THE RELIGIOUS PERIOD (100 B. C.–476 A. D.)
=The Two Causes of the Rise of Religious Feeling.= There were two
causes for the turn of the time from its interest in individual
practical ethics to religion. The first was an inner cause within
the nature of the ethical philosophy of the Schools. The rise of the
religious and the supernatural was the culmination of the undercurrent
of skepticism in the validity of reason, which we found growing
rapidly in the Ethical Period. The more the Schools grew alike in
their teaching, the less were they able to assure their disciples
of any certain insight into virtue and happiness. The Ethical Period
ended in eclecticism, and this was the impeachment of the authority
of each School. The Schools examined their dogmatic assumptions.
The fundamental inner conviction grew stronger that the intellect of
man is self-inconsistent: so inconsistent as to be undependable; so
inconsistent as not to vouchsafe man the virtue and happiness which the
Schools had promised. As Skepticism became more strongly intrenched,
the imperturbable self-certainty of the Wise Man became shaken, the
Ethical Period disappeared, and the Religious Period was born. Belief
in the authority of the supernatural superseded belief in the authority
of the reason.
The second cause may be called external, and was the introduction
of many eastern religions into the empire. It has been common to
exaggerate the vices of the Romans of the first Christian centuries,
and to point to the corruption of the times as the cause of the great
rise of religions.[42] No doubt, in the city of Rome and other large
cities the populations were very licentious and corrupt. But this
was not the case with the people in the small municipalities and the
country. The people were united in peace under one government. There
was great commercial prosperity and widespread travel. Education
prospered. The religion of the Romans, however, long since decadent,
had become an object of derision. All faith in it had been lost,
and magicians and romancers had a large patronage. The inner life of
man demanded some external spiritual authority to satisfy it, and,
finding it could not be satisfied in the realm of sense, turned to
the supersensuous. It was an age of universal superstitions, reported
miracles, and the multiplying of myths. In the realm of the religious
emotions everything was in flux. Even the Greek philosophies――the Stoic,
the Platonic, the Cynic, and the neo-Pythagorean――show it in their
emphasis upon renunciation in practical life. In place of the Grecian
love for earthly existence, a longing for the mysterious was growing
into a feverish desire for strange and mysterious cults. A great
religious movement possessed the nations of the empire, and into
Roman civilization of the first century A. D. there streamed many new
religions. From the Orient came the Mithra, Magna Mater, Star Worship,
Isis and Osiris, and many others. These mingled with the western
religions, and their rivalry was energetic for the possession of men’s
spirits. The Roman people were hospitable to all religions, and Rome
became a religious battleground. With the interest turned from earthly
to heavenly things, salvation from trouble seemed to lie in the
supernatural.
=The Need of Spiritual Authority.= Thus the complacent Ethical Period
gave way to the cry for some authority in morals and science. Man
was no longer confident that he could attain present happiness or his
soul’s salvation by his own strength. He turned for help both to the
religious tradition of the past and to the revelation that might come
to him in the present. The authority in either was practically the same;
for the past was only the crystallization of an ever-present divine
spirit. Yet present and past revelations differ in their credentials:
the present revelation is an immediate illumination of the spirit; the
past is presented in historic records. The Alexandrian school accepted
both forms of revelation as the highest source of knowledge.
The demand for supernatural authority found expression in many
curious ways. It is notorious that at this time the writings and oral
traditions of the past were greatly interpolated. The philosophers of
the first century thought that they themselves could get a hearing only
by inserting their own doctrines into the writings of Plato, Aristotle,
and other heroes of the past. Thus the neo-Pythagoreans invented
a halo of wisdom for Pythagoras in order to give their own sect its
credentials. The demand for authority culminated in the attempt to
trace the entire civilization of the time to some religious source.
Philo on the one side, and the Gnostics on the other, found that Greek
and Hebrew history have a common religious origin. Greek thought was
found in the Oriental writings. The Greek sages were placed by the
side of the Old Testament heroes. The canon of the Christians is full
of cross-references――the Old Testament giving historical authority to
the New Testament, the New Testament giving to the Old Testament the
support of immediate revelation. There came into vogue what was called
“allegorical interpretation,” according to which an historical document
could be given two interpretations (or more)――a literal interpretation
and a spiritual interpretation. The documents were supposed to have
a body and a soul. The literal interpretation was of the body of the
documents and suitable for the people; the spiritual interpretation
was the more liberal interpretation of the soul of the document and
suitable for philosophers.
At the same time a vast number of writings appeared as historical
revelations. It was necessary to separate the true from the false,
but this could not be done by the individual without injuring the very
principle upon which revelation was supposed to rest. Consequently all
knowledge was generally regarded as revelation. For example, Plutarch
and the Stoics divided revelation into three classes: poetry, law,
and philosophy. Although Plutarch disclaimed open superstitions, he
nevertheless accepted as true all sorts of miracles and prophecies.
The later neo-Platonists are also examples of the great body of those
who made no discrimination as to what revelation is true. The Christian
church may be said to have been alone in making a criticism of the
records, and in setting up as criteria tradition and historically
accredited authority. As a result of its criticism the Christian
canon was finally decided upon, and the Old and New Testaments were
accepted as alone inspired. The rivals of the church――the Alexandrian
philosophies, especially neo-Platonism――had no organization that could
decide upon a canon. They were consequently at a disadvantage, but they
felt no need of an infallible historical authority or of historical
criticism. Revelation to them was any immediate illumination of the
individual. The individual man who comes in contact with the Deity
has possession of the divine truth. Although only few attain the
truth, and these only at rare moments, there is nevertheless no way of
determining what is fictitious and what is true. This difference in the
conception of inspiration between the neo-Platonists and the Christians
is important to note, for it marks an important difference in the
two greatest intellectual movements of the next thousand years. The
church fixed revelation on the basis of historical authority, and this
revelation became the source of the scholasticism of the Middle Ages;
neo-Platonism left the individual man free to get revelation from any
source through his own personal contact with the divine, and this was
the basis of the mysticism of the Middle Ages.
=The Rise of the Conception of Spirituality.= We have seen that out
of the widespread cry for spiritual help came the demand for spiritual
authority. There is also another result,――the increased importance
in history of the spiritual personality. The men of the past became
heroes, the great men sanctified and surrounded with myths. Hero
worship, ancestor worship, the worship of the genius of the emperor
inaugurated by Augustus, were part of this movement. Disciples began
to have unconditional trust in their masters, and in neo-Platonism this
worship culminated in veneration for the leaders of the School. This
movement appears in the grandest form in history in the impression of
the wonderful personality of Jesus Christ.
The next step was to regard personality as the revelation of the
divine Logos. Personality is the cosmic reason. Nature and history
are kinds of general revelations, but special revelations require
great personalities――Moses, the prophets, the Greek scientists, and
especially Jesus who was the Messiah, the Son of God. The power that
these personalities exhibit must be a revelation, and not the working
of the human reason, for the human unaided reason deals only with
sensations, and is incapable of gaining divine truth. The reason needs
the divine to illuminate it. The great personalities are therefore
the repositories of powers that make them different from ordinary men.
Their revelations are above, and sometimes opposed to, the conclusions
of ordinary reason. Thus personalities themselves are divided by
religious dualism, and in them the human and divine are far apart.
Moreover, the more great personalities were apotheosized, the more
the common run of humanity was depreciated. Then distinction was
made between great personalities. At first, when authority was sought
everywhere, all great personalities were supposed to have divine
revelation; later, when the lines were drawn between the Christian
and other beliefs, only the Christian leaders were considered by the
Christians to be instruments of the divine.
This spiritualizing of historical personalities laid the emphasis
more than ever before upon the dualism in all human beings. All men
are ensnared in the world of sense, and they can attain knowledge
of the higher world only through the illumination of their higher
natures. Aristotle alone among the Greeks had had a clear conception
of spirituality, but he had conceived spirituality as applied solely to
God. He had not conceived God to be a person. But the Stoic antithesis
of reason and what is contrary to reason, and the Platonic antithesis
of the supersensuous and the sensuous, had marked off _in man_ the
inner personal nature of man as withdrawn into itself and set over
against his sensuous nature. The more this ethical dualism became a
religious dualism, the more the conception of spiritual personality was
extended to all human beings. Its most refined expression was in the
Christian conception of the soul.
=The Revival of Platonism.= The Platonism of the Academy had had
little influence in the Ethical Period and its tradition had been
barely kept alive. The Middle Academy had been skeptical and the
New Academy eclectic. The Religious Period, on the other hand, was
thoroughly Platonic, and Plato from this time until the Crusades became
the ruling philosophical power. For three hundred years his influence
had been nothing; for the next twelve hundred he dominated men’s
minds, so far as any philosopher could in religious times. When the
Wise Man vanished from philosophy, and the expectation of spiritual
blessedness took its place, when Skepticism drove men from ethics,
first to eclecticism and then to theology, when philosophy passed
to mysticism――then did Platonism, with its antithesis between the
sensible and the supersensible, come to its own. Of all the historical
philosophies it could best amalgamate all religions. Platonism
(1) absorbed Oriental religions, (2) furnished a didactic form for
Christianity, (3) recreated itself into the mystic neo-Platonism. The
world-longing for the supernatural found its best medium in Platonism.
When the Wise Man vanished, the mystic priest appeared.
=The Divisions of the Religious Period.= Out of the seething religious
times at the beginning of this era, there emerged two distinct currents
of thought that extended through the entire length of the Religious
Period, and carried down into the Middle Ages all the culture that
the mediæval possessed. The two movements were (1) the religious
philosophies of the still persistent Hellenic civilization, and
(2) the new-born Christian religion, which was destined to determine
the future of the western people. If we scrutinize these two movements
we shall find that each has its introductory and its development stages,
and at the point of division in each stands a great leader who was
instrumental in bringing about the transition. The great neo-Platonist,
Plotinus (204–269), marks the division line in the Hellenic movement;
the Christian, Origen (185–254), marks the division line in theological
Christianity. While these men were contemporaries, we shall take,
for various reasons, the year 200 as the date of division of the
Christian movement, and the year 250 as the date of division of the
Hellenic movement. The first stage of each movement we shall call its
Introductory Period, and the second its Development Period.
During their Introductory Periods the two movements tried to draw
together under the influence of the philosophical eclecticism which
colors this time. In their Development Periods the two movements
draw apart, become closed and mutually repellent. The historical
developments of the two movements from beginning to end are very
different. The tide of Hellenism floods with Plotinus, its greatest
representative, and after him there is a gradual ebb. On the other hand,
Christianity shows a continuous growth, both internally and externally,
and the mighty Origen only points to the mightier Augustine. Both
movements finally merge in Augustine.
I. Hellenic Religious II. Christianity.
Philosophy.
1. Introductory Period Introductory Period
(100 B. C.–250 A. D.). (31 A. D.–200 A. D.).
(1) Greek-Jewish philosophy (1) Period of simple faith (until
of Alexandria. the 2d century A. D.).
Philo (25 B. C.–50
A. D.).
(2) Neo-Pythagoreanism (2) Period of Earlier Formulation
(100 B. C.–150 A. D.). of Doctrine.
Apologists (2d century).
Gnostics (2d century).
Old Catholic Theologians
(2d and 3d centuries).
2. Development Period Development Period (200–476).
(250–476).
Neo-Platonism. (1) Period of Actual Formulation
Plotinus (204–269). of Doctrine.
Jamblichus (d. 330 about). The School of Catechists.
Proclus (410–485). Origen (185–254).
(2) The Œcumenical Councils and
the establishment of dogma.
=The Hellenic Religious Philosophies.= Alexandria and not Athens was
now the intellectual centre of Hellenism. The position and history
of the city, as well as the character of its population, were most
favorable for the mingling of religions and philosophies. In the
“university” of this great commercial metropolis the treasures of Greek
culture were concentrated and scholastic work was vigorously pursued.
Here all philosophies met, and all religions and cults were tolerated.
Exhausted Greek philosophy here came in contact with those fresh
Oriental ideas which previously, at a distance, had excited the
imagination of the Greeks as something mysterious. The result was a new
phase of philosophy,――theosophy, comparative religion, or eclecticism
of philosophy and religion.
In no instance were the authors of these religious philosophies Greeks.
The philosophy of Philo was a Hellenism, but the Hellenism of a Jew.
Neo-Pythagoreanism seems to have had representatives from every country
except the motherland of Greece. The author of neo-Platonism was
born in Egypt. Of the two introductory movements, the Greek-Jewish
philosophy accorded more with Oriental life, neo-Pythagoreanism with
Greek life. Both go back to the principles that were fundamental in the
Pythagorean mysteries.
=The Introductory Period of Hellenic Religious Philosophy= (100
B. C.–250 A. D.). =The Turning to the Past for Spiritual Authority.=
=1. The Greek-Jewish Philosophy of Philo.= The Jews lived in great
numbers in Alexandria, and many of them were wealthy and influential.
In Alexandria the Old Testament had been translated into Greek, and
through it the Greeks had become acquainted with the religion of the
Jews. While the Old Testament contained the philosophy of the Jews,
these Alexandrian Jews had learned in Alexandria to admire greatly the
philosophy of the Greeks. So great was their admiration that they soon
conceived Plato to be in their Law and their Law in Plato. They argued
that since the Old Testament was their revelation, all the best Greek
philosophy must be in the Old Testament. The Alexandrian Jews used
Greek conceptions wherever they found them; and this tendency toward
eclecticism appeared as early as 160 B. C. in Aristobulus and Aristeas.
At that time these Jews used Greek philosophy in interpreting the Old
Testament and employed the “allegorical method of interpretation.”
This eclectic tendency was brought to completion by Philo (25 B. C.–50
A. D.), who was the most notable philosopher of this time. Philo was
guided in his eclecticism by some such rules as these: (1) Revelation
is the highest possible authority and includes the best of Greek
thought; (2) Greek philosophy is derived from the fundamental
principles of the Old Testament; (3) Jewish revelation is expressed
in symbols, while Greek philosophy is expressed in concepts.
Philo’s teaching contains, in unsymmetrical form, both Stoicism and
Platonism, and in it can be found the seeds of all that grew up in
Christian soil. His philosophy was a bridge from the philosophy of
Judaism to Christian theology. It has been called a “buffer” philosophy.
God is the ultimate cause of the world, but He is so transcendent that
He can be described only in negative terms. This method of defining God
got the name in later times of “negative theology.” It was the common
method in these Alexandrian days. God is absolutely inconceivable and
inexpressible to man; to Himself He is “I am who am.” The goodness of
God impelled Him, and His power enabled Him, to create the world. From
this point of view Philo is a monist. But in man reason and sense meet.
Man’s soul is from God, but his sense-body is from matter, and from
this point of view Philo is a dualist. Matter is outside God. God is
so transcendent that He cannot come in contact with matter, and so He
created the world and rules the world through mediators or “potencies.”
These “potencies” are the same as the Ideas of Plato, the “reasons”
of the Stoics, the numbers of the Pythagoreans, the angels of the Old
Testament, or the dæmons of popular mythology. The sum-total of God’s
activity in the world was called by Philo the Logos. Philo speaks of
the Logos in two ways: sometimes as the plural number of teleological
forces in the world; sometimes as the unity of these forces, “the
first begotten of God,” “the second God,” “the son of God.” The Logos
represents the first attempt to overcome the dualism between matter and
God. The Logos is the high priest standing between God and the world.
It is the everlasting revelation of God’s presence. Philo’s world is
made by God and not by others, and is the expression of God’s thought
in infinite forms and forces. God is not defiled by coming into contact
with matter. God gives orders, the Logos obeys. Philo believed in
transmigration of souls, and to him the most important problem is, How
the spirit can become like God. The answer is (1) by the acquirement of
the Stoic apathy, (2) by possessing the Aristotelian dianoetic virtues,
(3) by complete absorption in God.
=2. Neo-Pythagoreanism.= The history of Pythagoreanism is extremely
varied. Its body of doctrine from epoch to epoch was continually
changing. The only characteristic common to its entire history was
its practical tendency toward asceticism and its affiliation with the
Mysteries. Let us review the history of Pythagoreanism down to the
time of neo-Pythagoreanism. In 510 B. C., at the battle of Crotona,
the early band of Pythagoreans was dispersed, and about 504 B. C.
Pythagoras died. His scattered followers formed a school centring at
Thebes around the philosophy of numbers, and this school lasted until
350 B. C. In 350 B. C. Pythagoreanism no longer existed as a school,
for its members had either joined the Academy or formed one of the
Mysteries. In 100 B. C. Pythagoreanism again emerged under the name
of neo-Pythagoreanism, and this is the body which we meet in the
introductory stage of the Religious Period. Alexandria was its centre,
but it drew its disciples from every part of the earth. Among them
Apollonius alone rises as a distinct figure. He was widely known,
for he traveled everywhere as a religious teacher and wonder-worker.
Other neo-Pythagoreans were P. Nigidius Figulus, a friend of Cicero,
Sotion, a friend of the Sextians, Moderatus of Gades, and in later
times Nicomachus of Gerasa and Numenius of Apamea. Another, and rather
numerous group, allied to the neo-Pythagoreans, should be mentioned
here. These were the so-called Eclectic Platonists, the representatives
of whom were Plutarch (50–125 A. D.), and Celsus (about 200 A. D.),
the opponent of Christianity. The only important difference between
the neo-Pythagoreans and the Eclectic Platonists was that the former
referred to Pythagoras as their religious model, and the latter to
Plato. Both were mystical, ascetic, and eclectic.
Neo-Pythagoreanism first became noticeable in the first century
B. C., on account of the great number of writings appearing under the
names of Pythagoras and Philolaus. About these there arose a large
neo-Pythagorean literature,――about ninety treatises by fifty authors.
The writings under the name of Pythagoras were, for many centuries,
the cause of the misconception of the true teaching of the original
Pythagoras. The advent of the neo-Pythagorean literature marks
the return at Alexandria to the older systems of thought, and is
coincident with the learned literary investigations in the University
of Alexandria. The particular revival of Pythagoreanism in the form
of neo-Pythagoreanism came at the same time with the renewal of the
Homeric form of poetry.
Neo-Pythagoreanism, as its history shows, is the philosophy of
a half-religious sect with ascetic tendencies. Its transcendental
philosophy was better suited to a people under an autocratic government,
and ruled by Oriental traditions, than was the ethical teaching of the
four Schools. The system of the ethical Schools arose out of the needs
of the individual; but at this time the cry was for an absolute object
which transcends both the individual and nature. The demand was for a
god who could be served not by sacrifice, but by silent prayer, wisdom,
and virtue. There are many points of similarity between the doctrine of
Philo and neo-Pythagoreanism. The neo-Pythagoreans were monotheistic,
but at the same time they accepted within their monotheism the
hierarchy of the gods. They held to the commonly accepted doctrines of
their time, viz., the transmigration of the soul, the dualism of the
mind and body, the mediation of a graded series of celestial beings
between man and God. They interpreted God in a spiritual way, but they
conceived the ideas in God’s mind to be the Pythagorean numbers――just
as Philo conceived them to be the Old Testament angels.
=The Development Period of Hellenic Religious Philosophy= (250–476
A. D.). =The Turning to the Present for Spiritual Authority. Platonism
and Neo-Platonism.= Neo-Platonism is the final statement of Hellenic
culture, and the question may be asked, In what form did it present
Hellenism? The answer is, It sets forth the Hellenic feeling as
_mysticism_. The contribution of Plotinus was the destruction of
the classic Greek ideal with its definiteness of form, and was the
substitution of a new ideal of soaring spiritual exaltation. One has
only to look back to the art, science, and philosophy of the Periclean
Age to appreciate how far this last survival of Greek culture had
drifted from its original moorings. Nevertheless, neo-Platonism is
not so very far distant from that powerful ascetic principle in the
Greek mysteries which is one aspect of the doctrine of Plato himself.
Neo-Platonism was Platonism exaggerated on this mystic and ascetic
side. Plotinus said that he was ashamed that he had a body; that the
soul looks on and weeps at the sinfulness of the body; that it is not
enough to regulate the body, but that the body must be exterminated.
As the voice of Hellenism, neo-Platonism is speaking in an age when
consciousness is weighed down with the sense of the enormity of evil
and the need of salvation. Neo-Platonism feels that the moral conflict
in the human soul is repeated in the universe; that the eternal
struggle between matter and spirit goes on in the macrocosm as well
as the microcosm. Plotinus held to the ancient Greek conception of
the personification of the powers of nature, of the derivation of
happiness from activity, of the supremacy of the intellect over the
other faculties. But in accepting the ancient Greek doctrine of the
subordination of man to the universe, he conceived man to be absorbed
by the universe.
=Neo-Platonism and the Two Introductory Philosophies.= Neo-Platonism,
therefore, shares in the mysticism of the philosophies of Philo and
the neo-Pythagoreans. All three teach the transcendence of God; all
three were metaphysically monistic and ethically dualistic; all three
conceive the existence of intermediaries between God and man. The
introductory philosophies sought to build eclectic doctrines, while
neo-Platonism became eclectic only in its last phases. Plotinus
constructed a positive and original philosophy, and among the three
systems the teaching of Plotinus is carefully worked out. Indeed,
Plotinus is by far the greatest thinker of this religious period. In
the philosophy of Plotinus the relations between man and God are given
a more æsthetic character, and the doctrine of immediate experience
is more carefully discussed and has greater importance than in
neo-Pythagoreanism and the teaching of Philo.
=Neo-Platonism and Christianity.= Neo-Platonism and Christianity have
one thing at least in common. They have the same problem,――how to
spiritualize the universe. This was the problem that both Plotinus and
Origen attempted to work out. With the development of the consciousness
of spiritual personality and the need of a revelation, the Divine
seemed to both to be correspondingly farther away. God is unknown
and incomprehensible, and so pure that He cannot come in contact with
earthly existence. What, then, is the bond between the heavenly and
the earthly? From the point of view of cosmology and of ethics, neither
succeeded in overcoming the dualism. The sensuous was regarded as
alien to God, and as a thing from which the spirit must free itself.
Metaphysically their efforts to construct a spiritual monism were more
successful, but their efforts were along different lines. The Christian
conceived the universe of God and matter to be bound together by the
principle of love; the neo-Platonist, by a series of countless grades
of beings in diminishing perfections from the All-perfect. Then again,
to the neo-Platonist the question of the return of man to God was a
question of the personal inner experience of the individual; to the
Christian theologian it was included in the larger problem of the
historical process by which the whole human race is redeemed. Thus the
metaphysical solution of each works out differently and with different
factors.
Both neo-Platonic and Christian theology tried to prove that their
respective religious convictions were the only true source of salvation.
Both originated in the Alexandrian School. Christian theology was
preceded by the fantastic system of the Gnostics, as Plotinus was
preceded by the Pythagoreans and Philo. In their development the
differences between the two appear. Christianity was supported by a
church organization which had an internal vitality and a regulative
power; neo-Platonism was supported and regulated by individuals,
without organization, who had assimilated every faith. Christian
theology was founded on a faith that had already expanded, while
neo-Platonism was at the beginning an erudite religion that tried
to develop an extended faith and, incidentally, later to assimilate
other cults. Outwardly neo-Platonism, as the final stand of the pagan
world to save itself from destruction, was unsuccessful in that it
failed to perpetuate itself as an organization. Really it achieved a
marked success. Not only did it live a long life of two hundred and
fifty years, but it also lived in the development of its antagonist,
Christianity. For neo-Platonism, by the irony of fate, was one of the
important factors that entered into the building up and strengthening
of Christianity. In its lingering death-struggle Hellenism was creating
the conceptions that the Christian, Augustine, later employed in
shaping Christian theology for the Middle Ages.
=The Periods of Neo-Platonism.=
(1) The Alexandrian School――about 240.
Neo-Platonism presented as a Scientific Theory.
The leader was Plotinus (204–269).
(2) The Syrian School――about 310.
The Attempt to Systematize all Polytheisms.
The leader was Jamblichus (d. about 330).
(3) The Athenian School――about 450.
The Recapitulation of Greek Philosophy.
The leader was Proclus (410–485).
=The Alexandrian School. The Scientific Theory of Neo-Platonism. The
Life and Writings of Plotinus= (204–269 A. D.). Plotinus was born in
Lycopolis in Egypt, and received his education in Alexandria, under
Ammonius Saccas, who was Origen’s teacher. He campaigned with the
emperor, Gordian, against the Persians, in order to pursue scientific
studies in the East. He was especially interested in the Persian
religion. In this way Plotinus became acquainted at first hand
with the mysticism of the Orient. In 244 he appeared at Rome as a
teacher, and was received with great éclat by the people, and in the
highest circles he gained the most reverent recognition. His school
contained representatives from all nations and from almost every
calling,――physicians, rhetoricians, poets, senators, an emperor and
empress. Plotinus lived in a country estate in Campania, and he almost
succeeded in inducing the emperor to found a city of philosophers
in Campania. It was to be called Platonopolis and, with Plato’s
Republic as a model, it was to be an Hellenic cloister for religious
contemplation. The literary activity of Plotinus occurred in his old
age, and he wrote nothing until after he was fifty. His works consisted
of fifty-four _Corpuscles_ which his pupil, Porphyry, combined into
six _Enneads_. For the next three hundred years his school became the
centre of the Hellenic movement――the centre of science, philosophy,
and literature. The literature of neo-Platonism was enormous, on
account of the many commentaries on the philosophy of Plato within the
neo-Platonic circle.
=The General Character of the Teaching of Plotinus.= There is a great
division of opinion about the value of the teaching of Plotinus,
for he drew his philosophy only in the broadest outlines, and he
made no attempt to advance from a general view of the world to exact
knowledge of it. Intellectually his philosophy is an abstraction; and
yet emotionally, in an intimate way, it touched deeply an age weary
with culture. Thus one can see how the actual achievement of Plotinus
was small, but how at the same time its force and influence was very
great. It was a religious teaching which rose to magnificent heights of
contemplation from miserable intellectual surroundings. Nevertheless,
the philosophy of Plotinus was an extreme form of intellectualism――it
was an intellectual ennobling and transforming of religion. The earlier
philosophy had supported the happiness of the individual by offers of
infinitude; but Plotinus thought of the individual as never isolated
from the Infinite, but as always longing for the Infinite. Fellowship
with God is knowledge of Him, but it is knowledge of a peculiar kind.
It is enthusiasm, intuition, ecstasy. There is a chasm between man and
God, which Plotinus would bridge by placing reality so deeply within
consciousness as to annihilate all antitheses and contradictions. Thus
this deep reality below consciousness is cosmic and not human; and the
religion of Plotinus is cosmocentric and not anthropocentric. Plotinus
intensifies and summarizes Greek culture in order to consolidate and
defend it. But in thus thinking out the Greek conceptions to their
logical completeness, those conceptions collapse.
=The Mystic God.= There are two characteristics that distinguish the
mystic God of Plotinus.
1. The first characteristic is the supra-consciousness of God. God
is the indefinable, original Being who is above all antitheses. He is
_supra_-everything, even _supra_-conscious. Nothing can be attributed
to Him, not even thought or will, for these imply two elements and God
is a unity. Any description of Him must be in negative terms (“negative
theology”). If we speak of Him as the One, the First, the Cosmic Cause,
Goodness, or as Light, we are only relatively and not really describing
Him. God is present in all, yet He is not divided; He is the source
of all, and yet He himself is perfectly finished. In his conception
of God as compared to the world, Plotinus added the realm of the
supra-conscious and the sub-conscious to the conscious.
2. In the second place Plotinus conceived God in His relation to the
world in the terms of _dynamic pantheism_. This is a pantheism of a
peculiar type. God does not create the world; the world is not the
act of His will; nor is the world the result of a transference of part
of His nature. In ordinary pantheism the world is a diffusion of the
substance of God and the whole is static. Not so in the teaching of
Plotinus! God permeates the world by His activity, and the world is
dynamic through and through. But this dynamic activity of God must not
be conceived as an historical or time process. _The process is timeless.
It is a process of essence or worth._ The grades in the process are
those of _significance or value_. All are within the all-embracing
unity of God and each particular draws its life from Him. _This is
called the theory of emanations._ Plotinus used the figure which
mystics have always employed in this connection,――the figure of the
sun and its rays of light in the darkness. The rays become less and
less intense with the increasing distance from the Godhead, until they
end in darkness. The process is an overflowing from the Godhead in
which the Godhead remains unchanged.
=The Two Problems of Plotinus.= Starting with this conception of the
Godhead as a dynamic contentless Being, Plotinus is bound to explain
the world of sense-phenomena. His problem is twofold: he must explain
the sequence of phenomena from the Godhead, which is the metaphysical
problem; he must explain how man, living in the world of sense, can
rise to communion with the Godhead, which is the ethical problem.
Metaphysics and ethics are to Plotinus in inverted parallelism.
=The World of Emanations.――The Metaphysical Problem of Plotinus.= The
aim of Plotinus in this is to construct a metaphysical monism out of
the dualistic factors which had so long been present in Greek thought.
The two fundamental principles upon which he raised his structure were
(1) his dynamic series of emanations, and (2) his conception of matter
as entirely negative. The highest Being, God, by an excess of energy
or goodness, has the natural impulse to create something similar to
himself. This creative impulse exists in each creature in turn and the
movement propagates itself. Stage is added to stage in a descending
series, until the impulse dies out in non-Being as the limit. The
ordinary pantheism of co-existence of phenomena is transformed into
a succession of stages of values, and all make up a harmony of more or
less distinct copies of God. There are three steps in which the process
of emanation proceeds,――spirit, soul, and matter.
_The Spirit or Nous_ is the first emanation from the One in point of
significance. It is the image of the One sent forth by its overflow of
energy. This image involuntarily turns toward its original, the One,
and in beholding it becomes Spirit, Nous, or intellectual consciousness.
It turns to the One and recognizes itself as the image of the One. Thus,
in the first degree away from God, the duality of thinker as subject,
and of the thing thought as object, appears. The unconsciousness of
the One is thus contrasted with consciousness, and the dual nature
of consciousness is thus brought out; and for the first time an exact
formulation of the psychological conception of consciousness is given.
The Nous is a unitary function of the One, like the Logos of Philo. At
the same time the Nous contains within itself, as content, the Platonic
Ideas or arch-types of individuals. These Ideas are not mere thoughts,
but have their own existence. The Nous is their unity, however, just
as a unity exists for the theorems of a science. These Ideas are pure
intellectual potencies and the final causes of the world of nature.
_The Soul_ is the second degree removed from the One. It stands in the
same relation to the Nous as the Nous to the Godhead. The Soul belongs
to the world of light, but it stands just on the boundaries of the
world of darkness. It is the image of an image and therefore doubly
dual,――it consists of a higher or world-soul and the lesser souls.
The world-soul is divided into two forces,――the formative power of the
world, and the body of the world. Individual souls are divided into the
supersensible or intellectual soul (the part that has pre-existence
and undergoes metamorphosis), and the sensible part which has built up
the body as an instrument of its working power. The soul is present in
all parts of its body. The individual souls are called _plastic forces_.
_Matter_ is the emanation which is most distant from the One. The
Nous is the emanation of the One, the world-soul is the emanation from
the Nous, individual souls are a kind of intermediate emanation from
the world-soul, and matter is the emanation of the individual souls.
That is to say, the world-soul, with the forces that are native to it,
generates matter and then, by uniting itself through its forces with
matter, produces the world of corporeal things. _What is the character
of matter_ with which the world-soul forms this union? _It is space._
Space conditions all earthly existence. It is the same as Plato’s
conception of the absolutely negative non-Being and the merely possible.
It is absolute sterility, entirely evil and devoid of good. Matter has
no dualistic independence of the One. _What is the character of the
nature world?_ It has the same character and quality as the formative
forces that unite with this negative matter――it is no more and no
less eternal. The world of nature to Plotinus is one of magic, and
not merely teleological. He says that the heavens are the union of a
perfect soul with matter; the stars are the visible gods united with
matter; the powers of the air and sky are dæmons, which mediate between
the stars and the souls of men, united with matter; the body of man
is the human soul united with matter; inorganic nature is the lowest
of the plastic forces united with matter. Wherever there is matter
(space), there is found imperfection and limitation and evil. Man as
an individual is sympathetically and mysteriously bound to all parts
of the universe. Scientific investigation of nature is entirely ruled
out by this neo-Platonic teaching. It never could be the instrument for
penetrating a magical universe. Faith and superstition take the place
of science, and prophecy alone undertakes to solve nature’s riddle.
The world of nature is thus broken in two. In one sense it is bad, ugly,
and irrational. In another sense it is good, beautiful, and rational,
because it is formed by the souls that enter into it. In opposition
to the Gnostics Plotinus praised the harmony and beauty of the world,
and promulgated his metaphysics of the beautiful as a last farewell of
Hellenic civilization. Beauty is not composite, but the simple Idea of
worth shining through the world of sense. Beauty is from the inner and
for the inner. Art does not imitate nature, but expresses the reason;
it supplements the defects of nature and creates something new. Yet the
world of nature is beautiful, because down to the lowest deeps it is
permeated by the divine.
=The Return of the Soul to God.――The Ethical Problem of Plotinus.=
In his discussion of moral conduct Plotinus started from the point
opposite to that of his metaphysics. He looked from the point of view
of man up the series which descended from the Godhead. Men immersed in
matter have nevertheless a share in the divine life, and their goal is
independence of the world. They must free themselves from sense. Man’s
ethical task is to separate the two worlds and to turn away from the
material, not only in its abnormalities but in every way. The practical
virtues have little value in such a sublimation of the soul, for these
only bind the soul more closely to the world of matter. The political
virtues are only a preparation by which the soul learns how to be free
from sense. The intellectual virtues are necessary, but the goal of
salvation is not reached by knowledge alone. “The wizard king builds
his tower of speculation by the hands of human workmen till he reaches
the top story, and then he summons his genii to fashion the battlements
of adamant and crown them with starry fire.” Out of the mental
condition of contemplation the soul will rise on the wings of ecstasy
to the God from whom it came. The call of Plotinus is to the ascetic
life. The development required is that of spirituality. Ethically
Plotinus’ doctrine is dualistic, because it requires the rejection
of matter as evil. The return is not an evolution nor an innovation
in which reform of the old world is demanded. There is no individual
progress, but a penetration into the foundation of things. But what
incentive has man to undertake this return? What arouses him from
his sleep? Not sense-perception nor reflection, but his love for the
beautiful. The innate impulse of Platonic love turns the soul away from
matter to the illuminating Idea. He who has an immediate recognition
of the pure Idea is gaining the higher perfection. Only when man is
in ecstasy――an ecstasy which transcends every subjective state――does
he get complete contact and union with God. In such a moment of
consecration he forgets himself and becomes God. This final step never
comes unless God himself illuminates the soul by a special light so
that it can see God. This final state comes only to few souls, and to
those but seldom.
=The Syrian School.――The Systematizing of Polytheisms.――Jamblichus.=
This school existed about a generation after the death of Plotinus.
Its founder was Jamblichus (d. about 330), whose teacher was Porphyry,
the pupil of Plotinus. Jamblichus was a Syrian, who got his instruction
from Porphyry at Rome, and then went back to his native country to set
up for himself a school of neo-Platonism. He soon became reverenced
as teacher, religious reformer, and worker of miracles. He wrote
commentaries on Plato, Aristotle, and the theological works of the
Orphics, Chaldeans, and the Pythagoreans. Among the crowd of his
enthusiastic disciples, one notes the names of the Emperor Julian and
Hypatia.[43]
The neo-Platonism of Jamblichus contained no new point of view.
Metaphysically and ethically his teaching was identical with that of
Plotinus. He tried to complete the religious movement by coördinating
all cults, excepting Christianity, into a unity. This was an
eclecticism by which Jamblichus came naturally, for Syria was a
land where eclecticism thrived. It was here that Gnosticism had its
stronghold. With free eclectic hand Jamblichus filled in all the
intermediary grades between the Godhead and man with the multitude
of gods of all religions. In his system he placed 10 supra-terrestrial
gods, 365 celestial beings, 72 orders of sub-celestial beings, and
42 orders of natural gods. To find places for them all, he had to
increase the number of intermediaries; and to systematize this complex
polytheism, he employed the Pythagorean numbers. His theory shows how
persistent was the Hellenic civilization.
=The Athenian School.――Recapitulation.――Proclus.= The Syrian school
failed to restore the old religions, and we find neo-Platonism, after
revivals here and there, again at Athens. The city that had been
the original sanctuary of Greek culture was the last stronghold of
Hellenism.
The Athenian school made its appearance about 410, and its leading
representatives were Plutarch, Syrianus, and Proclus. Proclus
(410–485), the pupil of Syrianus, was the most important representative
of the Athenian school, and he may be said to have uttered the last
word of dying Hellenism. Born at Constantinople, of a Lycian family,
he received his education at Alexandria; and when he became leader
of the school at Athens, he received the extravagant worship of his
pupils. Connected with the Athenian school were the great commentators,
Philoponus and Simplicius, whose works on Aristotle became of great
value to later times. Their erudite compilations stand out sharply
against the imaginative speculations of their age. In connection with
this school Boëthius must not be overlooked. He was a neo-Platonist
who called himself a Christian, and he was an important figure in the
history of education. His translations and expositions of Aristotle’s
logic and of the _Isagoge_ of Porphyry were very influential in the
Middle Ages.
Proclus was a theologian like Jamblichus, excepting that he tried to
put theology upon a philosophical basis. By means of the dialectic
he sought to systematize the entire philosophical thought of the
Greeks. His insatiable desire for faith was accompanied by wonderful
dialectical ability, with the result that his teaching was an intricate
formalism united with mythology. He carried out his dialectical plans
to the minutest detail. He drew the materials of his system from both
barbarians and Greeks, and he himself had been initiated into all
the Mysteries. Every superstition of the past and present influenced
him, and in framing a universal system he did not feel satisfied until
every transmitted doctrine had found a place in that system. He was
the systematizer of paganism and its scholastic. He conceived that the
fundamental problem was that of the One and the Many, and that the One
is related to the Many in three stages,――permanence, going-forth, and
return. The Many as a manifold effect is similar to the unity of the
original cause and yet different from it. Development is the striving
of the effect to return to the original cause, and this strife for
a return to God was illustrated by Proclus in every realm of life,
and he repeated it again and again in application to every detail.
He conceived that the development of the world from the Godhead was
continually going through this triad system of change. His philosophy,
however, shows no originality other than being an ingenious formal
classification in which every polytheism found a place.