his account, three abstract moments present in it, which are worked
out in his Platonic theology—the one, the infinite and the limitation;
the last two we have likewise seen in Plato (p. 68). The first, God,
is just the absolute unity already frequently discussed, which by
itself is unknowable and undisclosed, because it is a mere abstraction;
it can only be known that it is an abstraction, since it is not yet
activity. This unity is the super-substantial (ὑπερούσιον), and in
the second place its first production is the many ones (ἑνάδες) of
things, pure numbers. In these we have the thinking principles of
things, through which they partake of absolute unity; but each partakes
of it only through a single individual unity, through the one, while
souls do so through thought-out, universal unities. To this Proclus
refers the forms of ancient mythology. That is to say, as he calls
that first unity God, he calls these numerous unities of thought that
flow from it, gods, but the following moments are likewise so called.
He says, (Institut. theol. c. 162): “The gods are named in accordance
with what depends upon the orders (τάξεων); hence it is possible to
know from this their unknowable substances, which constitute their
determinate nature. For everything divine is inexpressible on its own
account and unknowable as forming part of the inexpressible one; but
from differentiation, from change, it comes to pass that we know its
characteristics. Thus there are gods capable of being known, which
radiate true Being; hence true Being is the knowable divine, and the
incommunicable is made manifest for the νοῦς.” But there always remains
a compulsion to represent mythology in the determinateness of the
Notion. These gods or unities do not correspond to the order of things
in such a way that there are just as many and such unities (ἑνάδες) or
gods as there are things; for these unities only unite things with the
absolute unity. The third is just the limit which holds these unities
(ἑνάδες) together, and constitutes their unity with the absolute
unity; the limit asserts the unity of the many and the one.[252]
This is better expressed by what follows, in which Proclus takes up
the three fundamental principles—the limit, the infinite and what
is mingled—of Plato’s Philebus, because the opposition is thus more
clearly determined; and therefore these appear to be the original gods.
But to such abstractions the name gods is not applicable, for it is
as returning that we first of all see them as divine. Proclus says
(Theol. Plat. III. pp. 133-134): “From that first limit (πέρας),” the
absolute one, “things have (ἐξέρτηται) union, entirety and community,”
the principle of individuality, “and divine measure. All separation
and fertility and what makes for multiplicity, on the contrary, rest
on the first infinitude (ἄπειρον);” the infinite is thus quantity, the
indeterminate, just as Plato in the Philebus calls the infinite the
evil, and pleasure the untrue, because no reason is present in it (pp.
68, 69). “Hence when we speak of the process of anything divine, it is
implied that in the individuals it remains steadfastly one, and only
progresses towards infinitude,” continuity as self-production, “and
has at the same time the one and multiplicity present in it—the former
from the principle of limitation, and the latter from the principle
of infinitude. In all opposition which is found in species that are
divine, what is more excellent belongs to limitation, and what is
less excellent to the infinite. From these two principles everything
derives its progress until it steps forth into Being. Thus the eternal,
in so far as it is measure as intellectual, partakes of limitation,
but in so far as it is the cause of unceasing effort after Being, of
infinitude. Thus the understanding in so far as it has the standard
(ραραδειγματικὰ μέτρα) within it, is a product of limitation; in so
far as it eternally produces everything, it has undiminished capacity
for infinitude.” Multiplicity as Notion, not as the many, is itself
unity; it is duality, or the determinateness which stands over against
indeterminateness. Now according to Proclus (Theol. Plat. III. p. 137)
the third is a whole, the unity of determinate and indeterminate,
or that which is mingled (μικτόν). “This is first of all everything
existent, a monad of many possibilities, a completed reality, a many
in one (ἓν πολλά).” The expression “mingled” is not very suitable, is
indeed faulty, because mixture at first expresses only an external
union, while here the concrete, the unity of opposites, and even more
the subjective, is properly speaking indicated.
Now if we consider further the nature of what is mingled we find the
three triads likewise, for each of those three abstract principles is
itself a similar complete triad, but under one or these particular
forms. Proclus says (Theol. Plat. III. p. 135); “The first Being (τὸ
πρώτως ὄν) is the mingled, the unity of the triad with itself; it
is the Being of the life as well as of the understanding. The first
of what is mingled is the first of all existence, the life and the
spirit are the two other orders; everything is consequently in triads.
These three triads determine themselves thus as absolute Being, life
and spirit; and they are spiritual and to be grasped in thought.”
According to this only the intelligible world is true for Proclus. But
that Proclus did not make the understanding proceed immediately from
the unity, is the second point in which he differs from Plotinus; in
this Proclus is more logical, and he follows Plato more closely. His
sequence is excellent, and he is right in placing the understanding,
as the richer, last, since it is not until after the development of
the moments which are present in life that the understanding springs
forth, and from it in turn the soul.[253] Proclus says (Theol. Plat.
I. pp. 21, 22, 28) that certainly in the first unity all agree, but
that Plotinus makes the thinking nature appear just after the unity;
yet the instructor of Proclus, who led him into all divine truth,
limited better this indefinite way of looking at things adopted by
the ancients, and differentiated this disorderly confusion of various
orders into a comprehensible plan, and succeeded in satisfactorily
following and maintaining the distinction of determinations. As a
matter of fact we find more distinction and clearness in Proclus than
in the turbidity of Plotinus; he is quite correct in recognizing the
νοῦς as the third, for it is, that which turns back.
Regarding the relationship of the three orders Proclus now expresses
himself in the passage already quoted (Theol. Plat. III. pp. 135-136)
thus: “These three are themselves really contained in the existent, for
in it is substance, life, the νοῦς and[254] what is the culminating
point of all existence (ἀκρότης τῶν ὄντων),” the individuality of
the self, the existent on its own account, the subjective, the point
of negative unity. “The life that is grasped by thought is the very
centre-point of existence. But the understanding is the limit of the
existent, and it is thought as known (ὁ νοητὸς νοῦς), for in what is
thought is thinking, and in thinking what is thought. But in what
is thought thinking is in the mode of thought (νοητῶς), in thinking
what is thought is in the mode of thinking (νοερῶς). Substance is the
enduring element in existence and that which is interwoven with the
first principles and which does not proceed from the one.” The second,
“the life, is however that which proceeds from the principles and
is born with infinite capacity;” it is itself the whole totality in
the determination of infinitude, so that it is a concrete manifold.
“The understanding is, again, the limit which leads back once more
to the principles, brings about conformity with the principle, and
accomplishes an intellectual circle. Now since it is a three-fold in
itself, in part it is the substantial in itself, in part the living,
in part the intellectual, but everything is substantially contained in
it, and hence it is the foremost in existence, that which is united
from the first principles.” That is the first reality. Excellent! “I
call it substance, since the first substance (αὐτοουσία) is supreme
over all existence and is, so to speak, the monad of everything.
The understanding itself is that which knows, but life is thinking,
and Being is just what is thought. Now if the whole of what exists
is mingled, but the first existence (τὸ αὐτοόν) is substance, the
substance that comes from the three principles (ὑφισταμένε) is
mingled. What is mingled is thus substance as thought; it is from
God, from whom also come the infinite and limitation. There are thus
four moments, since what is mingled is the fourth.” The first is the
monad, the absolute one, then come the many which themselves are units,
the infinite of Plato; the third is limitation. The one is clearly
all-penetrating, remaining at home with itself, all-embracing; it
does not thus appear as one of the three moments, for Proclus adds a
fourth which then likewise appears as the third moment, since it is the
totality. “This united one is not only derived from those principles
which are according to the one, but it also goes forth from them and is
three-fold.” It is one trinity and three trinities. The limit and the
infinite are, according to Proclus (Theol. Plat. III. pp. 138, 139),
before substance and again in it; and this unity of moments is what
comes first in all existence (πρωτίστη οὐσία). In the abstract trinity
everything is thus contained in itself. Proclus says (Theol. Plat. III.
pp. 139, 140): “The truly existent has the trinity of Beauty, Truth,
and Symmetry in itself” (this is the way in which, like Plato, he names
these three triads), “Beauty for order, Truth for purity, and Symmetry
for the unity of what is joined together. Symmetry gives the cause that
the existent is unity; Truth, that it is Being; Beauty, that it is
thought.” Proclus shows that in each of the three triads, limit, the
unlimited, and that which is mingled, are contained; each order is
thus the same, but set forth in one of the three forms which constitute
the first triad.
_a._ Proclus says (Theol. Plat. III. p. 140): “Now this is the first
triad of all that is thought—the limit, the infinite, and that which
is mingled. The limit is God going forth to the culminating point
of thought from the uncommunicable and first God, measuring and
determining everything, admitting all that is paternal and coherent,
and the unblemished race of gods. But the infinite” (quantity) “is
the inexhaustible potentiality of this God, that which makes all
productions and orders to appear, and the whole infinitude, the
primeval essence as well as the substantial, and even the ultimate
matter. What is mingled is, however, the first and highest order
(διάκοσμος) of the gods, and it is that which holds everything
concealed in itself, completed in accordance with the intelligible
and all-embracing triad, comprehending in simple form the cause of
all that exists, and establishing in the first objects of thought the
culminating point which is derived from the wholes.” The first order is
thus in its culminating point the abstract substance in which the three
determinations as such are shut up without development and maintained
in strict isolation; this pure reality is in so far the undisclosed.
It is the greatest height reached by thought and likewise really the
turning back, as this likewise appears in Plotinus; and this first
begets in its culminating point the second order which in the whole is
life, and culminates in its turn in the νοῦς.
_b._ This second triad is placed in the determination of the infinite.
On making this step forward Proclus (Theol. Plat. III. pp. 141, 142)
breaks into a transport of bacchanalian ecstasy, and says, “After this
first triad which remains in unity, let us now in hymns praise the
second which proceeds from this, and is brought to pass through the
abolition of that which comes before it. As the first unity begets the
culminating point of existence, the middle unity begets the middle
existence; for it is likewise begetting and self-retaining.” In the
second order three moments again appear as before: “Here the principle
or the first is the substance which was the completion of the first
triad; the second, which was there the infinite, is here potentiality
(δύναμις). The unity of both these is Life (ζωή),” the centre, or
what gives determinateness to the whole order; “the second existence
is life as thought, for in the most external thought Ideas have their
subsistence (ὑπόστασιν). The second order is a triad analogous to the
first, for the second is likewise a God.” The relationship of these
trinities is hence this: “As the first triad is everything, but is so
intellectually (νοητῶς) and as proceeding immediately from the one
(ἑνκαίως), and remaining within limits (περατοειδῶς), so the second
is likewise everything, but in living fashion and in the principle
of infinitude (ζωτικῶς καὶ ἀπειροειδῶς), and similarly the third has
proceeded after the manner of what is mingled. Limitation determines
the first trinity, the unlimited the second, the concrete (μικτόν) the
third. Each determination of unity, the one placed beside the other,
also explains the intelligible order of gods; each contains all three
moments subordinate to itself, and each is this trinity set forth under
one of these moments.” These three orders are the highest gods; later
on, we find in Proclus (in Timæum, pp. 291, 299) four orders of gods
appearing.
_c._ Proclus comes (Theol. Plat. III. p. 143) to the third triad,
which is thought itself as such, the νούς: “The third monad places
round itself the νούς as thought, and fills it with divine unity; it
places the middle between itself and absolute existence, fills this
last by means of the middle and turns it to itself. This third triad
does not resemble cause (κατ̓ αἰτίαν), like the first existence,
nor does it reveal the all like the second; but it is all as act
and expression (ἐκφανῶς); hence it is also the limit of all that is
thought. The first triad remains concealed in limit itself, and has
all subsistence of intellectuality fixed in it. The second is likewise
enduring, and at the same time steps forward;” the living appears, but
is in so doing led back to unity. “The third after progression shifts
and turns the intelligible limit back to the beginning, and bends the
order back into itself; for the understanding is the turning back to
what is thought” (to unity), “and the giving of conformity with it.
And all this is one thought, one Idea: persistence, progression and
return.” Each is a totality on its own account, but all three are led
back into one. In the νοῦς the first two triads are themselves only
moments; for spirit is just the grasping in itself of the totality of
the first two spheres. “Now these three trinities announce in mystic
form the entirely unknown (ἄγνωστον) cause of the first and unimparted
(ἀμεθεκτοῦ) God,” who is the principle of the first unity, but is
manifested in the three: “the one has inexpressible unity, the second
the superfluity of all powers, but the third the perfect birth of
all existence.” In this the mystic element is that these differences
which are determined as totalities, as gods, become comprehended as
one. The expression “mystic” often appears with the Neo-Platonists.
Thus Proclus for example says (Theol. Plat. III. p. 131): “Let us once
more obtain initiation into the mysteries (μυσταγωγίαν) of the one.”
Mysticism is just this speculative consideration of Philosophy, this
Being in thought, this self-satisfaction and this sensuous perception.
However, μυστήριον has not to the Alexandrians the meaning that it
has to us, for to them it indicates speculative philosophy generally.
The mysteries in Christianity have likewise been to the understanding
an incomprehensible secret, but because they are speculative, reason
comprehends them, and they are not really secret, for they have been
revealed.
In conclusion, Proclus institutes a comparison between these triads.
“In the first order the concrete is itself substance, in the second it
is life, and in the third the thought that is known.” Proclus calls
substance likewise Ἑστία, the fixed, the principle. “The first trinity
is the God of thought (θεὸς νοητός); the second the thought of and
thinking (θεὸς νοητὸς καὶ νοερός)” the active; “the third the” pure,
“thinking God (θεὸς νοερός),” who is in himself this return to unity
in which, as return, all three are contained; for “God is the whole
in them.” These three are thus clearly the absolute one, and this
then constitutes one absolute concrete God. “God knows the divided as
undivided, what pertains to time as timeless, what is not necessary as
necessary, the changeable as unchangeable, and, speaking generally, all
things more excellently than in accordance with their order. Whose are
the thoughts, his also are the substances, because the thought of every
man is identical with the existence of every man, and each is both the
thought and the existence,” and so on.[255]
These are the principal points in the theology of Proclus, and it
only remains to us to give some external facts. The individuality of
consciousness is partially in the form of an actuality, as magic and
theurgy; this often appears among the Neo-Platonists and with Proclus,
and is called making a god. The element of theurgy is thus brought into
relation with the heathen divinities: “The first and chief names of
the gods, one must admit, are founded in the gods themselves. Divine
thought makes names of its thoughts, and finally shows the images of
the gods; each name gives rise, so to speak, to an image of a god.
Now as theurgy through certain symbols calls forth the unenvying
goodness of God to the light of the images of the artist, the science
of thought makes the hidden reality of God appear through the uniting
and separating of the tones.”[256] Thus the statues and pictures of
artists show the inward speculative thought, the being replete with the
divinity that brings itself into externality; thus the consecration
of images is likewise represented. This connecting fact—that the
Neo-Platonists have even inspired the mythical element with the
divine—is thereby expressed, so that in images, &c., the divine power
is present. Nevertheless I have only wished to call this moment to mind
because it plays a great part at this particular time.
5. THE SUCCESSORS OF PROCLUS.
In Proclus we have the culminating point of the Neo-Platonic
philosophy; this method in philosophy is carried into later times,
continuing even through the whole of the Middle Ages. Proclus had
several successors who were scholarchs at Athens—Marinus, his
biographer, and then Isidorus of Gaza, and finally Damascius. Of the
latter we still possess some very interesting writings; he was the last
teacher of the Neo-Platonic philosophy in the Academy. For in 529 A.D.
the Emperor Justinian caused this school to be closed, and drove all
heathen philosophers from his kingdom: amongst these was Simplicius, a
celebrated commentator on Aristotle, several of whose commentaries are
not yet printed. They sought and found protection and freedom in Persia
under Chosroïs. After some time they ventured to return to the Roman
Empire, but they could no longer form any school at Athens; thus as far
as its external existence is concerned, the heathen philosophy went
utterly to ruin.[257] Eunapius treats of this last period, and Cousin
has dealt with it in a short treatise. Although the Neo-Platonic school
ceased to exist outwardly, ideas of the Neo-Platonists, and specially
the philosophy of Proclus, were long maintained and preserved in the
Church; and later on we shall on several occasions refer to it. In the
earlier, purer, mystical scholastics we find the same ideas as are seen
in Proclus, and until comparatively recent times, when in the Catholic
Church God is spoken of in a profound and mystical way, the ideas
expressed are Neo-Platonic.
In the examples given by us perhaps the best of the Neo-Platonic
philosophy is found; in it the world of thought has, so to speak,
consolidated itself, not as though the Neo-Platonists had possessed
this world of thought alongside of a sensuous world, for the sensuous
world has disappeared and the whole been raised into spirit, and this
whole has been called God and His life in it. Here we witness a great
revolution, and with this the first period, that of Greek philosophy,
closes. The Greek principle is freedom as beauty, reconciliation in
imagination, natural free reconciliation that is immediately realized,
and thus represents an Idea in sensuous guise. Through philosophy
thought, however, desires to tear itself away from what is sensuous,
for philosophy is the constitution of thought into a totality beyond
the sensuous and the imaginary. Herein is this simple progression
contained, and the points of view which we have noticed are, as
cursorily surveyed, the following.
First of all we saw the abstract in natural form: then abstract thought
in its immediacy, and thus the one, Being. These are pure thoughts,
but thought is not yet comprehended as thought; for us these thoughts
are merely universal thoughts to which the consciousness of thought is
still lacking. Socrates is the second stage, in which thought appears
as self, the absolute is the thought of itself; the content is not
only determined, _e.g._ Being, the atom, but is concrete thought,
determined in itself and subjective. The self is the most simple form
of the concrete, but it is still devoid of content; in as far as it
is determined it is concrete, like the Platonic Idea. This content,
however, is only implicitly concrete and is not yet known as such;
Plato, beginning with what is given, takes the more determinate content
out of sensuous perception. Aristotle attains to the highest idea; the
thought about thought takes the highest place of all; but the content
of the world is still outside of it. Now in as far as this manifold
concrete is led back to the self as to the ultimate simple unity of the
concrete, or, on the other hand, the abstract principle has content
given to it, we saw the systems of dogmatism arising. That thought
of thought is in Stoicism the principle of the whole world, and it
has made the attempt to comprehend the world as thought. Scepticism,
on the other hand, denies all content, for it is self-consciousness,
thought, in its pure solitude with itself, and likewise reflection on
that beginning of pre-suppositions. In the third place the absolute is
known as concrete, and this is as far as Greek philosophy goes. That
is to say, while in the system of Stoics the relation of difference
to unity is present only as an “ought,” as an inward demand, without
the identity coming to pass, in the Neo-Platonist school the absolute
is finally set forth in its entirely concrete determination, the
Idea consequently as a trinity, as a trinity of trinities, so that
these ever continue to emanate more and more. But each sphere is a
trinity in itself, so that each of the abstract moments of this triad
is itself likewise grasped as a totality. Only that which manifests
itself, and therein retains itself as the one, is held to be true. The
Alexandrians thus represent the concrete totality in itself, and they
have recognized the nature of spirit; they have, however, neither gone
forth from the depths of infinite subjectivity and its absolute chasm,
nor have they grasped the absolute, or, if we will, abstract freedom of
the “I” as the infinite value of the subject.
The Neo-Platonic standpoint is thus not a philosophic freak, but a
forward advance on the part of the human mind, the world and the
world-spirit. The revelation of God has not come to it as from an
alien source. What we here consider so dry and abstract is concrete.
“Such rubbish,” it is said, “as we consider when in our study we see
philosophers dispute and argue, and settle things this way and that at
will, are verbal abstractions only.” No, no; they are the deeds of the
world-spirit, gentlemen, and therefore of fate. The philosophers are
in so doing nearer to God than those nurtured upon spiritual crumbs;
they read or write the orders as they receive them in the original;
they are obliged to continue writing on. Philosophers are the initiated
ones—those who have taken part in the advance which has been made into
the inmost sanctuary; others have their particular interests—this
dominion, these riches, this girl. Hundreds and thousands of years are
required by the world-spirit to reach the point which we attain more
quickly, because we have the advantage of having objects which are past
and of dealing with abstraction.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Diog. Laërt. III. 1-4 (Tennemann, Vol. I. p. 416; II. p. 190).
[2] Diog. Laërt. III. 5, 29.
[3] Plat. Epist. VII, p. 324-326 (p. 428-431); Diog. Laërt. III., 5, 6,
8.
[4] Diog. Laërt. III, 6, 7, 9, 18-21; Plat. Epist. VII., p. 326, 327
(p. 431-433).
[5] Plat. Epist. VII. p. 327-330 (p. 433-439); III. p. 316, 317 (p.
410, 411).