the six

groups of nine

in

which Porphyry arranged them.

88

NEOPLATONISM

anus,

His most constant friends were Amelius Gentitta Tuscan, who quoted St. John, and wrote
the
;

Eustochius, an Alexandrine Zethus, an Arabian, another physician physician ; Castricius Firmus, MarZoticus, a critic and poet
;
;

against Scythopolis or Bethshan

many volumes

Gnostics

Paulinus

of

cellus

Orrontius,

Sabinillus,

Roman

nobles

Serapion
;

and Rogatianus, four of Alexandria, a rhetor

turned philosopher and a number of ladies, Gemina, her daughter of the same name, Amphicleia, Chione.

Chief of the band, though late in joining, was Porphyry or Malchus (King), a Tyrian. Plotinus called him poet, philosopher, and priest," saved
"

him from

self-destruction, told

own
him

life

as he chose to

him as much of his make known, and appointed

There
is

his executor.

Porphyry wrote a famous book

a taint of super

"against

the

Christians."

contentiousness, and inaccuracy about him, and he stands on a much lower intellectual level than
stition,

his master.
fills

But he was not an unworthy

disciple,

and

a respectable place in the history of his school. Plotinus was a man of reading and of wide ex

He had surveyed all the schools, and perience. But all learned much from Stoics and Peripatetics. his ideas, whatever the source from which they
emanated, have been transformed and welded into

new
all

relations

by the
is

fire

of his

own

creative genius.
it

His system

Platonism, though the best fruits of Greek thought.

has absorbed
Further,
it

is

Hellenism in substance, form, and method. Through his residence in Alexandria, Plotinus was no doubt

PLOTINUS
familiar with

189

many forms
is

of Orientalism, but no trace

be found in the Enneads. Everything flows in a direct line from the teaching of his Greek predecessors. He was himself an Eastern,
to

of Eastern opinion

but

activity was in any way can only have been through the sentiments, and the result must be looked for
if

his

intellectual

modified by his origin,

it

simply in the profoundly religious cast of all his In this, as in other points, he speculations.
repre sents the culminating point of a tendency universal

among the Greeks themselves. But when we observe how many of his nearest adherents were Eastern, like
himself,
it is possible to think, that the fervour of his devotion was intensified by his Coptic blood. Much the same thing is true of Stoicism also. The Orient has always been the land of inspiration.

Plotinus was charged with

filching the

ideas of

His friends repelled the attack with a heat that we cannot quite understand, for there was
certainly a

Numenius.

connection

between the two.

"

they explain the

difference, further than

Nor do by main

taining that Plotinus was far superior in

accuracy."

What they mean probably is, that Numenius still possesses attributes,
absolutely unconditioned.

the

One
is

of

and

not
that

But they may mean,

Numenius was a Jew.

According to Porphyry and his circle, the spiritual was Ammonius Saccas. Ammonius left no writings, and the brace of quotations that bear
father of Plotinus
his

name must be regarded

with doubt.

Hence we

have no means

for estimating the exact relationship

NEOPLATONISM
between him and
his great disciple.

But

it

must

the final have included the two leading points, and the identification of definition of the Absolute, God. Neither with the Intelligence of the

Ideas

was

the mind which brought them his must have been them with that co into clear relation, and stamped With what is the life of doctrines.

in

strict

sense the creation of

Ammomus,

but

herency which
difficulty

these

conceptions

won

their

footing

is

that both Porphyry and evident from the facts, and the new theory of ideas, Longinus opposed that Plotinus spends page the One cannot think.
after

that page in arguing we find the Here then

the Conservative and the New dividing line between of Plotinus to Ammomus. Platonism, and the debt

Both conceptions are of the highest importance. between ancient and modern They form the bridge And whatever may be thought of the
metaphysics.
the new theory of ideas Neoplatonist One, can hardly believe that there so firmly rooted that we not accepted. was once a time when it was
is

now

XII

THE WORLD OF SENSE

LIKE
all

the

Greek

sharp distinction

Idealists, Plotinus drew a very between the World of Sense and the

World of

Intelligence.

of Sense is in itself manifold, imper manent, half -real, and therefore imperfectly knowable.
It is
i.

The World
marked

By

Multiplicity.

What

it

offers

to

us

is

an

interminable

host

of

sensations,

of

sight,

sound,

touch, taste, smell. or understand, till

We

These we can in no way grasp we have reduced them to order.

in

observe their recurrence

more or

less

fixed

combinations,
again into of a horse

we gather them
larger groups.
rise to that
all

into groups,

and these

still

we

comparison of

the conception of an animal, and from a animals with all plants and all

From

inorganic things to that of sensible existence. generalize; we unify; and, in proportion as succeed in laying hold of a principle of

We
we we

unity,

begin to know.
All

The

unity

is

in the things themselves.

because they are one There could be no army, no chorus, no flock of

are,
are,

things

that

NEOPLATONISM
not one ; no house, no ship ; for, sheep, if each were is no longer house or the ship loses its unity, it if the But in a higher sense it is in a house or a
ship."

Mind.

the Divine imparted to the things by minds are akin our Mind, and we perceive it because
It
is

to the Divine.
2.

By Change. -The
all
"You

Platonists
"
"

had learned from

like

Heraclitus that
water.

things

flow

a stream of

cannot step twice into the

"

same

river."

God
bed

at night

I am." alone can say is not the

The man who goes to same man who rose in the

is

morning.

All that

we

see

like a drifting
it, it

cloud

before you can point your Perpetual mutability different shape.

"

finger at

has taken a
is

the law of

life

peace,"

Heraclitus said,
this again
itself
it

"belongs

only to the
is

dead."

From

follows that the sensible

world cannot in
enduring, and
3.

its

be known. For knowledge also. object must endure

is the cease Platonist that the condition of existence Life begets death, and less play of antagonisms. is the father of War," said Heraclitus, death- life.
"
"

By

Strife.

Here again Heraclitus taught

the

all things,

and the king of

fault with

all,"

and on
praying

this

ground
strife

he found

Homer

for

"that

and men." In the might perish from among gods the poet had unwittingly s judgment philosopher
"

of for all things are the children cursed the world, the This idea was a commonplace among strife."
Platonists.

They were not dismayed

so

much by

the s the apparent harshness of the world march, by survival of laws of life-in-death, of competition and

THE WORLD OF SENSE.

0*

the fittest. Whatever is lawful seemed to admit of some kind of explanation, though rot a wholly satis The main difficulties they found in factory one.

imperfection of type, and above all, How they grappled with these per here it is sufficient to plexities we shall see later on notice that in the sensible world they discerned
lawlessness, in
in

moral

evil.

everywhere traces of inadequacy, a weakening of the

ideal, as in a picture that
artist s

only partially realizes the

But the power to recognize im perfection depends on the knowledge of the perfect.
conception.
It is

by the law that we condemn the

lawless.

Now
to the

law, says Plotinus, does not

make

lawlessness, neither
is

does lawlessness make law.

fact, that

Disorder

due

order

is

superimposed by a higher intelligence

upon things or

creatures, that are for some reason or another imperfectly receptive of it. Here again then the sensible world cannot be understood in itself.

must look to the ideal of which it is the image, shadow and we claim to possess this ideal by the very fact that we can venture to pass judgment
the
;

We

on the deficiencies of the shadow.

Here everything is bound in 4. By Necessity. the iron chain of causality. Everything has a cause ; the cause is outside it, and yet determines its nature.
himself, so far as he is an animal, is not His reasonings depend on sensations, and these on external objects. His will is limited by circumstances; even his virtues are called into
free.

Even man

existence

with

by the nature of the peculiar difficulties which he has to contend. Nevertheless an

NEOPLATONISM
universal,

and therefore
is

true, belief tells

him

that he

freedom to be found ? Not is free. where all depends in this material contingent world, on something else, but in the realm of thought. determined only by Thought is cause and not effect, are itself, the laws of truth and goodness, which

Where then

Thus again therefore self-determined, therefore free. we are led to believe in the existence of another
world higher and better than the world of sense.

From these considerations it followed that the of world we live in is a world of half reality, a world
not becoming, not of being, apprehended by opinion, facts of sense, which we by true knowledge. The

We do think most certain, are really least certain. are not purely subjective. not even know that they
They
a stepping-stone to understanding; we must begin with them ; but they play us sad tricks, because they make it most difficult for us to avoid to spiritual existence the qualities which
are
attributing

we are accustomed to recognize in Those who have read the Republic

finite

objects.
will

of Plato

Cave. recollect the famous allegory of the men in the favourite simile of Plotinus is that of St. Paul. The

The world

is

like a mirror, in
"

which a

man
"

sees the

he adds, shadows of realities. Only," and you do not see Matter." mirror,
If

you see the

we look
it is

closely at the world of sense,

(i.)

that
(ii.)
I.

a combination of two factors

we discover Matter and

Qualities.

The

reader must distinguish carefully between

Stuff.

Matter and Material or

THE WORLD OP SENSE.

.

195

According to the Timaeus of Plato, the Cosmos was made by God out of Necessity or Chaos,
primeval
stuff

that

is,

already

possessing

certain

attributes, including, no doubt, solidity and extension, but piled together without order, and heaving to and
fro

view
it

with a discordant, unintelligent movement. is represented in later times by Plutarch,

This

whom

led to the belief in an evil creator side

by side with

the good.
"

For

this

determined material
an!, as
it is

manufactured
it

article,"

is already a not moulded by

Ormuzd,

must owe

its

nature to Ahriman.

But the

later Platonists, as

Albinus (or Alcinous)

and Plotinus, follow on this point the teaching of Aristotle was the first to the Peripatetics and Stoics.
use
the

word Matter
to

(in

Greek
as

JTyte,

wood
of

in

building stuff), the impalpable, invisible sub stratum of things, in contradistinction from the visible
schools,

Latin Materia,

a term

the

denote

Form.
to

From him
Stoics,

the

and

these two famous phrases passed from them to Neoplatonism.

Plotinus differs from Aristotle in

some minor

details,

but practically what he did was to clear the idealist use of the word from any sort of ambiguity. Strip off from any finite existence all attributes of every kind ;
take

away

from

it

colour,

taste,

smell,

warmth,

and the residuum is matter. The necessity of such a residuum was established partly by appeal to the universal belief of the schools, partly by the scientific axiom that nothing can come out of nothing, and nothing can return
texture, solidity, shape, extension,

into

nothing.

Suppose a case of complete change,

196

NEOrLATONlSM

such as that of the grub into the butterfly. There has been complete alteration, yet no death, no breach of continuity. Something has persisted the Form
:

has been entirely renewed, but the Matter subsists

unaffected.

Hence
vehicle,

Matter

is

called

the

nurse,
It

receptacle,

substratum

of the Form.

must not be

it

supposed that the Matter becomes the Form, or that It is acquires qualities by union with the Form.
merely the principle of the

Form
"

cohesion, the
receives shape,

condition of
yet
it

its

manifestation.

It

is

not

was,
is

there
the

It remains always exactly what shaped." For modern readers absolutely undefined. a trap in the word we have borrowed from

Latin.
itself

We
is

matter

Matter, but to the Greek no body." It immaterial ; it has

call
it
"

has no parts or divisions; The nearest unqualified."

to
it

it

is

"one,

continuous,

is

to

be found

in

approach we can make that intangible aether, which

all

physicists speak of as pervading

It

space.
exist.

cannot be said either to exist or not to

it is

Actually

nothing

potentially,
Its

if it

be joined to
is

Form,

it

is

all

things.

existence

a future, a

promise
Matter
But,
it

of being.

The
its

subtle

Greek marked the

distinction by
is
if

one of

exquisite turns of expression.

not Nothing (OVK: ov), but No Thing (fju) 6V). it has no qualities, what can we know about
all

In the night
so,

and
ness,

when

the
is

mind
left,
it

colours are black, says Plotinus, strips its object of all definite-

no

light

darkness.

Can

and it sees nothing but the be said even to see the darkness,

THE WORLD OF SENSE.

for
it

197

can see

it

only as solid, and matter has no

solidity?
as

Is thinking

about Matter, then, the same

?

thinking about about Nothing, the

Nothing

No

mind

is

blank, but

when we think when we think

shapeless.

about Matter, we have a kind of impression of the So Plato said that we conceived of it by
"

a
r

bastard
will

reasoning."

be seen that the Neoplatonist went very near to denying the existence of matter. If, as he defined it, it was not nothing, it was, at any rate,
It

to

next to nothing. Sometimes Plotinus seems inclined blot it out altogether, as Bishop Berkeley did,
this is

and Carlyle; but

matter
lands
lies

merely due to his love of

starting every possible hypothesis.

at the root of his in

The

eternity of
it

whole system, and

him
it

eternal,

two grave difficulties. If matter is ought, on his own most cherished principles,

he regards it as the cause of evil. has no qualities, it ought to be a perfectly And, indifferent medium for the form. Yet, as we shall
to
perfect, yet
if it

be

was much in the world for which he could account by supposing that matter had a certain only
see, there

power of

resistance, a sort of imperfect transparence,

so that the

form often succeeded only

its light.

partially in

suffusing the matter with

This

is

the fundamental difficulty of Platonism.

It

does not succeed, after all, in attaining that unity towards which all philosophy aspires. It issues in a dualism. Matter is distinguished from God,
therefore
limits

God

both physically and morally,.

This explains why the Platonist was so anxious to

198

NEOPLATONISM

reduce the conception of Matter to the lowest possible term, why he ascribed to it a merely hypothetical existence. If he could show that Matter was all but
nothing, he could also
almighty.

show

that

God was

all

but

He

narrowed the gulf to a mere chink,

it

but could not close

If Plotinus

altogether.

inclined to

had done what modern philosophers are do, if he had set the human mind on the

same plane with bodily existence, and found in God common and sole cause of both, he would have been compelled to distinguish between finite and
the
infinite spirits,

and

this

he thought impossible.
evil

But,

further,

he would

have imported moral

and

physical
divine,

imperfection into the

self-evolution

of the

shape or another the dualism

We
No

and thus again have limited God. In some must always remain. cannot leap off our own shadow, as Goethe said.
philosophy can solve the insoluble.
is

The

best

which approaches nearest to a solu philosophy and explains the most, and the most important, tion,
that

phenomena of
It is

life.

worth while to dwell upon the definition of Matter, for it is one of the most interesting words in
language.
theological,

Endless controversies, philosophical and the doctrine of have centred round it

;

transubstantiation, for instance, with

all its

momentous

consequences, hinges upon the definition of Plotinus, which in words agrees with, but in substance absolutely
differs from, that of Aristotle.

Yet Aristotle was not was

has

a Christian,
Christianity.

and

Plotinus

an

But the word

antagonist of received a more

THE WORLD OF SENSE.

199

immediate and practical interest in our own times. For the Matter of Plotinus is, in fact, the Infinite, the

God, of the modern Agnostic.

Agnosticism begins by setting the Finite against the Infinite, and endeavours to grasp the Infinite by
throwing on one side all those properties or limitations which make the Finite. This is precisely the method,
the via negativa, pursued by Plotinus in his hunt after matter. The Naturally the result is the same.
Infinite
itself
is

it is

a presupposition of all knowledge, but in mere negation, involved in our perception

things, yet in itself
;

of

all finite
it

No
it,

believe in

yet cannot

know

Thing. because

We
it is

must
like a

vast sheet of grey paper stretched across the sky, with no lines or divisions upon which the eye can rest.

We
-h
4-

have a

sort of consciousness of

it,

an impression,
is,

as Plotinus said, of the shapeless.

It
;

in fact, the

Matter, the Infinite, of the Platonist

but,

what the
This
is
is

Agnostic

calls

good, the Platonist called

evil.

startling contradiction depends on the view that taken as to the nature of qualities. If the Infinite

the perfect, the finite

is

imperfect

and

if this

im

perfection comes from its finitude, finitude as such is bad. Hence the qualities which define and limit and

negate the Infinite are in themselves

-h

evil.

But to the

Platonist the qualities are precisely that

existence,
,

which gives
It is true

life

and beauty.
be found

They

are the reality, so

far as reality is to

in this world.

that they are but shadows, imperfect copies of the heavenly realities, but the imperfection is due precisely
to their contamination

by the

Infinite.

2-00

NEOPLATONISM

Platonist
sense..

Things would have been a great deal clearer, if the had only used the word Law in its modern

what

When he spoke of law, he meant convention we call law, he called Idea. But, if we may
;

translate his teaching into our

own

familiar phrase
is

ology,
is
"

it

amounts

to this, that

where there
"

law there
is

good, and where

Liberty,"

there

is

no law there

evil.

says Mr. Ruskin,

whether in the body,

man, is only another word and the final issue of Death, Putrefaction ; Death, the body, soul, and political estate being healthy only
for

soul, or political estate of

by their bonds and laws." and simple. Liberty here

material,

This
is

is

Platonism pure

the indefinite, infinite,

thing.

which

in

itself

is

no good and no

Law

is

neither finite nor infinite, though both terms

may be applied to it with equal impropriety. It is the reality and the life, and qualities are the scintil lations, the bubbles on the stream, by which we
ascertain the presence

and the nature of the

life.

XIII

THE WORLD OF SENSE

II.

II

THE

Qualities are

All

passages on the subject of 6 throughout vi. 3, 8, 9, 10, 15. sensible existence Plotinus considered to be
leading
ii.

Enn.

an aggregate of Matter and Qualities. He devoted much labour and space to a thorough and exceedingly
keen-sighted criticism of the Categories of Aristotle,

which no student of the history of philosophy ought to neglect. But for our present purpose it is sufficient
to notice
sions.

one of the most important of

his

conclu

All Qualities, whether of what we call in the narrower sense of the word quality, such as colour, 7 warmth, and so forth, or of quantity, or of movement,
or of relation, may be divided from another point of view into those which are complementary to the existence, and those which are not.

By those which

are

not,

he means acquired or

blushing the operations of one body upon another, such as the warmth of a garment which has been placed near the fire and then removed. These do not concern the

fortuitous dispositions, such as virtue, beauty, health, disease ; or transient affections, such as or ;

202

NEOPLATONISM

existence of the thing.

no

real difference.
is

A man
bad,
it

man because he
less iron

They come and go, and make is neither more nor less a and iron is neither more nor

because
is

happens to be red-hot.

The

last

instance

view
of

not well chosen from a modern point of but to the ancient physicist, heat was a property

fire,

was caused by

fire,

Hence when found

dent, a quality
habitat.

in other things

and belonged to it was a mere

were, from
its

fire.

acci

gone

astray, as

it

proper

The make

really important qualities are the

complement

ary, those
it

which belong to a particular thing, which what it is, and with the matter constitute its

A particular man produces in us a particular group of impressions; he has a certain

sensible existence.
height, shape, colour, carriage

these define him, and ; other objects of perception. We cannot analyze the sensations that he causes in us ; But can we account for them they are ultimate facts.

mark him

off

from

all

any way ? Can we explain how they come to be there for us to perceive, and to be there in that peculiar combination? Plotinus thought that we could, and
in

looked upon the complex group of sensations pro duced by an individual object as the energies of a Logos, by which that individual object was made.

Logos

is

another famous term of the schools.

It

requires to

be distinguished from Idea, and from

is

Eidos, or Form.

The Idea
of
all

the Divine

Thought
It
is

most abstract expression.

in its highest and the ultimate cause

that exists in this world.

Before

God

could

THE WORLD OF SENSE.

create,

203

there must have

been

in

His intelligence a
to create.
first

distinct notion or idea of

"

what

He meant
should

How

was

it

possible that

He

wish to
?
"

form a horse, and then invent the type of a horse Obviously, the type of a horse must have existed first
(vi.

7, 8).
is

Form

sometimes used as practically synonymous

Where they are distinguished it is in this way, that Idea belongs to the Intelligence, the second person of the Neoplatonist Trinity, while Form resides
with Idea.
in the Soul, the third person. The Soul is busy with the world of becoming, over which it presides. Hence the ideas which it has received from above have

become forms they have taken shape as it were they are more concrete. Forms, Plotinus says, are all
;
"

sensible."

They

are

nearly

what we mean
it is

by

Natural Kinds or Types. The Form is still a thought, but of plunging into material existence.

on the point
it

It is the general

about to become the

particular.

At
is

this stage

changes

into or evolves the Logos, but a power or energy.

which

no longer a thought,

generally translated Word," owing to the influence of the English version of St. John s Gospel,

Logos

is

"

and we may render

that the usage
signifies
is

it

in

usage by this expression.

not
"

Yet
"

accordance with general it should be noticed

"

Word

inaccurate and misleading. Logos but an account or speech,"

"

description of anything." Hence it acquired the sense of definition, reasonable explanation. From this again it came by a natural transition to denote that which

204

NEOPLATONISM

forms the basis of the explanation, the cause, the living

force or energy which brings the thing into being,

and
is

makes

it

what

it

is.

In this

last

acceptation

it

coinage of the Stoics, from whom it was borrowed by The difference between its usage the Neoplatonists.

by the two schools depends on the difference The between their respective conceptions of God. their deity was the soul of Stoics were Pantheists
;

the world, and the indwelling

Word was

therefore

first

cause, an immediate operation of the creative

mind.

But the Neoplatonists were Theists and Tran-.

scendentalists,

and

in their teaching accordingly the

Word
law
is

is

a secondary

cause,

and approaches very

nearly to what

we mean by

physical law.

Only the

regarded as a living force, proceeding from, and inseparably connected with, a thought in the

Divine mind, of which

it

is

the likeness, the shadow.

wholly unintelligent, though its operation resembles rather instinct, and it bears to the Idea or the Form the relation of the sleeping to the
is

Nor

this

force

waking mind.

And now we can Word is often called

"

see
"

what Qualities
"

are.

The

spermatic
it

spe.rma>

seed

"),

because

is

(from the Greek like the seed which

carries implicit within itself all the properties of the

developed
of the rose
fore
life,

plant.
all

The texture, colour, fragrance, shape come from the seed. They must there

this

have lain in the seed as hidden powers or laws of which manifest themselves to our perception in way. This of course is but an analogy, for the seed

itself is material.

What we

are to understand

is,

that

THE WORLD OF

SENSE.

II

205

soul,

whenever the Word, shot out as it were from the divine comes into contact with matter, it "makes a thing."
its

All
"

manifold activities

come

into play

it

produces
the phe say, the

bod^hood," solidity,

and extension, and

It creates,

all

nomena

that

go with

these.

we may
that
it

ox or the horse as we see them.

Not

moulds

or qualifies the Matter, The Matter is in no case anything but a sort of reflecting surface on which the

Form
picture

is

able by

means of the Word

a sensible picture

to

project a

of

itself,

adapted to our
the

modes of

sensible apprehension.

Hence though
we
see
it

Word
we
the

as

such

is

always combined with

life

Matter
at

(etx<fywVrog),

being in fact
it

as

work,
it

are able to abstract

(x<api&tp)t

and consider

in

Form

or the Idea.

be gathered from what has been said that Idea, Form, and Word belong properly to the works of God. They bring down life. It should be noticed,
It will

however, that on the one hand every natural thing shares in life so far as it is capable. Even a stone has
energies,
is

a cause in

has a word.

On

some limited degree, because it the other hand, certain exceptions

fever.

were admitted, abnormalities, things contrary to nature.

There was no idea of

As

to the products of

human

art,

there was a divergence of opinion.

Most

Platonists, according to Albinus (or Alcinous), would not allow that a house, a shield, a picture had any idea.

They were works of man, not of God.

of Plotinus
(v. 9,

In the view

n),

alf

creations of art

and industry

are ideal in a secondary sense, in so far that is as they embody the thoughts of the derived intelligence of

2o6

NEOPLATONlSM

man.

Thus he

is

able to

speak of the form of a

These house, as Plato spoke of the idea of a bed. instances will help the reader to grasp the general meaning of the doctrine of Form. What we recognize

when we
builder.

see a house
It is

is

the plan, the

mind of

the

been

a concrete thought, and could not have there unless the thought had preceded it.

Doors, windows,

chimneys, the arrangement of the

or stone, or

rooms, the

brick,

mud,

or marble,

of

which the walls are composed, are all expressions of the word of the man who dwelt under this roof, and
tried to

make himself

as comfortable as his material

surroundings would
his poverty, in

In one building we discern another his love of art, in another rr s

allow.
in

political condition,
tions.

another his
far as

religious

aspira

the

we can grasp the idea, Where the generating purpose, we understand.

Everywhere, so
is

meaning
stumbles.
is

illegible,

the order confused, knowledge

So

it is

in the

world at large.

The

effect

always a symbol of the cause, the thing of the mind

it

that called

into being.
arrive
at

Thus we
distinctly

the

idealist

position

as

first

formulated

The external world is God transmuted into vital

by the great Neoplatonist. none other than the thought of

law. What we cognize or recognize therein are the traces, imitations, shadows of intelligence. We know them in so far as they are shadows ; we do not know them in so far as they are

The modern way of expressing the only shadows. same view is that there is no object without a subject,
no thing without a thinker.

Nothing can

exist,

THE WORLD OF SENSE.

nothing be known, except in so
arranged, brought
into
definite
far

II

2OJ
it

as

is

made,

relation with other

things by an ordering reason.

There

still

remain
of the

for consideration

two important
call

phenomena

sensible

world, which we

Space and Time. The same general considerations,

conditions
of
sensible

that rule all the

existence, apply
real,
is

here

also.

Space and Time are half shadows of realities. It

qualities.

because they are the

with

them

as with

all

there

is

Colour does not belong to the idea, yetsomething in the idea, which ultimately pro
It
is

duces colour.

just the

same with Space and

Time.
It

will

assist the reader,

if

we

translate here the

two

most

instructive

passages

on the

subject

of

Space.

The
"

first is

JEnnead

v. 5,

Every
else, if

effect is either in its

is

there

cause or in something anything after that which caused it

is).

(any secondary cause, that

is

For inasmuch as

it

brought into being by something else, and wanted that something else in order that it might come to be,
it
it absolutely ; wherefore it is in therefore are in the last before things

wants

it.

The
;

last

them

these

again in those before them ; and one thing is in another up to the first principle of all. But the first
principle, inasmuch as it has nothing before it, cannot be in anything else ; and since it cannot be in anything, it embraces in itself all those things that are in what precedes them. But, though it embraces

20 g

NEOPLATONISM

them, and contains them, it is not dissipated among Since it contains, then, without being contained. is is nowhere where it is not contained, there yet And if it is not Otherwise it does not contain. not. So that it is, and is not is not it is not.
contained,
;

because

it

is

not limited, but able to be everywhere,

all restraint.

because free from

For

if it is

unable,

it

and what lies beyond is bounded by something else, in it, and God reaches that boundary does not share and will be no to that boundary and no further,
but subject to the things longer independent, which are in some beyond Him, Things, therefore, but those things which are are thing, are where they
li
;

that

nowhere are

everywhere."

The other passage is Ennead vi. 8, The whole difficulty, that besets
assuming Space, we have set up this notion of Space
ations, bringing

n
us in the con

arises from our first sideration of the world of sense, a kind of chaos, and then, when as in

our imagin

God

brought Him in, did He come, and,

Then when we have we begin to ask whence and how we as if He were a new arrival,
into
it.

and what He have been wondering how He got here, from some abyss, if He had suddenly emerged is, as It is needful, or dropped down from the clouds. cause of all this perplexity, and then, to cut away the our thought of Him, cast Space away altogether from

and not suppose

seated

that

He

is

in anything, or lies, or

is

in anything,

or that

He
and

came

at

all,

but

He is, just that Him to be, and

as

He

is,

as reason

proves
else,

that

Space,

like

everything

THE WORLD OF SENSE.

is

II

2O9

after

Himthat

Space indeed

is

after everything
x

else."

Rather more has been translated here than is requisite for our immediate purpose, but it will all help the reader on his way. Space, it will be seen, is explained by the general doctrine of The causality.
effect is

always in the cause.

it

When
;

the

Word makes

and so makes space. Space is the last of all things it is made by bodies which are made by words, which come from the
gives

bodies,

them

extension,

mind.

Everything
is

is

in that

which precedes
is

it; all-

therefore

in

mind, which
is

nothing, and therefore If the reader is a

God, who is everywhere and nowhere.

startled

in

in

conclusion,

by this abrupt he must remember that existence, ac

little

is thought, and then ask himself thoughts exist in the mind. What, for instance are the length and breadth of the idea of or

cording to Plotinus,

how

how

justice,
is

is it

parted off from other ideas?

abstract

What

true

obviously true also of conceptions derived from material things, if we can reason about them as Plotinus held that we could without forming a picture of them. Even if

of these

notions

is

we do

form some sort of picture, what is the size of our imaginative presentation of an ox, or how is it separated from the thought of an animal, or in which
particular pigeon-hole of the

mind

is

it

And where
help us means.
at

stored

is

the

mind
to

away?

any rate

These questions understand what Plotinus

itself?

We commonly

speak of the world as -in space. o

210

NEOPLATONISM
in the
is

According to the Neoplatonist, space is and nowhere else. Space, in fact,

If bodies are limited

world \

extension.

by space, they are limited by their own space or shape; the limit is from within, and not from without. Thus space, place, room, bulk,
are
only, different

names
It

for
is

the

same property of

corporeal about the body, and

is

existence.

the body, or rather this distinction shows us what

in

really

meant by

"in."

Bodies cannot be

"in"

bodies

; they may be adjacent, or circumjacent, but The never injacent, if that word may be coined.

wine

is

surrounded by the pitcher, but

it is

not

"in"

the pitcher in the same sense in which a thought is the mind, as a part which implies the whole, and is inter-penetrated by every other part, as an
"in"

energy of the undivided

life.

Thus Space
existence, a

turns out to be a
similitude

mere mode of earthly

of the
true
spiritual

rough

existence.
"in"

word Carefully interrogated, the little will lead us up from things "here" to things From the materialized ideas flattened "yonder."

out into length and breadth so as to become visible, we can rise to the conception of the same ideas as in the Divine they exist, one in all and all in one,

Mind.
It is the

a special

same with Time, to the treatment of which book of the Enneads (iii. 7) is devoted.
is

The
nists.

subject

They

a commonplace with the later Platoset Time over against Eternity as its

They are counterpart, but not as its contradictory. Time is not as finite and infinite. not distinguished

THE WORLD OF SENSE.

II

211

a piece snipped off from Eternity and measured out. It is just as eternal in the vulgar sense of the word
as Eternity
itself.

It is

"an

image of

Eternity"

Eternity

made

visible.
is

Eternity is defined as the life of Being, that the Divine Intelligence ; and here, therefore, we to some extent anticipate the doctrine of

of

must
God.

Conceive of a geometer who

science, so that all Euclid

is

absolute master of his

is

present at once to his

an articulated system, a host of pro ordered in unity. Conceive of him further positions as making no immediate use of his knowledge, but
s

mind

gaze as

Think sitting with eyes closed contemplating it. next of the Intelligence of God as the fullness of all abstract thoughts. Each idea is perfectly distinct and
conscious, yet they melt into one another, and they are felt as the powers of one life, and the conscious ness of their unity
parateness.
is

as clear as that of their dis

there will
yet

In such an Intelligence, says Plotinus, be sameness and yet difference, rest and

movement. There will be life but no change, because nothing can be added to it and nothing taken Hence it will have no past or future, only away.
present.

The Divine
is

Intelligence

is

unity in diversity,
is

it

the

One-Many, and Eternity

nature.

We

property, its are not. far from a correct definition if

is
life,

its

we
it

say that Eternity

all life,

which
loses

is

infinite

because
itself.

includes

and never

any part of
is

We may
God.

even say that Eternity

the

same

as

2I2

NEOPLATONISM
is

In the Divine Soul the unity

diversity
is

weakened and the

increased.

but One and Many.

of contemplation,

It is no longer One-Many, Reasoning has taken the place and creation has begun. With it
is

begins Time. not exist out of the soul.

Time

born of the
It
is

soul,

and does
of the

the

movement

which grasps one thought after reasoning faculty, from one perception to another. another, and passes with the successive changes It is not to be confused
of external things, such as

the stars

these are in

but reveal it. Time time ; they do not create time, the lower life, as Eternity the property of is, in brief, These two stand in the relation of
is

of the higher.

cause and

effect,

Thus Time is

Both may be called Laws purely subjective. of the lower regions of thought. of Thought, but only for all, but certainly for It is possible, not indeed of intelli in whom the higher faculty some for those Being, with ideas, to deal with
gence
is

while Space

of substance and shadow. is a fact of sensible existence,

awake

pure

divested of these and

all

other sensible limitations.

XIV
THE INTELLIGIBLE WORLD
ABOVE, around, within the World of Sense, which not unreal because it partakes of reality, yet is but a shadow, a semblance, stands the World of Intelli
is

gence, which truly exists, and can be It truly known. characterized by Unity, Eternity, Goodness, Beauty, Truth, Freedom, and Life. All these things we see as in a glass "here," darkly, but "yonder "face to
is

face.

"

Here

"

and

yonder"

Plotinus most

commonly marks
of
the

are the words by which the difference between

the two worlds.

Two
i.

features

Intelligible

world

call

for

especial notice.
It is

It is

Many,
it is

yet

it is

One.

Many.
though

For

of the world of sense.

"yonder,"

the archetype, the pattern

is
"here"

Whatever
in

is

also

exactly the same sense, because its mode of existence is different. There is no matter yonder, yet there is which

not

something

corresponds
divisible
like
"

to

it.

Ideas

are

not

bodies, yet
others.

some

are lower

compound and and more

of animal
is

complex,

after"

The idea

of man, and intelligence stands to soul in the relation of form. Soul is a child
that

simpler, earlier

than

214

NEOPLATONISM
" "

in it. There are no qualities of intelligence and there are powers which issue in qualities. yonder, yet

There There
is

is
is

no room, yet mind is the room of the ideas. no time, yet time, the moving life of the soul,

the child and image of eternity. For this aspect of intelligence the most speaking name is Life. Here again we will translate Plotinus
12)

(vi. 7,

"For

since

we

Yonder, as after

say that this All is framed after the a pattern, the All must first exist
entity,

yonder as a living
is

an animal

and since

its

idea

Heaven, complete, everything must exist yonder. therefore, must exist there as an animal, not without what here we call its stars, and this is the idea of
heaven.
not bare, but far
it

Yonder too of course must be the Earth, more richly furnished with life in
;

are

all

creatures that
life.

move on dry
is
;

rooted in

Sea,

too,

land and plants yonder, and all water

ebbing and flowing

in abiding life

and

all

creatures

that inhabit the water,

and

all

the tribes of the air

all

are part of the all yonder, and the same reason as Air itself.

aerial beings, for

For how should that

even

which
here
it

is

in the living not live itself, seeing that

Surely then every animal must of neces For as each of the great parts of the sity be yonder. world is, so of necessity is the nature of the creatures
lives ?

that

it

contains.

As then heaven

itself exists

yonder,

so yonder exist all the animals that dwell in heaven, and it is not possible that it should be otherwise."

The word
only

"animals"

in this

sentient

creatures,

passage embraces not but plants and inorganic

THE INTELLIGIBLE WORLD

substances.
All share in a kind of
life

215

in so far as they

are moulded by a word. They answer to a thought, and therefore it cannot be beneath the dignity of

the Divine Intelligence to contemplate their ideas. Existence in one of its aspects is life, or has life, and life is teeming, prolific, manifold. This real and
fertile

conception
all

Plotinus endeavours
Life begets

the main avenue through which to reach the notion of Deity. the infinite variety of qualities, even
is

opposite and warring It makes our bodies

;

qualities,
it

such as heat and cold.

in

makes the world

which they

Plotinus speaks, with something ap to contempt, of logic, as a mere system of proaching barren rules, and professes to be guided by a truly
act.

move and

scientific

method.

It

was

his misfortune

and not

his

fault, that,

in his time,

deserving the

name

there was scarcely anything of science, except in the way of

mathematics, and to some extent of surgery. abstractions were not mere abstractions.

But

his

He

does

not attempt to get at the unconditioned by leaving out the conditioned. In this way we make God

that,

merely the Great Denial ; He is not this and not and so we banish Him altogether, building up a
high wall, as
it

The

difficulty

were, round the verge of the world. remains unsolved and unsolvable, be

cause no number of negatives will make an affirmative ; ten thousand ignorances will not create knowledge. The method of Plotinus is the exact opposite. He
starts

with an affirmative, with a

fact,

with something

that

we know.

God

is,

and

is Life.

Here we have a

seed-thought, a word

full

of powers capable of separate

2l6

NEOPLATONISM
diversified manifestations.
is

and

What we have
as perfect

to

do

next,

to view this

life

in

itself,

and

free.

This we can achieve, because its earthly limitations lend us a hand, as it were ; they are traces," which mark
"

Hence we must by no means out the upward path. deny them, or leave them out of count, but simply We dismiss the particular, but carry transform them.

We leave the thing, but grasp with us the general. God is God, not the energy that causes the thing.
because
nothing, but because He embraces all those energies. He is absolute, but not unconditioned. And this Anagoge or upward path Plotinus held to be

He

is

open

to us, because the

human mind

is

a copy,

and

may become an exact copy, of the mind of God. Intelligence, therefore is Many, because it is the
fullness of thought (copce).
exists

The

sum-total of the Ideas

"

in

the Divine Nous,

not outside of

it,

like

golden

statues,"

which

God must

search for and look

up

He can think. It is not to be supposed must needs run about in search of notions, perhaps not finding them at all, perhaps not recog This is the lot of man, nizing them when found. whose life is spent often in the search, sometimes in the vain search, after truth. But to the Deity all
to,

before

that

He

knowledge is always equally present. This, as we have already seen, was the master-thought, which gave birth to Idealism as a coherent whole, and clinched it into an intelligible system.
2.
"

But

it is

also

One.
"

Suppose,"

says

Plotinus,

that thou

hadst the

eyes of Lynceus,

who could

see into the inside of

THE INTELLIGIBLE WORLD

things.

217

Suppose

(v.

8,

9) that thou couldst view the

it was a great sphere of transparent glass full of light, so that thou couldst see at a glance all that is in it. Keeping this supposition in mind, conceive another sphere divested of bulk, of place, of the notion of matter that is in thee. Do

world from without, and

not try to

make
but

the second sphere merely smaller

call

God to thy aid, who made the first, sphere of which thou hast an imagination. And may He come bringing with Him His own world with all the gods that are in it, being one and all, and all in
blending into one, and in their powers being but in the one sovereign power all being one, or rather all being the One.! Let us observe how Plotinus struggles to define the idea of immaterial existence.
each,
different,
all

than the

He
task.
all

was the

first

writer

who

fairly

He

grappled with this

difficulty, that

was confronted by the usual

words are coined

to express the visible

and

and do not apply exactly

fall

tangible,

to anything that

does not
the nature

under the grasp of the senses.

Hence

of

mind can only be expressed

that
life
is

in negatives.

We

say,

for instance,

immaterial or
;

infinite.

We

know
thee,"

exactly what

we mean
But
"

a positive sense.

the negative word has the notion of matter is in

and has

enlisted

all

language in
life is
"

its

service, so
"

that,
it

though the other notion of cannot find a faithful

it

in thee

too,

interpreter.

We

can think

can only say what it is not. is; general habit of Plotinus is to couple a positive with a negative. Thus, when he speaks of an idea as

what

we

The

2i8

NEOPLATONISM
"a

will say, part, yet not a part," part of the mind, he because the word part applies properly only to things

that

we can break

in pieces

yet a notion
it

may be

said to have parts

inasmuch as
it is

is

complex, and can

incapable of physical division. which has no equivalent Similarly, for omnipresence,

be denned, -though

in Greek,

he

"

will say,

everywhere and yet

"immaterial

nowhere."

In the passage just quoted, not mean begs the reader to notice, does
sphere."

sphere,"
"a

he

smaller

Size does

not

come

in at

all.

What he
"

Most wants to get at is the pure idea of a sphere. an have only men being unapt for abstract thought,
imagination,"

can only grasp the notion by forming

it.

an actual picture or image of

Such pictures are

too concrete, they bring out the lines of division too clearly ; they belong to the soul, but not to the

We want not exactly to obliterate these But for this we want but to see through them. lines, of God, who alone can teach us to think .,the help
intelligence.

about that which transcends experience. Intelligence, the Intellectual World, then, Trc ora) in all its diversity, because
(eV

is

One
its
it all

opou

all

thoughts form a living whole.

the others
;

Each

carries with

if

we know one

perfectly,

we know

all.

from They are like the rays of a circle shooting out in one one point, like the manifold virtues immanent It has seed. Yet even these similes are too material.

been said of

"

the flower in the crannied wall

"

"-

if I

could understand

What you
I

are, root

and

all,

and

all in all,
is."

should

know what God and man

THE INTELLIGIBLE WORLD

219

For the whole world went to the making of that wind-blown plant. If we knew exactly how it came to be there, we should know how the Almighty
created the universe.

The

roots of everything spring

from the Divine Mind, and these roots are thoughts of which each lies in, and interpenetrates other,
every
in a
it is

manner
the

past expression, yet intelligible, because

commonest experience of life. But we cannot

it,

adequately express
"
"

because to speak
"

is

to divide.

Express

means

to

flatten

out."

Intelligence again is One, because in it the thinker, the act of thought, the object of thought, are all one. The Soul, the lower reasoning sees itself as
faculty,

Another.
scious of a

To

use the

modern

riot-I.

The
;

phrase, the I raw- stuff of its

is

is

con
is
it

imported from abroad

its office

to

knowledge manufacture

by judging, combining, discriminating the materials It is busy about external supplied by sense. things, and therefore does not "think itself," in
though,
order to perform

must be helped by knowledge supplied to it from above. But the Eternal Intelligence does not need to run to and fro
its

work

correctly,

it

in search of information.

It possesses all the ideas,

it

d9es not want to discover them, because it sees them, and always sees them. In this act of contemplation
the distinction of subject and object is really lost they are merely phases of the same thing ; the thought is the self.
;

Thus
"

thinks

the Divine Intelligence, in Aristotelian phrase, itself," sees all knowledge in itself, and itself
It is

in all

knowledge.

perfect

self-consciousness,

220

NEOPLATONISM
into
itself,

Mind withdrawn
cause
that
is

and seeing
This

all life
is

in its

to say, in
;

itself.

the highest
is

conception of Existence
is

the Intelligence

Being,

God.

To this height the human reason can attain, though But not without preparation, and not without prayer. there is still a further step needed, before the system
is

complete.
is

But unity

All things exist, because they are one. a word of many different meanings.
it
;

Creatures have

a chorus, a ship, a horse are each

one
is

but their parts are separable and the combination ; evanescent. Thoughts have it, yet we can analyze

and distinguish thoughts. Still more emphatically Yet even here we can take note Intelligence has it. of the difference between thinker and thought, if only
In all these cases, as phases of the same energy. is derived they then, even in the highest, -the unity have unity, but are but not the One are
;

One,

not unity.

Hence

they above the Many

;

we must

set the
;

One ; above Existence, the Cause of Existence the Conceivable, the Inconceivable.
According
to

above
its

Plotinus,

Being

requires

for

as we trans adequate explanation two hypostases, or, in English theology. Persons that Arelate the word

Soul and Intelligence

the One, or the

Good.

and one Person that Is Not, These three constitute the

Neoplatonic Trinity. On the one This is a topic of the highest interest. there can be no doubt that these speculations hand,
aided greatly in the clear formulation of Christian made it possible to truth, to this extent that they

THE INTELLIGIBLE WORLD

understand

221

how

the

Three Divine Persons of the

Baptismal Formula should yet be

One

in "Godhead.

the place assigned by the heathen philosophers to the doctrine of the One, combined with the purely intellectual character of their system, was largely, though by no means entirely, the cause of
the rapid degradation of Neoplatonism, scornful judgment usually passed upon it
historians.

On

the other,

and of the
by

modem

Before we proceed, then, to the fuller consideration of the doctrine of God, it will be well to

we can, how Plotinus reached it, and what he meant by it. Partly, as we have seen, the Neoplatonist Trinity was
see, if
historical.
It

combines the Pythagorean One, and the

Creator.
it

Aristotelian Intelligence, with the Platonic

has a psychological basis. The real method of Plotinus is undoubtedly based upon observation of the phenomena of human con
sciousness.

But partly also

He

himself points out

the importance

of psychology.
position

The
i)
it

soul occupies an intermediate

intelligible

between the
(iv. 3,

and the

sensible.

opens knowledge in both How again, he directions, upwards and downwards. asks (v. 3, 8), could we even talk about intelligence

Hence

to

us

we did not in some sort possess it ? Again, all three hypostases belong to us (v. i, 10). Often it is difficult to ascertain with precision whether he is speaking of the divine or of the human does soul, so
if

immediately

the knowledge of the one pass into that of the other.

It is really
if

then at this point that

we ought
his

to begin,

we

are to grasp the

mode

in

which

system was

222

NEOPLATONISM.

developed, and avoid the temptation to mere barren

criticism.

Yet

it

must be acknowledged that

this is

not the method which Plotinus himself professes to

follow.

Or

shall

we say
the
the

for

it is

equally true

that

he has no method?

What is it then that Can we discover there The answer Trinity ?

affirmative.

human mind
"

has to

tell

us

shadow

"

of the Plotintan

to the question

must be
after

in the

Other
platonists,

writers,

both before

and

the

Neo-

have distinguished between two modes of mental activity the Verstand and the Vernunft\\\z. Reason or Soul, and the Intelligence or Nous. They
are generally differentiated in much the same way. In the first, the mind goes forth to discover or to act ;
in the second,
it

returns

upon

itself

In the

first,

the

antithesis of subject and object is sharply defined ; in In the first, the second, it is blurred or obliterated.

the particular is compared with the general, and so understood ; the second deals with generals only.

when
it

But beyond these two we may discern a third phase, the mind withdraws into itself, and becomes as

were a mere point. So it is in sleep, or in waking moments, when no definite thought is present, and
consciousness
is

a blank.

Mind
its

has contracted

itself

into

its

innermost source, and

it

all its

channels are dry.

Then

again

darts forth
life
is

energies in contemplation,
in full flow.

in action,

and
is

once more

Con

sciousness

not

like the course .of

equable ; it has pulsations, the blood, and sometimes the systole

strictly

and

diastole

seem

to stand

still.

Yet the

life

is

un-

THE INTELLIGIBLE WORLD

interrupted,
there.

223
is

and the hidden basis of the mind

is

always
neither

But what

this

hidden

basis ?

It

is

thinker nor thought, for where one of these is, the other must be, and where there is no thought there It is therefore neither, yet it is can be no thinker.
the cause of both, the ultimate power which, as the fountain of unity and life, is the Oneness, the Good

of the individual.
It
is

though the root of

not conscious, and has no name, because, all activity, it has as yet assumed

no
not

definite shape.
exist.

We may
in

Only
not

so saying,

say then, that it does we are limiting the

idea of existence to that of distinct thought.

The

One does

exist,

not
it

because

it

is

beneath

existence, but because

is

above

it.

Hidden though
sheds forth
(this is

it

be behind the

light

which

it

we

yet

know
This

a favourite image with Plotinus), that it must be there, because of the

inexplicable mystery is precisely the No man thing in which we most certainly believe.
light.

doubts that he
Plotinus
said

is

one
that

that he

is

himself.

the

individuality

cannot

be

known, means by knowledge.

usage, we are when we feel,
said to

but

we must understand
Ordinarily,

exactly what he
in

our English
or
is

or

know when we can describe, when we can explain. The last

the only sense of the word admitted by the Greek philosopher.

Things composite can be described

in

by a drawing.

Though

the

thing

itself

language or may never

2 24

NEOPLATONISM
;

have been seen

the
parts

it

may be some
see

of

it,

the

strange animal ; yet colour, lines, texture will be

familiar,

and those who

means.

the drawing will

know

what

it

for instance the colour of Simple facts of sense, in words they admit of redness, cannot be described but not of representation; hence they
;

presentation,

But those who cannot be conveyed to the blind. in that sense know them. have eyes can see them, and reference to a Further, they can be explained by
cause
thus the sensation of redness is the effect of This is the the vibration of a particular ray of light. mind of Plotinus the only true sense in the
;

scientific,

of knowledge, and in this sense only

thing.

is

colour a real

Now

unity cannot

be described, and cannot be

be felt as we feel colour. It is explained, but it may but it differs from all other feelings in two a feeling, It is from within and not features. very remarkable have from without, and it is inalienable. A man may the no sense of colour, and yet be a man; but

moment
no more.

the sense of his unity departs, he

that which cannot be

is

man
does

Thus

known,

is

not

real,

most not exist, is yet, in the view of Plotinus, the of all things. certain, and the most important

XV
DOCTRINE OF GOD
PLOTINUS
is

by no means a methodical

writer.

expands conception of the Deity over and over again in many different parts of the Enneads, and in many different connections. It will be neces
his
sary, before

He

we have done,
its

to formulate

what he has

said,

and explain

bearings.

But, to begin with,

we

shall best consult the interests of the reader

translating, with occasional condensations,

by one of the

more important passages, and thus putting position to judge for himself.

him

in a

We

will

start
is

with

the

first
"

book of the

Fifth

Ennead, which
Hypostases."
is

entitled

Here

of the Three Principal the motive of the investigation

"

What supplied by the question of moral evil. can it be that caused the soul of man to forget its Father, God, and to be ignorant both of itself and of

Him ?

The

root of the disaster must be sought in

its

the manifold nature of the soul, in

desire for independence.

audacity,

and

Like a child that has been

long absent from home, and brought up abroad, it does not know its father, and therefore cannot perp

226
fectly

NEOPLATONISM

know

itself.

It

that are

below

itself,

has learned to honour things the pleasures of this world.

But he who honours and admires, confesses himself by that very act to be inferior. And when the soul
thus deliberately sets itself beneath the things of a day, it makes itself the least honourable, the most

mortal of

all

things,

and can form no idea of the

in

nature or the power of God.

"

There are two ways

it

to raise the soul again

from

which we may endeavour this miserable fall, by

convincing
earth, or

of the

baseness of the attractions of

it its

This

own high birth and dignity. method is by far the more important. For without it we cannot even make the former
by teaching
latter

intelligible."

Thus Plotinus
pentance.

But indeed

places the New Birth before Re in the intellectual system of

Neoplatonism, what the New Testament means by will be sought for in vain. We are to rise first to the conception of the true Existence of

Repentance
God, and
"

this

knowledge

will of itself

cure the audacity

of the soul.
First then, let every Soul consider this ; how by breathing life into them Soul made all animals, the creatures of earth, seaT air, the divine stars in

heaven
above

made

the sun,

made

the

great

firmament

us, and not only made but ordered it, so that it swings round in due course. Yet is this Soul a different nature from what it orders, and moves, and vivifies. It must needs then be more precious than its creations. For they are born, and, when the Soul

DOCTRINE OF GOD
which ministers
their life
is,

227

but the Soul ever

because

abandons them, they die ; it never abandons itself.

life
is

And
Let
a

if it

be asked how the

in the part, let us

ministered, in the

whole or

frame the answer thus.

this great

Soul be gazed upon by another soul,

itself is

human soul which deemed worthy so to

from
all deceit,

no small one, and

it

is

gaze, because
all

and from
is

has escaped that bewitches the soul

tranquil.
let

of other men, and

calm and
;

Let such a

Soul banish
velopes
it

all

that disturbs

the

body
sea,
let

that en

be

still,

and

all
it
;

the frettings of the body,

let

and
be
into

all

that surrounds

earth,

and

and

air

still,

and heaven

itself.

And

then

the

man

think of Soul as streaming, pouring, rushing, shining him from all sides while he stands quiet. As the
sun, striking
it

rays of the

upon some dark mass of

shine with the splendour of gold, so cloud, also Soul, coming into the body of heaven, gave it life

make

and immortality, and woke

heaven, being moved

it

up from

sleep.

Thus

by
to

the

wise

with an everlasting movement guidance of Soul, became a happy

creature,

and the indwelling of Soul gave high dignity stuff, earth, and water, or rather the darkness of matter and No Thing, and abhorred, as the poet says, by the gods/
heaven which was before dead
clearer

nature and power of Soul will become still and more distinct, if we consider how it embraces and guides the heaven by its will. For it gives itself to all this huge bulk, and there is no
"

The

particle of space, great or

small, that

is

not

filled

with Soul.

Of

the

body one

part

is

here, another

228

NEOPLATONISM

there ; some parts are opposed, some are interde But with the Soul it is otherwise. It is pendent. not cut up into little bits, so that each particle makes

a different

life,

and
is

it

is

all
it,

but all things live by the whole Soul, present everywhere, like to the father

who begot

both in unity and in ubiquity. vast and disparate, but by virtue of Soul

Heaven it is One

and a god. The sun too is a god, because it has Soul, and so are the other stars, and so are we, if we for the dead are viler than dung. are anything, Now what makes gods must be older than they.

And

you can see

find the
far

our soul belongs to the same family, and, when it purged from all accretions, you will

same precious

thing, Soul,
is

than anything that

more precious by For all such corporeal.

fire, is

And if they be things are earth. It of the fire which burns? part
all

what

is

that

the

same with
if

that
to

is

compounded of

the elements, even

you

add

them water and

air.

And

if

the things of

earth are worthy of desire, only because they have Soul, why should man forsake himself to desire

another?

When

thou reverest the Soul in another,

thou art revering thyself. Since then Soul is so precious and divine a thing, believing henceforth that thou hast a strong helper in
"

thy quest after God, take this cause with thee, and go up to Him who is Yonder. And of a truth thou
wilt find

Him
s

not far

off,

for there
is

is

not

much be
from

tween.
the

Grasp then what

the Soul
is.

diviner than this Divine,

Soul

neighbour above, after

whom and
is

whom

For though the Soul

a thing

DOCTRINE OF GOD
as our Intelligence.

229
it

As

argument proved, the word, which

is

an image of

is

uttered, springs

from the word

in

man

soul, so is the All-Soul,

and

the whole energy by which it shoots forth life to give existence to other things, a word of Intelligence.

Just as in fire we can distinguish the essential heat from the sensible heat, which it sends forth ; only in the world yonder we must think of the heat not as
actually streaming forth, but as partly abiding in its coming into existence. Inasmuch, then, as it comes forth from Intelligence, the Soul is intelli

source, partly

gent,
its

and

its

intelligence
is

shows

itself in

reasonings,
is,

and

perfection

derived from
it,

Him who
Its

as

it

were,

the father
as

who begot

so that the child

father.

compared with the

is not perfect existence then is

derived from Intelligence, and is the energizing word of the Intelligence, to which it looks For when up.
it

gazes on
the

Intelligence,
its

it

possesses

its

ideas

and

activities

from within, as
only true

own

are

activities

And these property. of the soul, which it

possesses
inferior

and by inheritance; the intellectually, movements come from another source, and
Intelligence then
father,
is

are affections of an inferior soul.

doubly divine, because it is its because it dwells within it. For there
it

makes

and

nothing

betwixt, save their essential difference, but the one is after and But even recipient, the other is Form.

the matter of Intelligence

intelligent

is
is

beautiful,

because

it

is

and simple
this
it is

as

And
is

even from

the Intelligence itself. evident, that the Intelligence

is

better than the Soul, which

of such a

nature."

230

NEOPLATONISM
reader
to Soul
will

The
stands

here

observe

that

Intelligence
to

in

the relation of

Form
never

Word,

hence of

"father"

and

superior, because the higher

and

prior

is

giver

always,

and

receiver.

analyzed, being a larger conception than Word, Soul may be spoken of as And it of Intelligence. matter in a sense the
Further, as
"
"

Form may be

will

be noticed that Plotinus speaks here of two The first, which has no "affections," is the souls.
Divine;
Nature,
the
of
soul

second,

and

inferior, is

that

of

Heaven and
This too
is

Earth, and of the body

"divine,"

generally.

but in a

much

lower sense.
difficult

The

distinction

is

one of the most

become
"The

points in the system of Plotinus, but it will resume a little clearer as we proceed.

We

the translation.

same thing maybe seen

in the following way.

We

admire this visible universe

when we behold

its

vastness, beauty, and the order of its ever lasting movement, and the gods that are therein some visible, some invisible, and the demons, and But It is well. animals, and all the host of plants. to the archetype, and true world, and yonder go up

and

its

see the intellectual patterns of

all,

everlasting in their
life.

own

right, in their native

wisdom and

See too

their prince, the undefiled Intelligence

and perfect the true Saturnian life of God, who is Wisdom, For He embraces in Fullness and Intelligence.
Himself
all

that

is

immortal,

all

intelligence, all

God,

all

soul, ever-abiding.

For why should

He

seek to change, being perfect?

And

whither need

DOCTRINE OF GOD

231

He He
"

go, since

grow, since

absolutely complete ? Wherefore also all that is with Him is perfect, that

He has He is

all

in

Himself?

And how

can

He may
is

imperfect, having nothing in

be absolutely perfect, having nothing which Himself, which He

does not think.

And He need

not search for His

And His blessed thoughts, because He has them. ness is not acquired, but all is in eternity, and this is the true Eternity, which Time counterfeits as it runs
round the Soul, passing over some thoughts and attending to others. For to the soul belongs sequence
of ideas
;

at

one time

it

considers Socrates, at another

definite object.

a horse; always
telligence

some one
all.

But In
all

grasps

It

has then within itself

state
;

things abiding

in the

same
shall

it

is

it

is

always
been.

and no past abide, because they are the same, and things
is

am, and never For yonder there

be,

never

have
;

no

future

but

all

satisfied

And each of them is and Being, and the sum-total is all Intelligence Intelligence and all Being Intelligence by thinking making Being, and Being by being thought giving to
with themselves as they are.
;

Intelligence the act of thought and Being. But the act of thought has a cause other than
"

itself,

which

is

cause also of Being.

Both then have

Things yonder co-exist, and never fail one another, but still here we have a duality which makes a unity, Intelligence and Being, Thinker and Thought
a cause.
;

Intelligence corresponding to Thinker as Being does to Thought. Now there can be no thinking without
difference or without
identity.

Hence we

obtain as

232

NEOPLATONISM
first

conceptions Intelligence, Being, Difference, To these we must add Movement and Identity.
Rest.
Intelligence

our

Rest to be changeless,
thinker and thought.

must have Movement to think, Difference to be at once

ence

it

several

If you take away the Differ The becomes one, and will keep silence. of thought also must be different objects
is

from one another, yet the same, because each

with
itself,

one

and there is something common in all, yet And these aspects of the differentia is an otherness. Intelligence, being many, make number and quantity,
and the individuality of the ideas makes quality also, and these ideal distinctions are the principles from

which sensible distinctions

proceed."

The
are
called

five

attributes

borrowed from

here ascribed to Intelligence the Sophistes of Plato, and are

of true
existence, the
five

by Plotinus,

in his criticism of the Categories,

the

five

summa

genera

ultimate laws of Being.

They have been explained

in outline in the preceding chapter.

final antitheses, Thought and and Rest, Sameness and Difference. Being, Motion They must not be obliterated, because on them depend all life and all knowledge. They account for If they do not exist, there is nothing for everything. us to know. Yet again they must be reconciled, or knowledge itself is divided, and ceases to be

We

have here three

knowledge.
Plotinus finds a reconciliation, though not an ab solutely complete reconciliation, in the Intelligence of God. In Him thought can be seen as the cause

DOCTRINE OF GOD
of Being.

233
all

In

Him,

as indeed

in

abstract con
;

templation, subject and thinker thinks himself.

object

are

identical

the

God

ever thinks the whole

;

of Himself,

is

absolutely conscious

there

is

therefore
act,
is

no change.

Yet consciousness
It carries

itself is
it

an

and
is

therefore dual.

with

life,

which

quick

and

diverse.

Hence, even
as nearly
still
it

in this

sameness there
is

motion, a play of activity.

God

living thought.

The

unity

is
;

can grasp
therefore

is

complete as anything that we not ideally perfect, and must

then

is

be regarded as given, as derived-. the ultimate cause of All ?

What

Whence then came this Manifold God, this OneMany? We can see now the necessity of this
we crave for some solution of the problem that has always vexed philosophy, how from the absolutely One anything at all came into existence, whether a multitude or a
duality.

diversity of Being, but

Why
to

did

not remain by itself? "Let us seek an answer, calling

it

God Himself
way

our aid, not with audible words, but reaching out in prayer with our soul, for that is the in which we

can pray, alone to

"

Him

alone.

He then that would behold Him who dwells in the innermost shrine by Himself and remains tranquil
gaze on that which, in com parison with the statues in the outer shrine, abides, or rather on the first statue coming forth and revealing
all,

beyond

must

fix

his

itself in this wise.

"

All that
it

is

which

moves.

moved must have something towards Now since He has nothing, we

234

NEOPLATONISM
that

must not suppose

He

is

moved.

But whatso

ever cpmes into being after Him must have come into being, because He turned Himself towards

Himself.
time,

We

must not

really

think

of birth

in

when we are thinking of things that ever are, though in word we cannot help ascribing becoming to them, when we assign to them a cause and an order. And so we must say, that they became without His For if He moved, the thing which became moving. would be third in order His movement being the
;

first,

and

He

Himself the second.

If then the thing

was second, it must have taken existence without His moving, or inclining, or wishing, or stirring in
any way. How can this be, and what must we think about Him who abides? We may conceive, that though He abides, there is a shining round about

Him
larly,

like the bright light of the sun,

which ever runs

Simi

round about the sun, though the sun abides.

all

long as they abide, give forth necessarily an essence, which flows outwards and
things,

so

envelopes them, and depends upon the power that is present within, a sort of image of the archetypes from

which they sprang. So fire gives forth its heat, and snow does not keep its coldness hidden within ; and sweet-smelling things in particular show what we

mean, for, as long as they exist, something goes forth from them and surrounds them, and this is an essence which all bystanders enjoy. So all things, so soon
as they are perfect, beget.

That then, which is always an everlasting offspring, yet perfect, always begets always something that is less than itself.

DOCTRINE OF GOD
"

235

What then shall we say of the most perfect of all ? Nothing comes from Him, except the greatest things
that

follow

follows

Him. Him, and

Now
is

the
is

greatest

thing

that

second,

Intelligence.

For
is is

Intelligence looks to

Him, and wants Him

alone, but

He

does not want Intelligence.

And

that,

which

begotten of
Intelligence,

Him

that

is

better than Intelligence,

because
is

all

and Intelligence is better than all things, things are after it ; for instance, even soul

is
it

a word, an energy of Intelligence, as Intelligence of the One. But the word of Soul is dim, for is a phantom of Intelligence, and must look up

to

to

And so Intelligence must look up Intelligence. the One, that it may be Intelligence. But it sees Him not as disparate, but because it is after Him ; there is nothing between, any more than
is

there
that
its
is

between Soul and Intelligence.

for

Now
and

all

begotten yearns
in

the

begetter,

finds

satisfaction

Him, and

especially so

when be
the best

gotten and begetter are unique.

of
all
is

And when

Him, so
alone."

begetter, of necessity the begotten is with that they are separated by their di (Terence

How
image?

then does the

One beget Intelligence, His Because, by turning Himself to Himself, He

see,

began to

and

this seeing
all things.

is

Intelligence.

The

One

is

the power of
it

Intelligence separates
its effects.

itself,

as

were, from the power, and sees

Plotinus

here

expresses

speaking more clearly," bably feel anxious for more

kindly intention of and the reader will pro

light.

the

But the

text

236

NEOPLATONISM

and suddenly breaks down into a gulf of corruption, does not such part of it as might be translated In some mystic way by "turning greatly help.
itself

to

itself,"

yet

"without

moving,"

the

One

became conscious, the Intelligence was filled with shot forth to Ideas, the Soul with Forms, the Words stream of life began. quicken matter, and the great Each looked up to the cause above it, to the light of
the abiding Sun, and drank in life, meaning, power, according to the measure of its capacity. difficulties are, first, the notion of a The two
great

cause acting by attraction,

it

when
"

there

is

nothing for
conscious."

to attract
first

and

second, the

becoming

The
the
in

may be put aside for the present. As to second, we have seen that it admits of explanation,
far

so

as

it

finds

an analogy in the nature of

human

do "become individuality. that Plotinus asks of the reader is to put All

of becoming.
sleeps

We

conscious."

away

the notion

The Divine

Intelligence

never faints or

like ours,

but as we have a

oneness, so has He.

We will omit a passage of some length, Plotinus brings his teaching into relation with myth and ology and with the views of earlier philosophers, with the tenth chapter, which will show us
in

which

proceed

how

close was the link between his psychology

and

his metaphysics. u

We have shown that above

after

Being must be the One,

and

Him

these Three

But now as Intelligence and Soul. are in nature, so must they also be in us.
is

Our

soul then also

divine,

and of another, not a

DOCTRINE OF GOD
sensible nature, like
it

237
perfect

all soul.

And

it is

when

But there are two kinds of Intelligence, one which argues, one which gives the power of arguing .~ The arguing part of the soul then, which needs for the performance of its function no
Intelligence.

has

bodily organ, but possesses its energy in purity, so it is able to argue purely, is separable, and not mixed with body ; about this there can be no mistake.
that

We must give We must not

all

it

home

in the

realm of the
it

intelligible.
is

place.

seek a place to fix For so alone can

in

it

outside

external,

immaterial,
flesh.

nothing to the

be independent, if it stands alone and owes Therefore Plato saith of the

it
it

meaning part of the soul which abides in the intelligible world; and of man he saith that he lifts up his head to heaven. And

world, "And further the Creator clothed soul as with a garment," that

with the

when we exhort men to "detachment," we do not mean that the soul is to be locally detached
by
physical separation; but

we mean

that

it

should not

condescend we are speaking of the imagination and of estrangement from the body if it be possible to lead and carry upwards not only the higher form of the soul, but that also which has its abode in this
world, which alone
is

the creator

and moulder of the

body, and
itself into

is

busied with the

body."

Here we have the Platonic division of the soul two parts, a higher and a lower. This will
then there
is

receive explanation further on.

"Since

a soul which reasons about

things just and beautiful,

and

since there

is

a power of

2 38

NEOPL ATOM ISM

reasoning which asks, is this just? is this beautiful? the just must ba an abiding thing, and from that thing the soul acquires the power of reasoning about it. How else could it reason about it? But the
soul sometimes reasons about these things, and

some

times does not.

There must then be

in us

an

Intelli

gence which does not reason, but always has the idea of justice. Further, there must be in us the principle, the cause, the God of Intelligence. For He is not
divisible,

He

abides,

but abides, and, since it is not in spac that is seen in many, according as each is able to
as another
self.

receive

Him
in

So
the

also the centre of a

circle is in itself,

and

yet contains in itself every point

that

is

the

circle,

and

radii

derive

their

peculiar nature from it. For, by that within us which is like the radius, we touch that centre, and are with
it,

and depend upon

"

it.

And

those of us
it.

who bend

thitherwards, are fast rooted in

is it, then, that though we possess such high we do not ^apprehend, but leave them, for the most part of our time, idle nay, some never use them at all ? The answer is, that the Intelligence and

How

faculties,

the

One

are always active,

and thus the soul possesses

It does not follow, that when everlasting movement. we have no sense of them, they are not there, for all

that

is

the soul

is

come when
whole

to us

when they come

does
it

not instantly sensible ; faculties But into consciousness. not

faculty

communicate with

the

perceptions of sense,
soul.

has not yet permeated the In such a case we do not yet know,
soul,

because not merely a part of the

but the whole

DOCTRINE OF GOD
soul,
is

239

Furthermore in sense perception. of a thing that has soul, while it lives, every part discharges without intermission its own function.
absorbed

But knowledge does not begin,

cation

till

there

is

communi

and apprehension. If, then, there is to be apprehension of what is intellectually present, the apprehending faculty must turn inwards, and fix
attention yonder. Just as a singer, who wants catch a note, must shut out all other notes, and to
its

when it comes, we must shut out physical sounds, except so far as is necessary, and keep the apprehen sive power of the soul clean, and ready to hear the
strain his ear to catch the true note

so in this world

voices from

above."

The word rendered apprehension (aVn A^tc) means

both
"

grasping soul with a type

"

is

seen.

Sense supplies the or imprint of the thing as it (TVTTOQ) Intelligence supplies (/^roBiSwo-i) the soul
"

and

"

help."

"

with the idea or form of the thing, as it ought to be. By the forms, the soul interprets the grasping
" "

types, just as the singer,

which

his art supplies,

recognizes,

by means of the true note and if need be,

corrects, the note emitted

by

his lyre or voice.

"

Thus,

without

and apprehension there can be no real knowledge.

"
"

communication,"

Intelligence
it

and
;

sense-knowledge must chime together, as and this correspondence of the two faculties
as "co-perception
"

were

is

known

(ffvvatffQrjffit;).

"The

understanding,
"

criticizing the types supplied by sense, sees the forms, and sees them by what we may call co-perception
(i.

i,

9).

If

we conceive of an

earthly clock with a

NEOPLATONISM

we get heavenly chiming apparatus, When the two are exactly of what Plotinus means.
shall

some idea

time is right. together the The chime is always there, but not always audible, its own, and goes its because the clock has a will of

own way.
But
this is

Thus Eternity comes

a point that must
lie

to differ from

Time.
to

by

till

we come

consider the nature of moral

evil.

XVI
GOD, HIS NATURE

AND OPERATIONS

PLOTINUS, like all his schoo., admitted the existence of a number of lower deities,-Heaven, with its Stars Nature, Earth> the DemQns A][
_

But the supreme cause, God in the proper sense of the word mnds far above all these created deities, and embraces lunself a umty of Three Hypostases. Hypostasis s a Sto.c word, wh,ch is used as
3

degree are causes,

and deserve worship.

more exactly the underlymg cause of the phenomenal manifestation.

signifies

Qa

generally
it

fa,

or

equivalent

Bemg.

But

of

-"

Persons of the Christian

~only speak of God

Ch
ei

Trinity.

For they
"beyond

Be n
tu

the Father as

St

S is

fj n
its

a Perso

"-

but a

purely intellecI

j^^^5.S^^S 1SS
m
the fullness of

power.

All are eternal, but the

242

NEOPLATONISM
is

second

inferior to the first,

because

begotten,"

and

for the same the third to the second, is the One, the Good. The first

reason.

The two names

fullness of
1

Unity is life, strives. towards which everything is the good Power of all things, One is the Fountain of Life, the he is none of them, but for that very reason no Virtue, no Will, no has no Form, no Beauty, no Movement or Activity, Thought, no Consciousness, no Being. The second is Intelligence, the One-Many, to Plotinus expressly refuses World. Intelligible which in his system the title Logos, apply to him Here life and force.

mean the same

thing.

and

means

little

full play. thought are in

more than physical Here are

memory,
for

all

the Ideas, not

stored away in
all

God

has no memory, but

in infinite diversity and eternal always equally vivid, the Divine mind involves sameness. Each thought of Hence each idea is in a sense each and all the rest.

the whole
life,

mind

(roC-c).
its

Yet each
is

is

separate,

has a

an energy of

own,

not Intelligence, but an

Intelligence (vovc rc). This is the highest conception of Being,

is

And it. Being, makes Being by thinking is the thought, the thought plane the thinker
thinker.

on
i

this

The

third

is

Soul, the

One and Many,

and on the road
to

abides, but the

Many

is

increasing,

preponderance.

of a just know Plotinus insists on the importance in both It "gives us information ledge of Soul.

GOD, HIS
directions."

NATURE AND OPERATIONS

one
side,
it is

243
Intelli
is

On
is

in

touch with

gence,

on another with nature.

it

beyond
circle
;

darkness.

It is

day, the outer ring of the

Above

it

being as

or like the moon, the two higher hypostases It is the it were the Light and the Sun.
is

God

that

being that
within us,
is

life that we know, the most properly ourselves. The spirit the beautiful world spread round about us,

nearest to us, the

is

Soul.

.Yet

it is

precisely here that difficulties accumulate.

is

The reason

obvious.

Soul

is

the central knot in

the system of Plotinus. Under this heading he has to grapple with the insoluble difficulty of all philo

sophy.

Here,

if

anywhere, must be found the syn

thesis of all the antitheses, physical, intellectual,

and

One and the Many, Thought and Extension, Good and Evil, Time and Eternity, Freedom and Necessity, God and Man. Part of the difficulty the Neoplatonists met, as we have seen, by the distinction between Mind and
moral, the
Matter. Matter is really No Thing, yet it is the cause of divisibility and sensible existence. This is the congenital defect of all Platonism ; it admits a

cause which
protests limits
It follows

is

not a

cause,

and

in spite of all its

God by something that is not Himself. that when God draws near to Matter, He
:

must undergo an evolution and differentiation. There are, in fact, two souls one, that of God, which is pure
thought
in

man

And one, that of Nature, which is power. these two come into contact, and even into
;

antagonism.

244

NEOPLATONISM
one side the divine soul gives
off a

On
life

stream of

which grows weaker as it flows onwards, which, though never wholly unintelligent, is instinct rather
;

Soul becomes Nature the Forms or become words, powers, forces. These words thoughts

than reason.

enter into partnership with Matter, and create bodies, including that of man.
the other side, as Intelligence embraced the of separate intelligences, so Soul enfolds within itself all individual souls. They are it, and it is they.

On

sum

souls, led by natural desire, guard and care for the bodies that the word has built for them, though never breaking away from their source. Thus man, and indeed all
"

And

these

individual
"

come down

to

that lives, has a double soul

visible

one which makes

"

his

and upon it a ship one which has governs it, like the pilot of sense and desire, another which regulates and controls the senses and the desires, bringing with it, to use again
frame,

another which

rides
;

"

our former illustration, the right time from heaven,

and so checking the aberrations of the earthly clock. These souls are all distinct, yet they are also all one, and Plotinus constantly passes over from one to
.the other, especially

from the soul of

God

to the soul

of man, without warning the reader what he is doing. It is necessary to exercise the greatest caution, and

even then
point

it

is

where such

only too possible to go wrong, on a scholarly interpreters of Neo-

we

If platonism as Kirchner and Zeller are at variance. are to gather a clear conception of the Soul of
in

God, we must keep

mind

a passage where Plotinus

GOD, HIS

NATURE AND OPERATIONS

245

has expressed himself more distinctly than is his wont v He who would know what Intelligence is, 9)
"

3>

must understand Soul, and the divinest part of Soul.

You may
first,

gain this understanding by stripping off, the body of man, your own body ; next, the soul,
this

which moulded

body.

Sense must be laid aside

all
is

with the greatest care, and desire and anger and

such absurd emotions, as inclining strongly to what

mortal.

What

is left is

this Soul,

which we called an

image of Intelligence, guarding a portion of the light of that sun." The better Soul, then, has no emotions,

no consciousness of the world below, no senses and no faculty that requires sense as the condition of its
exercise.
It is in

fact

Intelligence!

It

"

thinks

nothing but a paler copy of difference. (voel), but with a

"

What
to our

it
"

thinks

is

Form, a weakened Idea, answering

only that
it

general

conception,"

is

derived

from above and not from below, and

not type.
it
;

is

archetype,

The Forms are not its own, but given to hence subject and object are not identical. Soul
itself as

thinks

another

the thought

is

recognized as

coming, as imparted.
the
"

is no longer All the Forms are thought. one object is more there, but attention has begun

Further, the soul

fullness

"

of

luminously present than another.

In the

passage

translated in the last chapter Plotinus ascribes to the

Soul a sequence of notions ; at one time it looks on Socrates, at another on a horse, and so forth ; but else

where

(iv. 4,

i) it

is

of order,

and not of

explained that this sequence is time, as when we look upon the

countenance of a friend we may be more distinctly

246

NEOPLATONISM

conscious of his eyes, though at the same time we So too he speaks of it as see all the features.
"reasoning"

(\oyieyie

ov),

but not

like

man when
difficulties.

he schemes, contrives, or grapples

with

The
with;

Soul has
its

no

practical
is

difficulties

to

contend
to
it

reasoning

merely
It is

the

endeavour

appropriate and beholds in the Intelligence.

identify itself

with the ideas that

not in Time, though a concomitant of the Time is its offspring, being lower forms of its activity, of those separate lives

which succeed one another, and are some longer, some

shorter.

which

lends
it

When

though it has a nature semblance of division. comes into contact with matter it assumes

Nor

is

it

divisible,

itself

to

the

a limit, takes
indivisible
itself into

upon
of

it

a definite extension, as the

sun parts and distributes light the different chambers of a house..

the
readily be

It

will
still

perceived, from this laborious

is

and
of

obscure description, that the Divine Soul

intellectual

little

mind of
is

Plotinus.

or religious significance in the But on the physical side Soul

all-important.
all

It is

flow

the minor conduits

the great reservoir from which It of life and force.

supplies the key to creation,

us to

and thus again enables admire, rest satisfied with the comprehend, In this way it comes to world in which we live. have even considerable religious weight, because it
is

All things were the safeguard against pessimism. made by God, and all are beautiful and good, so far as they can reflect the Divine idea, and can lead us up to their author.

GOD, HIS NATURE

AND OPERATIONS

247

The
is

chief logical difficulty in the

way of Plotinus

regards it as drawing, not as pushing as like a magnet or gravita attracting tion, not as going forth to mould. There is but one
;

his

conception of Cause.

He

movement

all

things strive towards

God

each looks
his opinion

up to that above it. Any other view in makes God dependent. He holds his
sistently in all that
life.

theory con concerns the moral or intellectual

But it will not explain how things came to be. Involution cannot account for evolution. He meets the difficulty by came to maintaining that nothing
"
:

be/
plan

that all

is

in fact equally eternal.

God
as

cannot

or scheme.

Creation

is

as

old

Himself.

Where He is, there is life. The work of we may use the phrase, is compared to
running over, to the evening

creation, if

full

cup

upon the clouds, to the scent diffused about a flower. But these are mere When we turn towards metaphors. the Real, we rfmst put away the illusion of becoming." In Him is no shadow of change. Change is the
light striking
"

failure of

matter to maintain

its

footing within the

"

circle of light.

But the lower soul has

into the

"

desire

(opefe), enters
it.

body, cares for

it,

does

this desire

come from?

Where then guards Plutarch found it in

evil

matter, and believed accordingly in an Plotinus would on no account admit this.

desire,
like
all

god.

But then

else,

this again

he would not admit.

must flow from the One, and Thus again he leaves

an all-important word without any sort of explanation. The Divine Soul is split into two. One half comes

248
straight

NCOPLATQNISM
down, the other runs round a corner, and
reappears as Nature, has

when

it

somehow

got a

new
is

faculty.

But how
of

As a theory
open

life,

then, the system of Plotinus

it

to the grave objection, that

does not account

for that desire of the soul for the

body, which yet he

regards as the basis of physical existence.

As a theory

of knowledge, the notion of an attracting, self-con tained cause is intelligible enough. commonly

We

speak of the mind as seeking, as drawn onwards by the Truth, and the love of the soul for the One would

be a

sufficient explanation of

mental

activity,

without

our supposing that the Truth has any wish to be

known.

Even

in the sphere

of
is

the notion spiritual experience

application,

morality and the capable of consistent

and it was consistently applied. But According to Plotinus, only at a tremendous cost. Man may love God, without love. God is Goodness cannot love man. Religion is the desire for but God Man can reach the star, and cannot be the star.
happy unless he does
reaches
it
;

but the star does not

know

he anything about him, and does not care whether

or not.

We

see here the

full

meaning of

the derision which Celsus pours upon the Incarnation. According to the Platonist, God could not possibly
"

come down." The words, No man can come unto

"

Me

except

the Father which hath sent

Platonic,

Me

draw

him,"

are half

and half the contradiction of Platonism.

of
Plotinus
"

The Deity
"send,"

draws,"

but could neither

nor think of sending any one.

GOD, HIS NATURE

AND OPERATIONS

249

It is not easy to combine the belief in Providence, or the practice of prayer, with an absolute introverted

Deity.

Man
we have

must approach the Supreme Intelligence, as

seen, with prayer, that is with devotion, not supplication, with the unspoken prayer of Apollonius

and Clement.
send out

The philosopher could not say, All he could do Thy light and Thy truth
"O
"

was

to

turn

his

soul

Petitions, are addressed

towards the light and wait. by those who are not philoso

phers, to the inferior gods, the sun

and

stars.

Hence

Plotinus treats prayer, in the proper sense of the word, under the heading of magic. The Sun being a god

cannot see or hear or remember

in nature

but being involved ; he comes under the general law of natural sympathy. A certain thrill may pass from the wor

shipper to him, just as one string of a lyre will vibrate when another is struck. Evil prayers cannot touch
the gods at
all.

Providence was one of

the

Platonist war-cries.

The

school regarded themselves as the

champions

of this belief against Epicurean Atheists, Aristotelian Deists, Stoic Fatalists, and Gnostic Dualists. Plotinus
explains the subject at great length ; but he spends force mainly in accounting for evil, which he
to

his

would not allow

God.
denies.
creation,

be

in

any way connected with

to

Particular providence, which Plutarch, Celsus,

and Maximus Tyrius ascribed

It
is

the
the

demons, he
eternity
"

irreconcileable
"

with
"

of
"

and implies
All that

foreseeing
is left,

and
is

planning

in the Deity.

then,

the belief, that

NEOPLATONISM
the world as a whole
is
"in

accordance with

intelli

gence

K ara

vovv),"

The
rival

difference

between

schools

lies

and admits of a rational explanation. the Neoplatonist and the and of in the conception of God,

His

relation to the world.

As

against the Epicurean,

the Gnostic, that He works great things;" as against the Stoic, that He is trans is the Good; as against that He draws as against the Peripatetic, cendent
;

Plotinus maintained

that

God

does nothing, but

men

to Himself.

If the theology of Plotinus

a phrase,

we should

call

it

might be labelled Centripetal Theism.

witl

XVII

MAN

IN

NATURE

He He

PLOTINUS seldom touches upon physical science. has been blamed for this, but hardly with justice. was a metaphysician, and all we can ask of such
is,

an one

that

his

speculations should
is

neither be

known, nor discourage further research. That he was not unscientific, as the word was then understood, is shown by the numbers of physicians, musicians, and mathematicians who were

inconsistent with what

Nor does there seem to be any reason why a modern chemist should not be a Neoplatonist if he chose.

attracted by his teaching.

To

Plotinus, physical science could not

mean

the

knowledge of matter, because matter was Its field was the relation of God to the

No

Thing.
the

mode
-

world,

of the combination of

life

with matter.

Two

The

first is

ideas were of great importance in his mind. that causation excludes

necessity.

thing has a cause, but there of these all are in their

soul of

Every

is

a hierarchy of causes;

man even

determination.

degree intelligent, and the possesses a certain power of selfWhereas Fatalism reduces everything

252
to

NEOPLATONISM
;

one

even the distinction of cause and

effect is

lost.

The second is that unity does not destroy indi The One is wholly everywhere, because viduality.
life is

not divisible.

All souls

are

one because they

come from
as
"

the One, yet they are distinct numerically thoughts in the same mind," and they differ even
"

in quality.

If Providence were
for there
It

all,

there would be
to

no providence,
provide
for."

would be nothing for it must have an object; it comes

man, not
to destroy

to

that object, for instance, to

him,

but to co-operate with him, in such a way as to leave

his

manhood
"

intact.
is

Of
can

individuality Plotinus says,

perish."

that

nothing that

These two propositions are in fact corollaries of the fundamental Platonic contention that Being is not
one, but many. In the world

of

Becoming

there

is

endless

multiplicity, things or bodies of every sort

and kind.

They

are

made
the

not directly by the Soul of God, but

World-spirit.

by Nature,

Nature supplies the

word which, as we have seen, imposes bulk, shape, and quality upon matter. Nature is the sum of words as the Soul is of Forms and the Intelligence of
a word, a creating power, a soulCompared with the offspring of the earlier soul. is like that of sleep com Divine her consciousness
Ideas.

She

is

life,

pared with waking.

She

is

in

fact

buffer-soul

inserted to disguise the transition from the inward to the outward action of God, and from thought to
desire,

and

for

this

latter

purpose she creates yet

MAN
another buffer-soul.
she creates.

IN

NATURE
is

253
the reason

Her weakness

why

Production, says Plotinus, is the result of insufficient power of contemplation, as we see in

the case of the geometer,
to his aid,

who

is

obliged to call sight

diagrams on paper, because not vivid enough to reason about his intelligence them without this help. Thus Euclid writes a book, and Nature creates a world. Her "theory" externalizes

and draw
is

his

itself

and projects a

"

theorem."

The words
plants,

or forces differ,

different kinds of bodies, inorganic

and produce accordingly and organic, stones,

to their different

animals,

men.

According

degree of receptivity, Nature supplies them with a natural soul, the "other soul," "shadow of a soul,"
"

word of a

soul,"

powers of

life,

each body God no more. The union of this lower soul with the body makes the compositum," the animal.
"

which brings with it the lower To the vegetative and the sentient. gives what it is capable of using, and

But

man
to

has also a higher soul, the true Ego.

It

from God, and is like God. To the lower belong the animal life, pleasure and pain, desire, anger, sense ; the higher differs from the Divine only in this, that, while connected with the
straight

comes

him

body,
link

it

reasoning,

possesses memory, imagination, discursive and a finite will, faculties which form a
in

between the absolute and the conditioned

telligence.

The soul proper comes down to occupy the body which Nature has prepared and endowed for it. No
force
is

needed.

It

comes

"

neither

willingly

nor

NEOPLATONISM
that to but driven by natural instinct, because When men care. which it comes needs its fostering build a desire to secure the presence of a God, they
fit for Him, capable of receiving temple or a statue and dwells among Him, and then His power descends and then places her them. So Nature makes an idol,

sent,"

handiwork under the patronage of the Divine. whether Plotinus could not quite make up his mind, It was soul was a sin or not. the coming down of the

But the tradition of a necessary part of his system. that it was a chastisement, and worked his school held exist out this view of the penal character of earthly
the fanciful doctrine of the ence, by the addition of of the human soul into the body of transmigration This Plotinus could not bring himself to
brutes.

deny

it

was part of

his

religion,
vacillates.

philosophy. as coming speaks of the soul

Hence he

though not of his At one time he

"

down through
joins

desire of

being
"

its

own

master,"

through
It

"honouring

things
for the

inferior to

itself."

At others ,soul
whole."

body

the perfection of

down, because it Had there been no souls, the infinite richness of the Better for the soul Ideal would have been unknown. not be indignant with Yet we must to stay at home. she gains her for coming, even though on earth
the sad knowledge of evil
"

does good in coming shows in act its marvellous power.

for the

experience of evil

of the Good in those begets a clearer knowledge feeble to discern evil scientific whose powers are too
ally without experience"

(Enn.

iv.

8,

8).

Here

the philosopher speaks,

MAN
The

IN

NATURE

255

current conception of the relation of soul to

body was absolutely reversed by Plotinus. The soul is not in the body on the contrary, the body is in the
;

soul like

"a

net in the

sea,"

Soul, the Ego, rides

upon body,

pervaded, yet transcended. like a pilot on a ship.

Man
The
Each

feet are
is is

on

earth, but his

head

is

in heaven.

soul soul

never separated from the first cause. in contact with all three of the Divine

hypostases.

But here again comes

in the doctrine of

The union may be dormant. Man has receptivity. what he uses. Hence there will be three classes only of men those in whom Soul is operative, those in
:

whom
demon
The

Intelligence, those in

whom

the Good.

Man s

or guardian angel

is

the faculty next above

in, his conduct he obeys. world, according to Plotinus, is JiOt^only the best possible world, but the oliIy~pQSjiible world, the

that which

the

theOrefle^iii__m^a41r -its parts wisdom of its Maker. It is the one glory^and

^
"m

of

face seen

many

mirrors, the ^one voice

heard

in

copy, though a pale copy, of the eternal This Plotinus presses very archetype. strongly the half-Christian Gnostics. against They desire, he a new earth," to which says, But they hope to go. do they profess to love the pattern, when they why
"

many

ears, a

disparage that of which

dualistic

it

is

the pattern?

Against

argument is unanswerable. The Christian might reply, that on the showing of Plotinus himself the pattern is better, and thus he might justify his yearning for heaven. Plotinus would have retorted, that in the mystic vision the
philosopher

pessimism

this

256
possesses
earth.

NEOPLATONISM
the
All,

Archetype, even here upon serene content is strongly con trasted with the divine discontent of the Christian.
the

Hence

his

The
able,

question arises whether his mysticism

is

reason

and whether his vision is possible. That the world is imperfect Plotinus knew full well. If it were perfect, it would be God. He grapples manfully with the problem of what is called physical
evil.

Partly he found a reason for

it

in the resistance

of matter; the word cannot always control or pene trate the medium of its manifestation. Partly it is to

be regarded as a chastisement Partly he denied that it was evil.

the
All.

for
It

antenatal
is

sin.

necessary to

The

part cannot be
;

perfect in the

same

sense as the whole

as a face.
evil.
is

the statue must have feet as well

tears as a criterion of
is

must not take Children weep over what

It

We

not harmful.

Life

a drama.

war.

One

has a unity though its parts are at The plays the hero, another the clown.
role,
ill,

poet assigns to each his

because he
gives

is

what he

is,

and, as he plays well or

him a
Life
is

better or a

worse place in other dramas.

Hardship strengthens
a constant

men, and makes them

battle with difficulties, in

better.

which we may expect

s

God s
is

help

if

we

take

God

way, but

not

otherwise.

Providence does not leave

always calling

man

to
:

perish, but

him

to better things

the Divine law

says that to the good, life shall be good, and vice versa. Plotinus did not deny the difference between good

and

evil fortune,
is

but he minimized

"

it.

The

nature
his

of the whole

mixed, but

if

any one detaches

MAN
soul, the rest
is

IN

NATURE
matter."

257 In this cheerful,

no great

manly view we read the difference between Stoicism and Platonism. The former said that "the that is to say, slich part of our environment as we
rest,"

How Plotinus cannot control, did not matter at all dealt with moral evil we shall see later on.
One very remarkable feature of the Plotinian view of Nature is expressed by the word Sympathy. Every part of the whole, by virtue of its provenance
from the One,
unison.
is

set in the

same

key,

and vibrates

in

And

this

sympathetic affection does not re

is

quire contact, but

capable of acting at a distance*

explained sensation, were another
it,

By

this thrill of affinity Plotinus

He
it

went so

far as to affirm that, if there

world,

we should not be able

to perceive

even

if

were exactly like our own, because the soul that made it would not be in touch with ours. But in

this

The

way he was able to defend astrology and magic. stars do not cause good or evil fortune, yet as all
is

nature

movements may prog Magic cannot affect the higher soul, but it has power over the lower, by subtle physical influences, which it has at its command. In this way even a good man may be bewitched, and in consequence may nor can he ward off suffer disease or even death
interdependent, their
nosticate.
;

these baleful assaults, except by the use of counter

charms.
extent.
far as

The demons have power

over him to this

He

is

subject to their malefic influences, so

is

his life

relative.

Plotinus saw no essential

difference between the art of the physician and that of the enchanter; both made use of natural powers.

NEOPLATONISM
con seen, and in this very the power of prayer to move at nection, he explained any rate the lower gods. aloof from these It is possible that he held proudly but at least he left the gate vulgar superstitions; he does not wide open. Yet we may notice that use of mesmerism or artificial have made
In
this way, as

we have

seem to any means to induce the mystic

vision.

The

position
his

of

man

is

therefore a double one.

his
irrational
soul,

As regards

body and

he

is

of physical causation, and has entangled in the chain Only in his but a limited power of self-assertion.

Ego can he be

free.

XVIII
THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL

WE

must content ourselves with

setting before the

reader an abstract of the famous argument of Plotinus on the Soul s immortality (Rnn. v. 7).

The
I.

Platonist

had

to establish

two propositions

That the Soul is not a Body. II. That it is not a Harmony or Form, or as we might say, Function of a Body. If he could demon strate these two points, it follows that the soul must
belong to the immaterial,
intelligible

world

that

it is

a real Being or Ousia, and therefore eternal. i. The critique of materialism is based partly on the conception of life, partly on that of unity.
.

The

soul has

life

of

itself.

material substance, not

not true of any even of the four elements.

is

This

They never

exhibit

life,

except as something that has

to

obviously been brought

them.

But

if

no one

material substance possesses life, no aggregate of such substances can generate it; "the unintelligent cannot

Indeed no body can so much beget the intelligent." as exist without soul. Organism implies an organizing For a word comes to the matter and principle.

260

NEOPLATONISM
it

makes
soul.

a body,

and the word can only come from

Some, Leucippus Democritus, and Epicurus, built up the world out of atoms. An atom has no magni tude, and no qualities. Since it has no magnitude, no number of them will form a bulk. Since it has no qualities, it can never give birth to sympathy. But the
characteristic of soul
is,

that each part

is

in

sympathy

with the others, and with the whole.

cannot be, as the Stoics asserted, an affection of For matter does not shape itself, or put life into itself. Where then does the affection come from ?
It

matter.

There must be some Giver of Life outside and above For there could not be such a all material nature.
thing as a body, if there were no soul-power. Perhaps even matter itself could not exist, and all would

go to wreck,
intelligence.

if

there were no order, no word, no

Again,

if it

definite set of attributes.

and diverse, would have but one movement,

again
it

life would possess one Whereas life causes many It heat and cold, colour, and others.

were a body,

that of gravitation, but

has many.
It

It is the

cause of growth, yet

it

does not grow.

has no

size,

no

parts.

Further, the immateriality of the soul results from a consideration of its powers.

From
the
ear,

Sense.

The
be,

sentient subject

is

one.

When
;

we perceive an
it

object, the eye reports

one sensation
sensations

may
at the
is

another.

The

are

combined

same time they are

distinguished,
it

because there

one percipient

faculty, as

were, at

THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL

261

the centre of a circle, whose radii are represented by the different senses.

From Memory. -If the soul is a body, we must suppose that perception imprints a kind of stamp upon
it.

The

imprint will
it
;

decay, or later imprints will

is

obliterate

in either case there will

From
Are we

Pain.

the smart.

The finger Some explain

hurt,

be no. memory. and the Ego feels

this fact

by transmission.

is pained, next the nerve, next the brain, and lastly the percipient? No ; there is one pain, not many. Again, each link in the chain would know only what was reported to it by the last link. The mind would be aware that the

to say then, that first the finger

brain was suffering, not that the finger was hurt.

follows that the soul

It

of abstract thought. the immaterial, cannot be material. capacity for aesthetic and moral ideas.
corporeal,
is

body it From the power

;

must be in union with the whole must be one and the same in every part.

What

thinks
the
is

And from

If the soul

virtue a kind of spirit or breath ?

Grant

ing that a spirit might be strong or beautiful, how it be Virtue again comes and just or chaste ? goes, but, if the soul be material, it must

could

always

remain as
It

it

is.

that the soul

To

was maintained by some in the time of Plotinus, was a physical force, analogous to heat. this he answers that force is not material, and

that forces of mind, thought, perception, desire, differ in kind from the forces of nature.

further

argument

is

of conceiving the

mode

based upon the impossibility of combination of soul and

262
body,
if

NEOPLATONISM
both are material.
Lastly, Plotinus considers

and
as
It

rejects a peculiar Stoic view,

which regarded mind

produced out of matter by a process of evolution. is expressed by four words denoting four successive

stages of existence, Condition, Nature, Soul, Intelli gence, which correspond to the modes of being of a Truly there jelly, a jelly-fish, a monkey, and a man.
is

first

nothing new under the sun, and we have here the rough draught of Darwinism struck out by some
Plotinus remarks upon this

doctor of the Porch.

curious anticipation of our modern perplexities, thalt it puts the worst first, and makes the existence of God
hypothetical.

Again, that

inorganic

nature,

comes

Condition, or let us say is first, there nothing to

if

account
(TO

for the evolution,

ayoy).

The

jelly

nothing to set things going cannot evolve itself; it must

;

have some

definite goal

it

cannot be thought of as
the unknown.
before the evolution

sallying forth at

random

in quest of

The attracting cause must be there,

begins; that
prior to
is

to say,

mind and

intelligence

must be

inorganic nature, and not

is

posterior.

The

directed primarily to establish the preargument existence of God, but the human soul is part of God,

and

so what

is

true of the one

is

true of the other.

We may

notice that Plotinus does not here

deny the

possibility of physical evolution; that is, the growth of more perfect out of less perfect bodies. What he

traverses
is

is the evolution of life. Physical evolution not incompatible with his general view. He ad mitted a periodicity of Nature, a constant succession of youth, maturity, -and death, in the whole as in the

THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL

parts,

263

account

and any amount of phenomenal change he could for. On the other hand, he believed in per manence of type. There is, however, a curious and
(v.

obscure passage

9, 13), in

which

it

is

the contents of the ideal world

may be

argued that larger than

those of the phenomenal, and this might be applied to the alteration of existing types, or the emergence of new types. But the question had not yet arisen. The
requisite

knowledge of Nature did not exist. All we can say is, that Plotinus hit the root of the matter when he asserted that growth, without an ordering
is

mind,
2.

inconceivable.
is

Soul, then,

different
Is
if,

from Body.
as

But does

it

depend on the body ?

many

think, a function

of the organism? In ancient times this view took two expressions. The Pythagoreans regarded Soul as a

Harmony, the

Peripatetics as a

Form

(Entelechy)

of Body.

When the chords of a lyre are rightly strained, they acquire a certain relation, which we call harmony. So it has been held, a certain natural relation of the differ
ent,
life

elements, of which or soul.

is

body

is

composed, generates
Again, the

But soul

a thing,

harmony

a relation.

constantly resists the body. Again, if health is harmony, disease is discord, and the soul is changed or

mind

gone.

Again, there must be another soul to

;

harmony the chords cannot tune themselves. soul must come first, and strike the keynote.
impossible to bring music out of discorci or
?

make the Thus

It is

life

out of

death.

364

NEOPLATONISM
Peripatetic defined soul, in much the form of an organism capable of

The
way, as

the

same

"

life."

To

this Plotinus

answers by repeating, what is surely a conclusive argument, that there is, as a matter of fact,
spirit

war between the

and the
If

flesh.

Form, again,

is

as divisible as matter.
statue,

you break

off the leg of a

lop off the limbs of a

as

you take away a part of its form. But you may man, and yet his Ego will remain whole as ever. This is one of Butler s arguments,
it is

and
the

man

not destroyed by the objection that if you hit with a stick on a particular spot of his head

If he loses a leg, will no longer be able to speak. the faculty of sense remains intact, though one of its of organs is gone ; and if he loses his brain the power

he

thought
itself

may remain, though no

its

by
is

material vehicle.

longer able to manifest Plotinus held that while

form

body.

is separable from the This, he thought was proved by the suspension of the faculties in sleep, and by the nature of abstract

inseparable, intelligence

thought. the conclusion follows, that soul does not exist merely because it is the form of something. It is itself a thing, which does not receive being as a

From

all this

result of its establishment in a body, but has a life of

its

own, before

it

comes

to belong

to this

or

that

The body did not beget the soul. animal. What, then, is it ? If it is neither a body nor an affection of the body, but a mode of moral and physical
energy, containing
results
;

many

capacities,

it

must be a kind of thing

Clearly
it is

differing

producing many from all

call a

material existences.

what we

Being.

THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL

For
all

265

being, because

bodily existence must be called Becoming, not it is ever becoming, ever perishing, and
is,

never truly

but

lives,
it

while

it

lives,

by participation
s

in being, so far as

does participate.
for the

immortality and in the capacity nature of virtue, which reveals the Divine image within us. Nothing but evil makes us doubt, that we are of
Plotinus finds in
its

Yet another argument

soul

for virtue,

one substance (o^oovawc) with the Divine. This fine argument we must leave to the reader s own power of
divination.

The sum and

Soul
is

substance of the whole matter

that Life
is.

is,

that

Life,

and

XIX
ETHICS

MAN,
is

as

we have

seen, belongs to

two worlds, and

not.
is

He

partly the has his feet in the water.

creature of circumstance, partly

Hence he

compared
;

to a thete, or serf,

who was

half- slave, half-free

or

more

aptly

still,

to the dancer in a choir.

The music

has power over him, the measure also constrains him, but there are certain movements which are all his

own.

Plotinus

insists
"If

very strongly and very often

God,"

on

individuality.
all

cause,

would be

good."

he says, "were sole Yet everything has a

is

cause, and,

when
is

the

cause

outside

the

self,

it

becomes a kind of
What, then,
necessity
?
is

necessity.

the sphere of freedom,

and what of

There
that

we

are free.

an universal belief (two to) which tells us Yet if we look more closely, it

does not say that we are our

own

masters.

Con

sciousness assures us only of this, that we are free in so far as we can carry out our wishes (vi. 8). It is at best of action is never free. In
truth,

mijced

nature,

because always

relative

to

qircuni*

ETHICS
stances.

267

we would, but what we can. The moment we go outside ourselves, we are caught in a stream of causes, over which we have no
do, not what
control.

We

Success is not in our power, only right motive and right conduct. Even the motive is not always free. In many
it

cases, perhaps in most,

is

mere

"imagination"

(akiiTacn a) or opinion, dictated by our bodily needs. All bad men, and in some things even good men,

are guided by sense, which is purely relative. Aristotle held that a man was a free agent, if he was acquainted with the particulars of his action ; if he killed a man,
for instance,

and knew what he was doing.

of the
"

Plotinus

considers

universal, of the ignorance moral law, thou shalt do no murder," makes the deed involuntary. Aristotle held that the man ought
that

suppose he does not know, that he ought to know Freedom, then, is to be found, not in the outward
to
this.
"

know

But,"

retorts Plotinus,

"

it."

energy nor in sense-knowledge, but in the wish, and this runs up to Intelligence and the knowledge of
the Good.

This

is

the sole cause of liberty.

Those,

the practice of moral virtue have attained to a true understanding, are emancipated. They have a
master, master.
it

who by

is

true,

but they are that, which

not to be called

is

their

God Himself
is

is

free,

because

He

the cause of freedom.

"

else than
s

a living

For man, liberty is nothing law." His will is free, when it

to

at

one with the mind of God.

is

contraries

not

freedom,

"for

The power of be able to do

268
things opposite the best."
is

NEOPLATONISM
a sign of inability to

cleave to

Vice therefore, in the view of the Neoplatonist,

involuntary.
It is in fact

is

the sleep of the soul.

The

bodily faculties, but suffers his So in the assembly, intelligence when the elders are wrapt in thought, the unruly
his

bad man uses

to lie

dormant.

"

mob, craving food and complaining of its discomforts, If the whole meeting into unseemly uproar. will keep quiet, and a word comes to them from they some wise signor, the tumult is allayed, and the
casts

worse does not

remains
silent,

prevail.

the

Otherwise, worse prevails,

if

the

better

because

the

clamouring throng cannot receive the word

above"

from

(vi. 4,

15).
is

The

soul itself

tamination.
the reins.
in

divine, and can suffer no con nods and slumbers, and lets go The cure of this moral evil is to be found

But

it

philosophy,

which wakes the

dreamer,

in

the

drawing of Providence,
the
is

in love of the ideal.

Whether

It universally applicable, is dubious. men are divided a favourite idea with Plotinus, that

remedy

is

into three

classes.

Some
;

never

rise

above sense.

Some mount
called

a*

little

towards heaven, but cannot

sustain themselves
virtuous.

they drop again to earth, and are Some divine men climb up to

heaven and stay

it is

there.

He

does not explain, whether

possible for a

man

altogether to change his class.

Celsus has shown us, that one cardinal sin of the Church, in the eyes of the philosopher, was, that it

promised the

Beatific Vision to cobblers.

In any

ETHICS

269

case Plotinus thought it monstrous to suppose, that the suffering of one man could make another better.
"

For

bad man

to ask

some one

else to

become

his

saviour, by the sacrifice of himself, is not lawful even in prayer." This is probably a sly hit at Christianity ; at any rate we have here in a nutshell the whole

difference between the two systems.

Virtue
the
"

is

likeness
"

to

God.

It

has
"

two grades,
"

political
(i.

or practical,

and the

greater

or

intellectual

2).

the former Plotinus seldom speaks, and always It with clear reference to its provisional character.
is
"

Of

beautiful,

fairer

than the morning

star,"

yet but

a stepping-stone to better things.

It is

contingent.
stronger,
injustice.

The
but

struggle -with injustice

it

makes

man
no

would be

better

if

there were

Conscious Again, the need of action is distracting. ness and attention stand in inverse proportion ; the more we have to attend to the act of reading, the less
conscious we are of what
is

read.

Considered from an empirical point of view, the office of moral virtue is to "limit and measure the desires and affections in general, and to take away
Its work is mainly negative ; it the mud of vice, and is a "purification." wipes away But it has also a positive effect. Virtue intelligizes

false

opinions."

"

"

the soul.

The really important thing is, that it is a form, a law, and forms and laws come from God. The Neoplatonist, as a rule, practised a rigid asceticism, but he was not ascetic in his demands
upon
others.

There

is

even a tinge of antinomianism,

270

NEOPLATONISM

or perhaps we should say a touch of geniality about Plotinus. Little things do not matter, so long as they
are not

done on purpose.

"

Nothing of

this

kind

is

But we sin (dpapTia), but rather right action. to aim not at being without sin, but at being
If then a

ought God.

he

is

things of this kind without will, a god and a demon, or rather he has a double,
his side
if

man does

companion at But his own.

whose

virtue

is

different
is

from

he does them not, he

pure

God."

It is greater virtue springs out of the less. the turning or "conversion" (einaTpo^rj) of the soul from sense to God. Man turns his face to the light,

The

and sees the ideal beauty, not afar off, but in his soul. For even before conversion he possessed the ideas,
though
virtue

away in a dark corner." The greater and needs no action it is communion The world does not give it, and with the Divine.
"thrust

is

free,

cannot take

it away. connected with virtue Closely

;

is
"

happiness.

The

he behaves like a bad man is doomed to misery But for the good, life wolf, and he becomes a wolf."
is

good.

Happiness is not pleasure, though it is pleasant, and intelligence are beautiful, and beauty is crowned with grace which the soul seeks with love. hence its good must come It is "intensity of
for life
life,"

In not from without, but from within and above. details Plotinus is here almost completely Stoic. Ex Sympathetic sorrow is a weakness of the soul.
ternal blessings or misfortunes

do not contribute

to,

or

detract from, the felicity of the wise.

The

lyre

ETHICS
does not make the musician.
will get

271

one.
the

If it is bad, the player or he will sing without instrument, But his general conception is the reverse of

new

Stoic.

For he regards action as incompatible

(i.

with happiness

4).

The reward
punishment
this,

of the good is fullness of the life, of the evil is wolfishness. But what
?

about the future

Plotinus

says very

little

about

and

what
in

he does

say

traditional doctrine of his school.

merely repeats the The wicked are

punished Hades, or they come back to earth to expiate their sins in other and lower forms of life.

The
As
felt

soul that

is

purified

by philosophy returns

to the

intelligible world,

to

and to it death is gain. what, becomes of the lower soul of man he

is

If it great difficulty. passes into other bodies;

the
it

if

life of the body, it belongs to the soul

it will go whithersoever that goes. But tra dition affirmed that the eidolon of Heracles was in

proper,

the Elysian Fields, while the soul of Heracles was a god in heaven. Here Plotinus leaves the question. With him, as with all his Homer stands side
school,

by side with philosophy, and polytheism with

Absolute.

the

The
plays a

morality of the

Neoplatonists
their

is

purely in

tellectual,

and therefore purely

part in

individual.

Sympathy
is

great

physics, but
is

wholly

absent from their ethics.

This
a

the main reason

why they could not found

enduring philosophy.
Again, there
is

church, or

even

an

no place

in

Neoplatonism

for that

272
fear

NEOPLATONISM
of

God, which

is

the
sins.

beginning of Wisdom,

The man

himself never

God

is

and there is room or humility, or there is no remorse, or repentance, do not matter. In other words, Little things dread. He is-not high enough He though the One is high,
for aspiration
;

and adoration.

above man, But

Hence does not charge the angels with- folly. is made too short and too easy. road to Him
Lastly,
practical!

the

the

are entirely un Neoplatonic morals mere Action purifies, but in itself it is

distraction.

The

desire to

do

arises out of

feeble

ness of intelligence.
to moral perfection.

Conduct has no

inner relation
is

The way
nothing.

to

be happy

to

think

much and do

XX
ON BEAUTY
INTELLECTUAL Virtue is the Upward Path (aVayo/y//), to God. In the sleep of his soul
is

which leads us back

man

has forgotten his Father, yet he by a dumb impulse, fo\^ and reach towards him Him,

drawn towards
iia.tuie -as<

Him

"

byjiecessity of

Him

they cannot

be^"

Two

motives carry us upwards^the loveof Beauty, and the love of Good. The desire for Good is universal, and
is

sweet.

the
"

the
as
it

The love of Beauty is not universal it is new life, and its birth-pangs are sharp. The perception and the awe of Beauty (v. 5, r 2), and awakening of Love, come to men when they already,
;

it were, know, and are awake. But the Good, since has always been an object of congenial desire, is with them even while they sleep, and does not awe them

and

to see, because it ever attends t^iem, not recollected at any particular moment. Nay, they do not see it, because they have it even in sleep. But the love of Beauty, when it comes, causes
is

when they begin

pain,

because they must

and then desire. This love therefore is second, and not till men begin to understand does it tell them that the Beautiful is.
first

see

274

NEOPLATONISM

the

But the older and unconscious desire testifies that Good is older and prior to Beauty." The love of Good is older and natural. Never
"
"

theless, as

Good

is

Good, as a

distinctly

above Form or Being, the love of moral motive, comes after, and
two sections.

reaches higher, than the love of Beauty.

Upward Path

falls into

Hence the The love of

Beauty carries a man up to the top of Being, and then hands him over to the love of Good.

We

must consider, then,

half of the

way

Beauty; that is, of Art and Knowledge. Three classes of men are capable of the journey. Or the road, we may say, has
three branches.

in this chapter the lower over which presides the idea of the Divine Intelligence. It is the sphere
(i.

3,

i)

The

first is

for the Musician, the

second

for the Lover, the third for the Philosopher.

The

beauty of sound, of shape and colour, and of reasoned truth all lead to the same goal. But all these pilgrims All woo the same goddess, though are lovers alike.
with different they seek?
It is
gifts.

What, then,

is

the Beautiful that

within us, and not without.

It is

the inner

loveliness that as

we
fell

seek,

though we

often forget this,

Narcissus

in love with his

own

reflection in

the pool

(v. 8,
(i.

2).

Beauty
that
is

6 throughout) has
to all these ?

many
What
is

manifestations,

in sights, in sounds,

in virtue, in truth.
it

What
that

is

it

common

makes

them beautiful?

may

Let us begin with objects of sight, for in them we What is their charm ? find a key.

ON BEAUTY

275
resides in symmetry. be so, the composite

The common
Yet this
will

opinion
suffice.

is,

that

it

not

For

if it

whole

is

beautiful, while the parts are not.

But how

can any number of uglinesses produce beauty ? There must be beauty also in the part, the simple, the incomposite. colour ?
"

Otherwise what becomes of beauty of

How is gold beautiful,

"

or lightning by night,
?

or the stars

?
is

What

again of sound

sweet, but so

the note.

What

again do we

The melody is mean by

acts of

the symmetry of virtue or of intelligence ? In these mind there is no proportion, either geometrical
or arithmetical.

And
truth.

if

we

say that there

is

harmony,
is

it

may be

replied, that well-ordered falsehood

as

harmonious as

Why

then

-are

we

attracted
It is

by the

beautiful,

and

shocked by the ugly?

to the better nature.

because the soul belongs Hence whenever she discerns

that which
is

is

akin to herself, or a trace of that which

akin, she rejoices and flutters with gladness, and takes it home to herself, and remembers herself

and her parentage.

Things are beautiful

in so far as

they partake of form, which gives them unity, the shadow of the One, and grace. They are beautiful
in a word that comes from the gods. are ugly when the form, the word, has failed to control the matter ; when they do not adequately

by participation

They

represent the thought of the Creator. Sense recognizes the presence or absence of form, and its judgment is valid, when the rest of the soul
co-operates in
its

judgment.

Or perhaps

soul herself

delivers this verdict,

comparing the report of sense

276

NEOPLATONISM

with the form which she possesses, and using this as The Parthenon is but a concrete expres her canon.
sion of the idea of Pheidias.

When we

behold

it,

we

the shape given by the artist masters the We alien material, and rides upon the other shapes.
see

how

man grasp the whole, and welcome it, just as a good over some trait of virtue in a child, because it rejoices harmonizes with the truth in himself. It is the same
with colour.
"

This too

is

a form,

"

a bodiless

light."

however, higher beauties, which it is not given to sense to behold, but soul sees and ex we must presses them without the aid of organs. These

There

are,

mount up and contemplate, leaving sense below.

But

now you cannot speak intelligibly about visible beauty to those who have never seen it, and do not perceive that it is beautiful for instance, to those who were born And there is the same difficulty in describing blind. moral loveliness to those who do not allow the beauty
;

of habits,

or other things of the same of virtue to those who have no nature, or the light selfconception, how fair is the face of justice and

or sciences,

control, fairer than the evening or

must

morning star. Men have seen, and must be that eye with which the soul beholds the immaterial. And vision must have
first

been followed by delight, and wonder, and rapture, far because greater than what they felt over earthly things, For these are now laying hold of the true. they and love, feelings, awe, and sweet wonder, and craving,

and

delicious rapture, must attend

all

that

is

beautiful.

And

these emotions are possible, and almost all souls do experience them, even about objects that are not

ON BEAUTY
seen
;

277

tible of spiritual desire.

but especially those souls that are more suscep It is the same with human

passion ; all feel it, but the wound is far deeper with some than with others, and these are said to love."

What, then,

is it

which

fills

the lovers of the unseen

with exultation

when they behold

the purity of tem

perance, the severity of fortitude, in themselves or in others ? They will tell you that virtue is the truth of
truths,

the

eternally

fair.

But why does the truth

Let us look
at its opposite,

clothe the soul in light and find the answer.

"

full

Take, then, an ugly soul, intemperate and unjust, of lusts, full of confusion, fearful through cowardice,

envious through meanness, thinking nothing but what is mortal and base, crooked in all its parts, living a
life

Shall

of fleshly passion, and thinking ugliness delightful. we not say that its ugliness came upon it as an evil
it

from without, that

polluted with
all

maimed it and has made it

is

that

bad, so that

it

unclean, has no pure life,

no pure sensation, because its very life is dimmed by the mixture of evil, and contaminated by much death, so that it can no longer see what a soul ought to see, and is no longer permitted to abide in itself, because
it is perpetually dragged outwards and downwards towards the darkness ? It is unclean then, and pulled in all directions by cords towards the objects that im

portune
material

its
;

senses

it is

soiled with the body,

itself

it

has received into

by the an alien form, and

is altered by a debasing mixture, just as when a man tumbles into mire or mud, so that he no longer shows his beauty, and nothing can be seen but the filth which

278
sticks to him.

NEOPLATONISM

When then ugliness cleaves to a man the plastering on of a foreign substance, and has by become his work, he must wash and be clean, before
a soul

he can again be what he was. If, then, we say that is ugly by mixture and contamination and
condescension towards the body and matter, we shall

be

right."

The remedy
rope,"

is

to
"

says Zeller,
"

Cut the get rid of desire. and the balloon will rise." Virtue
"

is

"

purification,"

detachment."

The

believer casts

away every weight, and

at

once the Divine without

catches hold of the Divine within, and lifts him up. Earthly beauty reveals the glory of the Soul by which
it

seeker,
will

was made, and from he do not turn

"if

this

his

vantage ground the back upon the music,"

hear the heavenly harmony of Intelligence. Plotinus, it will be observed, does not resolve
into Beauty, but as

Goodness

he empties Goodness

of moral significance, he is compelled to use Beauty To this accordingly he as his first and chief motive. attaches whatever there is left in his system of repent

ance and awe.

of
first

Repentance

is

the delicious anguish

love.

The

relation of art to morality,

fashion.

he would decide
Ugliness
is

in

summary

Vice

is

ugliness.

painful,

depicted the more painful It is painful because it represents God s it will be. over the failures, the triumph of the amorphous

and the more

realistically

ordering word, the power of darkness, the

unknown

and

horrible.

XXI
VISION
aesthetic virtue leads men up to Intelligence, into the realm of truth, of beauty, and of freedom. Here the soul is truly free. It can do

INTELLECTUAL or

what

it

wishes,

hostile wills, or adverse circumstances.

unimpeded by misleading desires, by There is no

at

law of
sacrifice

God
in

to

be carried out
salvation

any cost of
brethren
or

self-

the

of

the

the
all

improvement of the world.

this for

Providence can do
is

Himself.

Man s

duty

behind.
is

God by mounting upwards and leaving the world The kingdom of God is meditation. Sense
our messenger, Intelligence our king, and we are

to unite himself with

kings

when we
there
"

are like
it is

Him

<W

i K i vov

Life
pure."

is

happy
Still

never weary when

it is

stages.

soul (v. 3, 4 ). but we discern

even in the intellectual life there are two In the first, God s laws are written upon the

We know

God, know

Him

Him

perfectly

as a glorified

image of ourselves

projected before the eyes as an object of contempla 1 We know Him, but we know Him as 1). another, as something that we and
tion (v. 8,

possess,

therefore

2 8o

NEOPLATONISM

Even this is a high grace. The that has been given. God in painless travail and the birth of "sees soul
His Son/ We can understand
his
this.

Plotinus

sits

down
his

in

arm-chair, closes

his

eyes,

and with

inner

vision sees the

before

him.

whole realm of knowledge spread out It is a conscious, but not a vividly

us in this connection, conscious, state, for he tells stand that in perception acuteness and agreeableness sensations The most pungent in inverse relation.
are those of pain
;

the things that

we know
8,

best

and

us like that are best worth knowing do not excite

unfamiliar or less worthy objects
(v.

n).
rest
"

"The

Ego has no senses." But we ought not

There
God,"

to

be content to

here.
full

is

a higher stage in which become the Beautiful and

all

we

are

of
in

Intelligence,

which we leave

images, even the most glorious, return into ourselves, and see God there by direct as the Second Person of the Trinity beholds
vision,

the First.

To
was and
the
to

this

him
is

It Plotinus constantly recurs. of all knowledge the crown and keystone

subject

all

virtue, their perfection

One

uncertain.

and their proof. If mere hypothesis, everything becomes He must be in some sense knowable,
a

and

He

could be

known

We

will translate or

or felt. only by being seen condense the more important

passages on this interesting topic. of Vision First, as to the possibility

"

(v.

3,
is

14).

We

can

tell

what

He

is

not, but

what

He

we

VISION

281

cannot

tell,

so that

we

are driven to describe

Him

by His operations. But there is no reason why we should not have Him, even if we cannot describe

Him.

Those who
are possessed

who

are inspired (er6ovffnovreg), those (KCITO^OL), know this much, that

them they have something greater than them if they do not know what. From what from what they speak, they have some they feel, conception of that which moves them, as of something So it is with us, when we different from themselves.
within
selves,

even

use the pure

Intelligence."

It is illustrated

see two things, the sensible form,

by the act of sight (v. 5, 7). We and the light that But we should not know that we

makes
saw the

it

visible.

light r unless

we saw the form.

sees Being,

by light given by the One.

So Intelligence It must turn

away from all objects, and contemplate this light. But the analogy of the eye will carry us still farther. For the eye has light in itself that light which you
see when you squeeze your eyelids. The Intelligence must concentrate itself on this inner light.
"We

for
it

must go up then further to the Good (i. 6, 7) which every soul craves. Those who have seen know what I say, how beautiful it is. For it is
attain to
it

desirable as

we

Good, and we yearn towards it. But by climbing up and turning towards it,
course.

and

we put on Those who go up to holy shrines must cleanse themselves, and put off their old vesture, and enter in naked, till having left behind all
stripping off the outer garments, that
in our

downward

that

is

alien to the god, with their pure selves they

282

NEOPLATONISM

see the pure deity, sincere, simple, clean, on

all

whom
and

things depend, towards

whom

all

things look,

For He is they are, and live, and think. If we the cause of Life and Intelligence and Being. can but see Him, with what love shall we be filled,
in

whom

with what desire, longing to

be united with
!

Him

With what joy

"

shall
is

we

exult
?

What, then,
ineffable

the

way

How

shall

one behold

beauty which abides in the inmost sanctuary, and comes not forth lest any profane eye should see it ? Courage let him that is able, press
that
!

into the holy place, leaving behind the sight of the

eyes,

and not turning back to gaze upon the bodily charms that once attracted him. For when we see

material loveliness
to

know

flee

we ought not to run after it, but an image, a trace, a shadow, and For if one to that which is the archetype.
that
it

is

fair image reflected on the water, like Hylas, he sinks into the stream and is seen no more. So he who sets his affection on

hastens to embrace as true the

earthly beauty,

and

will

not

let it go, falls

not with

body but with soul, into abysses dark and horrible, to the intelligence, where he is blind and abides in
Hades, and
land
will

dwell

with
fly

the shadows that he

clung to here.
-j

Let us

then to our dear father

of truth.

this is the exhortation

But how

fly,

and how mount up?

as the master (Plato) in a parable, that Odysseus flew from the witch says,

Even

Circe or from Calypso, willing not to stay for any visible delights or any sensual beauty. And our
fatherland
is

the place from which

we came, and our

VISION

283

Father
is

is yonder. But what is the vehicle, the track ? Thou needest not go afoot

and what
;

for feet

carry

men

hither

and

thither

from land to land.

Nor
this

shalt thou get thee ship or chariot. Leave all and look not back, but close thy eyes as it were, and get thee a new sight. Wake up that vision which all have, but few employ.

What, then, does the inner vision see ? On first waking it cannot clearly discern those bright objects. Hence we must train the Soul by itself, first of all to see beautiful habits, then beautiful works I do
"

mean works of Then behold the

not

art,

but the works of good men. soul of those that do beautiful

works.
"

Now how
?

art

soul

Go
thou

to thyself
art

thou to see the beauty of a good and look, and if thou findest

that

not yet beautiful, as the sculptor of a

be beautiful, chips and files away, smooth and that pure, till he brings out a lovely face on his statue, so do thou chip off what
statue, that is to
this

making
is

superfluous,
is

straighten
it

what

is

crooked, cleanse

what

dark and make

bright,

and cease not

to

labour at thy statue till the Divine radiance of virtue shine forth, till thou behold self-control mounted

upon her holy and hast seen

self;
if

pedestal.
thyself,

If thou hast

become

virtue,

and walked chastely with thy

foreign mingled with
light,

thou hast nothing that hinders thee from in

but art wholly true

this

way becoming one, naught

self,

thy inner

not measured

by size, not limited by shape, nor yet swollen to infinitude, but without dimensions of any kind, as

284

NEOPLATONISM

being greater than every measure and better than aught that has quantity if, I say, thou art this, and
seest thyself

and

art sight,

up, for thou needest

might."

be of good cheer, mount no guide, and look with all thy

the vision
is

Elsewhere

(v.

5,

3),

compared

to a

royal procession.
"

This nature (Intelligence)

is

God, a second God,

who shows Himself before we can behold the first. The First sits above on Intelligence as on a glorious throne, which depends on Him. For it was right that
should be mounted, not on the soulless, nor immediately on soul, but that there should be an
ineffable

He

beauty
then

to

go before

Him

as

when some
and

great king appears

in state, first

come

those of less

degree,

those

who

are

greater

more

dignified, then his body-guard who have somewhat of royalty in their show, then those who are honoured

next to himself.
self
all,

After

alt

appears suddenly, and

that
is,

all

these the great king him pray and do obeisance ;

before,
satisfied
king."

who have not gone away

with the glorious pageant that preceded the He is King of kings and Father of gods.

Those, to

whom

this vision is granted, despise

even

thought (vi. 7, 35), which before they delighted in. For thought is a kind of movement, but in the vision is no movement. One who had entered into a palace rich and beautiful through its richness, would
"

gaze with wonder on

all

its

varied
"

treasures,"

like

Psyche in the palace of Cupid, till he caught sight of the Master of the House. But when he beholds

VISION

285

Him who is far more lovely than any of His statues, and worthy of the true contemplation, he forgets the treasures and marks their lord alone. He looks and cannot remove his eyes, till by the persistence of his gaze he no longer sees an object, but blends his
sight with the thing seen, so that

what was object

spectacles."

becomes

sight,

and he
is

forgets all other

The
is

not to be regarded as unfruitful. It contact (iira^fi) with the Divine, and in this union

Vision

the perfect soul

tiful

"

"

begets

like

God Himself
"

beau

thoughts and beautiful virtues. the soul conceives when filled with
It is a special grace,

All these things

"

Him

(vi. 9, 9).

and being the self-manifestation

of the One,
reveals.
art

can be given only by Him whom it is prepared by moral purity, by and knowledge but these things only lift us as it
it

The way

were out of the depths of a mine on to the plane of The shining of the sun must come to us. earth.
All

we can do

is

to

fit

ourselves for His coming, and

wait patiently for the dawn.

We
is

cannot force

God

we must be

"quiet."

"He

within, yet not within.

We

For

must not ask whence, for there is no whence. He never comes, and He never goes ; but Wherefore we must appears, and does not appear.
not pursue
self,

Him, but wait quietly till He show Him we must make ourselves ready to behold, only
dayspring.
"

as the eye awaits the

And He swims
(v. 5, 8).

above the horizon

from the ocean, as the poets say

to our gaze

and gives Himself

Several points the Vision.

may be

noticed in this description of

286
It is

NEOPLATONISM j
accompanied by a complete, suspension of
;

all

external consciousness
whether
It
it

the

soul
not.

does not know

is

in the

body or
is

comes suddenly. This

distinctly

We.are never told

how
"

repeatedly emphasized. as long it endures ;

"

long as the soul will or can

is

the most definite

St. Theresa s trances are said to phrase employed. half-an-hour. have lasted about

It is rare.

Plotinus
8,
i).

tells

us that he

had

"

often

"

enjoyed

it

(iv.

would

appear that he

year, at

any

rate

From Porphyry s account it was entranced about once a towards the end of his life. Por

phyry himself had seen the vision but once. St. It was not attended by any sense of fear. of the Cross passed through the direst anguish John
of soul before he beheld
in
itself."

"the essential truth nakedly But Plotinus always speaks of the revela

tion as attended

The Vision was

come
in

by joy unspeakable. It was the manifest not pictorial.

One, and could not therefore In this it however majestic. any shape the visions of the Old Testament differs from Prophets, which often, as in the case of Isaiah and
ation of the Formless

Ezekiel, presented definite forms and scenes to the eye of the soul. Some of the mediaeval mystics regarded

these definite and particular manifestations with great suspicion as possible delusions of the Evil One.

They were aware

which
they were
hallucinations,

that fasting

and

sleeplessness, with

only too familiar, will produce visits of the devil, or phantasms of

sensuous and enticing delights, and were wisely on

VISION
their

287
the
Plotinian

guard.

The Neoplatonists of
;

group were ascetic

as the Christian
;

but not

at all in the

same sense

monks. Their diet was spare, but wholesome they were on friendly terms with the physician, and took reasonable care of their bodily health. They had little to fear from those airy fancies,
whether seductive or horrible, which are bred
enfeebled nerves or a disordered stomach.
Lastly,

of

no words were heard.

There was no voice

of the Lord saying, "Go, and tell this people." The revelation was not communicable. It was granted
to the individual soul for his
tion.

own comfort and

edifica

It is true that the seer

"

I could say thenceforth, his vision made him a holier man.

became a witness. He have seen and know," and

In this indirect
spirit

sense, the manifestation of the

profit

was given to
is

withal.

To some
"

extent

this

true

of

all

But on the Christian prophet revelation prophecy. laid a burden Woe is me if I preach not the Whereas the effect of the Neoplatonist Gospel."
:

vision

was to draw the seer from the world of action.

is

Preaching
other

just as contingent, just as unfree as

any

wise

mode of dealing man will avoid it.

same

with the external, and the

Christian mystics

may have

fallen into the

error,

but only by denying their

principles.

When

Plotinus speaks of waiting for the revelation,

he perhaps does not mean, that the man is to sit with This of itself would be eyes shut and hands folded.
pressing God.

What he seems

to inculcate

is

that

there should be absolutely

no desire even

for the all-

288
desirable.

NEOPLATONISM

The

believer

must put himself absolutely

He is always meditating, he least expects it, the palaceand suddenly, when doors will be opened, and the King will step forth.
into the

hands of God.

It

has been said that the Agnostic Deity

as the Platonist Matter or

is

really

the
is

same

No

Thing.

And

not this equally true of the One ? Plotinus emphatically denied this.

Matter and the

One The

agreed former is
;

in

being formless, but in nothing else. unreal, the latter is more real than all
is

reality

the former

mere

potentiality, the latter

is

power
sense

of the former

we have but

a vague, disquieting

and
see

shapeless, horrible, lawless, the presence of the latter brings with it evil;
If

as of something

the sweetest rapture.

it,

we cannot

explain,
it

we can
our true

touch

it,

feel

it.

We
;

can know

in this sense
is

even better than other things, because we are in self, our inmost personality
fullness

it
it.

It is the

of

life.

This also

cannot be

defined or

communicated.

What

is

perfect health?
it,

There
it

is

nothing vague or indefinite about admit of description.

Revelation
is

yet

does not

the

revelation

of a Presence, of a

Personality ; and without denying the possibility of revelation altogether, we can hardly say that the vision

of Plotinus

is

inconceivable.
us.
is
it

But two questions force themselves upon what he says here sane or not sane? And
necessary part of his system
?

Is

The

first is

by no means easy to answer.

Plotinus

shared, though only to a limited extent, the super-

VISION
stition of his age.

289

But

his superstition, his belief in

demons and

in

with his vision.

magic, has nothing whatever to do In practice the two are wholly dis

connected, and if there is any link between them it can only be one of historical sequence, of more or
less

remote causation.
intellect

His

he was, as Porphyry
practical

was singularly acute and logical, and tells us, by no means an un

far as

man, so

he chose to entangle himself

in matters of business.

Yet he was a visionary. doubt that the experiences he There can be no

Nor are they unique. Nor do betoken an unhealthy mind or body. Not to they speak of St. Paul, who was as sane a man as ever
describes are real.
lived,

same singular phenomenon in modern a book as the In Memoriam. thoroughly

we

find, the

so

The
in

great point

is,

that the trance of Plotinus

self-induced.
If this

no way mechanical or

was be a

stands in a different class from the produced by whirling movement or gazing on torpor He a bright object, or any form of mesmerism.
fact, his vision

himself believed
point
that

it to be a Divine manifestation. The may be left to the judgment of the reader. All we will insist upon is, that Plotinus was by no

means a besotted

fanatic.

But did the Vision belong to his system, or is it a mere accretion whose roots are elsewhere ? We may
say with
confidence, that
it

springs

not

from his

We have already philosophy, but from his religion. It seen something of the history of the doctrine.
rested

upon

facts.

Philo found an instance of the

296
"

NEOPLATONISM
"

in the Hebrew prophets ; Plu tarch in the Pythoness or the Corybantes. The Pythagorean seized upon the idea as opening the

divine intoxication

only possible way in which the One could be known, and the Egyptian Plotinus fixed it in the forefront of
his creed.

But

it

was not

really necessary.

This indeed

is

proved by the

fact that

Neoplatonism

in all its essential

features exists in our

own days as Idealism ; but with out this mystical element. The modem disciple of Plotinus insists that the supreme unity, the synthesis
all antitheses,

of

can be known in other ways.

But why then does Plotinus lay such stress on this To this it may be particular kind of knowledge?
replied that he does not represent the Vision as an

A man indispensable condition of the spiritual life. dwell in the Divine Intelligence, where subject might
and object
all virtues,

are one, might enjoy happiness, practise

all knowledge, yet conceivably he might in this life never enjoy the Beatific Vision. Yet he held it up before man s eyes as a hope that

and possess

ought to cherish, and whether the Vision as he conceived it be sane or not, there can be no doubt that this way madness In individual cases it
all
"

lies."

might be wholesome, but as a system it is necessarily A host of unclean spirits sloth, presump deadly.
imposture come flocking in, and the very foundations of intelligence and even morality are destroyed.
tion, self-delusion,

The
Vision,

Christian

Church

also believes in a Beatific

"

when

the saints will see

face to

face,"

when

VISION
they will be like God, and "see Him as He But she keeps this hope against the Great Day, and while
is."

steadily

asserting, that

some holy

souls

have been

privileged to see things unspeakable, she forbids her children to think that in this life they can scale the summit of all things. Here we see in a glass darkly. None knoweth the Father save the Son. For others

the vision
this

is

"in

Christ,"

not immediate; and even

conditioned vision

who can exhaust?

But the strength of the Church lay in her posses sion of a revelation, and one, and probably not the least, among the motives of Plotinus was the desire to
outbid her.

xxii
PORPHYRY

THE

successors of Plotinus differ from their great

ways. a high and fine enthusiasm, a noble conception of the Divine, and a grand faith in Man s feet are in the mud, the possibilities of man.

master in

many remarkable
is

About Plotinus there

but his head reaches up to the One.

possible for

him

to attain to perfect

Hence communion

it

is

with

the Fountain of Life.

less

Later Neoplatonists took a

illimitable hierarchy of beings

sanguine view. extends from God to earth.

An

Man may
is

climb as high

as the angels, but not beyond.

Plotinus, like
all his

school,

tinged with scholasti

cism, a commentator on sacred

is singularly free.

texts.

But

his

method
letter,

He

follows the

spirit,

not the

and borrows nothing that he does not transform. Imagination in him is more than logic his results are His followers become more consistent and original. and more eclectic and pedantic. They pride them selves on making Aristotle and Plato agree, even in
;

their theory of Being,

where they are poles asunder. Plotinus holds fast to the conception of immateri-

PORPHYRY
ality with

293

the intuition of true genius.

Those who
It
slips

came

after

could not grasp

this fine idea.

wing, breaks loose to form a religion He left by itself. behind him a compact system of Idealism, and a lofty
spiritual mysticism.

from their hands, as Eurydice from the embrace of The Plotinian Trinity begins at once to Orpheus. materialize and break up. In Plotinus philosophy almost takes and

Yet

in

the background of his

all its

thought lay the whole of polytheism, with

ful

hate

magic linked on

to his philosophy

of the sympathy of nature.

He

by the doctrine himself was a man of

serene and fearless intelligence, who dwelt content in the realm of Ideas, a servant of the highest God, to

demons did homage. He could put them mind their hideous forms and noxious arts could do him no harm. For him the upward path
the

whom

out of his

seems

happy power to molest the pilgrim. But he left all the horrors of Graeco-Oriental super stition intact. He even strengthened their hold upon the imagination by supplying them with a sort of scientific basis. To minds of weaker mould these phantoms of the pit, the grotesque and ghastly creations of Egyptian and Syrian demonology, seemed the nearest and most pressing facts of the To them spiritual life.
the

to lie past the gates of hell, along a secure and^ track, where the spirits of evil have little or no

way appeared

to lead almost to

its

summit

right

through hell itself; and the most precious of all know ledge was that which explained the names of devils and angels, how to distinguish one from the other, by

294

NEOPLATONISM
to purchase the aid of the

what amulets or charms

ministers of light,
fiend.

and outwit the cunning of the

foul

The most important

of the immediate disciples of

Plotinus was Porphyry. He was a Tyrian, though born His real name was Malchus, perhaps in Batanea.
"

King,"

which was turned into Greek by Amelias as

He was

by Longinus as Porphyrius, "purple-clad." born probably in 232 studied at Athens under Longinus, famous as a critic, still more famous as the
Basileus,
;

minister of Zenobia; went to

Rome in

262 and attached

himself to Plotinus.
rid of a
fit

In 268 he retired to Sicily to get

of hypochondria, which had plunged

depression,
that

him

into

such

suicide.
tells us,

From

Sicily

he even contemplated he visited Carthage, where, he

talk.

he had a tame partridge that could all but The rest of his life was spent in Rome. Late

in

life

children.

he married Marcella, a poor widow with many The union appears to have been purely

formal,

and was probably contracted to enable him to At Rome he died, confer benefits without scandal. s reign, at an age somewhat above late in Diocletian
sixty-eight.

From Longinus, whom Eunapius

calls

"

a living

library and walking museum," he acquired his learn ing and his style, which is clear, elegant, and longwinded. He stood to Plotinus in the same relation as

Dumont

to

Bentham

"

for Plotinus,

by reason of

his

heavenly-mindedness, and of expression, was thought

his twisty, enigmatic

mode
man,

to be laborious
let

and hard.
to

But Porphyry,

like a

Hermaic chain

down

PORPHYRY
by
his

295
everything clear and

many

sided culture

made

straightforward."
"

The most
to

learned of
is

philosophers," St.

Augustine

calls

him, and this

duction

the general estimate. His Intro the Categories of Aristotle, still extant,
treatises

formed the basis of all

on formal

logic through

the middle ages to recent times. He wrote also on and the history of philosophy, grammar, philosophy
rhetoric, mathematics,

and

religion.

The most famous

of his works was that Against the Christians, in fifteen books, in which he criticized the Scriptures from a
rationalistic point of view,

and maintained that the

till

Book

of Daniel

was not written

the the

time of
Sentences

Antiochus
(c/^opjuai),

Epiphanes.

We

possess

full

analysis

an abstract of Neoplatonism, of which will be found in Vacherot, a Life

to

of Pythagoras, a Letter

his

wife

Marcella, four

books on Abstinence from Flesh, two little mytho logical treatises on The Styx and the Grotto of the Nymphs, and some considerable fragments of other
treatises.

Philosophically he did not differ greatly from his master. He appears to have followed Amelius in

dividing

the

Divine

Intelligence
Life,

into three terms,

Being, Thought, and

and

in regarding different

classes of entities as proceeding

is

from each.

What he

not clear, but he paved the way for taught precisely the Syrian and Athenian schools. Zeller says that he

denied the independence of matter and derived all from the One, but the passages quoted do not bear
this

out.

He

believed in transmigration, but, like

296

NEOPLATONISM

lamblichus, did not allow that the soul of a brute. pass into the body of

man

could

The
shifted.

The way up
held, that in

the accent is teaching is nearly the same, but The sense of moral evil is more oppressive. Plotinus is longer and more difficult.
its

descent the soul puts on an ethereal

body

in heaven, the region of the fixed stars.

Those

who have
death as

lived a
far as

good moral

life

on

earth, rise after

sun, but not higher, until after successive incarnations they have attained to perfect

the

detachment.

Thus

all

resurrections,

till

the

last,

were

resurrections of a body. Porphyry went a step further, and held that the body was never wholly put off, that

corporeal

envelope

of

finer

(Trj/eu/xa)

was

essential to the

grosser texture permanence of a human

or

Moreover, the soul starts on its downward course from the fixed stars, and puts on its garments In this odd way in the lower world of the planets.
soul.

and the flesh becomes everything was put a step lower, It became necessary to add burden. a permanent Of this another round to the ladder of virtue.
Porphyry says there are four degrees, the
political, the

and the paradeigmatic. Of purificatory, the theoretic, these the third and the last correspond to the Divine
Soul and Intelligence, and lie beyond the horizon of It followed from all this that man cannot this life.
attain to

perfect

wisdom

in

this

present

life

his

defects
the
life

must be made good by the grace of God to come.

sin, this

in

In this deeper sense of

this

view of the body,

postponement of the

Beatific Vision,

we may

PORPHYRY

2 97

Socrates

trace a certain approximation to Christian teaching. tells us that Porphyry had been a Christian.
tells

In his younger days he himself

us, that

he had

met Origen, and he

were renegades,
generally thought

certainly

like

knew the Bible. There Ammonius Saccas. But it is

puritan aghast at the severity of Porphyry s morality. His treatise on Abstinence is directed not to men of the

doubtful that Porphyry was one. His acquaintance with the Scriptures proves little. None know them so well, as those who read to confute them. He was a man of sombre, melancholy rnood, and he was a fanatic. The austerest would stand

world

Some

they are past praying for but to philosophers. of his fellow-disciples, Castricius Firmus in

particular,

had returned

after the

death of Plotinus
to eat

to a laxer

mode
All

of

life,

and allowed themselves

is

meat.
with

Porphyry girds up
them.
pleasure

his loins to deal faithfully

abominable.

Horse-

racing, the theatre, dancing, marriage,

and mutton-

chops are equally accursed. Those who indulge in these things are the servants of devils, not of God.

But what was the reason food? Not transmigration.

allege

for

his

horror of flesh

most physical reason," which had been imparted to him by an Egyptian priest. The soul of the murdered lingers near the corpse from which it has been unjustly severed, and seeks to
possession of
it.

cannibalism aa

did not regard it as this ground failed him but he could ;

He

This we

know from

regain the arts of the

fact

necromancer, from

tales of ghosts,

and from the

298

NEOPLATONISM

that the gift of augury

acquired by eating the Hence it is heart of a crow, a hawk, or a mole.

clear that the soul of the

may be

murdered sheep
assimilates
its

will enter

into

mutton. him who unlawfully trace the influence of the Clemen Here we seem to tine Homilies, or some writing of the same school. The most singular thing about him is, that he was a man of most sceptical mind, and saw the difficulties
of polytheism quite as clearly as those of Christianity. His Letter to Anebos brings out all the contradictions,

absurdities, immoralities of

and

cruellest candour.

paganism with the keenest Yet he definitely cast in his

lot with the

untenable

side.

His sentiments are admirable. He was a deeply religious man, of high, pure, and tender, if exagger A long list of fine sayings may be ated, morality.
extracted from his writings.
"God

asks not sacrifice

He looks not on nor long prayers, but a pious life. "True religion is to know the lips, but on the life."
God, and
"

to imitate

"

Him."

The
is

true temple

is

the

soul of the wise;

the wise

man

the true

priest."

One ought
:

to offer sacrifice with a clean heart, not

with costly
inscription

gifts."
"

He
that

He

quotes the famous Epidaurian would enter the fragrant shrine

is

must be

holy,

and holiness

to think holy

thoughts,"

Of

the angels, to
"

whom

archy, he taught

he gave a place in his hier that they should be imitated rather

in his

than

invoked."

He
The What

was

far

from orthodox

general principles.
all

established cults were, in his view,

wrong.

the ordinary

man

seeks

by

oracles, prayers,

PORPHYRY
sacrifices
is

299

nothing but
or

the

goods of the
of
lust.

flesh,

health,

wealth,

the

these

things

the

devils

seek such blessings the magic to which

Over Those who power. may worship the devils-, and use
gratification

have

renounced

all

pleasure,

The sage has they respond. and gives himself up to the

all.

contemplation of the ideal God. Then surely he is safe? Not at

The Demons

bar his way to God. Hence Apollo once told the prophet, that, before his prayers could be heard, he

must
tians

"pay

ransom

to the Evil

One."

They crowd even

the temples.

Hence

the

Egyp

and Phoenicians, before they begin

their worship,

break symbolic fetters, sacrifice certain animals, and beat the air with branches of trees to expel the wicked
spirits.

Otherwise the

God cannot

appear.

They have power by magic even over the elect. Sosipatra, a Platonist saint, was bewitched by a love
philtre administered to her
lust

by Philometor.
till

could not be driven out

The vile Maximus summoned

more potent Demon

to her aid.

Bad Lastly, they have wonderful powers of deceit. spirits can change their shape, and appear as angels.

Thus they have misled

philosophers.

individuals, states,

and even

Porphyry is the most devout believer in Hecate and her hell-dogs, in jinns, hobgoblins, spectres, amu
lets, spells,

and can give most philosophical reasons

ridiculous superstitions.

for the

most

Everything

that

alleged against Polytheism he admits in the coolest way. It was true that the

the

Christian

300

NEOPLATONISM
sacrificed to devils, not to

Greek
ficent.

God.

It

was true

that the

corporeal, mortal, mostly male It was true that they were deceivers, and that

demons were

philosophy was no safeguard.

It

was true that they

demanded and received human sacrifice. He tells us that human blood was regularly poured upon the
altars in his

time in Arcadia and

Jupiter Latiaris

at

Carthage, and that

even

at

Rome

was annually sprinkled

who found the New Testament incredible, and took the Arabian Nights There is probably no one like him in the as gospel ?
All the Neoplatonists whole history of literature. were two men, but no man that ever lived was at once so sane and so insane as Porphyry.

with the blood of a gladiator. What are we to say of this man,

He
recoil

shows us
against

the

extraordinary violence

of the

Christianity.

These

men

hated the

Church, and would believe anything rather than what Yet what they hated was obviously it taught them.

There its metaphysics. the doctrine of a suffering Christ, and remains only all that this involves, the meekness, the toleration of
neither
its

moral austerity nor

ignorance, the discipline of service (see de Civitate

Dei,
St.

x. 24, 28).

Augustine makes two observations that are worthy of notice. The Hellenism for which Porphyry It was as novel as fought was not Hellenism at all.
"

Christianity.

Thou

didst learn these

things,"

says

the saint,
masters."

"

not from Plato, but from thy Chaldaean

all

Again, the curious arts of the Chaldaeans were

PORPHYRY
against

30 z

the

law,

Human

sacrifices
;

capital crimes

and Porphyry himself knew this. and all noxious magic rites were those found guilty of them were to be
to the beasts.
fatal.

crucified or

thrown

Even
"

sion of magical
artis

books was

the posses Libros magicae

licet ; et penes quosambustis his publice bonisque adenitis, honestiores in insulam deportantur, humi-

apud

se

neminem habere

cumque

reperti sint,

Nee enim tantum huius puniuntur. sed etiam scientia prohibita est." Emperors themselves dabbled in the black art, and the law was not always strictly enforced. But nothing could be plainer or more severe than the language of the Roman code.
capite
artis professio,

liores

XXIII
IAMBLICHUS AND THE MEN OF JULIAN

IAMBLICHUS was the founder of what

is

commonly
It is

known

as the Syrian school of Neoplatonism.

not specially Syrian in a geographical sense, but it is marked by a fresh and stronger inrush of Syrian with its grosser conceptions, its wild and theology nonsensical trick of playing with numbers, and its craving for the baser forms of the supernatural. So
far as it has any affinity with Greek thought, it may be called a Pythagoreanism run mad. But its true relations are to be sought rather in the lower forms

of Gnosticism.
.

During the predominance of

adjunct, a

this

school Platonism becomes a mere

mere

excuse for theosophy. lamblichus belonged to a wealthy family of Chalcis in Coelesyria. He was a pupil of Anatolius, and after

wards of Porphyry.
town.

Later he lectured in his native

birth

The

dates of his

and death are not

He was alive in the reign of accurately known. His Constantine, but did not survive that emperor.
death

may be

placed about 330.

IAMHLICHUS AND THE MEN OF JULIAN

303

had

Like the Schoolmen, the great Neoplatonist doctors names of honour. That of their special
is
"

lamblichus

famous
is

hero,"

the Julian calls him and in the spurious letters of Julian he

the

"

Divine."

spoken of as
world."

"

"the

saviour of

the precious treasure of all Greeks," the benefactor of the Hellenism,"

for

whole

This wonder and adoration

than

hero
in

means
this

little

less

God

he owed not to his

tellectual ability, but to his

fame
it

for miracles,

From
little

time forth knowledge was regarded as of

far

value, except in so

as

issued in supernatural

When the gulf was opening beneath its feet, powers. miracles were the last arbitrament to which Paganism
appealed.
"

Why,

O
"

occasion,

wisdom ?

him on one "dost thou grudge us the more perfect They had been told that, when lamblichus
why,"

said his disciples to

said his prayers, he

was

lifted to
"

a height of ten cubits

more perfect wisdom," far from the ground. This more precious than dull mathematics or hazy Ideas,

came from the Brahmins to Apollonius, from him to lamblichus, -and from him to our modern mediums.
"

Levitation

"

is

one of

its

favourite manifestations,

lamblichus modestly disclaimed the grace, but his

At biographer Eunapius clearly means us to believe. Gadara were two basins of warm water known as Eros
and Anteros, Love and Love-for-Love.
dipped
his fingers in the pools,

lamblichus

whispered some magic

words, and straightway two charming little Cupids were seen kissing and embracing each other, as they An Egyptian called up played over the surface.

304
Apollo by his
appeared.
"It

NEOPLATONISM
spells.
is

stern

and savage

figure
"of

the

soul,"

said lamblichus,

gladiator, not the

God."

lamblichus renounced as
the later Greek philosophy.

futile

How God
enough

the great task of created the

to believe that

world we cannot know.

It is

He

is

the cause of All, and that to

impossible.

But

if in this

nothing is he cherished a wholesome

Him

scepticism, in another he threw open the floodgates wide. Pythagoras, he says, rightly taught that we are not to disbelieve anything miraculous about the Gods

The Gods can do all things, or the divine dogmas. and we are not to measure them by the limited
power and intelligence that they have given to mankind (Protrepticus, xxi.). Hence we require a
"

science

"

that will teach us

"Be

to disbelieve
faithless,"

nothing

about the Gods.

as saying,
unbelief."
"

not
learn

is

the

same
thy

Come and

what

will

abolish

It is possible to recognize

tion to the language,

and even the

is

here a certain approxima ideas, of the Church.

for
are,

The

object of lamblichus
is

not being or thought, but

God, and knowledge

worship.

God

is

Miracle,

merely a preparation He is more than we

ourselves.

and what

He

does we cannot understand, because we

are not gods, and cannot

partly from history

do

it

We know Him

partly from ourselves, so far as our nature reflects His,

and

revelation.

These two kinds

of knowledge, inasmuch as both flow from the same source and have a common meeting-place, will har

monize with and supplement each

other, but faith in

IAMBLICHUS AND THE MEN OF JULIAN

305

the larger personality from which both proceed will be

above

either.

Unfortunately history and revelation, as lamblichus knew them, were composed of all the fables of all the
mythologies his philosophy was not so much Platonism as Pythagoreanism, which explains everything by which was to science sacred numbers, and the cure disbelief was magic.
;
"
"

What

Plato and Plotinus were concerned for was

the inner essence of Paganism, the joyous, intellectual, thoroughly human life of Hellenism, the religion of
poets, artists, legislators, thinkers, of the natural
at

man

his

best.

To
But
fell

this

Plotinus gave almost perfect

expression.

life is

and

his

work

to

not all intellectual and joyous, ruins like a house built upon
next his heart was

the sand.

What lamblichus had

Hellenism as a practical system. Those sweepings of idolatry, which Plato cast aside as vile falsehoods
against the Highest, became to him necessaries of life, because in them too there was a truth. Such as they

were, in their
all

own

villainous shapes, they

in the

conveyed

that the

Greek knew of

way of personal

Hence they could not be given nor could they be shoved into the background. up, Such a change in the attitude towards religion was
religious experience.

necessarily attended

of lamblichus, partly because of its inherent confusion, partly because it has to be pieced In together out of quotations made by other writers.
its

philosophic the teaching

basis.

It is difficult to

by a change equally great in the grasp or expound

main

features

it

was reproduced and brought into

306

NEOPLATONISM

order by the keener intelligence of Proclus, and as the Rudiments of Proclus are extant and easily acces
sible in

Didot

edition,

on the

subject,
it

till

we may defer what must be said we come to the school of Athens. For
lamblichus puts
sets the
is

the present

will suffice to state, that

philosophy entirely

on one

side,

and

Gods

in

*place of the Ideas.

The philosophy

allowed to

all life, thought, and flow through the Gods, that is, Somehow the through Zeus, Apollo, and the rest. Ideas create the Gods, but it is with the Gods alone

remain as a mental exercise, but

being are

made

to

that

we

are really concerned.

Now

as the

Gods were

innumerable, lamblichus wanted also innumerable ideas to account for them, and this he accomplished by splitting up the indivisible intelligence of Plotinus
into
three.

Thinking, Thought, and the Thinker

became

Each of these begets three separate beings. another Triad, and so ad infinitum, and by the side of
the Triads there
is

Hebdomad.

the series of the over-worldly Gods.

Thus he expanded The inworldly

Gods comprised Gods proper, Angels, Demons, and Heroes. The 12 Olympian Gods give birth to 36
other orders, these to 72 others, these again to 360 Besides these we have 21 world-rulers (KOU^Oothers.
Kjoarojogy),

and 42 orders of Nature Gods.

is

It is

obvious

He is dealing with the seven doing. the twelve signs of the zodiac, the 365 planets, days of the year, not with laws of thought, except in so far as the triplet may have some basis in Psychology.
what he
In his morality he hardens the pessimistic tendency of Porphyry. The outlook under Constantine was

IAMBLICHUS AND THE MEN OF JULIAN

hopeless.

307

and
ness

fired all his thoughts with the belief in

Persecution roused the Christian to ardour, the near of the End, and the coming of his Lord in

But it took all heart out of the Pagan. the dismal apprehensions of the time, the soul sinks further and further from God.
triumph.

Amid

away

lamblichus

adds yet another round to the ladder of

the
four degrees

virtue.

Above

of Porphyry he sets a fifth, the theurgic, hieratic, or priestly virtues. The soul is never without a body; it is definitely separated from the Divine Intelligence ; the sense-powers are part of it ; and it can never rise above the Here on earth angels. it dwells among foes, and in its utter helplessness it must look for salvation not to the Divine goodness or love, but to the constant interposition of Divine

power.

And

this

power must be invoked

in

God

own way, an

inscrutable way,

by the use of those

In other

sacramental means which

words, by magic.

He

has ordained.

by way of commentary the de Mysteriis, which, though not written by lamblichus himself, represents the inner life of his school. It
presents itself as a reply to Porphyry
s

Here comes

in

sceptical Letter

toAnebos, and professes to be the work of Abammon, the master of Anebos. It uses all the fine old language about the Gods this the reader will kindly take for granted. But to what does it
;

all

amount

What was
in

it

that Julian really

wanted

to set

up again

place of Christianity ? It was not knowledge, but revelation. All Greek wisdom is derived from the East. Plato and Pytha-

308

NEOPLATONISM

goras were mere interpreters, imperfect interpreters, All religion of lessons learned in Egyptian temples.

comes from

Osiris or Bel, all philosophy

from Hermes

Trismegistus. neologism of the Greeks,

of the schools to the
"

The author complains

faith

of the restless

and appeals from the babel once delivered in Thebes

"

and Nineveh.

Know thyself," the watchword old proverb, Know thy of the Socratic schools, means no longer Know thy weakness and need of divine nature," but
The
"
" "

help."

And

help can be vouchsafed only by means of

apparitions.

But apparitions were dangerous

any man can Demon that
distinguish the

God

Scarcely things. that helps, from the

It is therefore of vital destroys. to learn the rudiments of this saving lore, as portance

im

handed down not by irresponsible individuals, but by A God always wears the learned and holy priests. Demons are same shape, and is always friendly. changeable sometimes big, sometimes little, some times hideous, yet lovely when they choose. Angels are neither so changeable as demons nor so constant as Gods, but are sweeter and less awful than Arch
angels.

are

Of Archons, those who rule the elements more comely than the ugly sprites who preside

Before the appearance of a over shapeless matter. a lurid, smoky flame ; good spirits Demon there is seen

heralded by variously coloured glows of light. Some Demons are attended by fierce beasts. Demons
are

do harm, or minister to sensual gratification Angels Archangels perseverance, give virtue and wisdom
;
;

IAMBLICHUS AND THE MEN OF JULIAN

spiritual strength,

309

and the power of vision

the

Gods

alone impart love and joy. Their coming may be invited, though not com pelled, by use of the prescribed means, magic songs and potions, sacred characters written, perhaps with

phosphorus, on a wall, by a glass of water, by a table, a staff, certain kinds of wood, stone, or grain,
lastly

by prayer.

And what was the prayer? Sometimes it was a If the God lingered, the priest might menace threat.
him with consequences
ask, I will
"

If thoir dost not

what

unseal the

stars, reveal the secrets of

Isis,

and give up the limbs of Osiris to Typhon." But in all cases the prayer was not an outpouring of soul
to the Father; but the utterance of certain formulas.

The words were

a mere jargon, which had no reference to anything in particular, which had indeed no sense at

all, yet brought an answer, God only knew why. ^Edesius was in perplexity he had recourse to

When
"

that

prayer in

which he had most

but we

confidence."

Which

particular abracadabra this

inform

us,

was Eunapius does not have samples of these amazing

mainly of strings of bar

liturgies.

They

consisted

Honest Greek was no good. One ran Meu, Threu, Mor, Phor, Teux, Za, Zon, The, Lou, Ge, Ze. The famous "Ephesian letters" were Aski, Kataski, Aix (or Lix), Tetrax, Damnameneus,
baric

names.

Aision.

Sabaoth,

Adonai,

Cherubim,

Seraphim,

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob furnished another equally potent and more intelligible invocation.
It
is

not easy to guess whether such ill-sounding

3 io

NEOPLATONISM
as

vocables

Meu and Threu

are

real

names of

demons, or mere hocus pocus, but these Neoplatonist shed some light on what our Lord meant,
prayers

when He warned His

tions."

"

disciples against

vain repeti

It will be observed, that though the Hellenists

borrowed from the Old Testamert, no one appears of to have followed the example of the seven sons
Sceva.
"A
"

They spared
Christian

the Crucified
woman,"

One

this insult.

old

says

St.

Augustine,

is

wiser than these

philosophers."

men by whom Julian whose advice he relied, was led captive, and on in political affairs. wholly in religious, and largely called men, so utterly is the They are hardly to be
Such was the
faith of

the

element of
position.
It

virility
is

absent from their Eastern

com

curious to note, that in

the fourth

century

and the philosopher seem to In the second century have exchanged was the woman, in the fourth he is the the rhetor who was a litterateur and orator, and man.
the
rhetor
characters.

Libanius,

sat loose to philosophy,

and

has more common-sense, force, than any other among the heroes intelligence, of of Eunapius. Indeed, if we compare the men
the the time, Athanasius with lamblichus, Basil and two Gregories with Aedesius, Chrysanthius, Maximus, was the voyage on it is easy to see how hopeless

which Julian embarked.

Maximus deserves

special

notice.

He

was the

owed chief agent in the perversion of Julian, and he His kind. his success to magic of the most dubious to telepathy brethren confined themselves mainly

IAMBLICHUS AND THE MEN OF JULIAN

311

and thought-reading, but he could do things which the more sober regarded askance, as trenching upon the domain of Goetia or the black art. Eusebius
gave
Julian an ambiguous warning against him, perhaps only intended to whet the prince s curiosity. Chrysanthius, he said,

was the

real teacher

Maximus had com

merce with

hylic powers,

who

drive

men

to

madness.

Julian of course pressed for an explanation, and was then told how by burning a few grains of frank

incense and repeating a hymn, Maximus had made the statue of Hecate first smile, then laugh outright.
"

at the sight," continued he cried, Do not be ingenuous narrator, frightened in a moment the torches in the hands

When we
;

were alarmed

the

"

of the goddess will light up. And quicker than the word there they were, all aflame. But I think nothing of these things ; no more should you ; the
great

thing

is

purification

by the

word."

Julian

replied,

"Farewell,
;

and

stick to

your books (your

books of magic)
wanted."

you have shown

me

the

man

kissed Chrysanthius, and flew off to Ephesus, where Maximus was.

He

When
santhius

became Emperor, he sent for Chry and Maximus. Chrysanthius refused the
Julian

invitation,

but Maximus hastened to court on the wings of desire, undeterred by the evil omens that met him on the road. His conduct was marked by

pride, corruption, and greed. He retained his influence throughout the reign of Jovian, but under

Valentinian

and Valens fell into and treated with such prisoned,

disgrace,
severity

was im
that

he

NEOPLATONISM upon
suicide.

resolved

drank
feet.

first

to give
at this

But

him courage, and supreme moment

His wife brought him poison, fell dead at his

his heart failed

him, and he would not drink.

He

was released from

prison, tried to get a living as a sophist, and failed ; and finally made his way back to Constantinople,

once more brought towards the end of But, the reign of Valens, he suffered himself to overstep the narrow line, that parted theurgy from high

where

his reputation as a wizard

him money and

success.

treason.
fatal

At a

seance,

held in a private house, the

question was propounded, who should be the

next Emperor. metal bowl, bearing within its rim the letters of the alphabet, was placed upon a table. Over it leaned the hierophant, holding between his fingers a ring suspended from a Carpathian
"
"

thread.

The

ring
letter

vibrated
after

within

the
It

bowl,
spelled
out.

and
out
It

touched one

another.

THEO

and stopped.

The

thing
"

leaked

was undoubtedly a case of inquiring against the life of the Emperor," and all concerned in it were

Maximus had not been present, but put to death. he had heard and not reported the secret, and he
perished with the others.

He

deserves, as
It is

reasons.
idolaters.

we said, special notice for two often urged that these men were not They said that they were not ; indeed no

human

one and

But they being ever allowed that he was. all believed that the god or the demon

dwelt in the image and animated it. The statue of Hecate could laugh, if it was rightly approached.

IAMBLICHUS AND THE MEN OF JULIAN

But there
here.
is

313

still

Was Maximus
whole
this

graver question that meets us honest, or was he a rogue?

The same doubt

the
tribe

attaches to Eusebius, and indeed to

that

hung about

Julian.

When

./Edesius displayed

was not

an oracle printed on his hand, some kind of trickery ?

At any

rate the Syrian school has

scientific.

no

living interest,

either religious or

dissenters, but political

They were not merely dissenters. The same worldly

ambitions,
bitter

that degraded the Church during the Arian controversy, acted upon the Pagans with ten times greater virulence. Intelligence and sanctity

fly

the door.

when party strife comes in at school of Athens had accepted its defeat, renounced the world, and settled down to
out of the window

The

peaceful industry.
for the decrees,

Philosophy was never persecuted except by Julian, by which the Apostate in effect drove

the Christians out of public schools, were blows at

learning.

Heathenism

and

magic

were

treated

enough, though, in the case of the latter, nothing was really done that went beyond the positive enactments of the old Roman law. Shortly
harshly
before his death Constantine prohibited
all

sacrifices,

and

Constantius

went

further

heathen worship to cease, and all under penalty of death and confiscation.

ordering all temples to be closed

still,

These

decrees, however, were not enforced with absolute The ancient cult was still tolerated at uniformity.

Rome, at Alexandria, and to some extent at Athens, and probably elsewhere. In the year 368, five years

NEOPLATONISM
word Julian s death, the occurs in a law of Valentinian.
after
"

"Paganism"

first

By

this

time the

towns were mainly Christian, and the old creed was or country districts. driven back into the pagi," Gratian refused to wear the About the same time

ornaments belonging to the Pontifex Maximus, but He was the last Emperor that still retained the title.

stamped it on his coins. from the senate house in

He it was, who removed Rome the statue and altar

The reign of Theodosius is marked by of Victory. two notable events. In 391 the famous Serapeum of at Alexandria was razed, and the sacred places
Hellenism delivered over to the black-robed monks,
"men

in

shape,"
swine."

that

of

their says Eunapius, "but In 394 the senate of Rome, the

life
is

was formally converted, very stronghold of idolatry, and "cast the skin of the old serpent." These
events
decrees.

were attended by new and more stringent In 415 Hypatia was murdered at Alex

informs andria; and in 423 Theodosius the younger

That the world in an edict that Paganism is extinct. the facts, this was not strictly accurate is evident from
that

Proclus
that

made no
St.

disguise

of

his

religious

practices,

Augustine

and

Orosius

wrote

against those barians as a

that

who

judgment to Justinian was compelled

the bar regarded the invasion of on the national apostasy, and

tolerate

Damascius

and

From his friends. that of Theodosius the pagans appear to have enjoyed enforced by the external a

the time of Constantius to

precarious toleration, troubles of the empire. But, even under the sharpest

IAMBLICHUS AND THE MEN OF JULIAN

edicts,

315

few

if

any appear to have

lost their lives for

their religious opinions.

Known

adherents of the old

restriction

gods held high positions in the state, there was no on their use of the pen, and they retained
a practical monopoly of the schools. Magic was a very different thing, and unfortunately it was the Siamese twin of heathenism. It was, as we

have seen, condemned under penalty of death by the Roman law, which entirely ignored the nice distinction

between Goetia and Theurgy, the black and the white There were arts. Themis sometimes slumbered.

many magical books

in Ephesus in St. Paul s time. But the penalties might be enforced. Our Lord was called a Goes, and it is probable that many Christians

were put to death on

this charge.

When

a Christian

mounted

Jewish law against witchcraft came in to sharpen the severity of Roman

the
throne,

the

old

jurisprudence. Eunapius tells us, that under Constantine ^Edesius was obliged to dissemble his

miraculous powers.
bitter prosecution,

Under Constantius
which issued
in the

there was a

imprisonment and torture of a number of persons, though no one "Ammianus appears to have actually lost his life.
complains that no one could wear an amulet round his neck to keep off the ague, or walk through a cemetery by night, without jeopardizing his life as
a magician

No sensible man, he or necromancer. would deny that witchcraft deserved punish adds, ment, but severe penalties ought not to be enforced

except in the case of offences against the life of the This in fact had been the usual practice. sovereign.

316

NEOPLATONISM

We

have seen what was the fate of Maximus under not confined to heathen Valens, but the danger was
philosophers.
lost his
life

John Chrysostorn nearly a book of magic out of the through fishing

In

374

St.

Orontes.
all

Finally, in

394 Theodosius forbade magic

"

maiestas, etiamsi nihil kinds under pain of of salutem principum aut de salute quaesierit." contra Yet even this did not prevent Proclus from enjoying

harmless

reputation

as

a
to

medicine
find

cabalistic

books continued

man, and purchasers and

students.

Upon the whole Paganism was not cruelly treated, and died almost a natural death. There was never
The never called upon to blaspheme their of Edicts did not extend beyond the prohibition more than bruta were little public observances, and the assassination Deplorable excesses, like fulmina. the work of popular of Hypatia, were rare, and were As for magic, it suffered under the old fanaticism. have heathen statutes, and if Christians ought not to at any rate they could find believed in
God.
witchcraft,

any

Inquisition.

The adherents

of

Jupiter

were

ample

their justification for

conduct in the writings of

the enlightened Porphyry.

XXIV
THE SCHOOL OF ATHENS
PROCLUS was born
8,

in

412,

if

the

calculation

Constantinople on February from his horoscope is

correct ; but possibly in 410, in the reign of Theodosius II.; three years before the murder of Hypatia, and twenty-one years after the demolition of the Sera-

peum. His father, Patricius, and mother, Marcella, were Lycians, and not after his birth
long
returned

Xanthus in that country. Like many of the famous Platonic teachers, he was wealthy, and he possessed, what in this flesh-hating but esthetic school was regarded as one of the chief
to

qualifications of a

teacher, striking personal beauty. of a pardonable Marinus vanity.

portraits of him.

Nor was he devoid

had seen numerous

While yet but a boy he was sent to Alexandria, where he studied under Leonas, a rhetorician, and Orion, a grammarian and priest. He learnt Latin also with a view to the law, his father s profession. But while on a brief visit to Constantinople, the god dess of the city appeared to him in a dream, and
called

him

to

philosophy.

On

his

return to Alex-

318

NEOPLATONISM

andria he read Aristotle with the Peripatetic Olympioa religious dorus, and mathematics with Heron,
"

man."

Hence he passed at the age of nineteen to Athens, where the gods were still worshipped, and the most famous teachers of the day were to be found. Two incidents were related in after times as ominous of When he landed from his ship, his future eminence.
he
sat

down

for

moment

rest in

the shrine of
first

Socrates,

not knowing where he was, and the

soil

water he drank on Attic

sacred well.

Shortly after his It was late in the day, the Acropolis.

was drawn from the arrival he went up to

who was
"

just barring the gates,

and the porter, greeted him with the

I

words,
up."

Unless you had come,

should have shut

He

arrived in Athens just in time to hear Plutarch,

who died two

years afterwards.

Under Syrianus he

read seven years, sharpening

his intelligence with the

and drugging it with the study of Aristotle and Plato, and Chaldaean books. Oracles, the Orphic Verses,
But the teacher who left the deepest mark upon his character was Asclepigeneia, the daughter of Plutarch, from whom he acquired the whole art and practice of On the death of Syrianus, about 438, he
theurgy.

became head of the school, Diadochus or successor, and about the same time, at the age of twenty-eight, he on the Timaus, which he published his Commentary At Athens he as his masterpiece. himself
regarded
till

remained
to
fly,

though once he was obliged on account of his religious opinions. probably

his death,

THE SCHOOL OF ATHENS

and remained home.
for

319
Lycian

some time

in shelter in his

He is

described as a

man

of singular amiability and

attractiveness.

He

remained unmarried, but took the

wives

liveliest interest in the welfare of his friends, their

and
and

children.

His friendship with Archiadas was

thought worthy of comparison with that of Damon Phintias. Though a most laborious student, he

He was took an active part in municipal affairs. a severe and diligent teacher, not sparing of rebuke,
flashing out at times into anger, yet placable, watching the morals and progress of his pupils with a friendly

but exacting

eye.

ascetic to an extreme degree, yet

if

In his personal habits he was he would taste meat,

pressed to dp so at a banquet, for courtesy s sake. Every day, Marinus tells us, he delivered five lectures

or more,

and wrote 700

lines.

The

afternoons were

generally spent in conversing on philosophic subjects as he took his exercise, and in the evenings he held a
sort of conversazione.

managed

With all these occupations he combine an unremitting round of religious Three times a day at dawn, at mid observances. and at evening he worshipped the sun. A day, of every night was spent in singing hymns, great part
to
sacrifice,

and prayers, especially for sick friends. month he went down to the sea to perform his Every He observed all the feasts and fasts of lustrations. the Egyptian calendar, and many others, and once
every year he held a solemn office for the repose of the dead.

For such a

life at

that time

no small courage was

320
wanted.

NEOPLATONISM
But Proclus did not lack resolution.
s

When

upon Syrianus, it was the evening of the new moon, and the old professor dis missed him rather curtly, being anxious to get to his devotions as soon as possible, and not knowing what manner of man he had to deal with. But happening to cast a glance through the window, he saw Proclus
he paid his freshman
call

moon

take off his shoes, and do obeisance to the crescent in the open street. In later times the house of
Proclus, apparently
it

was the

official

residence of the

Diadochus or Rector, adjoined the temple of Asclepios, and lay just under the Acropolis. This was conveni
ent, as

he could pass

to

and from

his devotions secure

from prying and hostile eyes.

By

observance

study, .maceration of the flesh, and careful of the rules of Asclepigeneia, Proclus

attained through the political and purificatory to the theurgic virtues. This is the point of view from which

Marinus, his pupil and successor, envisages his life. He became an "eyewitness." Rufinus saw a halo of
light

round

his

head as he lectured.

The Gods

honoured him with constant apparitions, especially in dreams. He was assured that he belonged to the

Hermaic chain," the Platonic apostolical succession, and that the soul of Nicomachus the Pythagorean inhabited his body. When the statue of Pallas was
"

removed from the Parthenon, the goddess appeared to him, and declared her intention of taking up her abode under his roof. Machaon, Pan, Hecate, the Mother of the gods, were constant visitants, and His vision Asclepios came to heal him of the gout.

THE SCHOOL OF ATHENS

is

32!

actual personal converse with bodily Gods,

no longer trance communion with the Absolute, but and his

at showing that these bodily Gods were the Absolute, and not, as Plotinus thought, inferior created beings.

system aims

He wrought miracles also, which Marinus tells us were beyond number. He could summon rain in time of drought, and also prevent earthquakes, though
how
this latter

power was ascertained

full

is

hard to

see.

health the daughter of who lay at the point of death. Before Archiadas, the exercise of his supernatural gifts he made use of
all

By prayer he restored to

the usual magic paraphernalia Chaldsean lustra the Chaldcean a sort of teetotum, tions, strophalos,"
"
"

the

wryneck,"

familiar

to

readers

of

Pindar and

Theocritus, and the tripod.

His death was portended by an eclipse of the sun, which caused an extraordinary darkness, during which the stars were seen at noonday. He expired on
April 17, 485, and was buried in the Syrianus, in the eastern suburb of

same tomb with

Athens, under

Lycabettus. Proclus represents the expiring struggle of Poly theism. Plotinus found Paganism a shelter under
the wings of his Platonism, but treated it as the There is a certain tolerant religion of the vulgar.
scorn in his attitude, as in that of the
the Sanskrit mythology.

Mount

Vedanta towards
fatal.

This,

however, was

Porphyry showed only too clearly, the moment the Gods were seated below the Highest they became

For

as

devils.

Their figures must be carried back without a

322

NEQPLATONISM
delay into the
It

moment s
was
lost.

Holy

of Holies, or the

game

would never do

to confess in the face

of the Church that Hellas had two religions. This is what Proclus saw, and this is the danger he set
himself to avert.

This religious object he achieved by the destruction of Neoplatonism. The system of Plotinus is severely scientific. It is

worked out with a single purpose on true idealist lines, and issues in an unity as complete as is attain able by the mind of man. Polytheism indeed is
there, but
it

used,

and

smuggled in, if the expression may be might be completely dropped without

is

affecting the

The many Gods are general result. but an expression for the Divine Intelligence which permeates all and holds all in sympathy. The object
which Plotinus himself aspires is the One, the Good, the Fountain of the one chain of life and Proclus reason, which reaches through all that is.
to

breaks up this unity at every joint in its stem. The distinctive feature of his method is its schol
asticism.

His Rudiments of Theology is modelled on Euclid, and proceeds, like the Ethics of Spinoza, in deductive catenation from one proposition to another. The distinctive feature of his scholasticism again is a

For this a tendency to divide everything into threes. sort of justification may be found in what Vacherot
calls
"

the

Law

of the

Ternary."

Every product
finite,

being
finite,

complex involves

three principles
;

in
it

and compositum
its

or has three

moments

remains in

cause, goes forth

from

its

cause, and

THE SCHOOL OF ATHENS

returns to
this.
its

323

cause.

One can
is

attach a meaning to

trary

But Proclus brings in fashion, and the result

the
learning

his triads in

most

arbi

a confusion which

neither

of Zeller

nor the lucidity of

Vacherot can render intelligible. Three leading points may be

i.

signalized.

Proclus

Matter.

denies expressly the independence of All comes from the One. Matter in the

is so vanishing a quantity, that its total disappearance makes little or no difference, except in

later Platonists

regard to the origin of

evil.

When

Proclus says,

"

the

he hardly contradicts Plotinus, for even according to that philosopher the body is form, and form is divine. Nevertheless the change left Proclus without any means whatever of accounting for moral evil. All that he of bad men is that

body

is

divine,"

says

they are not receptive," they the divine light."

2.

"go

out of the

way of

The

incommunicable
perating
surely be

three hypostases of the Platonic Trinity are 0rn). This is the most exas
(a>

point
it

in

the

systems

of lamblichus

and

Proclus, for

sounds

like nonsense, yet there

must

some
If there
is

rational explanation.

rest entirely

upon the
is

Triads.

It appears to use of the system of arbitrary a Mind which participates and a

mind which
is

participated in, there

is

must

also,

Proclus

in, which incommunicable (^re x perex^e^og, dfildeKros). But the result is that the Plotinian Good, Intelligence, Soul cease to be fountains of life or causes at all! The whole system of the Enneads becomes a mere

thought, be a

mind which

not participated

324

NEOPLATONISM
with any

cabinet of curiosities, and nothing is left vitality except the Gods and individual souls.
this result is in fact the reason.
3.

Probably

In Plotinus there
is

Proclus there

an

one great chain of Life. In This follows infinity of chains.

is

from what has been said. Each God is a cause and head of a separate family. From the Incommunicable One spring one knows Each has the character a host of Henads. not how
of absolute being, yet each has distinctive qualities. The Henads run down in long lines ; the Intelligible are followed by the Intellectual, these by the Over-

From the again by the Inworldly. the family of Being, from the In Intelligible springs tellectual that of Intelligence, from the Overworldly
worldly, these
that

of Soul, from
"

the
"

Inworldly that

of Nature.

These
into

principal
river
;

chains

are mainly like brooks falling

one

that

which has a body may also have

;

a soul and an intelligence

but they subdivide as they

go down, there are different kinds of intelligences and different kinds of souls dependent on them, so
that the river
rivers.
is perpetually branching off into other Further, there are chains in which the inter
;

mediate links are wanting

intelligence,

there

may be

soul without

and existence without form.

Yet

further,

the principal chains have to be multiplied by the number of Henads ; for each chain is a family de

pending on a God, and exhibiting throughout the It includes not only characteristic of that God.
beings, but the signature of stones, plants, animals, which bear

Angels,

Heroes,

Demons, and human

THE SCHOOL OF ATHENS

the deity,
to

325

and have sacramental

virtues with respect

him.

But these divine characteristics are taken

liturgy, so that the

from the pagan

simple intelligible
to suit the endless

divisions of philosophy are split

up

ramifications of Polytheism.
It
is

details.

needless to perplex the reader with further Enough has been said to show the principal

object that Proclus

had

in

view,

and

the
is,

means
that

justify his religion.

only to the supreme entities of the school, the One, the Intelligence, the Soul, are
it

whereby he sought to attain it. The fact did not want the philosophy, or wanted

he

He

felt that

not Gods at

all.

They do not

feed the spiritual

life

nor minister to the formation of character.

Hence

he labels them
the shelf.
It

"

incommunicable,"
is

and puts them on

Platonism out of

as easy to drop

Proclus as Polytheism out of Plotinus. How much depends here on our estimate of the

and ability of Proclus Victor Cousin, no bad judge, rates him among the first of ancient thinkers, and there can be little doubt that he was a good and religious man. But if so, how powerful is
character
!

his testimony

best

and

the fact that philosophy, even the noblest, cannot satisfy the instincts of the
to

soul!

The

enough

to force Proclus to

though all him, he could find none to quench the hunger and
thirst after righteousness.

school were strong the Incarnation ; but deny the fruits of all the systems were before
prejudices of the

There is, however, another lesson. Proclus aban doned knowledge. God is known, he said, neither
"

3 26

NEOPLATONISM
^

nor by opinion, nor by science, nor by reasoning, but necessarily," that is, by affinity of by intuition,

Each God is known to those who belong to and share his character. Necessarily must mean by emotion, or some kind of unreasoning
nature.
his
"
"

chain

"

"

faith, for

Proclus excludes
reason.

all

or

mixed

He

is

the operations of pure a metaphysician, but he

The uses his metaphysics to destroy metaphysics. ideas are "incommunicable," or, as Dr. Hatch says,
"

God does

not

reveal

metaphysics."

We know
the position

neither the finite nor the infinite, but the third term,

the compositum. of Kantism

?

Is not this very

this

much

Yet

view did not

save Proclus

from the most abject superstition, and its evil effects have been witnessed more than once in the Church. It is nothing but a residuum of metaphysics that
saves Schleiermacher or

Kant from herding with the

Anabaptists.

There remains, as Proclus might have seen if he had been willing to apply his triads here also, a third If philosophy by itself is barren, and faith by course.
itself is

unbridled, there

may be

here too a composi

tum.
lish

Faith
Faith.

may

and Reason may estab This has always been the position of
aid Reason,

Christian theology.

The

succession of the Diadochi ran on after the

death of Proclus for forty-four years, through Marinus

the Samaritan, Isidorus, Zenodotus (about this

name

But there is some doubt), Hegias, and Damascius. of the expiring school was the most famous member commentaries on Aristotle Simplicius, whose learned

THE SCHOOL OF ATHENS

furnish a rich

327

mine of information to the student of Greek philosophy. The only glimpse we get of the

men is afforded by the Life of work of Damascius. It is a catalogue of marvels of the most puerile Some of description. them are natural phenomena, which science has
personality of these
Isidore, the

since

learned to explain. Tiberius had a donkey, which could be made to give off sparks by rubbing his coat. The simple beast was thus used to his master s

prophesy

elevation to the purple equal truth as the first

telegraph.

we may regard him with known ancestor of the electric Ammonianus had another donkey, which
;

but

was so fond of hearing poetry that

hay.

One could read

;

glass of water

it forgot to eat its the future by gazing into a another by means of a crystal sphere ;

another by watching the shapes of the clouds a new art. Asclepiodotus could read in the dark, and Eusebius cast out a devil by adjuring "the rays of the
sun, and the God of the Hebrews." And all the while the practitioners of these arts were being hunted down by the police, and often for their curi paid with their lives. Such was the
"

osity^

martyrdom

appointed for Neoplatonism. In 528 Justinian ordained a new and more stringent persecution, in which Macedonius,
Phocas, and

Thomas

came

the final

Asclepiodotus, the Quaestor perished. In 529 blow. The schools of Athens were

closed and their

endowments

confiscated.

By

this

time the income of the Platonic chair had risen by

successive legacies from three pieces (ro/^a), the rent of the garden in the Academe, bequeathed to his

328
disciples

NEOPLATONISM
by Plato himself,
to

something more than a

thousand.
told.

What became
it

of the

money we

are not

Doubtless
letters.

was not spent on the encourage

ment of

One scene remains, half tragedy, half comedy. Driven from the temples and lecture-halls of Athens,
a
little

band

of seven sages, including Damascius,

Simplicius, Eulalius, Priscian, Hermias, Diogenes, and Isidore, wandered across the desert to seek shelter in
Persia.

Persia was to

them

a sacred land, the

the Zoroastrian mysteries.

home of And Khosru Nushirvan

was the friend and patron of Greek culture. He had caused Aristotle and Plato to be translated into
Syriac,

a learned treatise.

and accepted from Priscian the dedication of There was this amount of found
"

ation for their credulous belief,

that the republic of

Plato was realized

in

the

despotic

government of

Persia, and. that a patriot king reigned over the

piest

hap But they were Their repentance," adds Gibbon, soon undeceived. a precipitate return, and they loudly "was expressed by declared that they had rather die on the borders of

and most virtuous of

"

nations."

the Empire than enjoy the wealth and favour of the After all, Christian Greece was less barbarian."
intolerable than the favoured land of

Ormuzd and

of

peace with the Romans, and stipulated that the seven sages should be exempted from the penal laws, which Justinian
Mithra.
his
first

In 533 Khosru

made

enacted against his pagan greatly to his honour.

subjects.

The

fact

is

With

this

incident

we may

close our story.

But

THE SCHOOL OF ATHENS

life

329

knows no

dates,

which are but as landmarks on

the banks of a river.

sometimes
waters

lost in

again

The stream flows past them, a swamp, sometimes gathering its The Neoin a brimming channel.

platonist held that nothing perishes, and Neoplatonism is still alive, though broken to pieces like the

body of Osiris, or still more aptly, like the image of Its table-rapping, its crystal spheres, gold and clay.
its levitations, its

telepathy,

its

materializations,, are all

in full

play.

Within two miles of the spot where

these lines are written, in the depths of the English midlands, is a theurgist whom Damascius would have

revered as a saint.

Its

bosom

of the Christian Church.

mysticism has lived on in the Its idealism can

never die.
has pronounced its verdict. Heathenism is and magic is the belief of fools. In their effort dead,
to save Polytheism, the ancient sages

Time

succeeded only,
;

like Mezentius, in shackling a corpse to the living

the

union could only infect with disease that which other

wise possessed the seeds of health.
inanities of

All the drivelling

this fatal cause.

Neoplatonism spring from

external

Knowledge of
none.
It

nature
to

they had almost

was not given

their time.

But they

dealt with those supremely interesting eternal ques

tions to

which science,

after all, supplies

no answer

the nature and the

is

to the

communion of God and Man. It mind within us that we must look for their
hope
to find a solution.

solution, so far as reason can

Neoplatonists believed that there is a mind, and their analysis of its operations, primitive and in some

The

330

NEOPLATONISM
its

differs mainly in respects fantastic as it may be, is still largely held. dualism from that which

They were
sistent

the

first
is

to attain to a clear

and con

view of what

meant by

spiritual existence,

of the nature of being, regarded as devoid of exten

sion

and

became

By this great advance they divisibility. the founders of theology, of metaphysics, of

Their in general. psychology, and of mental science ideas are the common stock of mediaeval leading

schoolmen and of modern thinkers, down to Hegel

and Carlyle. But what judgment

results ?

are

we

to pass

on

their practical

They taught, if we look at their doctrines and forget their practice, that there is One God, the fountain of
life,

Good.

name is the thought, and beauty, whose highest He is above nature yet in nature, containing,
By His word
all

not contained.
a meaning
;

things are,

and have

in

Him

rest,

and from

ence, order, perfection,

to

Him flow, all exist He is law, and happiness

;

Him
They

belongs eternity. as a taught that Nature, though changing

is

wisp of vapour,

in type as eternal as the

thought of
is

God which

it

reflects.

They

taught that
is

man

indi

world he vidually eternal, that in this home, yet that God is in him, and ever draws

an exile from

him

upwards by the golden cord of reason. They taught that the upward path lies through duty and thoughtfulness to conscious

communion

with the Divine

that

this is the fullness of being, and happiness, which the They world does not give, and cannot take away.

THE SCHOOL OF ATHENS

taught that sin
is

331

alienation from
;

own punishment
come.

the sensual

misery dogs his steps, in this

God, and brings its is wolfish, and life and in the life to

man

is

Even their crowning doctrine of the Ineffable One not so irrational or so agnostic as it seems. Two of the Divine Hypostases could be known, and they included not only the Goodness, Wisdom, and
Justice,

but even the eternity of God. It was but the Person ality itself, the ultimate root of the Divine Being, that the Neoplatonists held to be withdrawn from rational
cognizance.

Even

this

might be

felt,

personality of one another.

Jules

as we feel the Simon discerned

in the Neoplatonist Trinity a sincere attempt to recon cile the results of pure speculation with those of the

The Supreme God of Plotinus neither the Eleatic One, a mere abstract number, who is devoid of all power of creation ; nor, on the other hand, the in one of anthropomorphic
religious experience.
is

deity,

any

the forms under which

He

has been misconceived.

He

is

the

Head

of

all

things, in

whom

the conflicting

demands of reason and conscience,

strive to find their

science and faith

all

satisfaction,

the synthesis of

the antitheses.

How

like is all this to

Christianity

Yet the two

systems are so unlike that no truce between them was possible. And after a struggle of little more than

200

"

years,

the Galilaean

conquered."

were^ the causes of this bitter hostility, and what means did God thus by pull down the high thoughts of the sons of Plato?

What

NEOPLATONISM
us Augustine has given seventh book of his Confessions.
St.

the

answer in

the

He was led through Platonism to the Gospel, and well he knew of what he writes. Common-sense led him to reject astrology,
and
the magical futilities that follow in its train. cause of evil was a deeper and far more terrible did he wrestle with it before he and
all

The

problem,

long

was led

to

see

that

moral

evil,

the real
will,

difficulty,
it

but from springs not from matter, The a disease but a rebellion.
Incarnation.
that the

that

is

not

last

step was the

He
;

read in the books of the Platonists

Word was God, and that by Him all things were made but that the Word became Flesh and dwelt among us, this he did not read there.
not ignorance, but the cause of ignor the worse to the better ; ance, the sullen resistance of came down," emptied Himself, took upon that God Him the form of a servant to heal this strife these

That

evil is

"

were the points.

whether ancient or According to the philosopher, cannot come down, the universal can modern, God
not

was exactly loveless. He might God said to love with an unchanging love ; but being be all things unto Him unchanging, He could only draw He could not go forth upon the mountains to
of the Platonist
self,

embody

itself in

the particular.

Not

that

the

seek the lost sheep.

But observe. The Love which St. Augustine dis covered was suffering love. Precisely in the suffering Thus the lies its difference from Platonic love.
Incarnation

can

be understood

only through

the

THE SCHOOL OF ATHENS

Crucifixion.
is

333

The

distinctive

emblem

of Christianity
find the whole

the Cross.

There are modern

thinkers,

who

essence of the Gospel in Plato and Plotinus. There is even an influential school of theology, which inclines in the same direction, which stumbles over
the notion of the just suffering for the unjust, and vicarious with a certain dread. regards the word
"
"

What we
if

call Sanctification, the

mode by which
with the Lord,
-to
all
is

the
is,

forgiven sinner

becomes one
"

spirit

we may take it by itself, largely common Idealism. The idea of sonship belongs to
"

all

the
the

later

Greek schools, even

?

to Stoicism.

But how

Is there such a thing as forgive the penal ignorance enlightened, and the penal hardness softened, and the upward way

sinner forgiven

ness?

How

is

made

possible?

The Church
"

replied, "Through the

sufferings of
Death,"

Christ,"

through the sacrifice of His

is broken by the This was what the Platonist

as the wilfulness of the child

his

tears of

mother.

denied, and denies.

What

are

known

as

"ethical

theories"

of the

Atonement, are widely diffused in these vague and But they ignore the commonest good-natured days.
fact of life, the law of vicarious suffering ; they render the Gospel in the terms of Plato, and they may be held, and actually are held, by those who deny the

Incarnation altogether.

XXV
LATER INFLUENCE OF PLATONISM ON THE CHURCH
ORIGENISM, that is to say, the theodicy of Origen, was little more than an incident in the history of the
Origen s theory of creation vanished almost His tenet of Catharsis, or Purification, immediately. was absorbed by the growing belief in Purgatory but it was held that after death no repentance, no change
Church.
;

of will, was possible. Universalism, though condemned, reappeared from time to time, but was generally based,
as

we

shall

see,

on a

different

foundation.

The

doctor is buried learning of the great Alexandrine under the mountain of modern acquirements, like

Typhoeus under Inarime, but he left to the Christian from world, even though his heirs do not always know

whom

the legacy

is

derived,

his

fearless

spirit,

his

of the spirit Allegorism, that is to say, the love the letter, his devotion to learning and his profound and
cultivated belief in essential

beneath

dogma. Like Augustus, he found his city of brick, and he left it of marble. It is needless to dwell in detail on the influence of Platonism, or Neoplatonism, upon the main stream
of theology after

Origen.

Even before Nicaea

that

INFLUENCE OF PLATONISM ON THE CHURCH

influence was

33$

almost wholly limited

It

.to

the idea of

timeless existence.

ism

is

taught the Church that material not consistent with true religion, nor with the

right understanding of Scripture, but the interest in

the

full

sufficient to

humanity of our Lord was much more than save the Church, as a whole, from the

opposite danger of identifying the God of conscience with the abstractions of the schools.

Idealism pointed out the direction in which the No meeting point of religion and science must lie.

more than
rise

this

from

results to the

can be accomplished, until science can first cause.As yet this has

we might
complete
question.

not been done, but so long as science lags behind, as well attempt to reconcile Euclid with
with
biology.

Shakespeare, as faith
herself

Science must
enter

before

she can

upon

the

her God, we shall be in a position to whether her laws are judge akin, or not akin, to those of conscience enlightened
she

When

has discovered

by

Thought, though how the Thought came to be a Thing we do not know.

Arianism,
Aristotelic.
like

revelation. At present we can only insist that, at every turn, science presupposes Mind, which has so far eluded her grasp, that the Thing is a

other
it

ante-Nicene

heresies,

was

Hence

insisted

upon the

solitary unity

of the First Cause, and applied to every other form of being the Aristotelic distinction of and
potentiality
actuality, of

matter and form.

It

followed that there

could not be

Two

uncreated, that Begotten meant the

same thing

as Created,

and

that

neither

Son nor

336
Spirit

NEOPLATONISM
could be
"
"

everlasting

(qidioG

the

word

does not occur in Aristotle, and al^v^ in his diction, All these positions means simply the sum of time
"

").

Plotinus would have denied.

"Begetting,"

indeed,

is

the very word that he employs to denote the relation Athanasius also denied of his timeless hypostases.

ground of

them, but not for the same reasons as Plotinus. The his faith is expressed in one sentence of the

De

Incarnatione.
all,

"

The Word
to

alone was able to re

for
all,

create

and
all

sufficient

suffer

and

to

intercede for

with the

Father."

For the mediator

of forgiveness, for the example of obedience, for the

representative and High priest, he, like St. Anselm, wanted a Saviour, who was truly a Divine Person, not

merely the Intelligence of God, not the mere unfolding of the Monad into consciousness. Athanasius taught
the existence of Three Persons in one Deity.

The

three hypostases of the Neoplatonist really formed but

one, and that an incomplete, because purely intellectual

It was by no person. the Church at Nicaea.

means Hellenism

that saved

From
for

this

time philosophy becomes a mere

name

Christian culture.
its

Theology went
destiny.
still,

and worked out

own

way, Platonism, of the

indeed, called in

its

own

Plotinian or earlier stamp, was

to illustrate the doctrine of the Trinity, or of divine

a limited application of providence, or to support, by In this its arguments, the deathlessness of the soul. sense its traces are to be found in many of the Greek
fathers

eighth century, when darkness settled on the Eastern Church, in the lumina Cappa-

down

to the

INFLUENCE OF PLATONISM ON THE CHURCH

in

337

dodae, Eusebius, Cyril, Theodoret, Nemesius, Aeneas of Gaza. In the West, the idealist cast of thought found its noblest and most enduring expression

knew

This great divine theology of St. Augustine. the works of the Greek philosophers only in Latin translations and ran analyses, but his
thought

in the

parallel to theirs.
is

To him

as to the Platonist

evil

defect,"

and the reconciliation between God and

effort,

man
that

is
is,

brought about, not by

but by grace,

by

love.

The emphatic proclamation of

crowning merit. light casts the darkest shadow. claimed or deserved. The
always
"What

the power of love

is

St.

Augustine

But the brightest

Love
me?"

is

given, not

cry

of the

beloved

is

didst

Thou

see in

Non sum tanti, Jesu, quanti Amor tuus aestimat."

Only by logical inconsistency can the exaltation of love be saved from determinism, and only by pantheism from the exaggeration of moral evil. was
Augustine
logical,

and no pantheist.

He

fallen nature, but against a real

drew a dark picture of sin he set a real love.

Like all the great doctors, he builds his theology on conscience, not on the abstract reason. The love that he preaches is the love of Jesus, not of the Absolute
;

indeed, the main reason of his austerity. For Jesus is the most austere of masters, and John is the most austere of evangelists. From Platonis,

and

this

Augustine

ism,

if

so

it

may be
its

casting off in

on through Luther, course more and more of those

called, runs

338

NEOPLATONISM

that kept Augustiniansalutary restraining influences, bounds of the Catholic Church. ism within the

We
little

have

said, that after

Nicaea Plato nism became

more than an accomplishment.

one remarkable

There

is,

how

ever,
is

Synesius of Cyrene,

exception to this statement ; it Bishop of Ptolemais in the

of Kingsley know him Libyan Pentapolis. Readers and his biography has been written for this series well, a burly, jolly, kindly, by Miss Gardner. He was
cultivated

man
years,

famous
"

for his genealogy,

the very ideal of a squire-parson which ran back for seventeen

hundred

the longest pedigree ever

and began with the god Herakles, known Gibbon calls it

"

for his friendship with

at least a

Hypatia,

who

was, by the way,

middle-aged woman,

for his love of horses

and dogs, and

his hatred of oppression.

An

educated

who was honour Tory gentleman, we may style him, by his bold and statesmanlike ably distinguished
in an age of great disorder championship of the poor and calamity. But he was also an exceedingly Broad

Churchman.

Theophilus of Alexandria pro him Bishop, Synesius felt two posed to consecrate

When

his love for his wife great difficulties,

and

his theo

logical opinions.

Let us hear what he has to say on

law and the sacred hand of Theo
wife.
I

these points.

God and the philus gave me a

to

do

therefore give

all

men

know, and do be separated from her, nor will I live with her secretly But I shall will and pray, that many as a paramour.

will neither solemnly protest, that I

good children may be

bom

to us.

INFLUENCE OF PLATONISM ON THE CHURCH

339

"There is one other thing that Theophilus need It is the not be told, because he knows it already. is difficult, indeed impossible, It chief point of all.

that those beliefs which the demonstrations of science

have implanted

in

the soul, should be shaken.

In

many respects philosophy contradicts received dogmas. I shall nev.er believe that the soul is born after the
I shall not say, that the world and its parts body. are destined to perish together. The much preached-

of Resurrection

look upon as a holy mystery, and

)l

am

far

from agreeing with the opinion of the many.

The

philosophic intelligence, in short, while it beTrroldsthe truth, admits the necessity of lying. Light"eorreF"

spends to truth, but the eye is dull of vision ; it cannot As twilight without injury gaze on the infinite light. is more comfortable for the eye, so, I hold, is falsehood The truth can only for the common run of people.
be harmful for those who are unable to gaze on the
reality.

If the laws of the priesthood permit

me

to

hold

this position,

then

can accept consecration,

keeping

my philosophy to myself at home, and preaching fables out of doors." Gibbon chuckles over Synesius with great delight, and thinks the love of a wife and the love of philosophy
equally amusing in a prelate.
that his

Most readers

will think,

manly conjugal fidelity is a fine trait, and that it would have been better for the Church if there had been more bishops like him in this. But his orthodoxy
leaves

much

to be desired.

The
;

date of the soul

creation was an open question

and he does not say

exactly what he believed about the

Day

of

Judgment

340

NEOPLATONISM

and the Resurrection. But he puts philosophy above "lies the creed, and seems to regard all dogmas as
in the Platonic sense, that
is

"

use Carlyle
very
little

expression,

clothes."

to say, as allegories, or, to There is, in fact,

not have any of his works that might a heathen Neoplatonist, and neither been written by Miss Gardner nor Vacherot can quite decide whether But he was a good man, he was a Christian at all.
in

and a good Bishop, and he rode

straight.

He

did

not hold his tongue that he might hold preferment. What he sought in the Episcopacy was not lucre, but Whether the opportunity of great and perilous work. but there this is a sufficient excuse may be doubted ;

can be no doubt as to the immorality of Theophilus, who persecuted Chrysostom and consecrated Synesius. We have been speaking of the influence of the older the whole, by no Neoplatonism, which was, upon

means unhealthy. But in the sixth century, when the shadows of night were beginning to fall, we come into contact with a much more questionable phenome
which gathering up, non, the influence of Proclianism, a phase of feeling never wholly and giving shape to,
in absent from the Church, and already conspicuous the Monks, gave birth to Mysticism. This Clement and the Areopagite. begins for literature with Dionysius this author was is not known, but his date Who

can be fixed with tolerable accuracy.

were quoted under Justinian, in 532.
are

His works

in a conference, held at Constantinople

steeped

in the

the other hand, they terminology of Proclus, peculiar

On

a and presuppose the Rudiments of that philosopher,

INFLUENCE OF PLATONISM ON THE CHURCH

341

calls

Hierotheus the pupil of - after Paul." him,

work which cannot well have been composed before He calls himself Dionysius the priest, and represents himself as the friend of Timothy and Titus, as the contemporary of the Apostles, as a disciple of
440.
St.

Paul

He

; my teacher he does not speik either of

"

"

Athens or of the Areopagus, but, in the first mention that we have of him, he is styled "the Areopagite." Whether it was his intention to himself off as
pass
the

Athenian judge may be doubted. He speaks of himself as having been at Heliopolis in Egypt on the day of the Crucifixion, and we should
hardly expect to find an Areopagite there. In any case the domino may have been merely an odd piece of mystic self-denial. In the Letter to it

converted

Demophilus dropped entirely ; and possibly Dionysius himself would have been to learn greatly
is

surprised

that his

harmless masquerade had been taken seriously. it made him the patron saint of France. Dionysius starts with the "chains," the
of Proclus.
is

But

"triplets"

stands the Trinity. Beneath this the Celestial Hierarchy, a square of three triplets
all
1. 2.

Above

Thrones, Cherubim, Seraphim. Powers, Dominions, Mights.

Angels, Archangels,
;

3i.

Principalities.

(Cp.

21

Eph

Col.

i.

16.)

Beneath
i.

ment.
2.

this again comes the Earthly Hierarchy Three Sacraments; Baptism, Eucharist, Oint

Three Ecclesiastical Orders;

Deacon,

Priest,

Bishop.

342
3.

NEOPLATONISM
;

Three Lay Orders municants, Monks.

first.

Non-communicants,

Com
is

In each of these triplets the lowest

the

member

put
the

Right
triple

through

Hierarchies flows

down

tion

and Perfec grace of Purification, Enlightenment, links of the chain passing it on to the
higher
as with Proclus, philosophy has
life.

the lower.

With Dionysius
place at
all

no

in the religious
is

The

object of con

templation

Further it will be purely ecclesiastical. Saviour and observed, how between the superessential man is interposed a long-drawn procession, on earth in of officers, symbols, rites ; in heaven of angels The object is to provide the interminable sequence.
soul with a staircase,

up which
star to

it

may
is

climb from
it

from mystery to mystery,

the very fount of
light.

star, till

reaches

The

result

to shut out the

and to give the mystic penitent from his Redeemer, to do to dream about, that he has no time so much
anything.

The

length of the

Upward
is

"endless genealogies,"

common

Path, spun out through but not universal

feature of Mysticism.
in Scripture or

any

has no justification, either Nor has Mysticism philosophy. with connection, direct or indirect, necessary
It

in

Sometimes, as in called. metaphysics properly so naturally Plotinus, it has a direct connection, growing Sometimes it has a negative out of the
speculations. or indirect connection

pious souls of the schools, and take grow weary of the debates
;

it

is

a recoil

INFLUENCE OF PLATONISM ON THE CHURCH

343

refuge in positive affirmations. But the great Mystics, the Hebrew and Christian prophets, knew nothing whatever about the perplexities of the intelligence.

In

fact,

Mysticism appears to have but two essential

the belief in the possibility of contact with
evil,

features

the personality of God, and the denial of

which
takes

must be regarded,
as
practically
place.

either as in itself non-existent, or

abolished

before

the

contact

Both the belief and the denial are

religious

common
when

to all
evil

people; the question

is

only,

ceases to be.

The Areopagite
like Proclus,

to kick
is

mounted.

He

but only, the ladder by which he the prince of Mystics, because he

starts with metaphysics,

down

expounds

the rationale

of

his

belief with

perfect

simplicity, without the least attempt to compromise with theology.

God Himself is
are Being, Life,
triplet).
all
is

He

is

a Trinity, whose first manifestations and Wisdom (this again is a Proclian the Absolute, above all Essence, and

Knowledge.

Such knowledge as we have of

Him

derived entirely from Scripture. It has two branches, according as it is directed to His operations or His
Self.

Accordingly,
as

ways
Life,
call

we express our knowledge in two by position or by abstraction ; that is to say,

by analogies,
Light,

when we
;

call

Him

Father, King,
as when we The latter is

Reason

or

by negations,
immaterial.
;

Him

infinite, timeless,

the higher and better

method

and the task of the

perfected believer is to rise up, above all symbols and metaphors, to the bare idea, from ignorance draping

344
itself in

NEOPLATONISM
words to ignorance confessed, to penetrate darkness," in which God dwells on the secret
"

the

"

To Dionysius darkness means heights of Sinai. 11 and is metaphysical, but with other formlessness
"
"

Mystics

it

the believer

often bears a moral sense, and expresses s impatience with the confusions, not of
life.

thought, but of

The Upward Path

is

made
for
is

possible by Love, the Inner Light,

and the word

Eros

Love

is

no longer Agape, but Eros.

Platonic term, but in the

no longer purely ideal. passionate, and expresses the

to

mouth of the Mystic it is It has become sensuous and

desire of one personality
is

merge

into another.

The change
"

marked by
crucified,"

the famous phrase of Ignatius

My Love is

which Dionysius quotes at the expense of an ana chronism ; but, more distinctly still, by the free use of the Song of Songs, which inspired the Amatory

Hymns

of Hierotheus, and was always a favourite

influences
that

book with the Mystics. Here we trace the same Syrian

shaped the thoughts of lamblichus and Proclus. Hierotheus is probably to be identified with BarSudaili, an Edessan Monophysite abbot of the fifth
century.

The yearning

of the
;

soul

for

the

Risen
it

Lord

is

distinctively Christian

at

the same

time,

is

the only result left of the Humanity of Jesus ; for in the mind of Dionysius the sacraments, the Life, the

mere symbols. They belong to the This Earthly Hierarchy, and must be left behind. that it is possible to mount above all ordinances, belief,
Passion,
are
all

law,

all

doctrine,

is

the

common

property of the

INFLUENCE OF PLATONISM ON THE CHURCH

Mystics,

345

grew

stricter

and tended more and more, as and the Church more corrupt,
authorities.

discipline
to embroil
is

them with the

be regarded,

Indeed Mysticism
as

to

almost

universally,

revolt,

not

against difficulties of belief, but against the wickedness of the times, and the inability of the Church to bridle

the world about her.

In Mysticism Eros

God and man,

which

in

is the only moral link left between other words, the one point on

rests the personality of either.

Evil, and with it Justice are blotted out entirely from the

For

and Responsibility,

mind

There cannot, he

says, be two principles.

of Dionysius. All is of

God

the only difference is, that those things which Evil is partake more of God are nearer to Him.
;

Nothing

it

cannot be.

and therefore cannot

act.

philosophers, from Heraclitus downwards, thought that what we call physical evil might be But Dionysius necessary to the sum of things.

The Greek

denies

this.

Life

may indeed be
closer,
it is

said to

come out

of

death

but, if
life,

you look

not the death, which

produces

but the living force enduring through,

and fed by, the dissolution of the organism. There is no such Take away from thing as a bad nature. the lion its ferocity, and you rob the creature of the Vice is mis safeguard given to it by its Creator.
taken virtue.
All
is

good.

What we

call

evil,

is

merely

inability to discharge the

the divinely-fashioned nature.

proper functions of Hence Justice is that

whereby God preserves each essence intact in its appointed station, and enables it to do its proper

346
work.

NEOPLATONISM
This
is

treats pure Platonism, and Dionysius to the Atone the theme without a single reference

ment.

Thus his own

possible

the Mystic,
shadow."

as

Plutarch

said,

"jumps

off

Indeed Dionysius,
that

like Proclus,

does not think

it

the

Cross, or any other agency, can

near to him, but change the mind of God. We draw near to us, because He is everywhere He never draws and changes not. Hence, in a well-known passage, of light let down from Prayer is compared to a chain climb up it, hand over hand, we As we heaven. seem to draw the chain down, but really draw our Or again, to the cable of a ship. It is selves up. a rock and, as the manner hauls upon it, he fastened to

rock nearer to his seems, but only seems, to pull the The beauty of the Areopagite s expression boat.

must not disguise from us the

view
is

fact,

that his

whole

Pantheistic.

Universalism.
abolishes
it.

back to Thus, by another road, we have come insists upon freedom Dionysius Origen
;

Origen which to Dionysius has little both God is End as well as Beginning, and the goal
coincides.

takes

from Justice, But to or no meaning.

his
start

than a hortus

But these dry abstracts of thought are no better of the siccus, in which all the perfume of flower is evaporated. Mysticism is the paradox
paradoxes.
its

Nothing

extravagances,

easier to gibe at ; yet, in all there is something that lies very

is

close to the heart of Christianity.

It

seems so barren

INFLUENCE OF PLATONISM ON THE CHURCH

yet,

347
in

directly or indirectly,

what force there was

Francis, or Bernard, or Bonaventura, or Grossetete, or a Kempis Let us listen to the story of

!

Carpus,
shall

and see what the

find the

real

Dionysius was.

Here we

key Carpus was a man of Crete, so favoured by God, that he never celebrated the Eucharist without
enjoy

to the contradiction.

Yet once the saint ing a vision of heavenly bliss. had violated the law of love, and he told Dionysius

how he had been chastised for his sin. One of his converts had been seduced back
heathenism

into

There by an unregenerate comrade. must have been something peculiarly distressing in the circumstances, for Carpus was so deeply shocked,
that instead of praying for the two sinners, as he In ought to have done, he was filled with wrath. this agitation of mind he retired to rest, and after

a brief and troubled slumber, rose at midnight to But his anger was still perform his usual devotions.

hot within him, and on his knees he begged God to blast with His thunderbolt both the tempter and the

tempted. Scarce had he framed this dreadful petition, when the house seemed to be riven asunder, and a blaze of
unearthly light shone all around. Raising his eyes, he saw Jesus, seated on the ridge of heaven, en

compassed by angels in human form. But, looking down, he beheld the two wretches whom he had cursed, staggering on the brink of a hideous gulf.

Out

of the pit

came

who hauled and

and shadows as of men, cozened and fascinated the dragged,

serpents,

348

NEOPLATONISM
pair, so that, half-resisting, half-consenting,

unhappy

fierce delight, and them again, because they had not yet But once more he raised his eyes. Jesus perished. had stepped down from His throne in pity, and was

they were tumbling into the abyss. Carpus gazed on their peril with
cursed

holding out His arms

to the

the angels also were clinging

two sinners, and pulling them back from the

the
"

precipice.

Reach out thy Lord spoke to Carpus For I am ready once more to hand, and smite Me. Do thou see to it suffer for the salvation of men. whether thou wouldest rather dwell with God, and the

Then

good and merciful

pit-

angels, or with the dragons in the

The works

by Scotus Erigena

of Dionysius were translated into Latin in the ninth century, and again by
in the twelfth.

John of Salisbury
sophical, the other
i.

From

this

date

his influence parts into

two streams, one more philo

religious.

more

His work

fell

in with those other causes,

which

produced the great Pantheistic outburst of the twelfth These were the streaming in from Sicily, century. and afterwards more fully from Spain, of the Arabian

and Jewish Aristotelianism, which, under the influence of Neoplatonism and Orientalism, had assumed a With Aristotle came the strongly Pantheistic cast.

De

Causis,

which

is,

in fact, the

Rudiments of Proclus,

and the Fons

mixture of this

Vitae

of the

Jew Avicebron.

perilous
to

stuff with

had led everywhere

violent

The Mahomedanism The explosions.

"

INFLUENCE OF PLATONISM ON THE CHURCH

doctrine of
Avicenna,"

349

says Makrizi,

"brought

upon
to

religion disasters too terrible

for words.

It

served

only to foster the errors of heretics,

their

and added
(Algazel)

the

impiety fresh revolt, as the

impiety."

Gazali
of

led

champion
in

cism,
East.

and succeeded

mysti destroying philosophy in the

orthodox

cyclone through Provence into the French schools.

In Spain, the writings of Ibn-Rosch (Averroes) pro voked another violent outbreak of persecution, and here too the licence of thought was suppressed by the arm of the law. From Spain the moved on

Towards

the end of the twelfth century, David of Dinan and Amaury of Chartres (or de Bennes) taught that God is all, and that all is God a heresy which was traced ;

back by Gerson to the audacious Scotus Erigena, "who had borrowed it from a monk named Maximus."

Maximus was
Dionysius.

the

well-known

commentator

on

himself professed to have learned what he taught from the Epistles of St. Paul but he ; was the disciple not only of Dionysius, but of another

Amaury

famous mystic, Joachim of Flora (Fiore in Calabria), who spoke of Rome as the Whore of Babylon, and
prophesied the advent of the third age, the age of the Holy Ghost, when all sacerdotalism was to be swept The Pantheism of the Amalricians away. brought them into direct collision with the Church. It
taught,
in St.

Holy Spirit was as truly in Ovid as Augustine," and that all sacraments are dead
"the

that

forms.

Nine of the

disciples of Amaury were burnt by the Council of Paris in 1210, and the reading of the

35

NEOPLATONISM

of Aristotle was for a time Physics and Metaphysics But Joachitism lingered long in the prohibited. South of France, and the infection clung to the

schools of Paris:

As

late as

1276 Etienne Tempier,

that Bishop of Paris, complains

"that

some

of his students

in philosophy, maintained, things might be true as if true according to the Catholic faith though not
;

there were two

against the truth of truths, there were truth in the sayings of damned scripture,

and

as

if,

Gentiles."

The danger
great,

to the

and the danger

Church was undoubtedly very to philosophy was hardly less.

not of fell in the thirteenth century, an age but of regeneration, most fruitful in great men decay It was averted for the time, and great achievements. sword or fagot, though both were freely em not

But

it

by

the stirring life, which ployed, but by the great Dominican teachers, Albert and the powerful orders of the Friars. wish to pursue the interesting, and in

brought forth

and Thomas, But those who

England little must be referred to known, history of scholasticism, and the works of Vacherot, Jourdain, Haureau,
the Inquisition in the (See also History of New York Harper Lea. Middle Ages, by H. C.

Renan.

Brothers, 1888.)
2.

Nor can we do more than

Mysticism.
it

for the history of

From

point out authorities the days of the

itself at

New

Testament prophets
But

has never been wholly has manifested

absent from the Church.

times in wild revolt.

It

for the strong

hand

of

St.

Paul the Corinthian prophets would have rent the

INFLUENCE OF PLATONISM ON THE CHURCH

Church
into pieces

351

and the history of the ; Montanists, of the Fraticelli, of the Anabaptists shows how fiery and explosive the Inner Light may be, when heated
by contagion and opposition. Mysticism is always a But in our Western world it has protesting spirit. shown, upon the whole, neither the taste nor the
capacity for organizing multitudes too sensitive, too fond of reverie.
;

it is

too fastidious,

The Church would

be nothing without it; for it is the spirit of the prophet and of the saint; but it can neither form nor sustain a church, for this is the work of the priest.
properly speaking, no history of the Mystics ; They are like a chain of stars, each separated from the other by a gulf. We can trace
is,

There

only biographies.

resemblances, even connections

tell us,
is

but they themselves

sun,

that the light

not passed on at

or

books; and the Tauler wakes

usually reads beacon of Dionysius, or Joachim, the kindred soul across seas or

comes direct from the all. Yet the Mystic

and

centuries.

dry history of the French Victorines

in

will

be

found

Haure au.

The

troubles

of the

spiritual

Franciscans are recorded by Milman, Neander, and Lea. German Mysticism is the theme of many learned works which are enumerated in
the

DogSt.

mengeschichte of Dr.

Harnack

and the

lives

of

Bernard, a Kempis, Fenelon,

Madame de Guyon, and

Hours with

Swedenborg are readily accessible. Those who are interested in the subject will not fail to read Vaughan s
the Mystics.

of English readers are the

Two books within easy reach Dark Night of the Soul, by

352
St.

NEOPLATONISM

John of the Cross, and the immortal De Imitatione ;

its

the former shows us Mysticism at

is

worst, the latter

relation
in the

above

all praise.

good account of the

Christi,

of a

Kempis

to earlier Mystics will

be found

Story of the Imitatio

by Mr. Leonard A.

Wheatley.

INDEX
(For names ofprincipal philosophers,
see list

of chapters.}

ACADEMICS, 10

sqq.

Aedesius, 309, 315.

Aestheticism, 25,

Agathion, 61. Agnosticism, Magnus, 350. Albinus (or Alcinous), 47, 121, 123 Sq. 195, 205. Alexander of Abonoteichos, 52, 101, 106. Alexander Polyhistor, 30. 28.
t

34, 54, 59, 77 sqq., Albertus 199, 288.

273 sqq.

349-

Amelias, 147, 186, 188.

the Peripatetic, 82, 162, 182, 189, 297. Angel, 45, 306, 324, 341. 46. Apathy, 168, 175 Sqq.

Ammonius

Alexis, Amaury Ammianus Marcellinus, 315! Ammonius Saccas, 47, 91.

Antiochus,
239.

Apprehension,
29.

Arab
30,

philosophers,
sqq., 88,

348

sqq.

Archytas,

Aristotle,

48

122, 155, 171, 195,

I9 8, 335, 348.

Aquinas, 146,

350. 318.

Asceticism, 28, 34, 149, 181, 269, 297. Asclepigeneia, Athanasius, 60, 115, 142, 157, 167, 173, 336. Atone

ment, 43, 53 sqq., 149, 170, 333, 346. SOD, 310, 314, 332, 337 /
.

Augustine, 157, 295.

BAR-SUDAILI, 344 Berkeley, 12, 197. Bernard, 142, 347. Blandma, 24, 108. Buddhism, 21, 40. CALLISTUS (Pope), 108. Calvisius
84, 197. icism,

Carpus, 347.
141, 151,

102,

Taurus, 64. Carlyle, 23, Castricius Firmus, 188, 297. Cathol I5 6, 173. Chastity, 38, 74, 84, 128
sq.

149, 297.
30,

35-

Chrysanthius, 310 City of God, 23,

108.

74,

Cement of Rome,
eternal

Chrysippus, 20, 24. IO 8. Cleanthes,

Cicero
18,

20.

Co-perception,

earlier Platonists, 91,

247; work of evil God, 148; mode cannot be understood, 304.

93

239. Creation, eternal in later, 2Q

sqq., 243,

of,

234

247

DAMASCIUS,

326, 328.

Cyprian, 174. David of Dinan, 349.

Deification of

354
men,
52, 61, 137.

INDEX
76.

Deism, 50,

Demonax,

52.

Demons,

agents of Providence, 19, 33, 41, 90, 95, 117 ; mediators of pagan atonement, 53, 93 ; devils, 60, 299, 308 ; prophets, Diogenes Laertius, 27, 95, 132 ; casting out of, 149, 327.
34?
37-

Dionysius
154.

of

Alexandria,
42,
29.

171.

Dionysius

the

Areopagite, 340 sqq.

EBIONITES,

Ecstasy,

91,

133.

Empedocles,

115.

Ennius, 29.

Epicharmus,

Epictetus,

108, 155. Epicurus, IO sqq., 50. 1 86. Eudocia, 181. Essenes, 29, 137.

10 sqq., 46, 87, Erasmus, 14. Erennius,

Euphrates, 40, 69.

Eusebius,
327.

Christian,

41, 48,
;

Evil, in Stoicism, 23

Plotinus,

256
349.
89,

of Proclus,

Eusebius, Pagan, 311, evil god, 96, 147 ; theory of 323 ; of Dionysius, 345 ; of

160.

Amaury, FEAR, 58,

Evolution, 113, 115, 136, 262.

175,

299,

345.

Form, 2O2

Fraticelli,

35

Future State, 95, 171, 271, 296.

GNOSTICISM, 97, 102, 127, 146, 255. Golden Verses, 29, 32. HEGESIPPUS, 160. Hellenism, 63, 134 sqq. Heraclitus, 153, Hennas, 108, 147. Hermes Trismegistus, 127, 308. 192. Herodes Atticus, 61, 72. Herodotus, 28, 82. Hierocles,
39, 105.
1

Hierotheus (Bar-Sudaili), 344.

Sacrifice, 60, 95, 300.

Hippolytus, 147,

60.

Human

Hypostasis, 241.
Idealism, modern, 135.

IDEA, 119, 121

254.
157,
1

sq. t

132, 202,

214^.

Idolatry, 77, 117, 254, 310.

66.

Incarnation, 36, 104, 113, 248,

JOACHIM
337.

Irenaeus, 147, 150, 151, 153, Inspired peoples, 35. Isis, 56. Isidorus, 326, 327. of Flora, 349. John, St., 145, 157, 161, 177, 248,

John Chrysostom, 316,

Justin Martyr,

19, 64,

109,

122, 153, 171.

LAWS,
327.
1

against Magic, 301, 312, 315

Locke,
Love,

14,

20.

; against heathenism, 313, Logos, Stoic, spermatic or seminal,

8, 20.

Platonic, 93, 128, 203, 242.

Stoic,
24.

Christian, 145,
85,
128,

153,

167.

Platonic,

248,

273.

Christian,
65.

168,

172,

177, 269, 332, 337, 344.

Lucian, 52,

Luther, 170, 174, 178, 337.

40, 60, 149, 249, 257, 300, 303, 307, 315, 321. Makrizi, Man s place in Nature, ill, 257. Marcus Aurelius,

MAGIC,
349.

20, 24, 25, 85.

Marinus, biographer of Proclus,

317326.
the

Matter, 93, 194, 205, 323.

Maximus, 310.

Maximus

355
Monk,
Kufus,
S
W">

349.

Maximus

Tyrius,

47,

249.

Melito,

166.

Mithraism, 155.
13.

Moderatus, 44, 47. Musaeus, 28. Musonius Mysteries, 55 Sqq. t 126. Mysticism, 176, 279

340

sqq.

NATURE

251

Nicomachus,
29.

44, 90.

Numenius,

47,

123,

IO2, 189.

OCELLUS LUCANUS,
91,

117,

121,

msqq.
,

One and Many = Soul,

233
sqq., 242.

Olympius, 185. One, 33, 41, 52, 124, 166, 185, 189, 220, 223, 233, 279, 349. 242. One-Many Intelligence, 213

PerePheidias, 76 sqq. Philo, 47, 122, 123, 162 289 Pius, pope, 108. Plato, 10, 49, 98, 118, 232. Plutarch of Athens, 318. Prayer, 41, 89, 249, 257, 298, 309, 346. Pnscianus, 328. Providence, 50, 90, 95, 117, 249. REALISM in Art, 278. Resurrection of Body, 115, 271, 296, 307, 339- Ritschlianism, 138 sqq. Rogatianus, 184. Roman
grinus, 53.
religion, 54.

Ongen, PANTAENUS, 161. Pantheism, 2 5, 4, US, 142, 145, 157,

Oracles, 52, 70, 94, 312. heathen, 186. Orpheus, 28.

17, 31, 33, 86, 127.

Orgies, 55

Paul, St.,

161, 178, 183, 289, 350.

SCEPTICISM, u.
Seneca,
25.

Ruskin, 200. Schools closed, 327. Scotus Erigena, 348. Sensationalism, 15. Simplicity 326, 328.
Aristotelian, 51, 264.
124, 212,
.

Socrates, 25, 106, 153, 318.

gorean, 32, 263.

85.

Of Of

Soul, Stoic view, 19. PythaView of Plutarch,

222, 226, 243, 257

Plotinus,

219,

Apuleius,
307.

129 5qq

Proclus, creates of, 254 ; body, 205, 227, 244, 253, 259. Immortality of, 20, 51, 89, and lower soul of man, 259. Higher 253, 258, 271 ; not in body, 255. Space, 207. Spinoza, 17. Superstition, 89. Synesms of Cyrene, 338. Syrian Goddess, 57. Syrianus
318, 320.

Of Porphyry, 296. 325. Coming down

Of Of lambli chus,

TARSUS,

s ??-> 2

25. Tempier, Bishop of Paris, 350. Tertullian, 166. Time, 210, 240. Transmigation, 33 ; into brutes, 36, 254, 271, 320; not into brutes, 296. Trinity, Platonist, 119
93>

3 2 3-

Christian, 166, 221, 335, 341, 343.

10, 76.

UTILITARIANISM,

VISION, of different kinds, 279^^., 320, 347.

WILL,

24, 155, 174, 193, 266, 345.

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