THE SCHOOLS OF PHILOSOPHY AT ATHENS AND THEIR ABOLITION BY JUSTINIAN
The systematic teaching of philosophy at Athens had its origin in the
dialectic of Socrates, whose mental bias impelled him to a persistent
search after the fundamental truths which underlie the sociological
organization of mankind. His constant effort was to discover what
principles should be instilled into young men in order to render them
worthy members of the community; and in pursuit of this object he made a
practice of perambulating the city intent on applying his method of
question and argument to all persons accredited with any kind of
knowledge. Thus he laboured unremittingly in earnest effort to elicit
sound opinions or to convict of fallacy. Every Greek town was adorned
with a gymnasium, and large cities, such as Athens, possessed several
institutions of the kind. Established for the physical training and
athletic development of youth, a gymnasium consisted of covered halls,
of porticos provided with sculptured stone seats, and of a small park or
exercise ground shaded with plane and olive trees.[132] Ultimately the
gymnasiums assumed something of the form of the colleges of a modern
university, and were resorted to habitually by teachers of young men,
sophists, rhetoricians, and philosophers, in order to procure pupils,
and to lecture to classes already formed. In such localities Socrates
found most scope for his activities,[133] but, after his death by a
judicial sentence in 399 B.C. as an innovator and theological sceptic,
his system of inciting the youth to seek after genuine knowledge was not
publicly professed for a number of years. In the course of a decade,
however, the Athenians repented of their severity, and Plato, who had
been his principal disciple, was allowed to resume Socratic instruction
in a suburban gymnasium called the Academy,[134] situated on the
north-west of the city. This institute proved to be the first permanent
school of philosophy founded at Athens, and was always known as the
Academy, although Plato soon removed his classes to a private garden
which he acquired in the vicinity, where he built a Museum, or Hall of
the Muses, for their accommodation.[135] Plato had numerous successors,
all of whom continued to teach in the same garden, which was inherited
regularly for many centuries by the chief of the Academy.[136]
The most remarkable pupil of the original Academy was Aristotle, a
native of Stageira, but he, after protracted studies, finding that his
thirst for knowledge remained unsatisfied by the dreamy and inconclusive
philosophy of his master, determined to follow a more practical path of
inquiry according to the bent of his own genius. Observation and
correlation of facts, sociological, zoological, and physical, assumed
the greatest importance in his eyes, and he thus became the founder of
natural science in the widest sense. The Stagirite essayed to teach in
various places, and was successful in impressing his views on many of
those with whom he came in contact. His growing reputation attracted the
attention of Philip of Macedon, who soon claimed his services for the
tuition of his son Alexander, and embellished his native town as an
inducement for him to open a school there.[137] In a few years, however,
the young prince passed from his class-rooms to the throne, and
Aristotle migrated to Athens, where he fixed on the Lyceum,[138] a
gymnasium in the eastern suburbs, for the scene of his prelections (_c._
355 B.C.). More than half a century had elapsed since the foundation of
the Academy, and Plato had now been dead for many years. In the shady
walks of the Lyceum Aristotle continued to give instruction for a dozen
years, and it is understood that he usually kept on foot, moving about
while discoursing with his disciples, whence the sect received the name
of Peripatetics,[139] that is "promenaders."
The third philosophical school at Athens was established, about
twenty-five years later than that of the Peripatetics, by Zeno of
Citium, in Cyprus, who is reputed to have been inspired by reading
treatises emanating from the followers of Socrates.[140] Zeno convened
his disciples in the heart of the city, in a colonnade called the
Painted Stoa or Porch, whence the name of Stoics became attached
popularly to his philosophical coterie.[141] As the founder of Stoicism
was an immigrant from the near East his mind was overcast by the
Oriental sense of resignation under oppression;[142] and an ethical
doctrine of doing and suffering in a world of adversity was the gift of
the Porch to the humanity of the period. The circumstances of the times
created and gradually increased the need for such a philosophy in the
West. Grecian liberty passed under the despotic sway of Macedon, and
later, under that of Rome, whilst the Latin Republic at length succumbed
to the ambition of its military chiefs, and an arbitrary emperor usurped
the place of a spirited democracy. Thus the tenets of all those ardent
souls who shunned the servility of a court, and chafed under political
restraints which they were powerless to throw off were derived from
Zeno.[143]
The foregoing schools were essentially of a theological cast, and
inculcated more or less dogmatically an attitude of veneration and piety
in respect of a divine providence, but the leading feature of a fourth,
founded about the same time as that of the Stoics, was a frank
repudiation of any form of religious ritual. Epicurus was an Athenian by
blood, but his youth had been passed abroad;[144] and he claimed to have
originated, without the aid of a master,[145] the rule of life which he
taught to his disciples. At the age of thirty-five he settled in his
ancestral city (306 B.C.), within which he purchased a garden for the
reception of those whose inclinations were in harmony with his peculiar
doctrines.[146] The vanity of human effort, and the superiority of a
simple life of ease and contentment, formed the burden of the Epicurean
didactic. In seclusion the tranquil mind might apply itself to
intellectual pleasures, as oblivious of the gods as they themselves
evidently were of the restless race of mortals. Death was merely the
term of life, and no anxiety as to a hereafter should ruffle the
placidity of a man of philosophical temperament. As "Know thyself" was
the germinal thought of the Socratic school, so "Live unknown" was that
of the Epicurean. An asceticism of this hue, which advocated the
suppression of all energy, whilst allowing a mild, but aesthetic
indulgence of the passions, was extremely acceptable to the average man
of the period, for whose sensuous nature it afforded the consolations of
Stoicism without the strain inseparable from that vigorous
doctrine.[147]
The philosophers of these four sects maintained their position at Athens
as dictators of human thought for more than five centuries before their
vitality began to be chilled into immobility by the new life which was
arising in the widely Christianized Empire. When Marcus Aurelius halted
at Athens in 176, on the return from his Asiatic expedition, he found
the schools in a flourishing condition, and gave them a firmer
constitution by bestowing a fixed salary of 10,000 drachmas (£400),
payable by the Imperial treasury, on the heads of each of the four.[148]
It is improbable that this subsidy was assured to them for long after
the death of that emperor (180), or that they could have claimed it
successfully in the disorganization of the Empire which followed the
murder of his son Commodus (192). But Pagan philosophy was still
independent of state aid, and the first step in the dissolution of these
schools had its origin within when their individuality was submerged by
the tide of eclecticism, upon which Neoplatonism rose to pre-eminence
about the middle of the third century.[149] Henceforward Athens had a
serious rival in Alexandria, and somewhat later in Pergamus,[150] whence
the mysticism and theurgy of Plotinus and Iamblichus enthralled the
senses of almost all non-Christians by the fervent hopes to which they
gave birth. The teaching of the Academy, of the Peripatetics, and of the
Porch, were the soul of Neoplatonism, but the Epicureans were abhorred
by the new school as being most hostile to their vivid theistic
aspirations, and at this juncture that sect must have rapidly become
extinct.[151] Subsequently to 425, the year in which the Auditorium at
Constantinople was founded by Theodosius II,[152] the Athenian
rhetoricians, so famous in the youth of Julian and Gregory
Nazianzen,[153] appear to have suffered greatly in prestige, but long
before that date the teaching of philosophy was in the way of becoming a
lost art at Athens. The disappointment of Synesius at finding no trace
of the schools, when he landed in Attica about 410, has already been
adverted to.[154] If, however, he had carried his investigations a
little deeper he would have discovered that in at least one quarter the
traffic in the honey of Mount Hymettus was not the sole care of the
dwellers on the Cephisus. The garden of Plato, even at that date, was
still possessed by the philosophic succession,[155] and the actual
occupant, the venerable Plutarch,[156] had achieved a reputation which
deserved the devotion of several eminent disciples. Yet the school was
languishing, and even after the murder of Hypatia, the holder of the
professorial seat, Syrianus, was apprehensive lest he should find no
worthy successor.[157] But a movement of recuperation was at hand, and
surviving Neoplatonists soon began to turn their eyes towards Athens as
the appointed retreat of the sect. A new votary had arisen, gifted with
the genius to revive their hopes, and to infuse a fresh enthusiasm into
their almost moribund philosophy.
One evening in the summer of 431 a youth of nineteen, having made the
voyage from Alexandria, disembarked at the Piraeus and was received on
the shore by Nicolaus, a countryman of his own, and some other friends
who had been apprised of his coming. Proclus belonged to a Lycian
family, but was born at Constantinople, and he had already won a
reputation as a student of extraordinary powers and promise. This youth
was regarded as the last hope of the expiring school, and when the
custodian at the entrance of the city exclaimed, "I should already have
shut the gates, had I not seen you approaching," the utterance was
hailed as an omen symbolical of its resuscitation. Before entering
Athens, Proclus complained of thirst and fatigue, and by a fortuitous
circumstance rested in a seat and had a drink from a fountain, which
were known as those of Socrates. Such auspicious occurrences redoubled
the expectations which were kindled by his advent, and even the aged
Plutarch issued from his retirement to superintend the initiation of the
new pupil.[158]
The general doctrines of Neoplatonism, as a practical religion, had been
fixed by Plotinus and his immediate successors, and nothing remained for
later devotees but to elaborate the details of the system by analysis
and disquisition. The execution of this task fell to the Athenian
school, and for more than a century its members busied themselves in
spinning a fine web of scholasticism around the fundamental principles
of their faith. Its roots were traced backwards to Plato and Aristotle,
and the complexity of every fibre was demonstrated by the aid of certain
mystic hymns, supposed to be of ancient date, termed Orphic and
Chaldaean oracles.[159] Proclus, as had been anticipated, succeeded to
Syrianus, and from his labours in this field resulted a second summer of
Neoplatonism, which bloomed for fully fifty years.
The theology of Plotinus had been comparatively simple, but it became
more complicated in the hands of Iamblichus, whilst in those of Proclus
it assumed a comprehensiveness and extension which enabled it to find a
place for all metaphysics and mythology within reach. The great
conception of the Lycian philosopher was his ternary system, by which he
succeeded in deducing the whole invisible world, as well as the
objective universe, in a series of triads from the supreme One to the
remote apogee of matter itself.[160] All these speculations he embodied
in a number of vast treatises,[161] several of which are extant and have
been rendered into modern languages by some thinkers of the last
century, who found his cosmology more illuminating than that of the
creed of Christendom.[162]
The life of Proclus was written by his disciple and successor Marinus;
and from this document we gain some insight into the mode of life of a
pious Neoplatonist. The Athens of that day seems to have retained at
least the external aspect of the classical capital as it has been
described by the early topographers. The principal monuments of
polytheism were still erect, and Proclus had the satisfaction of
occupying a house between the temples of Aesculapius and Dionysus, from
which he could behold the Parthenon. The sect was strongly inclined to
vegetarianism; and abstinence from animal food, though not strictly
enforced, was advised in deference to the possibility of
metempsychosis.[163] They worshipped the heavenly bodies and practised
daily a set form of adoration to salute the sun and moon at their
rising, meridian, and setting. Every month a ceremonial bath in the sea
was considered to be essential as a tribute of respect to the divinity
of that element, Poseidon. Although celibacy was not enjoined, it was
approved by the example of the great lights of the sect, who never
married, but they were not on that account precluded from illicit sexual
indulgence to a moderate extent.[164] The life of Proclus was an
exceptionally busy one owing to the interminable ritual he imposed on
himself; for, in fact, he declared himself to be the "priest of all
religions,"[165] and he laboured incessantly to act up to that
character. As a teacher he was indefatigable, lecturing five times
daily, apparently to crowded audiences in a theatre, whilst his evenings
were devoted to philosophic colloquies. He was, of course, reputed to be
highly favoured by the gods, and his biography is almost as full of
marvels as a Christian Gospel. Celestial visions were frequently
vouchsafed to him, especially on the occasion of the sacrilegious
removal of the statue of Athena from the Parthenon by order of the state
officials. The goddess incontinently appeared to Proclus and announced
that henceforth she would dwell with him in his own house.[166] He was
an adept at incantations, by means of which he procured a rainfall in
time of drought and arrested the progress of an earthquake which
threatened destruction to Athens. The sick were often restored by his
prayers, which, however, he seems to have relied on merely for the
purpose of invoking success on the orthodox medical treatment. Proclus
attempted to wield some power in local politics, and at one time
incurred the enmity of the predominant party, doubtless the Christians,
so that he deemed it wise to retire into exile for a twelvemonth.[167]
He died at the age of seventy-three (485) and was buried near Mount
Lycabettus in a bilocular sepulchre with his master Syrianus, for whom
he always entertained the greatest veneration.[168]
After the death of Proclus, the Neoplatonic school of Athens was
probably somewhat eclipsed, but considerable activity was still
maintained, and votaries continued to be drawn to it from Alexandria and
other parts of the Empire.[169] Although it was recognized by the
devotees that the evolution of metaphysical doctrine had reached its
final stage, the endless task of commenting on Plato and Aristotle still
kept their pens busy, and they continued to exercise their ingenuity in
reconciling the views of those masters.[170] In 529, however, their
labours were abruptly brought to a conclusion by a decree of Justinian
that there should be no more teaching of Pagan philosophy at
Athens.[171] The piety or enthusiasm of Proclus had led him to declare
that he would welcome the destruction of all writings except the Timaeus
of Plato and the oracular hymns,[172] a confession which reminds us that
devotion to some special study is apt to blind our perceptions to the
value of all extraneous knowledge. An Imperial Proclus would doubtless
have emulated the example of the Emperor Julian and aimed at the
suppression of Christianity. Justinian was a devout student of the
Nicene theology, and arrogated to himself the chief place among the
doctors of the Church.[173] He was naturally proclive to fanaticism, and
it could scarcely be expected that his mind would be less warped by his
restricted studies than that of the Pagan philosopher, nor that he would
display a tolerant disposition on finding himself in the seat of power.
It became his settled conviction that profane learning was an idle
pursuit, and he decided to enrich his treasury by forfeiting the grants
which still continued to be paid to physicians and professors of liberal
education.[174] As the result of this policy a general illiteracy began
to pervade the Empire,[175] but ultimately Justinian was induced to
restore the stipends.[176]
When the philosophers of the day found themselves reduced to silence by
an Imperial prohibition they took counsel together and resolved to
desert an empire in which their only prospect for the future was
isolation. As they glanced around them in search of a new sphere of
activity, the West, almost relapsed into barbarism, presented no aspect
hospitable to philosophy. From the East, however, a ray of illumination
had recently penetrated to their classic retreat and warmed them with
the hope of being received as welcome immigrants at the court of the
Persian monarch. In that kingdom, it was rumoured, the posture of
affairs was one of such ideal felicity that the dream of Plato,[177] as
to the occupant of a throne being at once a prince and a philosopher,
was fully realized. Everything was under the sway of the just and
honourable; thieves and bandits and perpetrators of iniquity were no
longer born there; so that the most precious property might be left
unguarded in the desert with the certainty of its remaining intact until
the owner should reclaim it. The youthful Chosroes, whose accession had
lately been announced, was the author of this beatific revolution. An
enthusiastic student of Greek literature, he had applied himself to the
study of Aristotle with a zeal equal to that of Demosthenes when he made
repeated transcriptions of Thucydides. The works of Plato were not less
familiar to him; nor could the subtleties even of the Timaeus and the
Parmenides escape the acuteness of his intelligence. This alluring
picture determined the most eminent representatives of the proscribed
school to seek their fortune in Persia. They formed a band of seven, the
chief among them being Damascius and Simplicius, who are known to modern
philosophers through some treatises of value which have survived to the
present day.[178] But no sooner had they crossed the Euphrates than
their disillusionment commenced. Everywhere criminals were numerous and
crime was very imperfectly repressed. Those in authority showed
themselves to be pompous and arrogant, and oppressed their inferiors
without measure; whilst, although polygamy was permitted, the sexual
instinct could scarcely be gratified without the added zest of adultery.
Already they felt repentant of their migration, but they pushed onwards
until they arrived at the court. There, indeed, they were received with
marked distinction by the Shahinshah, who condescended to converse with
them affably, and encouraged their attendance on his person. In
philosophy, however, they found that he had tasted merely the rudiments,
and had never approached the sublimities of their fine conceptions. The
political views common to barbarian monarchs had been in no way modified
by his superficial knowledge, nor did it avail to induce even a
semblance of agreement during the discussions they held with him.
Chosroes was proud of their apparent homage, and would have retained
them with him at any cost, but the ethics of the Orient were
insufferable in their eyes, and the party gave the most convincing proof
of their sincerity by declining his generous proposals and electing to
return to the precarious life of their native land. At the moment of
their departure the peace negotiations with Justinian were pending, and
Chosroes showed no little magnanimity by insisting that the treaty
should contain a clause granting them the right to occupy their former
abodes and to indulge their metaphysical speculations secure from
official molestation.[179]
No long time elapsed before the Shahinshah was consoled for the loss of
Damascius and his companions by another Byzantine immigrant, who was
more fitted to play the part of court philosopher than the earnest
Neoplatonists. A certain Uranius, nominally a physician, having skimmed
the works of the philosophers, pretended to a profound acquaintance with
them, and made a somewhat unenviable reputation at Constantinople by his
garrulous and argumentative disposition, as well as by his usually
dissolute mode of life. Having managed to attach himself to Areobindus,
the ambassador elect to Persia, he arrived there in his suite, and soon
captivated the ear of Chosroes by the glibness of his rhetoric and his
pliability in adopting fulsomely the sentiments of the despot. He
discoursed with the Magi, and flattered them by admitting that their
ontology was in perfect accord with that of the deepest thinkers of the
West. Chosroes avowed that he had never met with his equal, and made him
the recipient of the unprecedented distinction of sharing his viands
with him at the royal banquets. After Uranius returned to Constantinople
the monarch opened a familiar correspondence with him, and retained him
as his intellectual adviser. The glorification of this charlatan at the
Persian court guides us to estimate accurately the extent of the
philosophical acquirements of the Shahinshah, and indicates how far his
amateur studies contributed to his mental elevation.[180]
The extinction of the Neoplatonists as a religious fraternity followed
the compulsory closure of the Athenian school. The surviving members
continued to work in seclusion at their favourite theses, and even
produced some commentaries to which students still resort in order to
elucidate the history of philosophy.[181] But, although Neoplatonism was
objectively defunct, the soul of the movement was irrepressibly vital,
and many of the Catholic ecclesiastics had long been in secret sympathy
with the mystical tenets of the sect. Some of the Christian fathers had
been nurtured in the same intellectual atmosphere as the first
Neoplatonists, and had sat in the same class-room with Plotinus as
hearers of Ammonius at Alexandria. A stealthy admirer of Proclus had
adapted his ternary system with great ingenuity to the Christian
hierarchy, and produced his treatise as the composition of Dionysius the
Areopagite, who was known to have been a companion of St. Paul. The
Pagan triads of the Athenian scholarch reappeared under Biblical names,
and a long array of Cherubim, Thrones, Principalities, Virtues, Powers,
Archangels, and Angels, were ranged in orderly sequence as a heavenly
host proper to intervene between the homoousian Trinity and the
earth.[182] The moment Neoplatonism became obsolete as a visible creed,
the Greek fathers did not recoil from giving a welcome acceptance to
this gorgeous fabric, which in due time travelled westwards to be
promulgated among the Gallic churches by the famous Scotus Erigena.
Throughout the Middle Ages the spirit of the Alexandrian School was rife
among the German mystics,[183] and later even among English
Platonists.[184] Nor scarcely was it repressed in the nineteenth century
until the growth of physical science and evolutionary philosophy gave a
deathblow to the belief that knowledge could be drawn from our inner
consciousness by processes of mental incubation in the closet.
[132] Vitruvius (v, 11) is the source for the topography of the
gymnasium, Becker-Göll's Charicles for the elaboration of scattered
details.
[133] The liveliest picture of Socrates debating in a gymnasium will be
found in Plato's Lysis.
[134] Diogenes Laert., Plato, 9, 14; Pausanias, i, 30; cf. Pliny, Hist.
Nat., xii, i.
[135] Diogenes Laert., Speusippus, 3.
[136] Damascius, Vit. Isidori, 158; Suidas, Plato.
[137] Plutarch, Alexander, 5.
[138] Diogenes Laert. _in Vita_, 4, 7.
[139] Zeller, in his History of Philosophy, prefers this explanation of
the name. It is also held that they were so designated merely because A.
taught in the +peripatos+ or promenade of the gymnasium.
[140] Diogenes Laert., 3.
[141] Diogenes Laert., 6, 7.
[142] Cyprus was at first Phoenician; later at various times Greek,
Egyptian, and Persian.
[143] The best known Roman Stoics are Cato of Utica, Seneca, Lucan the
poet, Helvidius Priscus, Arrian, Epictetus, and the Emperor Marcus
Aurelius.
[144] Diogenes Laert., Epicurus, 1.
[145] _Ibid._, 7.
[146] Diogenes Laert., Epicurus, 9, 10; Pliny, xix, 4.
[147] The chief Roman Epicureans were Lucretius, the poetical expositor
of his system, Horace, Atticus, and the younger Pliny.
[148] Dio Cass., lxxxi, 31; Philostratus, Vit. Soph., ii, 2. The action
in Lucian's "Eunuch" is laid at this time, and seems to represent a real
contest. The castrate claimed one of the salaried positions, but an
outcry arose in view of his emasculated condition. The most obvious
objection taken appeared to be that a philosopher should be adorned with
a long beard. "In that case," he retorted, "your best plan would be to
elect a goat." The litigation had to be referred to Rome, but with what
result we are not told.
[149] See p. 258 _et seq._
[150] In the time of Julian Pergamus was the most active centre of
Neoplatonism; and his principal tutors, Aedesius, Chrysanthius, and
Maximus, taught there. For their ridiculous practices, half
charlatanism, half fanaticism, see the lives by Eunapius.
[151] "Away with every word of Epicurus and Pyrrho!" exclaims Julian.
"Thanks to the gods, most of their books are now lost." Frag. Epist.
(H., p. 386).
[152] See p. 207.
[153] Among the most noted of these teachers was Proaeresius, who is
described as a colossus, nine feet high. During a visit to Rome he made
such an impression that a statue was erected to him with the
inscription: "The Queen of Cities to the Prince of Eloquence." He,
however, was a Christian, and, therefore, was forced to resign by
Julian. By way of a set off to this giant, another very able
rhetorician, Alypius, was a pigmy; see their lives by Eunapius.
[154] See p. 207.
[155] Damascius and Suidas, _loc. cit._
[156] Usually referred to as the son of Nestorius to distinguish him
from the well-known writer of lives, who lived under Trajan.
[157] Marinus, Vita Procli.
[158] Marinus, Vita Procli. The schools of rhetoric were not extinct at
this date, as they are stated to have made overtures to Proclus, but he
refused to engage himself to any of them.
[159] It is generally agreed among scholars that the writings of Orpheus
now extant are spurious productions emanating from the Neoplatonists
themselves, who, as a pious fraud, expanded very scanty relics to
considerable bulk with the object of providing an old traditional basis
for their theology. In this age the daughters of philosophers, like
Hypatia, often worked with their fathers, and, when advanced enough,
gave instruction to the classes. Thus Aclepigeneia, the daughter of
Plutarch, was the only one versed in the so-called Chaldaean lore, and
she in that department became the preceptress of Proclus; Marinus, _op.
cit._ The work of Damascius (Vit. Isidor.) is dedicated to a certain
Theodora who, with her sisters, had been pupils of himself and Isidorus.
The course of study is shown to have been prolonged and comprehensive,
extending sometimes over a decade or more. It included rhetoric,
dialectic, literature in prose and verse, mathematics, and astronomy
(Ptolemy's system), besides the philosophy of Plato, Aristotle, and the
Neoplatonists; Photius, Cod., 181. From a passage in Olympiodorus
(Creuzer, Frankf., 1820, ii, pp. xii, 141), it seems that to the last
the school continued to be open free to students as in the days of Plato
himself. The fact is also indicated by the anecdote related of
Proaeresius and his friend Hephaestion. Armenians both of them, they
arrived at Athens so destitute that they possessed between them only
clothing sufficient for one person. When, therefore, one went out to
hear a lecture, the other had to remain within wrapped up in some old
bed coverlets; (Eunapius in Vit.). Presents must, however, have been
received, as it is mentioned (Damascius and Suidas, _loc. cit._) that
under Proclus the funds of the Academy rose to the amount of 1,000 gold
pieces.
[160] Vacherot has arranged a table, in which the numerous divinities
admitted by Proclus are seen according to their roll of precedence;
Ecole d'Alexandrie, Paris, 1846, ii, p. 378. A comprehensive work by
Jules Simon with the same title came out almost simultaneously. Zeller
(Philos. d. Griech., v, pp. 548, 808) defines the position of matter
according to the views of Plotinus and Proclus. The first considers it
to be the original evil, but with the latter it is neutral, and bad only
in relation to that which is better. These notions, however, are
embedded in pages of refinements, so that no real finality is attained.
[161] By the age of twenty-eight Proclus had finished his commentary on
the Timaeus, which exceeded in bulk the whole writings of Plato. Half of
it is lost, but the portion preserved makes a ponderous tome.
[162] Victor Cousin and Thomas Taylor. The latter professes himself to
be a complete convert to the religion of Proclus, and the former, who
was a leader of thought, almost goes as far. The difference in
theological standpoint between Christians, Stoics, and Neoplatonists is
explained by the historians of philosophy. The Christian triune God
exists apart from the universe, which he produces by his own voluntary
act. With the pantheistic Stoics the Deity is pervasive without limit,
and in all best things most immanent. Thus the good man may be his most
perfect manifestation, and in no degree less than Zeus himself. But the
essence of Neoplatonism is the Oriental conception of emanation, and in
this pantheism everything is viewed as progressively inferior in
proportion to its distance from the transcendent source, _i.e._, the
One. In this system the good man cannot be equal to the Deity; he can
only endeavour to elevate himself to reunion with his source by ecstatic
detachment from all lower grades. In the other systems the world had a
beginning and end in time, but the eternity of the cosmos was a
necessary dogma of Neoplatonism.
[163] See Porphyry's elaborate treatise, De Abstinentia ab Esu Carnium.
He tries to prove the quasi-humanity of animals; they have a language of
their own, which some men have understood, etc.
[164] Proclus, like Plotinus, acted the part of a father to all the
young people of his acquaintance. Porphyry, somewhat late in life,
married a widow named Marcella, stating that he only did so in order to
fulfil the paternal office towards her children. Yet fornication was not
a Neoplatonic sin, and even Proclus resorted to it restrainedly. A
letter of Porphyry to Marcella, a condensed manual of ethics, is extant,
and has recently appeared in an English dress.
[165] Or literally, "the hierophant of the whole world."
[166] Marinus also informs us that he was on terms of great cordiality
with Pan, but according to another authority this god had died some
centuries previously. Plutarch (De Defect. Orac., 17) tells us, on the
report of "a well-known man of very sound character," that a vessel
sailing in the Ambracian Gulf touched one evening at the Isle of Paxae.
Shortly, a voice from the land thrice summoned Thames the Egyptian, one
of the crew, and gave him the injunction, "When you come to Paloda,
announce that the Great Pan is dead." The mandate was obeyed, they put
in at a deserted spot, and Thames, standing in the bows, shouted the
required information. Immediately the whole ship's company heard "a deep
groan, proceeding as it were from a multitude of men." The news was
carried to Rome, and Tiberius, after interviewing Thames, decided to
hold an inquest. All the savants of the Court sat on the deceased, and,
without viewing the body, pronounced him to be Pan, the son of Hermes
and Penelope. The witness in this case was doubtless of the same class
as those who from time to time contribute marvels to the reports of the
Psychical Society and the Occult Review.
[167] The alumni of the school went and taught in other places; for
instance, Agapius, a hearer of Proclus, under whom Jn. Lydus studied (De
Magist., iii, 26), the same, perhaps, who was the "big wig" of the
medical faculty at CP., about that time, and made a large fortune, as
related by Damascius and Suidas. Damascius (Vit. Isidori) gives an
account of the practice of Jacob Psychristus, an eminent physician of
the latter part of the fifth century. He trusted chiefly to purgations,
baths, and diets, used the knife and cautery sparingly, and repudiated
bleeding. On visiting CP. he found the profession there neither
experienced nor learned, but relying on a routine derived from their
predecessors, which they followed in a blind and careless manner.
Pamprepius, one of the ablest disciples of Proclus, deserted the Academy
for the Byzantine court, and attached himself to Illus, the great rebel
in the reign of Zeno; but ultimately he was executed by his patron for
having ventured on predictions which were falsified by the event;
Suidas, _sb. nom._ (Malchus); Theophanes, an. 5976, etc.
[168] Marinus, _op. cit., ad fin._
[169] Of this period there is a sort of chronicle extant in the form of
a life of Isidore of Gaza, who became scholarch next after Marinus. The
whole work has been abridged from the original of Damascius by Photius
(Cod. 242), and portions of it are given by Suidas, apparently in full,
under various biographical headings, _e.g._ Aedesia, Archiadas,
Asclepiodotus, Domninus, Hegias, Hermeias, Hierocles, Pamprepius,
Salustius, Serapion, etc., all philosophers of this later time. The
narrative is stuffed with nonsense to an even greater extent than the
life by Marinus, and gives instances of prophecy by crystal-gazing, of
casting out of devils, etc. Curiously enough, it contains some of the
earliest recorded observations of electric phenomena, viz. an ass of
Tiberius and a horse of Severus that emitted sparks; that fire issued
from the body of Walamir, father of Theodoric the Goth, without singeing
his clothing, etc.
[170] Syrianus had devoted himself particularly to this task, and his
extant commentaries are a necessary part of the armament of the modern
Aristotelian.
[171] Jn. Malala, xviii, 451. Alemannus (_op. cit._, p. 459) cites an
anonymous Greek chronicle, in which astronomy as well as philosophy is
prohibited.
[172] Marinus, _op. cit., ad fin._
[173] Jn. Ephes. Com., p. 249.
[174] Procopius, Anecd., 26. Olympiodorus (_op. cit._), writing probably
just before the closure of the schools, notices that these confiscations
had been going on for some time. It seems that Justinian began
systematically to seize on the property of all teachers he disapproved
of.
[175] Zonaras, xiv, 6.
[176] The Pragmatic Sanction addressed to Pope Vigilius (554) indicates
the restoration; sect. 22. It would seem that state aid must have been
in abeyance for twenty years or more, as the evidence of Procopius
extends to 550.
[177] Republic, vi, etc.
[178] The commentaries of Simplicius on Aristotle, besides being of
considerable bulk, are the most valuable of that class of writings which
have come down to us. They have been repeatedly published since 1499.
[179] The narrative of this migration to Persia is due to Agathias (ii,
28, _et seq._), who does not, however, mention that they were driven out
by legislation, but represents them merely as dissatisfied with the
religion of the Empire. He speaks of them with the greatest respect;
they were the "fine flower" of the philosophy of his age.
[180] Agathias, _loc. cit._ Quicherat (_ad calc._ Dübner's Plotinus,
Paris, 1855) endeavours to refute Agathias in respect of his low
estimate of the intellectual attainments of Chosroes. In the first place
he relies on a Syrian MS. discovered by Renan in the British Museum,
which is an epitome of Aristotle's Logic, purporting to have been made
by Paul the Persian, a Nestorian priest, for the use of Chosroes. This
neutralizes the objection of A. that the niceties of Greek philosophy
could not be rendered in the rude Pahlavi, it being known that the
Shahinshah was obliged to have recourse to translations. Syriac,
however, is a language of considerable literary refinement. Further he
publishes a MS.—not long unearthed at St. Germains—a Latin version by
Scotus Erigena(?) of the solutions given by Priscian, one of the seven,
to certain "doubts" entertained by Chosroes. The work is incomplete, but
nine of the questions which puzzled the monarch are dealt with, viz. the
soul, sleep, dreams; the routine of the seasons; why doctors differ; the
tides; rain and lightning; variation of animal and plants after removal
to a different climate; and the venom of serpents. Indisputably Chosroes
was a very able ruler, and it is clear that he evinced great curiosity
in every department of knowledge, but that he could have studied with
the assiduity necessary for the attainment of erudition is a scarcely
tenable supposition; and the episode of Uranius falls in very aptly with
what we should predicate as likely to be the outcome of his desultory
inquisitiveness.
[181] Damascius profited by his Persian experiences to give an account
of Babylonian dualism in one of his treatises. This work has received
considerable attention of late. See books by Ruelle, Paris, 1889, and
Chaignet, Paris, 1898.
[182] See Bigg's Neoplatonism, Lond., 1892, for a tabulated synopsis.
There were also earthly triads, which included the sacraments and the
various orders of priests, etc.
[183] Simon and Zeller stop short at the fall of the school of Athens,
but Vacherot has devoted a third volume to tracing out the diffusion of
Neoplatonic ideas in Western thought throughout the Middle Ages until
recent times. Mystics such as Jacob Boehme, Molinos, Madame Guyon, etc.
(Quietists), are connected with this stage of the fantasy.
[184] Cudworth, one of the "Cambridge Platonists," is the central figure
of this group. In his True Intellectual System of the Universe (pp. 900,
fol., 1678, an inceptive fragment of a larger(!) work never completed)
he appears as a modern Plotinus labouring in the realm of metaphysics
under the obsession of Hebrew and Orthodox mythology in which he had
been nurtured, but in verbosity and expansiveness he well outdistances
his prototype. He is inclined to believe in ghosts, and thence to draw a
theistic proof of the existence of a "supreme ghost," _i.e._ the Deity.
See Tulloch's Rational Theology in England in 17th Century, 1874, ii, p.
240 _et seq._