TRANSITION TO NEO-PLATONISM
It has been doubted whether Neo-Platonism ought to be included in
Greek philosophy at all, and Erdmann, in his "History of Philosophy,"
places it in the medieval division. For, firstly, an interval of no
less than five centuries separates the foundation of Neo-Platonism
from the foundation of the preceding Greek schools, the Stoic, the
Epicurean, and the Sceptic. How long a period this is will be seen if
we remember that the entire development of Greek thought from Thales
to the Sceptics occupied only about three centuries. Plotinus, the
real founder of Neo-Platonism, was born in 205 A.D., so that it is, as
far as historical time is concerned, a product of the Christian era.
Secondly, its character is largely un-Greek and un-European. The Greek
elements are largely swamped by oriental mysticism. Its seat was not
in Greece, but at Alexandria, which was not a Greek, but a
cosmopolitan, city. Men of all races met here, and, in particular, it
was here that East and West joined hands, and the fusion of thought
which resulted was Neo-Platonism. But, on the other hand, it seems
wrong to include the thought of Plotinus and his successors in
medieval philosophy. The whole character of what is usually called
medieval philosophy was determined by its growth upon a distinctively
Christian soil. It was {369} Christian philosophy. It was the product
of the new era which Christianity had substituted for paganism.
Neo-Platonism, on the other hand, is not only unchristian, but even
anti-christian. The only Christian influence to be detected in it is
that of opposition. It is a survival of the pagan spirit in Christian
times. In it the old pagan spirit struggles desperately against its
younger antagonist, and finally succumbs. In it we see the last gasp
and final expiry of the ancient culture of the Greeks. So far as it is
not Asiatic in its elements, it draws its inspiration wholly from the
philosophies of the past, from the thought and culture of Greece. On
the whole, therefore, it is properly classified as the last school of
Greek philosophy.
The long interval of time which elapsed between the rise of the
preceding Greek schools, whose history we have traced, and the
foundation of Neo-Platonism, was filled up by the continued existence,
in more or less fossilized form, of the main Greek schools, the
Academic, the Peripatetic, the Stoic, and the Epicurean, scattered and
harried at times by the inroads of scepticism. It would be wearisome
to follow in detail the development in these schools, and the more or
less trifling disputes of which it consists. No new thought, no
original principle, supervened. It is sufficient to say that, as time
went on, the differences between the schools became softened, and
their agreements became more prominent. As intellectual vigour wanes,
there is always the tendency to forget differences, to rest, as the
orientals do, in the good-natured and comfortable delusion that all
religions and all philosophies really mean much the same thing. Hence
eclecticism became characteristic of the schools. {370} They did not
keep themselves distinct. We find Stoic doctrines taught by Academics,
Academic doctrines by Stoics. Only the Epicureans kept their race
pure, and stood aloof from the general eclecticism of the time.
Certain other tendencies also made their appearance. There was a
recrudescence of Pythagoreanism, with its attendant symbolism and
mysticism. There grew up a tendency to exalt the conception of God so
high above the world, to widen so greatly the gulf which divides them,
that it was felt that there could be no community between the two,
that God could not act upon matter, nor matter upon God. Such
interaction would contaminate the purity of the Absolute. Hence all
kinds of beings were invented, demons, spirits, and angels, intended
to fill up the gap, and to act as intermediaries between God and the
world.
As an example of these latter tendencies, and as precursor of
Neo-Platonism proper, Philo the Jew deserves a brief mention. He lived
at Alexandria between 30 B.C. and 50 A.D. A staunch upholder of the
religion and scriptures of the Hebrew race, he believed in the verbal
inspiration of the Old Testament. But he was learned in Greek studies,
and thought that Greek philosophy was a dimmer revelation of those
truths which were more perfectly manifested in the sacred books of his
own race. And just as Egyptian priests, out of national vanity, made
out that Greek philosophy came from Egypt, just as orientals now
pretend that it came from India, so Philo declared that the origin of
all that was great in Greek philosophy was to be found in Judea. Plato
and Aristotle, he was certain, were followers of Moses, used the Old
Testament, and gained their wisdom therefrom! {371} Philo's own ideas
were governed by the attempt to fuse Jewish theology and Greek
philosophy into a homogeneous system. It was Philo, therefore, who was
largely responsible for contaminating the pure clear air of Greek
thought with the enervating fogs of oriental mysticism.
Philo taught that God, as the absolutely infinite, must be elevated
completely above all that is finite. No name, no thought, can
correspond to the infinity of God. He is the unthinkable and the
ineffable, and His nature is beyond the reach of reason. The human
soul reaches up to God, not through thought, but by means of a
mystical inner illumination and revelation that transcends thought.
God cannot act directly upon the world, for this would involve His
defilement by matter and the limitation of His infinity. There are
therefore intermediate spiritual beings, who, as the ministers of God,
created and control the world. All these intermediaries are included
in the Logos, which is the rational thought which governs the world.
The relation of God to the Logos, and of the Logos to the world, is
one of progressive emanation. Clearly the idea of emanation is a mere
metaphor which explains nothing, and this becomes more evident when
Philo compares the emanations to rays of light issuing from an
effulgent centre and growing less and less bright as they radiate
outwards. When we hear this, we know in what direction we are moving.
This has the characteristic ring of Asiatic pseudo-philosophy. It
reminds us forcibly of the Upanishads. We are passing out of the realm
of thought, reason, and philosophy, into the dream-and-shadow-land of
oriental mysticism, where the heavy scents of beautiful poison flowers
drug the intellect and obliterate thought in a blissful and languorous
repose.
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