The Philosophy of Spirituality

Analytic, Continental and Multicultural Approaches

to a New Field of Philosophy

Edited by

Heather Salazar
Roderick Nicholls

leiden | boston

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Contents

Notes on Contributors vii

Introduction 1
Roderick Nicholls and Heather Salazar

Part 1
Understanding Spirituality

1 Understanding Spirituality 15
Heather Salazar and Roderick Nicholls

2 Renewing the Senses: Conversion Experience and the Phenomenology

of the Spiritual Life 18
Mark Wynn

3 Spiritual Experience and Imagination 38

Eric Yang

4 Sinister and Sublime Aspects of Spirituality 59

Jerry Piven

Part 2
Spirituality across Traditions

5 Spirituality across Traditions 93

Heather Salazar and Roderick Nicholls

6 Is Yogic Enlightenment Dependent upon God? 97

Heather Salazar

7 Spirituality from the Margins: West African Spirituality and

Aesthetics 122
Moses Biney

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vi Contents

8 Non-religious Spirituality in the Greek Age of Anxiety 143

Mariapaola Bergomi

9 Becoming a Hollow Bone: Lakota Respect for the Sacred 164

Drew Chastain

10 Silence will Change the World: Kierkegaard, Derrida and Islamic

Sufism 189
Christopher Braddock

Part 3
Critical Perspectives and Re-inventions of Spirituality

11 Critical Perspectives and Re-Inventions of Spirituality 211

Roderick Nicholls and Heather Salazar

12 Care of Self and Amor Fati as a Spiritual Ideal 214

Roderick Nicholls

13 Bertrand Russell’s Religion without God 250

Nikolay Milkov

14 Truth in Practice: Foucault’s Procedural Approach

to Spirituality 273
Kerem Eksen

15 Spirit, Soul and Self-overcoming: a Post-Jungian View 293

Richard White

16 Spiritual Naturalism 312

Eric Steinhart

Index 339

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 Chapter 8

Non-religious Spirituality in the Greek Age

of Anxiety

Mariapaola Bergomi

The sunset of Classical civilization, the twilight of Hellenism and the chrono-
logically correspondent dawn of Christianity were characterized by a complex
dialectic of paganism, mystery beliefs and the new religious faith. On the one
hand, the decay of Classical paganism met the flourishing of Gnosticism and
new forms of magic, mystery cults and esoteric religious practices such as
theurgy; on the other hand, early Christianity was characterized by the pres-
ence of asceticism, mysticism, and heresies.
We are inclined to think that the resistance to religious oppression, irratio-
nality or superstition in Antiquity corresponds to a sort of enlightened ver-
sion of faith, such as the Socratic-Platonic one, although some scholars have
recently argued that a first form of atheism in Classical Greece and Rome can
be found as well. However, this pattern does not seem to fit Late Antiquity, to
which the word enlightenment does not apply at all, at least according to the
major scholarly interpretations we are accustomed to. My aim is to show that
this picture is incomplete and that, on the contrary, an enlightened form of
non-religious spirituality did exist. This non-religious spirituality in a trouble-
some age of new beliefs and heresies, between the golden age of paganism
and the early Middle Ages, corresponds to the philosophical spirituality of late
Platonism and the appropriation, by the dominant Platonic schools, of the Ar-
istotelian tradition.
Philosophers such as Plotinus, Porphyry and Proclus were enormously in-
fluential on medieval and Renaissance philosophical theology. Interestingly,
some scholars attribute Oriental influences to certain aspects of Plotinus’
thought, influences that can be easily misinterpreted as alien elements in his
philosophy – that is, alien to the spirit of Greek rationality. I believe that this
hypothesis is wrong, and I find Plotinus’ and other Neoplatonists’ specula-
tion perfectly coherent with the Greek philosophical tradition. This internal
coherence is, however, one of the main reasons for the enduring influence of
Neoplatonism on Western and Eastern, Byzantine and Islamic, thought. In-
deed, I disagree with the old hypothesis of Bréhier, according to which the

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144 Bergomi

philosophy of Plotinus must be linked to the East, to the religious speculation

of India and the wisdom of the Upanishads.1
Nevertheless, it is important to acknowledge the presence of strong elements
of innovation in Neoplatonic philosophy. For the non-religious spirituality of
the Neoplatonists constitutes a reaction to both the decadence of paganism,
the restlessness produced by theosophy and Gnostic beliefs, and Christianity
too, which was regarded as being intrinsically paradoxical by the Greeks. In
the present chapter I shall analyze the relevant elements of this philosophical
spirituality, for its role and its nature transcends the rigid schemes of histori-
ography and never ceased to drive research questions. Indeed, the topics of the
divine orderliness in nature, the role of man in the cosmos, the relationship
between the soul and rationality, and the contemplation as philosophical un-
derstanding are still playing a substantial role in contemporary speculation on
religion, spirituality and theology.

1 The Fluctuating Spotlight of Consciousness

Eric Dodds borrowed the powerful expression ‘age of anxiety’ to define the
period between Marcus Aurelius and Constantine from a sociological and psy-
chological standpoint, an era that, according to many, shares some interesting
common features with the late twentieth century and the early years of the
new millennium.2 Despite their use of a Greek koine, a language common to
all the reigns that developed after the breakdown of the Alexandrian empire,
­intellectuals of the post-Classical era perceived themselves first as mere follow-
ers of the Athenian civilization, and then as global citizens of the Roman Em-
pire. Early imperial literary sources help us to frame this sense of restlessness
and decadence with respect to the Classical tradition. Think, for instance, of
the differences between Greek epic, Virgilian epic and the post-Classical epic
composed by Lucan. The language and atmosphere of the Pharsalia is strik-
ing, as is the portrayal of anti-heroes who are obsessed by visions of blood and
murder. Nature is dark and dangerous, divine prophecies are inconclusive and
do not forecast any glorious achievement. Lucan explicitly operates a reversal
of crucial scenes of Virgil’s Aeneid in order to compare the glorious destiny of
Aeneas – the legitimate heir of the Trojan kings whose mission is founding a

1 Emil Bréhier, La Philosophie de Plotin (Paris: Boivin, 1928).

2 Eric Dodds, Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1965), 19.

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Non-religious Spirituality in the Greek Age of Anxiety 145

new reign in Italy – to the anti-hero Caesar, who is ultimately responsible for
the death of the Roman Republic.3
Archaic and Classical Greek spirituality was deeply embedded in everyday
life and was characterized by a sense of the presence of the divine in nature.
While it would be incorrect to speak of pantheism in the case of Greek religion,
we must acknowledge that religious practices connected to the presence of
anthropomorphic gods accompanied the Greeks from the very foundation of
the poleis. Images of the gods were present in households, streets and other
public places. Healing practices were connected to the concepts of pollution
and purification. Mysteries performed, for instance, at Eleusis, were not part of
a different revelation and were not based on different beliefs and sacred texts
with respect to the traditional pantheon. Both official religion and mystery
cults were founded on a common ground and recognized the same gods, with
the difference that the mysteries were performed in private, and non-initiated
people were not allowed to attend the rites.4 Public worship in the polis, espe-
cially at Athens, was meant to ensure the unity of the civic body, and crucial
life stages were marked by established rites of passage, with a strong religious
connotation. We also possess numerous literary descriptions of idyllic natural
settings in which the presence of the divine was especially strong, such as the
opening scene of Plato’s Phaedrus, or Sophocles’ celebration of his native vil-
lage in Oedipus at Colonus. As a partial exception to this picture, we can men-
tion Orphism, whose dualistic view of life regarded the body as a tomb for the
soul, and included magical practices. It also had a relevant influence on the
history of Platonism, especially because of its peculiar eschatology.5
Philosophers such as Xenophanes and Parmenides developed a sort of en-
lightened version of faith well before Socrates, and progressively rejected a
strictly anthropomorphic conception of the gods. But it is only with Socrates
that we observe for the first time a clear tendency to live a philosophical
spirituality focused on the worship of one god. As seems clear from all the
so-called farewell-dialogues, such as Euthyphron, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo,
Socrates rejected a traditional vision of polytheism and connected his inner
consciousness to a leading divine force. In the Apology, he explicitly speaks

3 See: Henry J. M. Day, Lucan and the Sublime. Power, Representation and the Aesthetic Experi-
ence, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).
4 See: Arthur H. Armstrong, The Ancient and Continuing Pieties of the Greek World, in Classical
Mediterranean Spirituality. Egyptian, Greek, Roman, ed. A. H. Armstrong (London: Routledge,
1986), 75.
5 Orphism also shows interesting links with Pythagoreanism. See: Gábor Betegh, “Pythago-
reans, Orphism, and Greek Religion”, in A History of Pythagoreanism, ed. Carl A. Huffman
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), Ch. 7.

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146 Bergomi

of an anonymous god in the singular, and, despite the references to Apollo, it

is fairly evident that morality and the refusal to commit injustice depend on
this henotheistic conception. It is hardly surprising that Plato took up this idea
and strongly rejected the mythological narratives that attributed both virtues
and vices to the traditional deities; moreover, he developed a new philosophi-
cal theology in the Republic, the Timaeus and the Laws. Plato’s philosophical
spirituality did not have much to do with religion, in terms of traditional be-
liefs and forms of worship, but was based on the idea of a divine craftsman
who ordered the cosmos towards the good and on a conception of holiness,
justice and beauty as universals. Unlike Plato, Aristotle never spoke of a di-
vine demiurge who created the visible world; however, Aristotle regarded the
first Unmoved Mover as an object of love and the ‘final cause,’ and never ques-
tioned the religious practices attached to Greek political institutions. Nature,
for Aristotle, possesses an inner teleological structure and no physical process
occurs randomly.
With the partial exception of the materialists – among whom we can list the
Epicureans, who assumed the existence of gods, but regarded them as being
composed of atoms like the visible world – ancient thought does not admit the
existence of atheism (as understood in modern terms). Some scholars have
recently argued that specific forms of religious criticism in Antiquity should
be regarded as forms of atheism,6 but this is dubitable. Moreover, resistance to
spiritual beliefs regarded as dangerous and paradoxical in Late Antiquity, in-
cluding Christianity, took the form of the enlightened philosophical theology
of the Neoplatonists, and we do not find any form of atheism in philosophical
writings until the modern era. Pagan Neoplatonism is the most comprehen-
sive attempt to preserve the positive philosophical aspects of the spirituality of
Classical Greece, its epistemological optimism (meaning the possibility for the
man to achieve knowledge of universals and principles despite the generation
and corruption that affect the visible realm), and the inner coherence of the
cosmos as the ultimate product of a first divine principle.
According to Dodds, it is only under the Empire that both philosophers
and other men began to treat the question “What are we here for?” as a major
problem. That is, it is only under the Empire and in Late Antiquity that men
started to investigate their self-consciousness and their role within the created
cosmos as a serious and unsettling quest.7 A range of different factors fostered

6 See: Tim Whitmarsh, Battling the Gods. Atheism in the Ancient World (New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 2015).
7 “It is an old question. Empedocles asked it and offered an answer; Plato in the Theaetetus af-
firmed that it was the proper subject of philosophical enquiry. But it is not in fact a question

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Non-religious Spirituality in the Greek Age of Anxiety 147

spiritual pessimism in the early and late Empire. Both the historical period and
the written sources it produced are still partially to be uncovered in their many
different aspects, including but not limited to: the difficult relations between
political power and conversion to Christianity,8 the survival of paganism in lo-
cal communities, the flourishing of new forms of magic related to theosophical
practices such as theurgy, and the huge influence of Gnosticism on philosophy
and Christian exegesis.
I shall now focus on the response to the pessimistic, dualistic vision char-
acteristic of the Gnostic Gospels, namely, the spirituality of the Neoplatonists.
Despite the fact that Neoplatonists such as Plotinus and Porphyry were born
pagans and not Christians, they were non-religious in the sense that they en-
dorsed a philosophical conception of theology which used mythology only for
the sake of philosophical speculation and they did not conform to traditional
beliefs; they presented themselves as different from those religious thinkers
who speculated on the divine on the basis of a revelation, and they did not be-
long to any established church or religious movement. Moreover, in criticizing
Gnosticism as a sort of perversion of both Platonic theology and the Christian
conception of creation, they developed a coherent system of thought which
attributed a crucial importance to spirituality and spiritual self-improvement.
Spiritual and material pessimism is perhaps the most interesting outcome
of the flourishing of Gnostic revelations, and it was a distinctive mark of the
period. According to many, “there is a psychological or existentialist explana-
tion for the Gnostic frame of mind”:9 Gnosticism accentuated the contempt
for the human condition and hatred of the body that was a “disease endemic
in the entire culture of the period.”10 We possess a large number of Gnostic
writings which date from after the advent of Christianity. Most of them come

which happy men readily ask themselves; a happy life appears to be its own justification.
It was only under the Empire that both philosophers and other men began to treat it as a
major problem. They provided a wide variety of answers, which Festugière has classified,
starting from the doxography given by Iamblichus in his essay On the Soul. He divides
them into two main groups, optimistic and pessimistic.” Eric Dodds, Pagan and Christian
in an Age of Anxiety, 21–22.
8 On this topic, see: Eugene V. Gallagher, “Conversion and Community in Late Antiquity,”
Journal of Religion 1, no. 73 (1993): 1–15; Richard Lim, Religious “Disputation and Social
Disorder in Late Antiquity,” Historia. Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, 44 (1995): 203–231;
H. A. Drake, “Intolerance, Religious Violence and Political Legitimacy in Late Antiquity,”
Journal of the American Academy of Religion 79 (2011): 193–235.
9 See: Jaap Mansfeld, “Bad World and Demiurge: a Gnostic Motif from Parmenides and
Empedocles to Lucretius and Philo,” in Studies in Greek Philosophy and Gnosticism, ed. J.
Mansfeld (London: Variorum Reprints, 1989), Ch. 14.
10 See: Eric Dodds, Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety, 35.

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148 Bergomi

from the Nag Hammadi library11 and share some distinctive psychological
and theological views. In particular, they regard the visible world we live in
as the product of the pain and frustration of a derived, hypostatic deity who
was unable to attain perfect knowledge of the very first principle (i.e. the ab-
solutely first God of the Neoplatonists). This hypostatic god, who is a female
god, Sophia, represents the struggle of the individual soul that seeks to grasp
both Intellect and the First God through spiritual askesis, self-knowledge and
knowledge of the higher principles. The ultimate visible product of this painful
engagement is the material world as we know it, a sort of exudate. The visible
realm and the matter – being the product of the effort of Sophia – are drops
of sweat, which can be overcome and transcended only by extraordinary men,
the Gnostic élite, the pneumatikoi. These spiritual men and women are able,
through revelation and, ultimately, gnosis itself, to transcend matter and regain
mystical union with the very first principle, even in their mortal life.
Although it is always dangerous to apply general philosophical categories
to complex cultural movements such as Gnosticism, the striking myths of the
Gnostic gospels speak in favor of a dark pessimism on the human condition,
derived from a dualistic conception of the noetic, intellective realm, and cre-
ation.12 First and foremost, this spiritual dualism is a cosmic dualism, which
derives from a cosmogonical original sin and not only from a spiritual division
of the soul. Second, Gnostic dualism is not a dualism in which two principles
are ontologically independent and coeternal, as in Iranian dualism or in the
Chinese notion of Yang-Yin, where the two poles have always existed and have
always fought against each other (Iranian) or collaborated harmoniously (Chi-
nese). Evil is derived and generated, although not created on purpose. Evil and
the material creation are a consequence of the descent of the highest prin-
ciples and the spiritual struggle to regain perfect union with the highest God.
The other-worldliness of the age of anxiety, meaning the idea that the material
realm is radically other with respect of the noetic cosmos, builds on and re-
shapes the Greek tradition, developing a radical interpretation of the Christian

11 This is the corpus of texts found at Nag Hammadi in Egypt in 1945 and written in the Cop-
tic language. Among those especially meaningful for the philosophical debate with the
Neoplatonists are: The Apocryphon of John, Allogenes, and The Gospel of Truth. See: James
M. Robinson, ed., The Nag Hammadi Library in English, (Leiden, NL: Brill, 1988).
12 “It is perfectly correct to say that the Nag Hammadi literature has shown that not all
Gnostics were totally alienated from this world and committed to a darkly pessimistic
view of the cosmos and its maker. But it must be admitted that a rather dark pessimism
does predominate.” Arthur H. Armstrong, “Dualism: Platonic, Gnostic and Christian,” in
Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, ed. Richard T. Wallis (Albany: State University of New York
Press, 1992), 45.

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Non-religious Spirituality in the Greek Age of Anxiety 149

message contained in the four Gospels and a pessimistic view of the human
condition.
The “fluctuating spotlight of consciousness” is a striking expression coined
by Eric Dodds to define the Neoplatonic, and especially Plotinian, conception
of the self.13 Dodds uses this definition to indicate that in the Neoplatonic
­system too the individual self is struggling in a material world that does not im-
mediately meet its spiritual needs. Moreover, in the noetic creation of Plotinus,
the individual living being itself is the ultimate product of the highest prin-
ciple, the One, struggling between the metaphysical realms and matter, which
is nothing but privation or, in Neoplatonic terms, an “adorned corpse.” The self
is both real and unreal at the same time: on the one hand, our individual soul is
ontologically consistent, and a real manifestation of consciousness, because it
is derived from the metaphysical Soul which is a Principle. On the other hand,
however, we are also fluctuating and deprived of stability because of our flesh
and because we have a body, inevitably condemned to a process of generation
and corruption. Matter is darkness far removed from the One, and we appear
in our bodily shape and beauty in the most misleading way, like an image in a
mirror. Despite this apparently radical pessimism, early Neoplatonic philoso-
phy differs from the Gnostic revelations with respect to many points. I will list
three of them here, before delving deeper into the topic with the help of Ploti-
nus and his philosophical spirituality.
First of all, Neoplatonic other-worldliness does not coincide with Gnostic
dualism. For creation is not a consequence of the fall and struggle of a lower
principle, but of direct, non-mediated emanation from the divine first prin-
ciple. Most importantly, the divine One creates effortlessly, without any toil or
struggle, but simply by virtue of existing the way it does. As a second element
of difference, I should mention the well-known theologia negativa. According
to some scholars, the Neoplatonists inherited this method of not-knowing di-
rectly from some early Gnostic thinkers.14 However, Plotinus and the Gnos-
tics do not speak of the highest God in a very different way, using different
metaphors and referring to different traditional Platonic leitmotifs. Finally, a
brief mention of the conception of pistis, faith. Neoplatonism assimilated a
certain conception of faith, although not a conception of faith as revelation as
in Christianity, both in its Gnostic and non-Gnostic version. The reason for this
is not simply the fact that Plotinus and his followers were pagans, but also that

13 Eric Dodds, Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety, 45.

14 See: Richard T. Wallis, “The spiritual Importance of Not Knowing,” in Classical Mediter-
ranean Spirituality. Egyptian, Greek, Roman, ed. Arthur H. Armstrong (London: Routledge,
1986), 460–481.

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150 Bergomi

they were non-religious and applied the concept of faith to the noetic cosmos
for the sake of philosophical and spiritual inquiry. Moreover, Plotinus – things
will change radically in late Neoplatonism, especially with Iamblichus – appar-
ently rejected magical practices, spells and esoteric invocations which appar-
ently characterized the religious faith of pagans and possibly Gnostics as well.
Finally, Plotinus completely rejected Jewish-Platonic daemonology and the
multiple genealogies of the Gnostics, shaping his own coherent philosophical
system.15

2 The Path to Contemplation: Plotinus’ Philosophical Spirituality

As I have already briefly stated, Plotinus is a key figure for understanding the
ancient debate on heretical Gnostic spirituality. Despite being a pagan, Plo-
tinus left us a consistent source of information on how Gnostic genealogies
produce a dangerous perversion of Platonic cosmology and theology. That is
why he is especially keen to refute some of their basic assumption such as the
generation of matter through the effort of Sophia. Certainly, in some passages
of the Enneads Plotinus tries to reconcile his metaphysics and Gnostic theolog-
ical genealogies. For instance, he compares the description of a double Sophia
to the double nature of Soul, meaning a higher Soul which is directly linked to
Intellect and is godlike, and a lower Soul which is responsible for the creation
of natural life.16 However, he is very critical of the philosophical achievements
of this mysterious group of believers.
Plotinus cannot accept the Gnostic vision of matter as a consequence of
the rise and fall of a minor divine entity, and most of all he cannot accept a
radically dualistic vision which sees no chances of redemption for the physi-
cal realm. Even though matter is as far from the One as possible, living indi-
vidual beings have a share in matter and experience generation and corrup-
tion. However, living beings are alive because they are the ultimate products

15 I do not have the space to delve deeper into this topic in this chapter. I will mention
only very briefly that the presence of many religious exoteric cults in late antiquity is a
well known cultural phenomenon which is closely related to the history of Neoplatonism.
The most important cult for the Neoplatonists, and especially Iamblichus, is undoubtedly
theurgy. See for instance: Ilinca Tanaseanu-Döbler, Theurgy in Late Antiquity (Göttingen,
ger: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2013); Crystal Addey, Divination and Theurgy in Neopla-
tonism: Oracles of the Gods (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014).
16 See: Jésus S. J. Igal, “The Gnostics and the “Ancient Philosophy, in Plotinus,” in Neopla-
tonism and Early Christian Thought. Essays in Honour of A. H. Armstrong, eds. Henry J.
Blumenthal and Robert A. Markus(London: Variorum Publications, 1981), 145.

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Non-religious Spirituality in the Greek Age of Anxiety 151

of the thinking of the Soul, which is a direct offspring of Intellect and there-
fore of the One. The Plotinian system is much more compact and coherent
than that of the Gnostics precisely because it is simpler and does not admit
a radical division between the hypostatic levels of reality, that is Intellect,
Soul, individual souls and natural world. The Gnostics too admit that, at a cer-
tain stage, matter must be ordered by the forms which come from the noetic
world. However, Plotinus states that matter must have always been ordered by
noetic forms, in order to be able to shape living beings and transmit life from
the Soul to the individual souls.17 Without this continuous divine communi-
cation among levels of true reality, the body would not be alive, and the soul
would not exist at all. This description, far from being a mere debate among
the historians of ancient philosophy, is crucial to understand Plotinus’ impor-
tance and his long-lasting influence for the centuries to come. It is precisely
the way in which Plotinus solves the tension between body (matter) and soul
(principles) that inspired first early modern philosophers, and, more recently,
a generation of contemporary philosophers such as Henri Bergson and Pierre
Hadot.
Like the Gnostics, Plotinus feels the urge to embark on a spiritual journey
towards the principles to re-establish a perfect acquaintance with the divine
source of life. Unlike the Gnostics, however, Plotinus does not believe in reli-
gious or cultural revelations, and firmly believes in the possibility of achieving
a clear knowledge of principles by means of a spiritual improvement, in two
phases: the discovery of the existence of the so-called undescended soul – i.e.
the part of our individual immortal soul that has not descended from the di-
vine Soul into matter and the body, but has remained close to this Soul that
originated it – and endless philosophical investigation. Philosophical train-
ing is necessary for the Neoplatonists: the followers and disciples of Plotinus
admired their teacher’s vast knowledge and actively engaged in commenting
both Platonic and Aristotelian works, in order to train themselves in philo-
sophical arguments and systems, and to spread this heritage.

17 Denis O’Brien, “Plotinus and the Gnostics on the Generation of Matter,” in Neoplatonism
and Early Christian Thought. Essays in Honour of A. H. Armstrong, eds. H. J. Blumenthal
and R. A. Markus (London: Variorum Publications, 1981), 117. O’Brien says: “The Gnostic
belief requires that at some future point in time matter should be ‘stripped of form’. But
for Plotinus it is the function of soul to cover the ugliness and evil of matter with the sem-
blance of form. For the power of the higher realities ‘cannot bear to see anything which
does not have a part in itself’. It would be an intolerable limitation on the powers of soul,
and of the higher realities, for matter to be left as a ‘corpse unadorned.’” On the topic of
forms and matter see also Riccardo Chiaradonna, Sostanza, Movimento, Analogia. Platone
critico di Aristotele, (Napoli: Bibliopolis, 2002), 117–145.

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152 Bergomi

To the eye of the historian of philosophy, it is fairly clear that the Gnostics’
system was deeply rooted in pagan philosophy, and Platonism in particular.
If we carefully analyse the Valentinian system, for instance, it is easy to de-
tect echoes of the extensive Middle-Platonist exegesis of Plato’s Timaeus, of
Plutarch, and perhaps of Jewish Platonism as well. However, the Gnostics re-
garded their cosmological system as something to be revealed to all people,
but which could only correctly be understood by spiritual ones, the so-called
pneumatikoi. Plotinus never disowned his Platonic heritage; he widely inter-
preted Aristotle throughout the Enneads, and never endorsed an irrational-
istic view of knowledge in opposition to rational, non-religious philosophical
speculation – not even admitting the possibility of a mystical union with the
godlike first principle. Plotinus regards the visible world we are in as the ulti-
mate offspring of the One, which is absolutely first and of which we can talk
exclusively by via negativa; the very first form of duality is the Intellect, which
in thinking of himself contemplates the One as well. Finally, the Soul too is the
offspring of the Intellect, and it is ultimately responsible for the creation of the
cosmos. Even though the levels of reality think and contemplate the One in a
very different way, Plotinus does not wish to question the spiritual unity of this
contemplative cosmos.18
For Plotinus, there is a profound orderliness to Nature, which is the prime-
val source for understanding the divine. This is possible because living beings
communicate with the principles by means of life and of the forms which stem
from them; and because Nature, considered as a whole, contemplates the di-
vine. If we read the first chapters of Enneads, iii, 8, the treatise on “Nature, Con-
templation and the One,” we can notice that Plotinus wants to give us precisely
this hint. Despite the process of generation and corruption, Nature does not
coincide with matter and things that perish. Everything points to the highest
principles and tends towards contemplation: “We observe, then, that creation
has been revealed to us to be nothing but contemplation; it is the accomplished
outcome of a contemplative activity which persists in the same condition….”19
Creation is contemplation not only because it stems from the principles which
are in themselves perfect subjects and objects of contemplation, but because
Nature does not produce its fruits by means of a practical activity, but only
by means of an intellectual, effortless, activity. Nature, like the Soul, does not

18 On Plotinus’ metaphysical system in the Enneads, see: Dominic J. O’Meara, An ­Introduction

to the “Enneads” (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995); and also Pavlos Kalligas, The “Enneads”
of Plotinus: a Commentary (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014). All references to
the Enneads below, are to translations contained in this work.
19 Plotinius, Enneads, iii, 8: 20–22.

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Non-religious Spirituality in the Greek Age of Anxiety 153

perform actions requiring some sort of planning, movement, or instruments,

but simply operates by being the way it is: “You shouldn’t ask me questions,
but understand in silence like I do, because I’m not used to speaking. And also,
what do you need to understand? What has been generated is a fruit of my
contemplation, a fruit of silence, a vision that naturally irradiates from me.”20
Living beings naturally tend to contemplate, but they undergo a range of
epistemological processes: first they process perceptions, then they experience
opinions and finally they acquire knowledge. Knowledge always takes the form
of discursive, propositional thinking in human beings. However, special condi-
tions, training and a spiritual inclination towards metaphysical principles can
lift the soul by making it transcendent. Love as well, conceived as a desire for
the Good according to the doctrine of Diotima in Plato’s Symposium, is a lead-
ing spiritual force: “Lovers too, are among those who contemplate and struggle
to see the Form.”21 Plotinus devotes an entire treatise to Eros, Enneads, iii, 5;
in this treatise, Plotinus offers an interesting interpretation of Plato’s Sympo-
sium, giving special attention to the description of the garden of Zeus where
Eros, according to Diotima’s speech, was conceived by his father Poros (clever-
ness) and mother Penia (poverty). Plotinus considers Eros the son of a twofold
Aphrodite, the daughter of Zeus. Zeus represents the Intellect, that is the first
offspring of the One, whereas Aphrodite embodies the Soul. Eros is generated
by the Soul and struggles to achieve the Good which is in the Intellect and the
One. Love is linked to matter and partially depends on it: this happens because
the desire for beauty and the good derives from the experience of the exter-
nal world. Love however, is the powerful force that drives us from the contem-
plation of beautiful bodies and individual living beings, as Plato had already
stressed very clearly in the Symposium and elsewhere, up to the intellectual
contemplation of universals, from which the bodily instantiations of beauty
and good derive.
Ennead iii, 8, the treatise on Contemplation, is especially interesting for the
sake of our discussion because it gives us some useful clues as to the Plotinian
conception of contemplative thought in relation to discursive and proposition-
al thought. Indeed, there is a tension between non-propositional knowledge –
the way of thinking proper to metaphysical entities, especially Intellect – and
the discursive, propositional thought which is characteristic of human rational
soul. The tension between the two is already present in Plato, especially in the
Republic and other major dialogues that discuss the immortality of the soul
and the ability it possesses in its embodied form to remember the Ideas, those

20 Plotinius, Enneads, iii, 8: 4–6.

21 Plotinius, Enneads, iii, 7: 26–27.

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154 Bergomi

entities that are contemplated in the otherworld. A familiar Aristotelian dis-

tinction between those virtues that require practical reason (phronesis) and
the intellectual virtues, which are contemplative (involving theoria). And Ploti-
nus almost certainly borrowed this term from Aristotle. It is difficult, however,
to make exact distinctions within the Plotinian system given the lexical variety
which characterizes the Enneads. Plotinus often employs technical philosophi-
cal terms ambiguously. Moreover, he wishes to keep the intellective cosmos
closely bound and united because all living beings are alive thanks to the ema-
nation from the very first principle, the One. However, it seems as though Intel-
lect and Soul think and contemplate themselves in a different way from how
they think and contemplate the One, and this is true for the metaphysical Soul
and individual human souls as well.22
If the human soul cannot actually think the way the metaphysical principles
do, is it still possible for men to achieve perfect contemplation and transcend
the physical realm? The major difficulty human beings must face is the discur-
sive nature of thought, as already stressed by Plato. This also happens because
we are living in time and are not extra-temporal entities like the One, the Intel-
lect and the Soul. The contemplative activity of the divine realm is essentially
intuitive and non-discursive, and therefore it does not occur in a temporal
sequence or intermittently, the way human thought and inner dialogue do.23
According to his disciple Porphyry, Plotinus managed to attain a perfect appre-
hension of the One and to lift his soul into a mystical union with the One, only
by means of his spiritual and philosophical practices. In Ennead iii, 8, Ploti-
nus teaches us that if we wish to contemplate the way pure metaphysical enti-
ties do, we must conceive thought and inner dialogue not as an action, praxis,
but as a creation, poiesis. Active thought and creative thought are radically
­different modes of thinking for Plotinus, and only the latter coincides with
contemplation: “Men too, when their power of contemplation weakens, make

22 On this topic (and Ennead iii, 8 in particular) see: Damian Caluori, Plotinus on the Soul,
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014); John N. Deck, Nature, Contemplation and
the One: a Study in the Philosophy of Plotinus, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967);
and Eyjólfur K. Emilsson, Plotinus on Intellect, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
23 “The Nous is productive, and its producing is intelligent, but it doesn not produce by
deliberating or by discursive reasoning. Similarly, the World Soul produces ‘according to
ideas’, but without any ‘deliberation brought in from outside itself’, without ‘waiting to ex-
amine’ (iv, 3, 10, 15), and, like the Nous, without logismos (iv, 4, 10). In governing its world,
it does not employ dianoia, discursive reasoning, nor does it have to correct anything (ii,
9, 2): it produces in a uniform and consistent way, not by accident, but because it knows
what is to be, and orders its inferiors according to the pattern it has in itself.” John N. Deck,
Nature, Contemplation and the One: a Study in the Philosophy of Plotinus (Toronto, ON:
University of Toronto Press, 1967), 45–46).

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Non-religious Spirituality in the Greek Age of Anxiety 155

action a shadow of contemplation and reasoning. Because contemplation is

not enough for them, since their souls are weak and they are not able to grasp
the vision sufficiently, and therefore are not filled with it.”24 And “creating is
bringing a form into being, and this is filling all things with contemplation.”25
When the soul achieves a state of creative contemplation, men can experi-
ence spiritual peace and a state of restful silence that Plotinus calls hesychia, a
state of illumination and an extra-temporal experience, something very close
to the union with God experienced by the monks of Mount Athos, whose mys-
tical tradition of prayer, the Jesus Prayer, is significantly called hesychasm: “For
the soul keeps quiet then, and seeks nothing because it is filled, and the con-
templation which is there in a state like this rests within because it is confident
of possession.”26 Creative contemplation does not coincide only with rational
speculation and a process of abstraction, but rather requires a “movement in
consciousness.” It cannot be repeated. And it can only be described by analogy
or by via negativa, as in the case of the metaphorical descriptions of the One.27
Scholars diverge on the interpretation of the Plotinian experience of ap-
prehension of the One and whether this experience may be correctly defined
as mysticism. I believe this definition to be correct if we accept the ancient
meaning of mysticism as ‘being silent about something, not being allowed to
talk about something.’ Given the strong emphasis that Plotinus places on the
difference between discursive thinking as praxis and contemplation as poiesis,
creation, I think we can consider the non-propositional, intuitive, apprehen-
sion of the One as mystical. Some scholars have claimed that Plotinus does
not clearly distinguish between the apprehension of the One in the sense of
theistic union and in the sense of monistic identity; in the latter case, the phi-
losopher involved in this experience would not be cognitively aware of the
union and would completely lose his self-identity.28 Relevant passages have
been interpreted in either way, but I tend to interpret Plotinian mystical union

24 Plotinius, Enneads, iii, 8, 4: 32–34.

25 Plotinius, Enneads, iii, 8, 7: 23–24.
26 Plotinius, Enneads, iii, 8, 6: 12–14.
27 “This goal can be reached during life, but only very rarely. It is a precise experience, which
is transitory and cannot last. It is an experience of presence: God appears, we are close to
him, we are united with him. This experience, which transcends intelligence, may, how-
ever, occurr while we are engaged in an intellectual exercise […] It is not a theoretical
journey undertaken by reason alone; rather, it is a movement in consciousness, which
transforms its being, and an exercise in inner unification.” Pierre Hadot, “Neoplatonist
Spirituality: Plotinus and Porphyry,” in Classical mediterranean Spirituality: Egyptian,
Greek, Roman, ed. Arthur H. Armstrong (London: Routledge, 1986), 233–234.
28 See: Robert Arp, “Plotinus, mysticism and mediation,” Religious Studies 40 (2004): 145–
163; John Bussanich, The One and its relation to the Intellect in Plotinus (Leiden, NL: Brill,

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156 Bergomi

as a monistic identity, given that the human self is nothing but a temporal
experience of personal consciousness, which exists in time and is character-
ized by propositional thought. On the contrary, the One and the Intellect do
not need any form of propositional thought, because they are extra-temporal
and transcendent with respect to language and the human experience of em-
bodied agency. Extraordinary human beings who can achieve a monistic unity,
therefore, becoming exactly like the metaphysical principles, would transcend
any form of logos and rational thought.
We can regard the Plotinian conception of contemplation and mystical
unity as one of his most crucial philosophical legacy. Indeed, the way in which
Plotinus describes contemplation both as a non-propositional union with the
One and the spiritual outcome of a rational inquiry can potentially cast a new
light on contemporary views of speculation as self-improvement and empathy
with the living world.

3 Spirituality and Salvation: Porphyry’s Letter to Marcella

Porphyry became acquainted with philosophy, and specifically with Platonism,

well before his encounter with Plotinus in Rome, in 263 C.E. The scion of a
wealthy Syrian family, he studied at Caesarea, before enrolling in Longinus’
school at Athens. The years he spent with Longinus in Greece most probably
gave him a taste for literature and literary criticism, something we can appreci-
ate in the extant first book of the Homeric Questions and the essay On the Cave
of the Nymphs. Porphyry’s taste for literary quotations emerged in later works
as well, for instance in the letter to his wife Marcella, which I shall analyse
shortly after some preliminary considerations. In Rome, Porphyry would ap-
pear to have developed and reconsidered some of his philosophical positions
on Platonic and Stoic philosophy, mainly due to his knowledge of Middle Pla-
tonist authors. However, echoes of his knowledge of the earlier Platonic tradi-
tion survive in most of his works. Moreover, he was the first self-proclaimed
Platonist to compose commentaries and essays on Aristotelian works, a prac-
tice that was to become common later, especially in the schools of Proclus and
Ammonius.
His interest in religion and his criticism of Christians and the misuse of mag-
ic and theurgical practices is one of the most interesting aspects of Porphyry’s
philosophical speculation. He was deeply engaged in religious ­criticism and

1988); John Bussanich, “Plotinian Mysticism in Theoretical and Comparative Perspective,”

American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 71 (1997): 339–365.

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Non-religious Spirituality in the Greek Age of Anxiety 157

composed more than one work on this topic – the most famous being Philoso-
phy from Oracles and the pamphlet Against the Christians. Moreover, his genu-
ine interest in such matters is confirmed by the fact that his fellow Platonist
Iamblichus wrote a reply to him concerning the conflating of magic, theurgy
and religion in the De mysteriis. As correctly stressed by some scholars, the
philosophical debate on religion in late antiquity was in fact a debate on the
nature of Platonism.29 Indeed, after Porphyry Platonic philosophy was to be
increasingly influenced by spiritual esoteric cults with strong links with the
spirituality of the eastern Mediterranean countries of the Empire. It is, in fact,
Porphyry who first promoted the study of the Chaldean Oracles, a work that
proved of enormous importance for late Neoplatonism and Byzantine philoso-
phy down to the Italian Renaissance.
Apparently, Porphyry’s relation with religion fluctuated between the two
poles of rational philosophical criticism and the practical acceptance of tra-
ditional paganism. However, his acceptance of some of the religious practices
inherited from the Greeks was not meant to be merely an anti-Christian ruse.
In fact, Porphyry most likely regarded ancient paganism – in its enlightened
philosophical form – as a form of civic piety useful for cities and deeply rooted
in the culture of the Greek poleis, an idea borrowed directly from Plato and
his political utopian statements in the Republic and the Laws. Fragments from
Porphyry’s works, such as the letter he sent to the Egyptian priest Anebo, in-
form us that the philosopher spurned magical practices and harboured seri-
ous doubts about the usefulness of theurgical practices. Indeed, in Porphyry’s
mind, especially after he met Plotinus and adopted his metaphysical system,
the gods could not be conjured up and influenced by perishable things, nor
could they animate mundane objects to save our mortal souls. It is our souls,
on the contrary, that ought to be elevated and philosophically trained to attain
knowledge of the principles, as Plotinus had already clearly stressed.
Along with theurgy and its use of divine images and statues, Porphyry sought
to seriously criticize prophecies and oracles, which had been popular in Greece
since the old days of the rise of Delphi. Apparently, his interest in prophecies
and divine possession dated back to his youthful years in Syria: indeed, accord-
ing to some ancient testimonies, Porphyry underwent an exorcism, something

29 “Porphyry’s interest in religion is attested not only by the number of treatises he devoted
to religious matters (including his attack on the Christians) but also by his engagement
with the issue of the relationship of religion to philosophy.… What is represented in this
exchange of views is a virtual debate within paganism, more precisely within Platonism,
of the relationship between philosophy and religion.” Andrew Smith, “Porphyry and His
School,” in The Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late Antiquity, ed. Lloyd P. Gerson
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 380.

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158 Bergomi

he later recalled in his lectures on daemonology. While the historical truth of

this intriguing story of exorcism is almost impossible to demonstrate, Porphy-
ry’s own words in his Life of Plotinus, do not hide his troubled personality and
should be considered trustworthy. We know from this writing that he suffered
from severe depression and had frequent suicidal thoughts, from which he
eventually recovered after years spent in Sicily. All these details contribute to
defining the picture of a very complex thinker who had a lifelong relation with
religion, religious criticism and philosophical spirituality.
The Philosophy from Oracles is perhaps the most famous work of Porphyry’s.
Unfortunately, we do not possess the entire treatise, but we know that it con-
tained oracles of Apollo from Didyma and possibly Delphi, as well of Hecate,
Serapis and Hermes. The work deals with various subjects, such as gods, sacri-
fice, images, oracles, barbarian wisdom, the highest God, daemons, astrology,
Christians and Jews, and the binding of gods. In this work, Porphyry operates
a sort of philosophical deconstruction of the oracles, in the sense not of an
atheistic attempt to empty them of every possible meaning, but of extrapolat-
ing philosophical concepts compatible with Platonic metaphysics, theology
and cosmology. Apparently, the Philosophia ex oraculiis was not meant to be
a popular book, but was rather conceived as a school text to be read and dis-
cussed with pupils. As has been acutely pointed out, Porphyry attempted to
undertake a theological translation, that is, “a sustained activity of transfer-
ring the knowledge about the gods expressed in various media into a Platonic
philosophical system.”30 It is with Porphyry that the urge to integrate Classical
Greek paganism, Hellenistic culture and new cults within the Plotinian hori-
zon became particularly strong. After Plotinus’ systematization of Plato’s phil-
osophical theology and Aristotle’s metaphysics, Porphyry clearly perceived the
need to reconcile paganism and philosophical speculation by somehow puri-
fying the ancient religion to make it compatible with philosophy. Moreover,
despite his bitter critique against the Christians, Porphyry’s emphasis on the
One as the very first principle has led some scholars to speak of a so-called pa-
gan monotheism as something characteristic of early Neoplatonism. Indeed,
both Plotinus and Porphyry tried to unify the plurality of gods under a single
transcendent principle from which all the divine hypostases derive.31 In sum,

30 Aaron P. Johnson, Religion and Identity in Porphyry of Tyre. The Limits of Hellenism in Late
Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 55.
31 “Platonists, in particular, formulated theological descriptions that persistently invoked an
original divine unity from which the plethora of gods and other divine beings derive – an
emphasis that has received the ever more popular label ‘pagan monotheism’ – though
this is something of a misnomer in its adoption of the terms ‘pagan’ and ‘monotheism’ to
refer to Greek-speaking intellectuals.” Aaron P. Johnson, Religion and Identity in Porphyry

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Non-religious Spirituality in the Greek Age of Anxiety 159

this accommodation of traditional religious beliefs within the Plotinian sys-

tem must be conceived as an attempt to “construe the divine according to the
exigencies of a metaphysical system.”32
Salvation is a key feature in Porphyry’s philosophy. He calls salvation the
ascent of the soul to the divine principle by means of philosophical spirituality
and a good, rationally acceptable, use of traditional religious beliefs. This is es-
pecially evident in Porphyry’s later works, such as the Letter to Marcella. When
he was already in his middle age, he got married to a widowed woman and
mother of seven. This letter should not be regarded as a metaphysical writing
because it does not contain any deep analysis of the One, the Intellect, and Plo-
tinian philosophical theology. However, this work is relevant to us at least for
two reasons: first, in this text Porphyry states very clearly that the philosophi-
cal way of conducting one’s life is radically different from a non-philosophical
conduct; second, he combines certain views on the role of conventional re-
ligion with the notion of the philosophical care of the soul. Moreover, in the
Letter he is concerned of the contrast “between the intellectual prayer of the
philosopher and the verbal or ritually enacted prayer of traditional religion.”33
In this literary refined piece of correspondence, Porphyry invites his wife to
pursue a spiritual path to save her soul against all odds. To save one’s soul, both
philosophical practice and the exercising of practical and contemplative vir-
tues are necessary; against the weakness of the flesh, the theoretical and moral
philosopher raises his soul by cultivating his spirit: “I admired you because
your disposition was suited to true philosophy…. I recalled you also to your
proper mode of life, and gave you a share in philosophy, pointing out to you a
doctrine that should guide your life.”34
Porphyry wrote this letter as a sort of consolation, given that he was, at the
time, far from Rome “for the affairs of the Greeks.” Hence he invites Marcella
to stay strong and bear the hard times at hand, with the help of philosophy
and spiritual practice, without forgetting to worship the gods with a sense of
universal piety: “I earnestly beg you to keep a firm hold upon philosophy, the

of Tyre: the limits of Hellenism in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2013), 54.
32 Lloyd P. Gerson, “The Presence and the Absence of the Divine in the Platonic Tradition,”
in Metaphysik und Religion, eds. T. Kobusch and M. Erler (Münich/Leipzig: K.G. Saur,
2002), 402.
33 “Porphyry’s Letter to Marcella,” quoted in Andrew Smith, “Porphyry and His School,” in
The Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late Antiquity, ed. Lloyd P. Gerson (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2010), 349. All references to this letter below, are to the trans-
lation of Smith.
34 “Porphyry’s Letter to Marcella,” Sec. 3.

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160 Bergomi

only sure refuge, and not to yield more than is fitting to the perplexities caused
by my absence…. Do not faint before the multitude of other cares that encom-
pass you, abandoning yourself to the rushing stream of external things.”35 The
Letter is genuinely Platonic in its emphasis on the difference between our mor-
tal condition and the immortality of the soul; moreover, Porphyry states very
clearly that Marcella was first initiated into philosophy and the mystery of the
divine entities when she learned that we have a double nature, a mortal tunic
of flesh, which suffers generation and corruption, and an invisible spiritual es-
sence: “I am in reality not this person who can be touched or perceived by any
of the senses, but that which is removed to the greatest degree from the body,
the colourless and formless essence which can by no means be touched by the
hands, but is grasped by the mind. Alone.”36
A strong confidence in the existence of a spiritual essence that transcends
the body should console Marcella while her husband is away, because their
respective souls are able to meet and be bound in a different realm that is not
affected by time and space. The reader of the Letter will acknowledge the use
of the term “God” in place of the Plotinian “One.” The reason for this choice lies
in the consolatory purpose of this work, in the theological translation that Por-
phyry is undertaking, and finally in his respect for Marcella’s traditional piety.37
This does not mean that Porphyry abandons his mission as a disciple of Ploti-
nus. The divine presence is everywhere, the cosmos is holy, but the most sacred
place for honoring God is not a temple made of stone, but the philosopher’s
mind. Porphyry’s religious criticism and his acceptance of a universal piety, il-
luminated by philosophical speculation, finds in this passage its highest point,
and leaves us his most authentic and enduring legacy from the age of anxiety:
“Reason tells us that the divine is present everywhere and in all men, but that
only in the mind of the wise man is sanctified as in its temple, and God is best
honored by him who knows Him best.”38

35 “Porphyry’s Letter to Marcella,” Sec. 5.

36 “Porphyry’s Letter to Marcella,” Sec. 8.
37 “Indeed, a translation context may be the best explanation for those instances where Por-
phyry adopts ‘God’ rather than ‘the One’ throughout his corpus: where he was dealing
with religious concerns in discussions on cult, theology, or iconography he would trans-
late the One in theological terms using the title “God,’ First God,’ or ‘God above all.’ But, in
contexts where his concerns were more purely philosophical, for instance in discussions
of the metaphysics of the hypostases, the One was left untranslated.” Aaron P. Johnson,
Religion and Identity in Porphyry of Tyre: The Limits of Hellenism in Late Antiquity (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 61.
38 Marc. 11

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Non-religious Spirituality in the Greek Age of Anxiety 161

It is hard to place a thinker like Porphyry in any given contemporary de-

bate on religion and spirituality – as it happens with Plotinus, as well – for his
thought is deeply rooted in his age and his works so deeply entangled with
historical contingencies. His Letter gives us a precious testimony of the eternal
dichotomy between traditional piety, established religious cults, and personal
philosophical spirituality. Moreover, he developed the Socratic-Platonic views
of philosophy as self-care and self-improvement in a new direction: indeed,
Porphyry tried to find a balance between tradition and innovation to partially
overcome the pessimism of his age, being himself a troubled personality and
operating a sort of cultural resistance against irrationalism and religious sec-
tarianism. Far from being a rigid doctrine, Plotinus’ and Porphyry’s conception
of spirituality aims to provide human beings of rational instruments to discuss
not only the humanity’s place in the cosmos, but also to establish the unbreak-
able bond between human private experience as a rational being, and cosmic
coherence, beauty, and divinity.

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