PREFACE

The subject of the essay is Neoplatonism in relation to Christianity. The addition of this qualifying clause serves to limit the field of the enquiry, and to differentiate its object from that of a history of philosophy. The writer of such a history regards Neo-Platonism purely from a philosophical stand­point. He draws out its relation to earlier and later systems, and seeks to assign to it its proper place in the development of human thought. Neo-Platonism however was not merely a great philosophical revival: it was a part of a yet greater religious movement: and it is the latter aspect which this essay has to set forth.

For nearly two hundred years the Christian Church had been increasing, alike in numerical strength and in intellectual vigor, until it threatened not only to rival but absolutely to overpower the old pagan system of the Roman Empire. Persecution had been employed against it in vain. It gradually became obvious that if the new sect was to be exterminated, methods must be adopted far more vigorous and systematic than most of the Emperors were able or willing to employ, and the last and most statesman­like of the persecutors endeavored not so much to destroy Christianity, as to reduce it to its original position as a mean and vulgar superstition of the lower classes.

But direct persecution was not the only weapon which was leveled against the new religion. There were intervals of rest for the Church, during which the struggle was carried on in the form of literary controversy; and Neo-Platonism was the greatest of these attempts to meet Christianity on its own ground, and by fair argument to show the superiority of the old paganism.

Accordingly the first chapter of this essay has been devoted to the discussion of the actual state of religion in the heathen world, at the commencement of the third century of the Christian era. The next two chapters deal with the relation of Neo-Platonism to earlier systems of Greek speculation and with the first beginnings of Christian philosophy, whilst a fourth chapter has been given up to the general history of the school, together with the names of contemporary Christian writers. In the fifth chapter will be found a more detailed discussion of the mutual relations between Church and School, tracing their development from apparent alliance to bitter antagonism, and again, after this period of antagonism, to the gradual absorption of Neoplatonic principles by the Church.

C. E.

 I

ROMAN RELIGION IN THE THIRD CENTURY

The period in which Neo-Platonism takes its rise is essentially an age of transition. Lying as it does between the age of pure Graeco-Roman paganism and the final triumph of Christianity, it is the period in which both of the opposing forces are making their preparations for the last great struggle. Paganism arms itself with the new philosophy and summons to its aid all the forces of Roman conservatism; whilst Christianity, which has already in great measure secured its hold on the masses now attacks the highest circles of society, and endeavors to satisfy the craving for a true system of religious philosophy.

But before entering upon a detailed discussion of the religion of the Roman Empire in the third century, we may by way of introduction take a passing glance at the picture which Lucian gives of Roman society and religion in the earlier part of the second. Shallow and heartless as he is, he nevertheless occupies a position of his own. When considering the evidence of the Christian apologists we are sometimes tempted to think that it must be prejudiced. The writers are carrying on a controversy against a system for which they feel that they have something better to substitute, and whose weak points they are bound, in spite of themselves, to exaggerate. They are liable to persecution, and therefore they may tend to overestimate their own simple faith and purity in contrast with the unbelief and licentiousness of the pagan world around them. But Lucian's position is different. He feels no fear of persecution. He has no special wish to regenerate or to reform mankind. He is a satirist, who writes in order to amuse himself by showing his utter contempt for the dead system that claimed to be the religion of the Empire.

This contempt is of course most openly expressed in such works as the Juppiter Tragoedus and the Dialogues of the Gods. But even if we leave these satirical works on one side, we still find in Lucian the clearest evidence of the low state into which religion had fallen. The memoir of Alexander the False Prophet and the account of the Death of Peregrinus are documents of considerable historical value; and in these we see, on the one hand the love of notoriety for which Peregrinus is ready to pay the price even of self-immolation; and, on the other, the blind credulity on which Alexander is able to work by the crudest of methods—a credulity which is not limited to the ignorant peasants of Asia Minor, but extends to the highest circles of Roman society. And in both works alike we see the love of sensation which has taken the place of the old Roman reverence for religion.

It is a matter for regret that Lucian has not given us a more complete account of the Christians of his day. The Church was passing through a great crisis: she had to face the question whether she was to remain a small society of religious devotees, or to go forward and take her place at the head of the great religions of the world. The Montanists preferred to remain where they were: the Church as a whole decided to go forward. At such a time the evidence of a writer like Lucian would have been of peculiar interest. But he passes over Christianity almost in silence. In his authentic works there are perhaps not more than two direct references to it. He tells us that Alexander was wont, at the commencement of his Mysteries to cry “If any Atheist or Christian or Epicurean have come to spy upon the Ceremonies, let him flee”. And it is to be remembered that Alexander would be no mean judge of the audience best suited for his purpose, so that his warning cry suggests that the Christians at this time were not all such simple and credulous folk as we are sometimes inclined to suppose. The other reference to Christianity occurs in the account of Peregrinus. In his younger days this person had professed himself a Christian, and Lucian describes with mingled admiration and contempt the way in which his fellow-Christians tended him during an imprisonment for the sake of the faith. This is the passage that gives us the clearest view of Lucian’s own ideas upon the subject of Christianity. It is too much to say with Suidas that he is a blasphemer; for that charge can only be made good by reference to the pseudo-Lucianic Philopatris. In the account of Peregrinus, the reference to "their crucified sophist" expresses rather pity for Christian credulity than downright contempt.

Such are the only direct references to Christianity which are to be found in Lucian’s writings. It is clear that the subject had but little interest for him. It failed to excite his curiosity, and he practically ignores it.

With regard however to the condition of pagan thought in his day, Lucian is a most valuable witness. He is a man of considerable ability, at once thoroughly versatile and thoroughly skeptical, whilst his detached attitude lends especial weight to his opinions. The impression that we gain from a study of his writings is that there was no central force in paganism at this time: the old powers were found to be effete, or, at the best, to be spasmodic and local in their effects, and it seemed as though the whole system were crumbling away through sheer inability to survive.

But it must not be assumed that this would be equally true as a description of the religion of the Empire half a century later. In the period between Lucian and Plotinus there occurred an extraordinary revival or recrudescence of paganism. This was not merely a revival of external ceremonial, such as took place in the time of Augustus. It was a genuine reformation, and it led to the growth of a more spiritual religion than the Roman world had ever known.

Of this revival of paganism no contemporary historian has left us a complete account. Indirect evidence however is not wanting. It is to be derived in abundance from sources at once numerous and varied. Much can be gathered from heathen writers,—from historians like Dio Cassius and Lampridius, from philosophers like Porphyry, and from sophists like Philostratus. Further contributions may be levied from Christian writers, from Clement of Alexandria and Origen, from Tertullian and Augustine. Nor must the evidence of inscriptions be neglected, which is invaluable, in this as in other cases, as affording contemporary corroboration to the statements of our other authorities.

The characteristic note of Roman society at this period was its cosmopolitanism. More than one generation had passed away since Juvenal uttered his lament that the Orontes was emptying itself into the Tiber, and no attempt had been made to check the stream of foreign immigration. The aristocracy of the second century, liberal and progressive as it had been in matters of legislation, had been comparatively conservative in matters of religion. But the end of that century witnessed a change. The religious revival of this period affected all classes of pagan society, and the enthusiasm which it aroused was expended as much in the welcoming of new divinities as in the service of the old ones.

The mere number of gods and goddesses who succeeded in obtaining recognition in the Empire at this time is astounding. It is impossible within the limits of the present chapter to do more than mention the principal classes into which they fall, and to touch upon one or two of the most important of the deities. The old Roman gods were still the official guardians of the state. Their temples continued to stand in unimpaired splendour; they themselves still received sacrifices on all important occasions; and the office of Pontifex Maximus was still conferred upon each successive Emperor. The old colleges of priests, augurs, and the like, still existed, and member­ship in them was an honor that was much sought after; whilst the various guilds and societies for purposes of trade or of mutual benefit all had their religious aspects.

Of the cults which became prevalent after the fall of the Republic, the most widespread was the worship of the Emperor. As a general rule the Romans did not attempt to impose the worship of their gods upon conquered peoples, but in this particular case they made an exception. The worship of the Emperor was enforced in order to add to the stability of the Empire, by causing men's religious emotions to be centred on the man in whom the executive power was vested, and thus to efface those rivalries between the various towns and tribes which tended to foster a local and national rather than an imperial patriotism. As each town was merged in the vast Empire, the importance of local politics and local religion tended to decline, and the place of the local deity was taken by the Genius of the Empire, worshipped in concrete form in the person of the Emperor.

To the student of Church History this cult is of the greatest importance. Its enforced observance formed, in times of persecution, the dividing line between Christian and Pagan, and refusal to sacrifice to the Emperor was regarded as a species of treason. For the purposes of this essay its chief importance lies in the fact that it is one of the signs that the general drift of paganism tended towards some form of monotheism. The office, rather than the person of the reigning Emperor, was the real object of worship: and the many inscriptions extant in honour of the Wisdom, Justice or Clemency of the Emperor show how completely he had come to be regarded as a secondary providence, visible, accessible, and on earth; a divinity so near at hand that, according to Tertullian, men were more ready to perjure themselves by all the gods than by the Genius of the Emperor. At the same time, the apotheosis of departed Emperors did not tend to raise the tone of heathenism. Rather it served to diminish the value of deity and to place an efficient weapon in the hands of those who wished to bring discredit upon paganism.

The reigning Emperor was usually worshipped, not in person, but through the medium of his Genius. But the possession of a Genius was not the prerogative of the Emperor alone. There was a special Genius for every man, every family, every nation; we even find them assigned to the gods. Their worship was a survival from the primitive Roman religion which recognised a special deity for every single department of life: but the current ideas about the precise nature of Genii had been considerably modified by the Greek notions about daemons, and it would seem that in the third century there was a considerable variety in the opinions prevalent upon the subject. They were regarded, sometimes as immanent in the persons or things to which they were attached, sometimes as entirely external: some Genii were almost on a level with the gods, others again were but little higher in the scale of being than their charges. The Genius of each individual corresponds closely to the Christian conception of a guardian angel; as compared with the gods he resembles the family doctor, who watches over the wellbeing of his charges on all ordinary occasions, whilst they are the specialists, one or another of whom is summoned in cases of emergency.

Similar to the Genii were a number of personifications of abstract qualities to whom worship was offered. Such were Honos, Spes, Libertas, Virtus: the object worshipped being in each case the Genius of the quality named. How far these were mere abstractions, and to what extent they were regarded as actual deities, the worshipper himself would probably have found it hard to explain.

The belief in Genii was not merely a vulgar superstition. The philosophers recognised a world of spirits intermediate between gods and men: beings Accordingly the first chapter of this essay has been devoted to the discussion of the actual state of religion in the heathen world, at the commencement of the third century of the Christian era. The next two chapters deal with the relation of Neo-Platonism to earlier systems of Greek speculation and with the first beginnings of Christian philosophy, whilst a fourth chapter has been given up to the general history of the school, together with the names of contemporary Christian writers. In the fifth chapter will be found a more detailed discussion of the mutual relations between Church and School, tracing their development from apparent alliance to bitter antagonism, and again, after this period of antagonism, to the gradual absorption of Neoplatonic principles by the Church.

C. E.

 I

ROMAN RELIGION IN THE THIRD CENTURY

The period in which Neo-Platonism takes its rise is essentially an age of transition. Lying as it does between the age of pure Graeco-Roman paganism and the final triumph of Christianity, it is the period in which both of the opposing forces are making their preparations for the last great struggle. Paganism arms itself with the new philosophy and summons to its aid all the forces of Roman conservatism; whilst Christianity, which has already in great measure secured its hold on the masses now attacks the highest circles of society, and endeavors to satisfy the craving for a true system of religious philosophy.

But before entering upon a detailed discussion of the religion of the Roman Empire in the third century, we may by way of introduction take a passing glance at the picture which Lucian gives of Roman society and religion in the earlier part of the second. Shallow and heartless as he is, he nevertheless occupies a position of his own. When considering the evidence of the Christian apologists we are sometimes tempted to think that it must be prejudiced. The writers are carrying on a controversy against a system for which they feel that they have something better to substitute, and whose weak points they are bound, in spite of themselves, to exaggerate. They are liable to persecution, and therefore they may tend to overestimate their own simple faith and purity in contrast with the unbelief and licentiousness of the pagan world around them. But Lucian's position is different. He feels no fear of persecution. He has no special wish to regenerate or to reform mankind. He is a satirist, who writes in order to amuse himself by showing his utter contempt for the dead system that claimed to be the religion of the Empire.

This contempt is of course most openly expressed in such works as the Juppiter Tragoedus and the Dialogues of the Gods. But even if we leave these satirical works on one side, we still find in Lucian the clearest evidence of the low state into which religion had fallen. The memoir of Alexander the False Prophet and the account of the Death of Peregrinus are documents of considerable historical value; and in these we see, on the one hand the love of notoriety for which Peregrinus is ready to pay the price even of self-immolation; and, on the other, the blind credulity on which Alexander is able to work by the crudest of methods—a credulity which is not limited to the ignorant peasants of Asia Minor, but extends to the highest circles of Roman society. And in both works alike we see the love of sensation which has taken the place of the old Roman reverence for religion.

It is a matter for regret that Lucian has not given us a more complete account of the Christians of his day. The Church was passing through a great crisis: she had to face the question whether she was to remain a small society of religious devotees, or to go forward and take her place at the head of the great religions of the world. The Montanists preferred to remain where they were: the Church as a whole decided to go forward. At such a time the evidence of a writer like Lucian would have been of peculiar interest. But he passes over Christianity almost in silence. In his authentic works there are perhaps not more than two direct references to it. He tells us that Alexander was wont, at the commencement of his "Mysteries" to cry "If any Atheist or Christian or Epicurean have come to spy upon the Ceremonies, let him flee". And it is to be remembered that Alexander would be no mean judge of the audience best suited for his purpose, so that his warning cry suggests that the Christians at this time were not all such simple and credulous folk as we are sometimes inclined to suppose. The other reference to Christianity occurs in the account of Peregrinus. In his younger days this person had professed himself a Christian, and Lucian describes with mingled admiration and contempt the way in which his fellow-Christians tended him during an imprisonment for the sake of the faith. This is the passage that gives us the clearest view of Lucian's own ideas upon the subject of Christianity. It is too much to say with Suidas that he is a blasphemer; for that charge can only be made good by reference to the pseudo-Lucianic Philopatris. In the account of Peregrinus, the reference to "their crucified sophist" expresses rather pity for Christian credulity than downright contempt.

Such are the only direct references to Christianity which are to be found in Lucian's writings. It is clear that the subject had but little interest for him. It failed to excite his curiosity, and he practically ignores it.

With regard however to the condition of pagan thought in his day, Lucian is a most valuable witness. He is a man of considerable ability, at once thoroughly versatile and thoroughly skeptical, whilst his detached attitude lends especial weight to his opinions. The impression that we gain from a study of his writings is that there was no central force in paganism at this time: the old powers were found to be effete, or, at the best, to be spasmodic and local in their effects, and it seemed as though the whole system were crumbling away through sheer inability to survive.

But it must not be assumed that this would be equally true as a description of the religion of the Empire half a century later. In the period between Lucian and Plotinus there occurred an extraordinary revival or recrudescence of paganism. This was not merely a revival of external ceremonial, such as took place in the time of Augustus. It was a genuine reformation, and it led to the growth of a more spiritual religion than the Roman world had ever known.

Of this revival of paganism no contemporary historian has left us a complete account. Indirect evidence however is not wanting. It is to be derived in abundance from sources at once numerous and varied. Much can be gathered from heathen writers,—from historians like Dio Cassius and Lampridius, from philosophers like Porphyry, and from sophists like Philostratus. Further contributions may be levied from Christian writers, from Clement of Alexandria and Origen, from Tertullian and Augustine. Nor must the evidence of inscriptions be neglected, which is invaluable, in this as in other cases, as affording contemporary corroboration to the statements of our other authorities.

The characteristic note of Roman society at this period was its cosmopolitanism. More than one generation had passed away since Juvenal uttered his lament that the Orontes was emptying itself into the Tiber, and no attempt had been made to check the stream of foreign immigration. The aristocracy of the second century, liberal and progressive as it had been in matters of legislation, had been comparatively conservative in matters of religion. But the end of that century witnessed a change. The religious revival of this period affected all classes of pagan society, and the enthusiasm which it aroused was expended as much in the welcoming of new divinities as in the service of the old ones.

The mere number of gods and goddesses who succeeded in obtaining recognition in the Empire at this time is astounding. It is impossible within the limits of the present chapter to do more than mention the principal classes into which they fall, and to touch upon one or two of the most important of the deities. The old Roman gods were still the official guardians of the state. Their temples continued to stand in unimpaired splendour; they themselves still received sacrifices on all important occasions; and the office of Pontifex Maximus was still conferred upon each successive Emperor. The old colleges of priests, augurs, and the like, still existed, and member­ship in them was an honor that was much sought after; whilst the various guilds and societies for purposes of trade or of mutual benefit all had their religious aspects.

Of the cults which became prevalent after the fall of the Republic, the most widespread was the worship of the Emperor. As a general rule the Romans did not attempt to impose the worship of their gods upon conquered peoples, but in this particular case they made an exception. The worship of the Emperor was enforced in order to add to the stability of the Empire, by causing men's religious emotions to be centred on the man in whom the executive power was vested, and thus to efface those rivalries between the various towns and tribes which tended to foster a local and national rather than an imperial patriotism. As each town was merged in the vast Empire, the importance of local politics and local religion tended to decline, and the place of the local deity was taken by the Genius of the Empire, worshipped in concrete form in the person of the Emperor.

To the student of Church History this cult is of the greatest importance. Its enforced observance formed, in times of persecution, the dividing line between Christian and Pagan, and refusal to sacrifice to the Emperor was regarded as a species of treason. For the purposes of this essay its chief importance lies in the fact that it is one of the signs that the general drift of paganism tended towards some form of monotheism. The office, rather than the person of the reigning Emperor, was the real object of worship: and the many inscriptions extant in honour of the Wisdom, Justice or Clemency of the Emperor show how completely he had come to be regarded as a secondary providence, visible, accessible, and on earth; a divinity so near at hand that, according to Tertullian, men were more ready to perjure themselves by all the gods than by the Genius of the Emperor. At the same time, the apotheosis of departed Emperors did not tend to raise the tone of heathenism. Rather it served to diminish the value of deity and to place an efficient weapon in the hands of those who wished to bring discredit upon paganism.

The reigning Emperor was usually worshipped, not in person, but through the medium of his Genius. But the possession of a Genius was not the prerogative of the Emperor alone. There was a special Genius for every man, every family, every nation; we even find them assigned to the gods. Their worship was a survival from the primitive Roman religion which recognised a special deity for every single department of life: but the current ideas about the precise nature of Genii had been considerably modified by the Greek notions about daemons, and it would seem that in the third century there was a considerable variety in the opinions prevalent upon the subject. They were regarded, sometimes as immanent in the persons or things to which they were attached, sometimes as entirely external: some Genii were almost on a level with the gods, others again were but little higher in the scale of being than their charges. The Genius of each individual corresponds closely to the Christian conception of a guardian angel; as compared with the gods he resembles the family doctor, who watches over the wellbeing of his charges on all ordinary occasions, whilst they are the specialists, one or another of whom is summoned in cases of emergency.

Similar to the Genii were a number of personifications of abstract qualities to whom worship was offered. Such were Honos, Spes, Libertas, Virtus: the object worshipped being in each case the Genius of the quality named. How far these were mere abstractions, and to what extent they were regarded as actual deities, the worshipper himself would probably have found it hard to explain.

The belief in Genii was not merely a vulgar superstition. The philosophers recognised a world of spirits intermediate between gods and men: beings whom Celsus describes as the proconsuls or satraps of the gods, and whom Plotinus defines as eternal like the gods, but participating in the material world like men. There is also, in the writings of the Christian Fathers, ample evidence of a firm belief in angelic powers: and, more than this, the Fathers do not throw any doubt upon either the existence or the potency of the spirits worshipped by the pagans. They differ from heathen writers only in maintaining that these particular spirits are invariably evil.

The foregoing deities, however orientalised their worship may have become, were at least Roman in origin. But the greater part of the conglomeration of creeds, which formed the religion of the Empire, was derived from foreign sources. Egypt and Carthage, Phrygia and Syria, all sent their respective contingents to the Roman pantheon: even the wild German tribes were not unrepresented. It was the necessary result of the mixed character of the population. Eastern slaves carried with them superstitions from the East: merchants of Alexandria brought with them Egyptian gods as well as their wares; above all, the soldiers, recruited mainly from the frontiers of the Empire, carried their own deities and their own forms of worship wherever they went. Sooner or later the strange gods drifted to Rome, and, once planted, their worship was bound to spread. The mere novelty of these foreign cults made them objects of curiosity: the penal enactments, which still existed though never enforced, against those who encouraged strange rites, may have served to give them the added attractiveness of forbidden fruit; whilst they received a further impetus from the fact that many of them possessed special orders of priests whose sole business lay in the propagation of their religion. But the true cause of their success lay in the inability of the old Roman religion to satisfy the spiritual longings of the people. The old worship had served so long as Rome was struggling for bare existence; but even before the beginning of the Empire there were signs of the prevalence of a profound sense of religious discontent. Something less barren, less utterly unspiritual, was required, and any cult that claimed to supply this need was sure to be welcomed.

Foremost among the Eastern divinities, which came crowding into all parts of the Empire, stands the Egyptian Isis. Temples and statues without number were erected in her honour: the Emperors themselves took part in her processions. She was originally the personification of the female element in nature, but as time went on she assumed the attributes of several Greek and Roman goddesses—Juno, Ceres, Proserpine and Venus—and became moreover the patroness of shipping and commerce. She possessed not only an elaborate priesthood, but a lower order of mendicant brethren; and the magnificent ritual in her temples, alike in the daily worship and on the occasion of great festivals, cannot but have had its effect on the popular mind.

The other chief Egyptian deities were Osiris, the dog-headed Anubis, and Serapis, who afterwards gained greater popularity even than Isis. In the time of the Syrian Emperors, and in particular under Septimius Severus, Caracalla, and Alexander Severus, these Egyptian divinities were in high favour.

It is impossible here to discuss in detail the systems that were introduced from Phrygia, Syria and Phoenicia. There was a certain similarity, alike in organization and in ritual, between all these Eastern religions. They usually had an order of priests: often also an order of mendicant friars, whose sole claim to sanctity seems, in some cases, to have consisted in their profession of poverty. Their ritual was characterized by the prevalence of "mysteries" and by elaborate ceremonial, every detail of which had its allegorical meaning. But they drew their supporters from a lower stratum of society than that with which we are concerned. They could not claim the immemorial antiquity of the Egyptian cults, and there was moreover about them a certain lack of refinement, which could not but be distasteful to the philosophical mind. They were tolerated, as meeting the religious needs of those to whom they appealed; but they failed to secure the respect and adherence of men of culture.

There remains however one deity who must not be passed over1. This is Mithras, the one Persian divinity who acquired a hold on the Roman Empire. We first hear of his being brought to Rome in connexion with Pompey's suppression of the Cilician pirates; but his worship attracted but little attention in the West until the middle of the second century of the Christian era. Then the Oriental tendency, discernible at Rome under the Antonines, brought him into favour: Antoninus Pius built a temple in his honour at Ostia, and Marcus Aurelius built another on the Vatican. At this period he is mentioned, with disdain it is true, but none the less with obvious apprehension in Lucian's Council of the Gods. Under the Severi his popularity grew by leaps and bounds, and it looked as though in another generation he would reign supreme.

To the Roman, Mithras was essentially the Sun-god of purity and power, able and willing to protect his worshippers in this world and the next. He was regarded as the creator of the world, the deliverer from cold and darkness. To many of his worshippers the moral and mystical teaching was of far greater importance than the doctrine of Mithras as the ruler of the physical world. His mysteries dealt probably for the most part with the future destiny of the soul, of which he is regarded as the saviour and regenerator. In the Mithraic catacomb on the Appian Way the course of the soul after death is described: we see it escorted by Mercury before Pluto and Proserpine, in the presence of the Fates, and finally conducted to the banquet of the just.

Mithras-worship has been described as the pagan form of Gnosticism. In both alike may be traced the love of mystical speculation; the growth of the idea of redemption; the belief that proper ritual could atone for a life of evil. It is interesting to notice that a worshipper could make atonement without himself undergoing the strain and discomfort of the ritual. For instance, the most striking of all the rites of Mithras was the Taurobolium, or baptism of blood. This ceremony, whereby the worshipper was drenched with the warm blood that flowed from the victim's throat, was supposed to bring certain regeneration. And it is to be remarked that it could be performed on a priest for the benefit of some other person. The'stress was laid on the opus operatum of the magical sacrament, not on the bodily presence of the individual for whose benefit it was offered.

We cannot here discuss the relation of Mithras-worship to Christianity. The early Christians were well aware of the similarity between the rites of Mithras and those of the Church. Actual connexion however there appears not to have been, though Justin Martyr and Tertullian denounce the washing of neophytes, the confirmation of the initiated, and the consecration of bread and water, as diabolical parodies of Christian sacraments.

The worship of Mithras spread rapidly, and at one time bid fair to become the final religion of the Empire. The high morality that it inculcated, and the almost military discipline that it maintained in its vast body of devotees seemed to give a promise of permanence which the other pagan systems could not offer. But it was not to be. After the time of Julian, Christianity took its place as the dominant religion of the West; and in later days Mahommedanism drove out Mithras-worship from its last strongholds in the Eastern Empire.

Such are a few of the main types of religion prevalent in the Roman Empire during the third century. No attempt has been made to give a complete catalogue of the gods who received worship at this period: whole classes have been omitted altogether, and no class has been described in its entirety. But the sketch, fragmentary as it is, may help to make clear the kind of religion which many of the Neoplatonists felt themselves called upon to defend. Its most striking characteristic is perhaps toleration. Never in the history of Western civilization have so many deities been recognised at the same time. And, paradoxical as it may appear, the general result of this excessive polytheism was to cause a strong current of feeling towards monotheism. Each deity was regarded as one particular form of "the Divine," and this idea received confirmation from the partial identity of the symbols and attributes ascribed to different gods.

This is the method by which the philosophers reconcile themselves to polytheism. "There is one sun and one sky over all nations" says Plutarch, "and one deity under many names." Even Celsus recognises one deity alone, but he recommends every nation to maintain its own cults, and so to honour the sovereign by showing respect to his representative. The personality of the various gods is thus more or less passed over. They are, in fact, gods from the point of view of religion, abstractions from that of philosophy. And a judicious use of the allegorical method of interpretation made it a comparatively simple matter to reconcile monotheism in theory with polytheism in practice. It may be well to add a few words with regard to what has been said about the attitude of the philosophers, and in particular, of the Neoplatonists, towards pagan polytheism.

It is true that the philosopher, strictly speaking, has nothing to do with systems of religion. His speculations may take a theological form, and he may even lay down general principles as to the means whereby man may hope to live in harmony with the Deity: but with the outward forms of religion he has no connection. Moreover, in considering the Neoplatonists we are tempted to imagine that the whole school shared the lofty position of Plotinus, and to forget that, until after the time of Julian, no other Neoplatonic writer, confined himself to the discussion of abstract philosophy, or failed to make it clear that he wished definitely to support the pagan system. How far Plotinus had in view the defence of paganism, is a question which will be discussed later: at all events his contemporaries and his immediate followers were all tinged with Neopythagoreanism, and hardly deserve, in its highest sense, the title of Philosophers. They professed to be rationalists who by specious explanation could justify the existence of superstitious observances, but the true state of the case would seem rather to be that they were carried away by the spirit of the age, and used their rationalism to condone their own superstition.

The great defect in the religious revival of the third century was its utter lack of the spirit of criticism. It is true that this uncritical spirit was not limited to that particular age, nor was it found among the heathen alone. Thus Tacitus among men of an earlier generation, and Clement of Rome and Tertullian among the Christians, were as ready to accept the legend of the Phoenix as Celsus or Philostratus. But in the third century the tide of ill-regulated religious feeling produced a flood of superstition against which men of the keenest intellect found it well nigh impossible to stand. It is hard, on any other supposition, to explain how so many of the great Neoplatonists could become upholders of astrology and magic, and declare that these things had a scientific basis in the influence of the stars and the mutual relations of the elements.

The whole machinery of augury, prophecy, oracles and the like was once again called into play, and all classes of society had recourse to one or other of these sources for aid and information upon every conceivable subject. But the most important of these means of communication with the unseen world were the various "Mysteries." The existence of such rites was not a new thing. The Eleusinian Mysteries had already been long established in the days of Plato, and the mysteries of the third century belong to the same general type. The number of deities however in whose honour they were celebrated, the high value set upon initiation, and the crowds of persons who were initiated, often into the mysteries of more than one deity, far surpassed anything that had been known before.

There is in fact a fundamental difference between the early Roman conception of religion and that of the period with which we are now concerned. The old Roman religion was barren and cold. The stress was laid on formal observances, the whole matter being neither more nor less than a bargain. In return for the proper sacrifices paid at the proper time and in the proper manner the gods were expected to send certain advantages to the worshipper. But by the beginning of the third century there had sprung up a real love for the gods, and a desire for communion with them. The belief also in a future life was far more definite than it had been in the Classical period. The philosophers on the one hand, and the hierophants of the various mysteries on the other, endeavoured to set men's minds at rest upon this matter, and both alike commanded the attention of those whom they addressed. There arose moreover an idea of holiness which had been practically unknown before; and with it an idea not unlike the Christian conception of sin. It is not the same, for there is no notion of man's voluntary deviation from the will of God. But there is the longing for the attainment of a state of purity, whether by a life of asceticism or by a series of purifying ceremonies.

One other question remains to be discussed. What was the attitude of the paganism of this period towards Christianity? Toleration has already been mentioned as the leading characteristic of the age, and it is in consequence not surprising to find that, under the Syrian Emperors, the Church was more free from persecution than at any other time between the reigns of Nero and Constantine. But it was difficult to extend toleration to a religion that was itself intolerant; and, side by side with the readiness to abstain from persecution, there are here and there traces of an almost pathetic anxiety that the Christians should do their share, and acknowledge that the older religions, if not actually superior, were at least on the same level as their own, and worthy of the fullest recognition as partial manifestations of the same deity.

The attitude however of the Church was not conciliatory. Never perhaps has there been a writer so uncompromising as Tertullian, and even if, a generation later, Origen appears to be in sympathy with much of heathen philosophy, there is no question as to his position with regard to heathen religion. Accordingly attempts were made to weld the pagan systems into a single weapon, which could be used with effect against the new religion.

The first of these attempts was made during the supremacy of Julia Domna. During the reigns of her husband, Septimius Severus, and of his successor Caracalla, this remarkable woman exercised an influence that was considerable even in matters of politics, whilst in the realm of art and literature her power was unquestioned. She gathered around her a literary circle of the best intellects of the age, recruited from all parts of the Empire, but principally from Greece and her native Syria. The tone of her coterie seems to have been brilliant and witty rather than scholarly; the members were men of the type that feeds on the love of the marvellous, but they were deficient in the patience needful for deep thought, and they lacked the courage fully to face the real problems of life. Their philosophy was Neopythagorean, their religion vague and comprehensive. They hated irreligion, and loved variety, and they were moreover capable of professing doctrines of high purity whilst leading a life of considerable self-indulgence.

Their great contribution to the defence of paganism was the life of Apollonius of Tyana, which was composed at the suggestion of the Empress, written in the first instance by Damis, and afterwards re­written and transformed by Philostratus. The subject of this biography was a real man, who lived at about the date to which he is here assigned, and in whose life occurred many of the principal episodes here described. But the whole has been so interwoven with legend and fiction that it is well nigh impossible to disentangle the true from the false. The philosopher of Tyana is in fact transformed into the patron saint, as it were, of third-century paganism, and the picture presented to us does not so much represent what Apollonius actually was, as what Philostratus would have liked him to be.

On the precise relation between the work of Philostratus and the Christian Gospels something will be said later: for the present it is sufficient to observe that the life and character of Apollonius, as here described, so far expressed the ideals of the age for which the book was written, that from being considered a mere provincial magician or charlatan, Apollonius suddenly came to be revered by the whole of pagan society as one who stood on a level with the noblest spirits of the ancient world. Caracalla built a temple in his honour: Alexander Severus assigned him a niche in his private chapel, side by side with Orpheus and Alexander the Great; and later still Eunapius revered him as something more than man. He is more than the prophet of paganism: he is the incarnation of its highest hopes and aims.

But, as time went on, it became clear that the effort had failed. The composite picture of Alexander constructed by the sophists of the third century was no more able to hold its own against the Christ of the Gospels than the disjointed forces of paganism to prevail against the united strength of the organized Church, and the heathen revival served only to pave the way for the coming of the new religion which its promoters were endeavouring to check.

Two other attempts may be mentioned, both of which illustrate the desire for recognition from the Christians to which allusion has already been made. The first of these need not long detain us: it was thoroughly distasteful to many of the people, and its chief interest lies in the indication which it gives of the trend of pagan thought towards monotheism. The Emperor Elagabalus was taken from the temple at Emesa to be placed on the throne against his will. He evinced no care whatever for the concerns of the Empire except in the sphere of religion, and here his sole object was the glorification of the god of Emesa. He endeavoured to make the worship of this deity the one religion of the Empire, by associating with El-Gabal the symbols and functions of all the other gods, and he expressed a hope that even Jews and Christians might be persuaded to worship the supreme God in the temple of El-Gabal. But his avowed contempt for all things Roman made his action odious to the upper classes: it never really affected the mass of the people, and its effects disappeared immediately after his death.

Elagabalus was succeeded by his cousin Alexander Severus, a man of very different type, whose natural temperament and education alike tended to give him the fullest sympathy with the old Roman spirit. He enjoyed intellectual society and showed the greatest reverence for the old gods, paying weekly visits to the temples on the Capitol. In his own private chapel he worshipped a curious assemblage of famous men. The niches were filled with statues of Apollonius, Christ, Abraham, Orpheus and Alexander the Great; whilst a lower order of heroes was also represented which included the names of Vergil and Cicero. Alexander clearly hoped to solve the problem of paganism by a religious eclecticism; calling into existence a hierarchy of the saints of all the religions with which he was acquainted. He is perhaps the noblest instance of the wide tolerance towards which the comprehensive religion of his time tended, but there was a certain lack of cohesion about his schemes, alike in religion and politics, which prevented them from exercising any lasting influence.

 II

EARLIER SYSTEMS OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY

It will be well in the present chapter to describe the general state of philosophy in the period immediately preceding the rise of Neoplatonism, and to point out the earlier sources from which many of the Neoplatonic doctrines were derived. In order to secure these two objects it will be best, first to give a short account of the various stages of Greek philosophy with which we are here concerned, marking the appearance of each distinctive point of teaching as it arises, and then to take a rapid survey of the general condition of philosophy in the early years of the third century. No attempt however will be made to give an exhaustive catalogue of all the great philosophers or even of all the various schools, for such a list would seem to lie outside the province of the present essay.

The first school of Greek philosophy occupied itself with speculations upon the origin and constitution of the physical world. This primitive Ionian school, instituted by Thales far back in the seventh century, continued to exist until late in the fifth century before Christ. The majority of its members need not detain us. Their aim was to discover the material out of which the physical world was fashioned, a material which the earlier members of the school sought in a single primary substance, the later ones in a number of different elements. At the same time there may here and there be traced signs of the beginnings of something more than merely physical speculation. Thus Heraclitus of Ephesus, in addition to his famous aphorism on the universal prevalence of constant change, also propounded some sort of teaching on the subject of a Logos. Heraclitus recognised no transcendent deity, so that his Logos must not be in any way associated with the Jewish conception of the "Word of God." It is eternal and self-subsisting, and seems to represent the "rational self-evolution of the world," the law of progress by means of constant strife. The name Logos was apparently selected, as being less encumbered with human and material associations than "nous".

We seem here to have the first beginning of the conception of an universal Reason which occupies so prominent a position in later philosophy. There is not sufficient evidence to make clear the details of Heraclitus' teaching:—whether for instance the Logos was possessed of consciousness, and again whether it was identical with the fire which Heraclitus declared to be the primary substance. It is perhaps most probable that the system of Heraclitus was a refined form of pantheism, and that his Logos was not possessed of the consciousness which Plotinus claimed for his Mind (nous); but it is impossible to speak with certainty.

Heraclitus is said to have flourished about the year 500 BC, and the same date is assigned to the birth of the only other member of the Ionian school to whom it is necessary to refer. This was Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, whose doctrine of the universal Mind (nous) so completely overshadowed the speculations of Heraclitus upon the Logos, that this use of the term Logos almost disappeared from Greek philosophy, until it was revived five centuries later by Philo.

This universal Mind of Anaxagoras, whether strictly immaterial or composed of the subtlest form of matter, is clearly distinguished from the rest of the universe. It is conceived as infinite and self-subsisting, free alike from external mixture and external control. It possesses universal knowledge and pervades and governs all things that have soul. In the original foundation of the world it plays a smaller part than might have been expected, appearing only as giving rise to the first revolution which produced the combination of objects as they are now known to us; but, in the organic world, it is the vital principle, in which plants as well as animals have a share.

The sixth century before Christ witnessed the rise of two other schools of Greek philosophy, both of which left their mark upon the system with which we are concerned. The first of these schools was founded by Pythagoras, who laid stress upon the influence of Number, and who was perhaps the earliest Greek exponent of the doctrine of transmigration of souls. The mystical form of his teaching had a great attraction for the philosophers who immediately precede the rise of the Neoplatonists and although there are few traces of his influence in the writings of Plotinus, yet the lives of Pythagoras composed by Porphyry and Iamblichus, and the abundant references to him in their other writings, are sufficient evidence of the esteem in which he was held by the later Neoplatonists.

The other school of pre-Socratic philosophy to which reference has been made is that of the Eleatics. Its principal members were Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno, and Melissus; and their chief contribution to philosophy consisted in speculations upon the nature of Being. They were impressed with the inability of the human mind adequately to grasp the true nature of the deity. The protest of Xenophanes against anthropomorphic conceptions of the gods need not detain us, but a few words may be said with regard to the positive teaching of the school. In their view the essence of Being consists in unity and immutability, and its attributes are described by a series of paradoxes. It is at once neither finite nor infinite, neither movable nor immovable; it had no beginning and it will have no end. In addition to this doctrine of Being, the Eleatics also asserted what may perhaps best be called the positive non-existence of Non-Being, the dark principle which lies at the root of all the changing phenomena of the world in which we live.

There are but few direct references to the Eleatic school in the writings of the Neoplatonists, though Plotinus twice mentions Parmenides with respect, but the indirect influence which they exerted was very considerable. If it is in the writings of Heraclitus and Anaxagoras that we have to look for the first speculations upon Mind, it is in those of the Eleatics that we find the germ of Plotinus' teaching about "The Good."

The next name that arrests our attention is that of Socrates. Of the vast influence exercised by this philosopher over the whole of subsequent Greek thought there can be no doubt, but it was an influence due rather to the methods which he employed than to the actual details of his teaching. Like Ammonius Saccas, the founder of the Neoplatonic school, Socrates was not a writer; and it is moreover necessary to distinguish his authentic teaching from that which is merely put in his mouth by Plato. In Xenophon's Memorabilia however we are fortunate enough to possess materials which are free from Platonic influence, and from a comparison of the two portraits the following particulars may be gleaned.

Socrates appears to have been the first thinker to introduce the doctrine of a divine purpose in creation. The world has been designed by the gods for the use of man, to whose needs many ordinances are clearly subservient. Thus man derives advantage from the alternation of day and night, from the existence of the lower animals and of fire; whilst the gods' special care for him is manifest in the gifts of human intellect and ingenuity, as well as in the provision of oracles for his guidance. The precise relation between the divine and the human is less clearly expressed. The human soul is said to partake of the divine nature, as the body partakes of the physical elements. But Socrates is here involved in the difficulty which Anaxagoras had felt before him. He regards the deity as personal—believing perhaps in one supreme God with a number of inferior and local deities beneath him—and at the same time he holds that man's soul is a part of God. To this problem he has no satisfactory answer to give; but the perception of the difficulty is the first step towards its solution, and the participation of man in the divine nature explains and justifies his endeavour to know God.

From Socrates we pass on to his great disciple whose philosophy Plotinus and his school professed to revive and develope. The great addition made by Plato to Greek speculation was his doctrine of Ideas. These are to us only abstract notions, and yet they are eternal realities. They are, as it were, the Genii of the various general notions, exempt from all space limitations, but capable of motion, possessed of life and intelligence, belonging to a world of real being.

The Ideas are not all on the same level: there are various ranks to be distinguished among them, and the highest of all is the Idea of "The Good."

The universe in which we live falls short of the perfection of the world of Ideas. It has been created by the good God in order to express his goodness; but fashioned as it is out of indeterminate matter, it does not entirely or adequately fulfil that purpose. There cannot however be more than one such universe, for this one, despite its imperfections, is the best that can be made. It is pervaded by a Soul and is, in fact, a rational being.

Now the creator is incapable of making anything that is imperfect. He therefore creates the lesser deities and points out to them the need of mortal creatures. They then proceed to create the bodies, whilst he creates the souls, one for each star, ready to be assigned to mortal bodies as need arises. The soul therefore is divine in origin and in nature: it exists before the body as well as after it. Like the soul of the universe, the soul of the individual forms a link between the world of phenomena and the Ideas, and even while in the body it has from time to time flashes of recollection of its former life in the higher sphere. In the tenth book of the Republic there is to be found a doctrine of transmigration of souls; but it is not clear how far this is to be taken seriously, and how far it is only a picturesque addition to the myth in which it occurs.

The schools which professed to be the guardians of Plato's philosophy, and which are known as the Old, Middle, and New Academy, need not detain us. They do not in any real sense bridge the gulf between Plato and Plotinus, nor are there many references to them in the writings of the Neoplatonists. Their doctrines are often directly opposed to those of the Neoplatonists, or deal with entirely different subjects. Thus in the Old Academy Speusippus taught that "The Best", although the first in rank, is the last of the Ideas in order of development, a doctrine which Plotinus would never have accepted; whilst Heraclides devoted himself to astronomy. Xenocrates is said to have connected the Ideas with numbers, thereby showing a tendency towards Pythagoreanism such as is also noticeable in the Neoplatonist Iamblichus. The Middle Academy, alike in its early period under Arcesilas and in its later one under Carneades, was almost entirely sceptical in its views; but in the New Academy there was a return to more dogmatic teaching, and Antiochus of Ascalon made an attempt to combine the teaching of Plato with certain Aristotelian and Stoic doctrines, which resembles the eclectic syncretism of the Neoplatonists.

Of the vast system of Aristotle it is impossible here to give a detailed account. His work was essentially that of a systematizer. He took the great principles of Plato and endeavoured to show how they could be made to explain the phenomena of the world around us. In order to do this it was necessary to define clearly the mutual relations of the Platonic elements, which Aristotle accordingly considered in two groups. In the first group he placed "The Good," together with the Ideas, which he regarded as being contained within the mind of The Good, and not, as Plato had held, as having an independent existence. In the second group he placed indeterminate matter, and with it the same Ideas as have been already mentioned in the first group. The next step was to find the means whereby the lifeless mixture of Ideas and Matter should become instinct with life, and this he found in Motion, derived from the Ether that fills the vault of heaven, whose revolutions enable the Ideas to unite with the formless matter, and thereby cause the world to come into being.

The position of matter in the system of Aristotle is thus different from that which it occupies in the writings of Plato. It is no longer a purely negative principle, but capable of direct union with the Ideas. In this particular case, Plotinus was led by the Oriental tendencies of his age to follow Plato, and indeed to go beyond Plato in his abhorrence of things material, but in other respects the teaching of Aristotle had a very real bearing upon the Neoplatonic system. The incident mentioned by Porphyry of Plotinus bidding Amelius to reply to Porphyry's pamphlet on the theme "That things intelligible have their subsistence outside Intelligence" shows that in this instance, where Porphyry, and in all probability his teacher Longinus, followed Plato, Plotinus had adopted an Aristotelian attitude: and, in the writings of the later Neoplatonists, commentaries upon the works of Aristotle and treatises upon his relation to Plato are of frequent occurrence.

The tendency of Greek philosophy after the time of Aristotle was to become practical rather than speculative. The subjects with which the Stoics and Epicureans occupied themselves were the relations of philosophy to religion, and above all the quest of that indifference to things external which alone could arm the individual with calmness and fortitude under all circumstances. The Epicureans we may pass over. Beyond accepting in its entirety the atomic theory of Democritus, they made no attempt to discover the final cause of the creation and government of the world; and they exercised no influence on the later systems with which we are concerned. Even the traces of speculation that still remained among the Stoics showed that the current of men's thought had taken a new direction. Their conceptions of the ultimate principles had become materialised. The universe was regarded as a living being, endowed with the highest reason, and the existence of an ideal world beyond it was no longer held.

The importance of the Stoics in the history of philosophy is considerable. When Greek philosophy was transplanted to Rome, it was Stoicism that found the new soil most congenial, as the long list of famous Stoics during the first two centuries of the Empire bears witness. But the Neoplatonic revival in the third century was, in reality as well as in name, a reaction to the earlier system of Plato, and owed little or nothing to Stoic speculation. Indirectly however the severe Stoic teaching upon morality paved the way for the lofty mysticism of Plotinus, and it is of interest to note that the Stoics were the first school to develope the system of allegorical interpretation. Mystical interpretations of special points had already been given by Democritus and by Metrodorus of Lampsacus, as well as by some of the Cynics; but the method had not before been systematically applied to the whole field of popular superstition.

Under the Roman Empire Stoicism continued to be the dominant philosophical system until the latter half of the second century of the Christian era. But before discussing the schools that took its place, we must turn back for a moment, to trace the rise of a new stream of speculation, which had begun to exercise a considerable influence upon the general current of men's thought. We cannot here enter fully into the origin either of the Jewish colony at Alexandria, or of the philosophical school which it produced. Suffice it to say that the Alexandrian Jews entered readily into the intellectual life of the place: they welcomed Greek philosophy as a further revelation in the light of which the records of the Old Testament received a new meaning. In particular the personifications of the Word and Wisdom of God, which had been described with gradually increasing clearness by the writers of some of the later books of the Old Testament, now found a counterpart in the conceptions of Plato and the other Greek philosophers. These conceptions the Jewish writers developed in the light of the strong and pure monotheism of their own religion, and thus gave rise to the Jewish-Alexandrian school of philosophy. The most distinguished representative of this school was Philo, whose period of literary activity seems to have closed about the year 40 AD. He can hardly be called a great or original thinker: his system lacks cohesion and is often self-contradictory: but he is a writer of real importance, since he marks the first beginnings of a return from Stoic and Aristotelian teaching towards Platonic philosophy. It is however correct to say that "Philo inaugurated Neoplatonism". Nearly two centuries had yet to elapse before Plotinus took up the study of philosophy, and it is difficult to find, between Philo and Ammonius Saccas, a series of philosophers sufficiently connected to deserve the name of a school. He was rather a forerunner, the effects of whose work were not immediately visible, though destined in after years to be of the greatest importance.

The teaching of Philo is mainly given in the form of comments upon various texts out of the Old Testament. To this peculiarity of form may in part be ascribed the inconsistencies and general lack of cohesion to which allusion has already been made. By adopting it, Philo deprives himself of the opportunity for giving a single exposition of his whole system, and he is moreover led into the habit of expounding each verse to the best of his ability, regardless of what he may have said on the same subject in connexion with another passage.

A few words may be added on the points at which the teaching of Philo approximates most closely to that of the Neoplatonists. Foremost among these stand his conceptions of God, the Logos, and the Powers. Philo is never tired of asserting the existence and the unity of God, in opposition to the views of atheists and polytheists alike. God however is incomprehensible. He is one, He is simple, He is unchangeable, and He is eternal; but beyond these somewhat negative attributes, man is unable to describe Him, and even the patriarchs were ignorant of His Name. The similarity of this doctrine to Plotinus' conception of The One is obvious. It would seem that Philo derived it, not from Plato nor yet entirely from the Old Testament, but rather from the Old Testament read in the spirit of Plato.

The mediator between God and Man is the Logos. The titles under which He is mentioned indicate the high position which He held in Philo's system. He is called the First-born Son of God, the Eldest Angel, the Archangel, the Name or the Image of God, and again, Man in the Image of God. At the same time it is not easy to determine the precise conception that Philo wishes to convey. The Logos is described in one passage as at once the source and the sum of the Powers; elsewhere as the intelligible world, the sum of the Angels or of the Ideas and again as the divine spirit. At one time He seems to have a distinct personality, at another, merely to express the relation in which God stands to the world. The fact is that Philo deals throughout in metaphors rather than definitions. He has not formed, in his own mind, a perfectly distinct conception of the Logos, and the description which he gives is somewhat confused in consequence.

The same criticism may be passed upon Philo's account of the Powers. At one time he seems to regard them as personified attributes of the Supreme Being, whether in His aspect of Creator, when we speak of Him as God, or of Ruler, when we call Him Lord. At another time he approaches very closely to the Platonic conception of the Ideas, on the model of which the world around us was created, whilst in a third group of passages he identifies the Powers with the Angels. It may be noticed that Philo seems here to hover between Platonic and Aristotelian teaching, and that he anticipates the position adopted by Plotinus. He follows Plato in assigning an actual existence to the Ideas, and in speaking of the intelligible world: but, like Plotinus, he also adopts a definitely Aristotelian position when he places the Ideas within the Logos.

With regard to cosmology, Philo accepts the teaching of Plato. He explicitly rejects both the Aristotelian view that this world had no beginning and will have no end, and that of the Stoics, who believed that the present order of things would one day be destroyed by fire. He maintains that the world was created, and thus had a beginning, but that, once created, it is eternal. He adds moreover, like Plato, and for the reasons which Plato adduces, that there can be no other physical world than that in which we live. It is in the highest degree improbable that God would create a world inferior or even similar to this one, and it is equally clear that if He had been able to create a better, He would already have done so. One other point in Philo's teaching demands a word in passing. He distinguishes four classes of "ecstasy." The first is ordinary madness. The second consists of sudden astonishment such as that with which Isaac was filled when Esau claimed his blessing. The third class he describes as the calm state of the reason which resembles the deep sleep which fell upon Adam: whilst to the fourth class belongs the inspiration of the prophets, which Philo himself professes to have at times experienced. It is to be remarked that the "ecstasy" of Plotinus is not identical with the fourth or highest class, but is more nearly akin to the third in Philo's series. This example illustrates the characteristic difference that runs through the whole systems of Plotinus and Philo, for the latter never permits himself to be so far carried away by his philosophy as to forget that he is a Jew, or to enunciate doctrines inconsistent with his interpretation of the Old Testament scriptures.

It should be added that Philo is not entirely free from the Pythagoreanism which contributes so large a share to the philosophy of the first four centuries after Christ. To the modern reader, his mystical speculations on the subject of number appear to be meaningless and fantastic, but they are thoroughly, characteristic of the age in which they are written. Numerical mysticism does not play a prominent part in the philosophy of Plato, although instances of it are to be found, but out of those who endeavoured in after years to revive his teaching, there were few who succeeded in resisting the attraction which speculation of this kind seems to have exercised.

Another "fore-runner," who still hardly deserves the title of Neoplatonist, was Plutarch of Chaeronea. He too was opposed to Stoic doctrines and drew his inspiration from the writings of Plato. He held that there are two first principles, God and Matter, the giver and the receiver of form respectively, and between them, the Ideas, or patterns according to which the world was made. For Matter, though not in itself good, is indifferent, and is evil only in so far as it is permeated by the evil principle which is the cause of all disorder, and to which Plutarch gives the title of the World-soul. The system of Plutarch is less elaborate and less thorough than that of Plotinus, though in some respects he directly anticipates the doctrines of the Neoplatonists. He definitely maintains, for example, the existence of both gods and daemons, and in his explanation of the "daemon" of Socrates, he clearly takes up the position afterwards adopted by Plotinus, that the true philosopher should base his teaching not upon logical deduction but on direct intuition.

It only remains to enumerate the chief philosophers who occur in the century immediately preceding the appearance of Ammonius Saccas. After the time of Marcus Aurelius, the popularity of Stoicism declined, and Neopythagoreanism became the most fashionable form of philosophy. It was characterized by a love of numerical speculation and a somewhat vague mysticism, based on the study of writings, authentic or spurious, attributed to Pythagoras and his school. The most illustrious name in this period is that of Numenius of Apamea, whose famous description of Plato as the Attic Moses illustrates at once his ignorance of the true character of Plato and Moses alike, and his desire to illustrate the affinity that exists between all seekers after truth, to whatever nationality or religion they may belong. It is however more important for our present purpose to notice that Numenius distinguished three gods—the first subsisting in undisturbed self-contemplation, the second and third being the creator and the creation respectively. He also recognised a twofold division of the human soul, into rational and irrational elements. Of these, the former contemplates the deity, whilst the latter renders the soul capable of union with a material body.

The second century also witnessed the rise of a school of sceptics, of whom Sextus Empiricus was the most considerable; and mention must also be made of Celsus, the great antagonist of Origen. The Sceptics however need not detain us, and though Celsus is said to have been a Platonist, the extant fragments of his work contain but little constructive philosophy.

It is scarcely necessary to say more about the general condition of the world of thought at the beginning of the third century. There was no teacher of commanding genius, and no school that could lay claim to any degree of originality or creative power. We find on all sides an appeal to antiquity, which meets us in the realms of religion and philosophy alike, and contributes to the popularity both of Egyptian worship and of Pythagorean teaching. But the appeal was shallow and uncritical, and the results were correspondingly barren. Authority took the place of argument, and progress was held to consist in tedious elaboration of detail. Orientalism too exercised a strange fascination over men's minds. Philostratus described how Apollonius of Tyana had journeyed to India, to converse with the Brahmins and other wise men of the East, and it is probable that there were others, besides Plotinus, who endeavored to follow his example. Above all, the spirit of syncretism, whose influence in matters of religion has already been mentioned, was no less powerful in the region of philosophy. The aim of the philosophers was to unite the teachings of all the great masters of old; to reconcile Plato with Stoicism, Aristotle with Pythagoreanism and by a judicious combination of these diverse elements, to arrive at a system which should represent, not the teaching of this or that school, but the accumulated wisdom of the human race.

 III

THE FIRST BEGINNINGS OF CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY

IN the chapter just concluded it will perhaps have been noticed that there is no mention of Christian philosophy. There are the names of Greek philosophers in abundance: something too will be found about the Roman and Jewish schools, but of Christian philosophy as such, nothing has been said. Hence it will be well, before proceeding to discuss the system of Plotinus and the history of his school, to consider briefly what had been the relations between Christianity and philosophy during the first two centuries of our era, and what was the state of things existing at the beginning of the period with which we are concerned.

Now in the first place, there can be no doubt that Christian teaching, as set forth in the New Testament, appealed, and was intended to appeal, not merely to the poor and ignorant but to men of an intellectual and literary bent. St Paul, when preaching at Athens, did not hesitate to address himself to the philosophers, who in their turn, until he excited their derision by speaking of our Lord's Resurrection, were ready enough to give him a hearing. Nor is this an isolated case. Alike in the writings of St Paul and in the Epistle to the Hebrews there are many passages which show that there must have been in the Early Church a large number of persons interested in speculations upon the nature and work of Christ, and capable of following a theological discussion. Above all, the words of our Lord Himself, as recorded in St John's Gospel and elsewhere, express truths that far transcend all the metaphysical teachings of the Schools.

But then there comes a drop. The difference, in point of intellectual level, between the books of the New Testament and those of the Apostolic Fathers, is extraordinary. The latter deal almost exclusively with practical matters: where they attempt to give an allegorical interpretation, the effect is usually puerile and grotesque. We search in vain for anything approaching the grandeur of the prologue to St John's Gospel or the opening chapter of the' Epistle to the Hebrews. It is as though the whole of the philosophical side of Christianity had been forgotten.

Now it is probable that a variety of causes contributed to this result. The age of persecution had by this time fairly begun. It had become obvious that persecution was to be the settled policy of the Roman government towards the Church, and that fact would of itself tend to make men lay stress on the practical rather than the philosophical side of the faith. Again, the death of Philo and the consequent decay of the Jewish-Alexandrian system removed one of the greatest incitements to the development of Christian philosophy. Moreover the destruction of Jerusalem served to emphasize what was already becoming obvious, that the main work of the Church must be, not in the recovery of the Jews but in the conversion of the Gentiles: and in this wide field of action there were preliminary victories to be won in the sphere of common life before Christianity could venture to measure swords with the great schools of heathen thought.

The first attempts to give a philosophical bent to Christian speculation were not encouraging. They are to be found in the swarm of Gnostic heresies with which the Church was compelled to deal in the first two centuries of her history. One and all, the Gnostics claimed to be setting forth a form of the faith truer and more philosophical than that to which ordinary Christians were accustomed, but they went astray through failing to grasp what are the fundamental truths of Christianity, and what the limits outside which speculation ceases to be Christian. So that in one way it is possible that the Gnostics actually retarded the reconciliation between Church and School, for the upholders of the true faith may well have thought it wisest to avoid unnecessary speculation and to refuse the study of philosophy in any shape or form.

But this state of things could not last for ever. Gradually, as time went on, the Church began to attract men of culture, and by the year 150 AD. we find Justin Martyr suggesting that philosophy should be regarded as God's revelation to the Greeks, and claiming for Socrates, Plato and the rest, a position not unlike that held by Moses and the prophets under the Jewish dispensation. It is true that the change did not come in a moment. Tatian, the pupil of Justin, hates philosophers of all sorts, and Tertullian makes them responsible for the whole of the Gnostic heresies. But the words of Justin show that the tide is already turning, and prepare us for the development of a new system of speculative Christianity.

Alexandria was the place in which this rapprochement between Christianity and philosophy found the most congenial soil. It had been from the first one of the most important centres of literary and intellectual life, and its Museum and libraries, its staff of Professors and classes of students, indeed the whole atmosphere of the place encouraged the growth of a liberal spirit of investigation. It is not surprising therefore to find at Alexandria a great Catechetical School, which did not merely provide elementary instruction for those desirous of admission into the Church, but formed, as it were, "a denominational College by the side of a secular University."

Of the early history of the Catechetical School we know but little. It is probable thatjt began on a small scale, without any official sanction from the rulers of the Church, and developed gradually as opportunity arose. We find the school in existence, soon after the middle of the second century, under the presidency of Pantaenus; but our information with regard to it is scanty until we reach the days of Pantaenus' disciple and successor, the famous Clement of Alexandria.

It would appear that Clement was born, either at Athens or at Alexandria, about the year 150 AD. In his youth he travelled widely, and he must also have been one of the best read men of his time: at all events there is no other Christian writer of the first three centuries who shows so intimate a knowledge of Greek literature. Unlike Origen, he was not the son of Christian parents, but his conversion seems to have resembled that described in Justin's Dialogue with Trypho: the desire for a closer contemplation of the Divine having led him, first to the study of Plato and Greek philosophy, then to the Old Testament and the prophets, and lastly to Christ. It was, in fact, an intellectual rather than a moral conversion, so that it is not surprising to find that Clement's love for philosophy is in no way impaired by his profession of Christianity.

The earliest of his extant works is addressed to thoughtful pagans. This is the Protrepticus, or "Hortatory word to the Gentiles," in which Clement begins by endeavouring to release his reader from popular superstitions. He deals with Greek mythology, with the public worship of the pagan gods, and with the Mysteries, and then he proceeds to the speculations of philosophy. These, attractive as they are, still create a blank which they cannot entirely fill. They produce a longing for fuller knowledge, and for more direct communion with God, which can be satisfied only by the study of Holy Scripture. There can be little doubt that this gives a true picture of Clement's own conversion, and that it indicates clearly the position which he assigns to Greek philosophy.

Following on the Protrepticus come the three books of the Paedagogus or "Tutor". The Protrepticus sets forth the Logos as the Converter of souls: the Paedagogus is intended to describe to the new convert the Logos considered as the Educator of souls. Clement makes no attempt to set forth a complete system of education. He indicates a method, and leaves each individual to formulate his own scheme. The first book describes the need of a Paedagogus, the love of Christ for man, and His methods of dealing with men. In the second and third books we find descriptions of the vices of heathen life, and of various forms of wrongdoing which the Christian must avoid.

It was Clement's intention to write a third treatise which was to be styled the "Teacher" and was to contain his system of Christian philosophy. This, however, was never written, and in its place we have eight books of Miscellanies, quaintly described as Stromates or "Clothes-bags." That the Stromates were not intended to take the place of the Teacher is made clear by a number of passages in which Clement speaks of the latter work as still unwritten. They are to be regarded rather as preliminary essays dealing with parts of the subject, and as such they are by no means devoid of interest. Thus we may learn from the elaborate apology with which the first book opens, that the intellectual and speculative Christians for whom Clement was writing, were, even at Alexandria, in a minority. Indeed, so great was the number of those who shared the view that philosophy and Greek culture were apt to lead men to heresy and unbelief, and that it was therefore best to leave these things alone, that Clement actually goes out of his way to defend even the practice of literary composition. He treats these upholders of a narrower Christianity with unfailing courtesy and consideration, endeavouring always to convert rather than to confute them; and it is to the credit of both parties that there was never any open breach between them.

The aim of Clement of Alexandria was to absorb into his teaching all that was good in Greek thought, whilst rejecting all that was bad and worthless. To reject the whole of Greek philosophy, as the majority of the early Fathers had done, was becoming increasingly difficult and unwise: to accept good and bad indiscriminately involved serious risk of running into Gnostic and other heresies.

It was necessary to find some standard, and the test which Clement adopted was partly ethical and partly theological. Thus he rejected Epicureanism altogether. A system, based on Atheism, which taught that pleasure was the guiding principle of life, won but scant praise from him. Nor did the Stoics rank high in his estimation; for did not they teach that God is a corporeal being? Plato and Pythagoras—the Pythagoras not of history but of legend—are the two philosophers who excite his greatest admiration; but he does not confine himself to the doctrines of any single school. Philosophy, according to his definition, includes all teaching that conduces to righteousness and sound learning, and he accepts all teaching to which this definition can be applied.

From these diverse elements of philosophy and Christian doctrine, the theology of Clement was derived. It remains for us to enquire how far this theological system was taken over from the philosophers, and to what extent it was the result of purely Christian influences. Broadly speaking the system of Clement may be divided into three main sections—his conception of God, his conception of the Logos, and his ethical teaching. And in the main, the first of these sections is largely derived from Plato, the second from Philo, and the third from Aristotle.

The portions of Plato's philosophy which appealed most strongly to thinkers of the second and third centuries were his doctrine of the Ideas and his conception of God as the Idea of "The Good." This doctrine Clement accepts and repeatedly emphasizes in language that is unmistakeable. God, he says, is independent of time and space and all physical limitations. He is not to be described, unless metaphorically, in anthropomorphic terms, for God is not man-like, nor has he need of senses like ours.

Clement even goes beyond the language of Plato and states that God transcends not merely the physical but even the intelligible world. He is devoid of passions, and can be defined only as pure Being. At the same time it must not be thought that Clement's conception of God is derived exclusively from Platonic sources. When describing the goodness of God, he goes far beyond the philosophers, and adds touches that are unmistakeably Christian, telling us that God does not emit goodness automatically and of necessity, as a fire emits heat, the process is voluntary and conscious. We have here escaped from the conception of God as a mere philosophical abstraction, and passed to the Christian doctrine of a wise and loving Father.

It is unnecessary to enter upon a detailed discussion of the two remaining sections of Clement's system. His doctrine of the Logos is in great measure identical with that of Philo: but here too Clement adds touches which make it plain that he is describing no mere hypothetical being, but the Word Who became flesh for the redemption of the world. And it is the same with his ethical teaching. This is centred in the person of the true Gnostic, who is in many, respects similar to the "Wise Man" of Stoic tradition. But, even here, Christian Love as well as Knowledge, forms one of the mainsprings of the ideal character.

The foregoing account will make sufficiently clear the attitude of the Christian Church towards the great schools of Greek thought in the years that immediately precede the rise of Neoplatonism. The vast majority of Christians had little taste for philosophy, but a minority, small in numbers though of no mean ability, was endeavouring to claim for Christianity the fruits of Greek speculation. In a previous chapter some attempt has been made to point out what portions of each system were incorporated in the teaching of the Neoplatonists. It is not impossible that the work of Clement was known to the founders of that School—indeed if there is any truth in the story that Ammonius Saccas was at one time a Christian, it can hardly have been otherwise. And there are close analogies to be traced in some points of detail between the doctrines of Clement and of Plotinus. It may well be, for instance, that Clement's description of the beatific vision influenced Plotinus in his conception of ecstasy, and that there is some connection between the Christian Father's description of the Holy Trinity and that later enunciated by the great Neoplatonist. We may notice however that such indebtedness is nowhere acknowledged, indeed if it exists it has been carefully concealed, for in the writings of Plotinus there is not a single reference either to the historical facts on which the Christian faith rests, or to the theological speculations that have been based upon them.

 IV

THE HISTORY OF NEOPLATONISM

In the foregoing pages an attempt has been made to give a general sketch of the prevailing conditions of thought, alike in religion and philosophy, in the period immediately preceding the first appearance of Neoplatonism. In the present chapter it is proposed to give a brief account of the external history of the school, together with the names and dates of the great leaders of Neoplatonic thought, and the chief contemporary Christian writers, pointing out the broad relations between Christianity and philosophy at each stage of the history. In this way we may hope to obtain a general impression of the history of the school, which will serve to place the more detailed discussions of the various stages in their true perspective.

The founder of the school was Ammonius Saccas. Of him and of his teaching we have but little information, and of that little, much is by no means certain. According to Porphyry he was born at Alexandria of Christian parents: he was himself a Christian in his younger days, but afterwards reverted to paganism. This account is quoted by Eusebius, who proceeds to say that the story of his apostasy is a fabrication. The Christian writers do not claim Ammonius as an ally, but apparently they are anxious to prevent the apologists of paganism from making capital out of the story that the first great Neoplatonist had been converted from Christianity to the purer faith of his pagan fellow-countrymen. His second name is said to be an abbreviated form of Saccophorus and to be derived from the fact that for some time he made his living as a porter. The dates of his birth and death are both unknown, but he must have begun lecturing in or before 231 AD, since in that year his lectures were attended by Plotinus, the most illustrious of his pupils. The other disciples of Ammonius whose names have been preserved, include Longinus, the rhetorician long supposed to be the author of the treatise De Sublimitate, the great Christian writer Origenes Adamantius, besides another Origenes, and Herennius, of whom nothing further is known. Like Socrates in earlier days, Ammonius wrote no books; and there is even a story that he forbade his pupils to divulge his teaching. It is therefore difficult to form an opinion upon his merits as a philosopher, since we cannot say how far the doctrines of Plotinus were new, and how far derived from his master.

Plotinus succeeded him as the head of the new school. With regard to this philosopher we have a considerable amount of information, since, in addition to a series of fifty-four treatises from his pen, we possess a memoir of him written by Porphyry, his favourite disciple and literary executor. From this document and from the notices in Eunapius, Vitae Philosophorum, we gather the following facts. He was born at Lycopolis in Egypt, about the year 203 AD and he commenced the study of philosophy at the age of 28. After attending the lectures of Ammonius for eleven years, he joined Gordianus' expedition to the East in the year 242, hoping thereby to be able to study the philosophy of Persia. The expedition however was a failure. Gordianus was killed, and Plotinus, after barely escaping with his life, made his way first to Antioch, and soon afterwards to Rome. Herennius and Origenes had already broken the compact to reveal none of their master's teaching: and finally Plotinus, feeling himself no longer bound to observe it, began to frame his discourses on the lectures of Ammonius. Following the example however of his master, he delivered his teaching solely in an oral form until the year 262 AD, when he was persuaded to write twenty-one treatises for private circulation, and in the next six years he wrote twenty-four more. Nine more were written before his death in 269 AD, and the whole series of fifty-four treatises was subsequently arranged and edited by Porphyry, forming the six Enneads which we still possess.

His system has for its object the search for the first principles of the universe, and aims at a systematic exposition of the origin and nature of the world: whilst, side by side with this, comes his practical aim, to enable each individual man to rise to the highest development of his nature, and so to proceed ultimately to immediate union with “the divine”. His method is eclectic: indeed there is hardly a branch of Greek or Roman speculation, from which he does not levy some contribution. His teaching however is no mere re-statement of current philosophy: it is a return to the original doctrines of Plato. At the same time these are read in the spirit of the age, so that while some elements are neglected, others are sometimes pressed further towards their logical conclusions than in the dialogues of Plato himself

It is to be noticed that Plotinus does not attempt to establish his fundamental doctrines by argument. The highest knowledge, according to his view, is attained not through logical deduction but by pure intuition: and he therefore enunciates his system without any endeavour to prove it. In so doing he is merely following the fashion of his time. The great popularity of "Mysteries," to which reference has already been made, is an indication of men's readiness to accept mystical teaching about the future state of the soul, upon the bare authority of their instructors; and although there is no evidence that Plotinus encouraged attendance at such rites, it may well be that the form in which his teaching has come down to us, was affected by the prevalence of such “Mysteries” and by the spirit of obedience to authority which it indicates. It is however to be remembered that Plotinus was a speaker rather than a writer, and it is possible that in his lectures he may have adduced arguments which he did not include in his written works.

The system revolves about the idea of a threefold principle, which appears alike in the universe around us and in our own human nature. The Deity Himself is threefold, the second principle emanating from the first and the third from the second. The first principle is variously styled essential Existence, Goodness, Unity: the second is Universal Mind, the creative principle of the world of Ideas, whilst the third is the World-soul. This like Mind is immaterial, but standing as it does between Mind and the material world, it has elected to become disintegrated, and united with the world of phenomena. The objects created by this World-soul are themselves souls of various kinds, including those of men: and these souls are capable either of rising to union with their source, or of sinking to wallow blindly in their material environment. Below this Trinity comes Nature, still a creative principle, but on a lower level, as being directly connected with matter. Creation is effected, according to Plotinus, by a process of contemplation.

The Mind contemplates in The One that which is possible, and by continual contemplation, yet ever with fresh difference, it produces all that truly exists, that is to say the Universe of Ideas. Similarly it is by contemplation that the Soul creates, but, inasmuch as it contemplates The One, not directly but through the medium of the Mind, the objects created by it stand on a lower level than those created by the Mind. And in like manner Nature gives form to formless matter, and thus creates the physical world. Matter is regarded as indestructible, and as existing before the present world. Its existence however is negative rather than positive, for apart from reason it is formless and barren: indeed, the forms which matter assumes in the physical world are in all cases due, not to itself, but to reason. Plotinus argues against those who maintained that Plato's Matter signified empty space, but he agrees with most Platonists in holding that neither the beginning nor the end of the world can be found in time, and that in this sense the universe is eternal. The soul of the universe, like the soul of the individual, is regarded as in some sense bound up with its material surroundings; so that, to a certain extent, it is in a real sense subject to Necessity or Destiny. Rational action however is always from within, so that virtue is always free. The object of the World-soul is so to pervade this universe as to bring all the parts into harmony. But in practice we find discord, resulting in constant change, and the absence of all except mere illusory existence. Men seek for the Good and cannot attain to it, and therefore they become unjust. Evil is a lack of the Good; and, in a universe of separate existences, the presence of good in one place implies its absence in another. Now if the presence of evil in the world be admitted, its prevalence is not difficult to explain. The world is not perfect: it is a mixed universe, and most of the souls which it contains are neither very good nor very bad, but occupy an intermediate position. Nor is it difficult to explain the apparent success of bad men. This is partly due to the inertness of their victims, who deserve to suffer for not attempting to resist their attacks, and it is in part explained by the fact that the wicked are thus led on to reap their own punishment, alike in their moral degradation during their present life, and in its consequences hereafter.

But the problem of the cause of the existence of evil is not affected by these considerations, and the solution which Plotinus offers is perhaps the weakest point in his system. He professes to reject all Gnostic views of the essential inherence of evil in Matter, and to believe in a single supreme deity, at once omnipotent and benevolent. But, when pressed to explain the existence of evil, he is driven to take refuge in Gnostic dualism and Gnostic hatred of things material. The reason that he gives is, that the universe rests on a substratum of matter, the dark principle, incapable of producing anything beyond itself, and therefore incapable of adequately expressing the Good. We may notice that Plotinus' refusal to allow his portrait to be painted, and the shame which he professed to feel at being in the body, are illustrations of the same feeling.

In his psychology Plotinus still adheres to a threefold principle. Man possesses Spirit, Soul, and Body, and thus he has three states of consciousness which correspond to the three spheres of being in the universe. Nor is it surprising to find that the virtues fall into three classes, corresponding to the three spheres of existence. In the lowest class are the "political virtues," which are necessary for all men, their aim being the avoidance of evil. In the second class, to which the philosopher alone can attain, are the "cathartic virtues," whose aim is the destruction of the passions. The third and highest form of virtue lies in mystical union with The One. This is what Plotinus calls Ecstasy, and it is not a faculty, nor yet a habit, but a state of the soul, to which however man can hope to attain but seldom whilst he is in the body. That Plotinus did believe in the possibility of effecting such union even on earth, there is no doubt; for we have Porphyry's statement that he had himself attained to it once, in his sixty-eighth year, and that Plotinus, during the seven years of Porphyry's friendship with him, enjoyed it four times. This teaching about ecstasy carries us beyond i the realm of philosophy into that of pure mysticism. At the same time it is not without its philosophical basis. Plotinus accepted in its entirety the Platonic doctrine of reminiscence, and the state of ecstasy is, neither more nor less than the temporary realisation of the longing which the spirit feels for its return into the world of Ideas.

Such in brief outline is the system of Plotinus. It is clearer and more definite than any that the Neopythagoreans could offer, and the lofty morality to which it leads commands our respect. It derives an added stateliness from the haughty refusal of Plotinus to be drawn into mere recriminations against the upholders of other systems: indeed, it would seem from Porphyry's account that he preferred to leave to his pupils the task of refuting antagonists, as being unworthy of his own attention. At all events it is noticeable that, out of the fifty-four treatises which he wrote, there is but one which is definitely controversial in character, and this is hardly an exception, since it consists for the most part of a dignified recapitulation of his own views, in the expectation that this alone will be sufficient to refute those of his opponents.

In life and character Plotinus seems to have exercised a peculiar attraction over those with whom he came in contact: it is to be noticed that their enemies do not venture to bring any charge against the personal integrity of either Plotinus or Porphyry: whilst both his generosity and his business capacity are illustrated by his readiness, when need arose, to undertake the guardianship of his friends' children, and by his skilful administration of their property. We are told that he almost succeeded in persuading the Emperor Gallienus to rebuild one of the ruined cities of Campania, and to permit him to have it governed on Platonic principles. That he was not entirely free from the superstitions of his time is shown by the story of Olympius' attempt to compass his destruction by means of the stars. The attempt failed, but Plotinus admitted that it had nevertheless caused him some discomfort.

During the latter part of his life he suffered from an internal malady, for which he refused to undergo any regular medical treatment. He submitted however to massage at the hands of his attendants, who prevented the malady from increasing; but at length, losing their services in a time of pestilence, he grew worse, and died.

2.

The new leader of the Neoplatonic school was a man of Tyrian descent, born in the year 233 AD. His original name was Melek or Malchus; and this title was occasionally applied to him throughout his life. He was however more commonly known by one or other of two Greek translations of his Tyrian name—Basileus or Porphyrius. Porphyry was acquainted in his younger days with the Christian Origen, and, after studying at Athens under Longinus and Apollonius, he came to Rome in 262 AD, where he met Plotinus, and after a short period of opposition became his most enthusiastic disciple. At the end of six years he found himself suffering from melancholy, and seemed to be in danger of losing his reason: but, adopting the advice of Plotinus, he sought relief in foreign travel, and lived for some time in Sicily. Of the details of his later life we know but little: he returned to Rome, where, perhaps as late as 302 AD he married Marcella, a Roman lady, and the widow of a friend. Ten months later he went abroad on what he describes as “business connected with the affairs of the Greeks and the will of the gods.” It would seem that he died in Rome in or about the year 305 AD.

Porphyry was a man of great learning, but of no striking originality. As the biographer and literary executor of Plotinus, he made the exposition and defence of his master's teaching the chief work of his life. His own additions to Neoplatonism dealt, for the most part, with the practical bearing of philosophy. Thus he taught that the cause of evil lies not in the body but in the soul, and that the end of all philosophy is holiness. In fact, if Neoplatonism reached its highest perfection in metaphysical speculation under Plotinus, it is Porphyry who marks its highest ethical development. His extant writings are not numerous. The Life of Plotinus has already been mentioned, and his other principal works are a Life of Pythagoras, a vegetarian treatise in four books “De abstinentia ab esu animalium” the “Sententiae” containing some of his expositions of Plotinus, a short tract “de antro Nympharum” an Introduction to the Categories of Aristotle, and two Letters addressed respectively to Anebon and Marcella.

It was apparently the intention of Porphyry to combine direct opposition to Christianity with the attitude of superiority to pagan systems which characterized Plotinus. He wrote an important treatise against Christianity, which seems to have formed one of the most serious literary attacks ever made upon the Church; but his attitude of superiority to the popular religion was not always maintained. There was by this time a growing tendency, especially in the Syrian school of Neoplatonists, to lay stress upon magical or "theurgical" practices; and there are passages in which Porphyry displays a certain sympathy with this tendency. He quotes Philo Byblius to prove that the Greek gods were identical with those of Persia, and he defends the use of images even to the extent of giving a mystical interpretation to the materials of which they were made. But these passages are the exception rather than the rule. Porphyry remains too thoroughly Greek to agree with the Syrian school in considering theurgical rites to be of primary importance: and in the letter to Anebon he makes his protest against them. This document is addressed to an Egyptian priest, and in it Porphyry takes up the position of a critic. He does not question the existence of the gods, but he wishes to be convinced that men are right in assigning them to special localities, or in supposing that they are to be propitiated by special forms of worship. The other side replied by issuing the famous treatise De Mysteriis, though it is uncertain whether this work was known to Porphyry or pub­lished only after his death. In any case the book is definitely styled a reply to Porphyry's letter, and it may almost be considered the official apology of the Neoplatonists for their defence, not merely of paganism in general, but of the actual forms of worship then in vogue.

The writer professes to be an Egyptian priest, but there is no doubt that he is a Greek and moreover a Neoplatonist. He betrays his Greek origin both by his general style and by definite references to sundry points of Greek literature with which a foreigner would hardly be acquainted. His tone of authority is in keeping, not only with his assumed character of Egyptian priest, but also with his position as defender of ritual and mysticism as parts of a divine revelation. The range of topics with which he proposes to deal is startling—Theology and Theurgy, Philosophy, Ethics, and Teleology—but it shows what a variety of subjects had by this time been grouped together under the general head of Neoplatonism.

We cannot here follow the writer in detail, as point by point he discusses Porphyry's letter and parries or refutes one after another of his contentions. His main positions are these. Like Plotinus he holds that the existence of the gods is not in the ordinary sense an object of knowledge, capable of being proved or disproved by logical methods, and of being grasped by the rational faculty. It is rather a matter of which all men have an innate and indefinable consciousness, so that the most that argument and reason can do is to distinguish between the various orders of the gods. They are not to be called corporeal, though their essence permeates all physical nature. Nor have they any need of our sacrifices and prayers, though these have a real value for men, as links of communication with the divine. Now we must offer prayers and sacrifices to the lower divinities because, although worship of The One is infinitely higher and nobler, yet the possibility of attaining to such worship comes to very few and even to them it comes but late in life. Moreover, the lower deities are affected by prayers, and even by threats, provided that these are uttered not by mere laymen but by duly qualified priests. Lastly, it must be remembered that the theurgist is moved by the highest and purest of aims: his constant endeavour is to raise man step by step from his natural state of degradation, till at length he attains to union with the eternal.

This then is the argument brought forward in defence of polytheism and mystical ritual, and it illustrates at once the strength and the weakness of Neoplatonism. It shows how Neoplatonism, when no longer able to produce a teacher capable of following in the steps of Plotinus, or even of Porphyry, could still summon to its aid all that conservatism, which forms so important a factor in the retardation of any religious movement; and how, by affording a quasi-philosophical justification to all forms of pagan worship, it could rally round its standard all who were interested in the preservation of the old system. On the other hand the weakness of Neoplatonism is no less apparent; for the writer of the De Mysteriis has to confess that the highest religion is but for the few, and that with all its boasted comprehensiveness Neo­platonism still lacked the simple universality of the Gospel.

3.

With the death of Porphyry the first chapter in the history of Neoplatonism comes to an end. The early Alexandrian Neoplatonists disappear, and their place is taken by the Syrian school to which reference has already been made. The great representative of this school is Iamblichus, who stands first alike in time and reputation. His importance is shown both by the high position which he enjoyed among his contemporaries and by the respect with which he is mentioned by Proclus a century later. He developed the Oriental side of Neoplatonism, his chief additions being connected with numerical speculations and mysticism. Thus he elaborated a logical series of triads and a theory upon the various orders of the gods. He also made considerable additions to the system of Plotinus1 inventing a new principle styled "The One without participation" which he declared to be superior to The Good, and adding further a series of Intellectual, Supramundane, and Mundane deities, which he made to correspond respectively to Mind, Soul and Nature, though superior to them in each instance. The improvement which he endeavored to bring into the system was twofold. In the first place, there was the refinement which sought to discover principles whose relation to the first principles of Plotinus should be the same as that which exists between the world of ideas and the world of phenomena; and in the second he was clearly anxious to assert the absolute unity of the first principle whilst retaining the triadic arrangement of the whole system. He therefore elevated The One to a position by itself, and completed the trinity of which Mind and Soul were members by the addition of Nature. To the modern mind this fantastic elaboration of metaphysical detail is a mark of declining power, but there is no doubt that it won for Iamblichus the admiration of the philosophers of his day. He is also famous for the attention which he paid to incantations and other theurgical arts. It may however be doubted whether this was not rather characteristic of the age in which he lived than of the man himself. Iamblichus appears to have lived on into the reign of Constantine, and to have died about the year 330 AD.

A Neoplatonist of a very different stamp from those who have been described was Hierocles. He was a man of action rather than a man of thought; and his weapons were more frequently those of the executioner than those of the dialectician. He was born in Caria about the year 275, and we learn from an inscription that he was governor of Palmyra under Diocletian and Maximian. It was perhaps at this period that he became acquainted with Galerius, whom he is said to have urged to persecute the Christians. From Palmyra he was transferred to Bithynia in the year 304 AD, and in the following year he was again removed to Alexandria. His claim to be considered a Neoplatonist indicates the extent to which the school had become the recognised apologists of paganism. His one literary work, of which the name and a few extracts have been preserved, was called “Plain words for the Christians”, in which, after bringing forward sundry difficulties and inconsistencies in the Christian scriptures, he appears to have compared the life and miracles of Christ with those of Apollonius of Tyana. The book itself is no longer extant, but we possess a treatise written in reply to it by Eusebius, who declares that the scriptural difficulties had already been sufficiently answered by Origen in his writings against Celsus. Hierocles showed himself throughout a constant enemy of the Christians; and, as governor of Bithynia, he became notorious for the zeal and cruelty with which he carried out Diocletian's edicts for their persecution.

After the death of Iamblichus there is a gap in the line of great Neoplatonists. We hear indeed of Sopater of Apamea, who was put to death by Constantine on a charge of employing magic to delay the arrival of the imperial corn ships; and the names of Aedesius of Cappadocia, Maximus of Ephesus, and Eusebius of Myndus must not be passed over in silence. But there is no teacher of commanding force who stands out pre-eminently as the head of the school.

4.

The next name which arrests our attention is that of the Emperor Julian. More perhaps than almost any other character in history, he has been the victim of circumstance. We speak with respect of Celsus and Porphyry, recognising that, if they were opponents of Christianity, they were nevertheless men of honesty, who tried by fair and open argument to justify their preference for the religion of their ancestors. But of Julian it is difficult to speak without adding the hateful surname of "The Apostate," and without regarding him as a traitor, who persecuted the Church and tried to undo the noble work of Constantine. What that Christianity was which he forsook, and how far he is to be considered a persecutor of the Church, are questions which we do not often attempt to answer. The relation however of Julian to the Church will be more properly considered in the next chapter: we are at present concerned only with his positive teaching as a representative of the Neoplatonic school.

As a philosopher, Julian cannot indeed be placed un the same level as Plotinus, but he is to be regarded as one who, by example and precept, brought no discredit on the school of which he was a member. A follower of Iamblichus, he exhibits the defects of that section of Neoplatonism—a certain lack of clearness of thought and a fondness for mysticism. But it is an exaggeration to say that “it is in the Emperor Julian and his philosophic friends that Neoplatonism goes down to its nadir.” Julian was neither a relentless persecutor of the Church, like Hierocles, nor was he lost, like Iamblichus, in tedious elaboration of unintelligible speculation. In both of these respects Julian stands on a higher level than his immediate predecessors. He cleared away much of the useless detail with which Neoplatonism had latterly been encumbered, and if we remember the absolute power which the Emperor possessed, and the hatred which Julian undoubtedly felt against the Church, we cannot but be surprised at the moderation which he displayed in the matter of persecution.

Turning to the details of Julian's system, we notice that he does not explicitly accept Plotinus' trinity of first principles. His view of The One is in strict accordance with that of Plotinus, but he has little to say about the other members of the trinity, and the relation in which they stand to The One and to each other. On the other hand he is more explicit than Plotinus had been upon the subordinate orders of being. Not content with the distinction between the world of Ideas and the world of phenomena, he sub­divides the former by contrasting the Intelligible with the Intellectual, thus obtaining three spheres of being in place of the trinity of first principles which he neglects. He adopts, in fact, Iamblichus' teaching in its main outlines, but simplifies it by omitting the constant repetition whereby Iamblichus had endeavoured to convey a clearer impression of the transcendental purity of his ultimate principles.

According to Julian, the highest sphere emanates directly from The One, and is occupied by the intelligible gods, chief among whom is the Sun,—not the visible centre of the solar system, but his ideal counterpart. In addition to his position as head of the intelligible world, the Sun occupies the same position in reference to the intellectual and phenomenal spheres which The One holds with regard to the intelligible. The place of honour which Julian assigns to the Sun is doubtless due to Oriental influence; and in particular to that of Mithras-worship. This view is corroborated by the confusion which Julian permits himself, consciously or unconsciously, to make between the intelligible sun and the phenomenal. Below the intelligible and intellectual gods we reach the cosmical sphere, wherein subsist the lowest order of gods, the various daemons, good and evil, and the visible world. Matter is regarded by Julian with as much aversion as it is by Plotinus; unless animated by divine essence it cannot even be apprehended by sense, and the union between matter and soul is brought about exclusively for the benefit of the lower principle.

The system of Julian has been described at somewhat greater length than its philosophical importance might seem to warrant, because it represents the final stage reached by Neoplatonism before the end of the struggle with Christianity. A century and three quarters had yet to elapse before Justinian closed the Neoplatonic schools: but after the time of Julian no real effort was made to reconvert the world to paganism. Neoplatonism adopted a more academical dress: its intimate connection with pagan myths and pagan forms of worship was no longer prominent, and it retired to a position of dignified seclusion, far removed from all questions of religious controversy.

There is another gap in the history of Neoplatonism after the death of Julian. The school was not dead, for it reappears in the early years of the fifth century both at Athens and at Alexandria; and there is moreover positive evidence for its persistence during the interval at Rome, where St Augustine passed through a period of attachment to Neoplatonism before his conversion and baptism in 387 AD. But it was in a state of suspended animation. For forty years there was not a single Neoplatonic philosopher of the first rank, the chief names of the period being those of Themistius, Eunapius, and Sallustius the friend of Julian. Themistius however is eminent rather as a rhetorician than as a philosopher, and his speeches, as well as his paraphrases of Aristotle, are still extant: whilst the fame of Eunapius rests not upon his philosophical insight but upon the fact that he is the biographer of the school. Just as the long line of Stoics had already been ended by Marcus Aurelius, so it would almost seem as though Neo-platonism took half a century to recover from the strain of assuming the purple in the person of Julian.

5.

This period of stagnation was followed by the great revival of Neoplatonism which marked the opening years of the fifth century. This revival had two centres of activity, in the universities of Alexandria and Athens. It was essentially academical in character, so that the writings of the last Neoplatonists consist mainly of commentaries on the works of Plato and Aristotle. There was a considerable amount of intercommunication between the two universities, and we find more than one of the philosophers of this period connected with both.

Turning first to the Alexandrian school we are confronted by two striking figures, both of them strangely attractive and strangely different from the various philosophers described above. One is Synesius, the country gentleman, fond of his books yet no less fond of sport, ready, when need arose, to take up the arduous duties of a Christian Bishop, and to wear out his life on behalf of his people and his country. The other is his teacher, Hypatia, perhaps the noblest of those women of culture who grace from time to time the pages of history, who was brutally murdered by the ignorant mob of Alexandria, the victim of blind fanaticism and unproved suspicion.

Of the teaching of Hypatia we know but little: but it may be gathered from the writings of Synesius that she followed in the steps of Iamblichus. With regard however to Synesius we are fortunate in having no lack of materials from which to form our judgment. His philosophy is rather of the popular type. There is a certain vagueness in his expressions which betrays the hand of the dilettante, a vagueness that is especially noticeable in his Hymns. In some respects however he rises far above the Neoplatonism of the fourth century. He explicitly rejects the employment of theurgical arts, and, even before his conversion to Christianity, he has clearly little belief in the pagan gods. The claim which he made for philosophical freedom of thought, before he permitted himself to be consecrated Bishop of Ptolemais, is a matter which will more properly be discussed in the next chapter.

One other member of the Alexandrian school must be mentioned before we leave this part of the subject. This is Hierocles, who was a pupil of Plutarch at Athens, but who afterwards taught at Alexandria. His position is interesting, standing as he does midway between Christianity and the old religion. He softens down the harsher aspects of paganism, urging men, for example, to universal charity, and pointing out the efficacy of prayer. It is interesting too to notice that, in his view, the belief in a future state forms the one argument for morality in the present life. Many of his doctrines are identical with those of Origen,—that, for instance, of the prenatal existence of the soul—and even where he is most distinctively Neoplatonist, his expressions are often very near those of the Alexandrian Fathers. In his extant works Hierocles does not appear to make any direct reference to Christianity, but whether he is to be reckoned as a tacit opponent of the Church, is not clear.

The leader of the Athenian revival was Plutarch the son of Nestorius, whose pupil Syrianus was the teacher of the more famous Proclus. So far as can be judged from the scanty information which we possess about him, Plutarch's philosophy was distinctly Platonic in its tone. He accepted the trinity of Plotinus—The One, Mind, and Soul—and moreover he distinguished the forms immanent in material things from matter itself. Syrianus on the other hand set himself the task of bringing the Aristotelian and Platonic systems into harmony. In his view the works of Aristotle must be studied as a preparation for those of Plato. The same endeavor to reconcile Plato with Aristotle, and indeed to weld the whole of Greek philosophy into one homogeneous system, occupied the energies of Proclus. To enter fully into the details of his teaching would be to trespass beyond the proper limits of this essay, for the direct influence which the Athenian school exercised upon Christianity was but slight. An account however of Neoplatonism which omitted all reference to the last great teacher of the school would be so manifestly incomplete that it will be best to add a few words on the system of Proclus as compared with those of his predecessors.

According to Proclus, all that exists comes into being through a law of “threefold development”. Everything has a state of rest from which it issues and to which it returns; for everything is both like and unlike that from which it is derived. By the action of these three, the state of rest, the issuing forth, and the return, the whole system of the universe is gradually developed. With Proclus, as with Plotinus, the ultimate principle is The One, which he defines in language almost identical with that of the first great Neoplatonic writer. From The One however proceed a number of Unities which are gods in the highest sense of the term. Below them come the three spheres of ideal existence, for Proclus, not content with the two divisions already distinguished by Julian, speaks of the Intelligible, the Intelligible-Intellectual, and the Intellectual spheres. From the Intellectual sphere emanates the Psychical, and below that comes the material world. In his teaching upon the lower spheres of existence Proclus follows Plotinus; but in the higher flights of his philosophy his system becomes more intricate even than that of Iamblichus. Proclus is said to have laid the greatest stress upon the proper performance of mystical ritual, but in his extant works he does not stand forward, like Julian or the writer of the De Mysteriis as the champion of such observances. He saw that the day for their official recognition was past, and he felt that to call public attention to the subject would only bring his school into discredit and persecution.

Proclus died in 485 AD and with him the history of Neoplatonism practically closes. He was succeeded by Marinus, whose speculations were chiefly concerned with the theory of Ideas and with mathematics. One or two other names also deserve to be mentioned, such as that of Simplicius of Cilicia, the commentator on Aristotle, and Boethius, who, by his treatise De consolatione philosophiae, his translations from Aristotle and Porphyry, and his commentaries on these and other philosophical works, formed for western scholars, their chief link with Greek philosophy until the revival of Classical studies at the time of the Renaissance

Neoplatonism continued to be taught until 529 AD when Justinian forbade the delivery of philosophical lectures at Athens, and confiscated the property of the Neoplatonic school. The last chapter of the history is well known. Seven Neoplatonists, including Simplicius and Damascius the last head of the school, emigrated to Persia, hoping to find in the East the Utopia which they had sought in vain at Athens. Sadly disappointed they were fain to return, and in 533 .D they were permitted to come back to the Roman Empire, retaining full liberty of belief, though still forbidden to give lectures, or otherwise to propagate their doctrines.

6.

Whilst reserving for a later chapter all detailed discussion of the relations between Neoplatonism and Christianity, it will be convenient at this point to add a few words about the Christian writers who belong to the same period as the various leaders of the school. The principal Greek fathers contemporary with Plotinus and Porphyry were Origen, Gregory Thaumaturgus and Methodius. The importance for our present purpose, of Origen, the pupil of Ammonius and the instructor of Porphyry, can hardly be overrated. His immense grasp of varied knowledge, and his comprehensive breadth of view, are illustrated by the description which Gregory Thaumaturgus has left of the course of instruction which he prescribed for his pupils.

Origen and his followers had much in common with the Neoplatonists. Methodius, on the other hand, was entirely opposed, both to Neoplatonism and to the Origenistic school of Christian speculation, He seems to have been a student of Plato, but he imbibed little of his spirit. He wrote a lengthy reply to Porphyry's attack on Christianity, but this, like the work against which it is directed, we no longer possess. He also wrote more than one treatise against the teaching of Origen, notably against his claim that the Resurrection of the body cannot be interpreted in the sense of a physical resurrection. For Origen himself we are told that he entertained a considerable respect, and the fragments of his writings contain allegorical interpretations of scripture exactly similar to those of Origen.

Of Cyprian and Minucius Felix, the contemporary Latin fathers, little need be said. In the dialogue composed by Minucius Felix, Caecilius, the heathen representative, does not adopt a Neoplatonist attitude. On the contrary, his endeavour to refute the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and to point out the greater durability of the material world, is distinctly opposed to the teaching of the school. Nor need we linger over the name of Cyprian. There are indeed traces of considerable philosophical power in his writings, but he was too much involved in the practical difficulties connected with the administration of his See to pay much attention to the philosophical revival that was taking place in the heathen world. We pass on to the great Christian father who, like Iamblichus and Hierocles, witnessed the persecution under Diocletian and the subsequent triumph of Christianity. Born soon after the year 260 AD and living until 339 AD Eusebius of Caesarea forms a link between the age of Plotinus and the age of Julian. His position with regard to Neoplatonism is twofold. Against Neoplatonists as the apologists of paganism the Christian Bishop wages unceasing war: but with Neoplatonism as an abstract system of philosophy Eusebius the scholar has much sympathy.

During the period of the great Arian controversy the Church was too much distracted by her own theological difficulties to pay much attention to philosophical problems outside her pale. A literary attack on Christianity made by Julian was answered in later days by Cyril of Alexandria, and there are traces in the writings of Athanasius which show that the indirect influence of Neoplatonism upon Alexandrian thought was still considerable.

In the last three decades of the fourth century we find the three Cappadocian fathers, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, and Basil of Caesarea. As followers of Origen they represent the side of Christian speculation which is most nearly allied to Neoplatonism, and their influence tended steadily towards the absorption by the Church of Neoplatonic doctrines. To the same period belongs Epiphanius, who became Bishop of Constantia in Cyprus in 367 A.D. Among the Latin fathers of this generation there are several whose names ought to be mentioned. There is Hilary of Poitiers who is noticeable as one of the earliest supporters of Origen in the west, and Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, to whose teaching the conversion of Augustine was largely due. Somewhat junior to Hilary and Ambrose, but still belonging to the same period, we find Rufinus the translator of Origen, and the two great theologians of Western Christendom, Augustine and Jerome. All three lived on into the fifth century, and all of them helped to disseminate the knowledge of Christian Platonism in the Western Church.

With the school of Antioch, whose golden age falls in the early years of the fifth century, we are not greatly concerned. Diodore of Tarsus, Theodore of Mopsuestia, John Chrysostom, and Theodoret hold a place of their own among the Fathers of the Christian Church, but the trend of their thought was practical rather than philosophical, and they were not greatly influenced by Neoplatonic writers. In the same period we find Synesius, Bishop of Ptolemais, to whom reference has already been made. One other writer must be mentioned before we close—the unknown writer who assumed the title of Dionysius the Areopagite. It will be sufficient at this point to say that these writings bear clear marks of the influence of Proclus, and that they appear to have been composed at the end of the fifth century either at Edessa or under the influence of the Edessene school.

We have now traced the main outlines of the history of Neoplatonism. Its course might almost be taken as an illustration of the law of triadic development enunciated by Proclus. We see it first in the hands of Plotinus, far above all controversy, extending indeed a distant recognition to the pagan system then in vogue, but unfettered by the details, whether of ritual or dogma, which that system implied. We see it next, issuing forth and differing more and more widely from its former self, spending a century in barren controversy and useless persecution. And lastly we see the Return. Neoplatonism desists from the struggle, and becomes once more a lofty system of abstract philosophy, like its first self, and yet unlike, in that its energies are directed less to the perfecting of a system than to the criticism and exegesis of the masterpieces of Plato and Aristotle. And thus its work continued, for though the circle directly affected by Neoplatonism in its last stage was small, yet the influence exerted by the Athenian school was perhaps in the end more important than that of Neoplatonism at any other period of its history. Plotinus may have affected the development of Alexandrian theology; Julian fought nobly for the losing cause of paganism, but it was left to Boethius to store up for future generations the teaching of his more famous predecessors, and to keep the torch of philosophy alight through the dark ages that were to follow.

V

THE RELATIONS BETWEEN NEOPLATONISM AND CHRISTIANITY

The broad features of the relations between Neoplatonism and Christianity have been roughly sketched in the last chapter. There was at first a period of apparent friendship. Ammonius may or may not have been a Christian in his youth, but it seems certain that the Christian Origen attended his lectures, and moreover that the Neoplatonist Porphyry had at one time personal dealings with Origen. This early period of alliance gave place to a second period of direct antagonism. Porphyry wrote an important treatise against the Christians, and the next two generations saw Hierocles the governor of Bithynia using every means of persecution against the Church, and Julian endeavouring to re-establish paganism as the dominant religion of the Empire, whilst the early years of the fifth century brought the murder of Hypatia at the hands of the mob at Alexandria. But before the end of the fourth century there were already signs of returning friendship between the philosophers and the theologians. As early as the year 387 St Augustine had passed through a period of attachment to Neoplatonism before his final conversion to Christianity, and if in 415 Hypatia was put to death by the ignorant fanatics, her pupil Synesius had already been elevated to the office of a Christian Bishop. The period of antagonism was followed by the absorption of various Neoplatonic principles by Christian writers such as Dionysius the Areopagite, and the vitality of these principles was evinced centuries later by the appearance of a great teacher like Joannes Scotus (Erigena), who drew his inspiration from the study of Neoplatonist writings, and whose doctrines, if audacious, formed a valuable tonic to the barren theology of his day.

But it is necessary to enter into a more detailed discussion of the course of these relations between Neoplatonism and Christianity, and to trace, as far as is possible, in what their mutual obligations consisted.

The question has often been discussed, as to the amount of borrowing that took place between the two systems in the early period, and the answer given has usually been that little or no direct borrowing could be traced, although the indirect influence exercised by each system upon the other was probably considerable. It is necessary to investigate the nature and the extent of this indirect influence, and the traces, if such there be, of direct obligations on either side.

What then are the facts and probabilities of the case? There is a general agreement among modern writers that in a certain sense the rise of Neoplatonism was the result of the spread of Christianity. There is no doubt whatever that from the time of Porphyry to the time of Julian one of the chief objects of the school was the defence and maintenance of the old paganism. The question therefore that arises is this: was this conflict between the philosophers and the Christian Church a mere accident, or are we to regard Neoplatonism as being from the outset an attempt to reform and centralise the old religion, and to find some coherent system wherewith to oppose the organized advance of the new faith? If the latter view be correct, if we are to view Neoplatonism as a deliberate attempt to re-establish paganism on its own merits, the early stage of its history assumes a new aspect. Whatever the attitude of Christianity might be towards Neoplatonism, Neoplatonism was essentially opposed to Christianity. But it does not therefore follow that it was the best policy for the Neoplatonists to denounce their opponents. Another method was open to them, more diplomatic, and from their own point of view, more dignified. Denunciation of the new sect, whether effective or not, at least implied its recognition: but to pass it over in silence was more statesmanlike.

In support of the view here suggested, that Plotinus by his very silence was aiming a blow against Christianity, it will be worth while to examine more closely a work to which allusion has already been made. The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, written by Philostratus, is an account of an actual man, the main lines of whose history correspond with the broad features of this memoir. But the notes of Damis of Nineveh were so transformed by Philostratus that the resulting picture is not that of the historical Apollonius but of the incarnation of the religious ideal of the Neopythagorean circle by whom the book was published. In this biography there is no direct reference to Christianity, but as we read the work of Philostratus we are again and again struck by its resemblance to the Christian Gospels. In the first place there is a general similarity of outline. Apollonius is born, mysteriously, at about the same date as Jesus Christ: after a period of retirement and preparation, in which he shows a marvellous religious precocity, we find a period of public ministry followed by a persecution which corresponds in some sense to our Lord's Passion; a species of resurrection, and an ascension.

There are also numerous analogies in detail. Apollo's messengers sing at the birth of Apollonius, just as the angels at Bethlehem hymned the birth of Christ. Apollonius too has from the first numerous enemies who are nevertheless unable to harm him: he is followed by a chosen band of disciples in whose ranks we find disaffection and even treason. He sets his face steadily to go to Rome in spite of the warnings of his friends that the Emperor is seeking to kill him. He is set at nought by the servants of Nero, just as Jesus was mocked by Herod’s soldiers. He is accused of performing his miracles by magic and illegal means—a charge precisely similar to that brought against Christ. Like our Lord, too, Apollonius is represented as having constantly driven out daemons by his mere word. It is even possible to compare individual miracles on either side. A parallel to the devils who entered into the herd of swine is to be traced in the story of a demoniac at Athens, whose evil spirit enters into a statue which it overthrows, and at Rome there is a resuscitation of a dead child which is strangely similar to the raising of Jairus’ daughter. Apollonius too appears miraculously to certain followers after his departure from earth, and is clearly represented as being then free from the limitations of material existence.

Nor are the analogies confined to the Gospels. Just as Jesus appeared to Saul on the way to Damascus, Apollonius appears miraculously to a declared adversary whom he converts. Like St Peter, or St Paul at Philippi, he breaks his bonds, and like the disciples at Pentecost he has the gift of tongues.

There is of course a danger of pressing these analogies too far: indeed there are probably several cases in which parallels could be adduced from sources that are admittedly free from all connexion with the Gospels. But the collective weight of the whole series is considerable, and it is difficult to believe that the similarity is not due to conscious imitation. Now it has already been noted that throughout the whole of Philostratus’ work there is no direct reference to Christianity, and this too can hardly have been accidental. Is it then unreasonable to suppose that in the brilliant circle which gathered round the Empress Julia Domna there were men capable of devising an attempt to cut away the ground beneath the feet of the Christians, by re-writing the Christian gospel in the support of paganism, without acknowledgment and without any show of controversy?

The advantage of such a device is obvious. A work that claimed to be historical would gain access in quarters where a controversial treatise would be debarred. It might be possible to gain for Apollonius some share of reverence even among the Christians themselves. And if this were the editors' aim the absence of all reference to Jesus Christ becomes not only possible but natural. To mention Him with reverence would not suit their purpose; to introduce Him as coming into conflict with Apollonius and as being by him vanquished, whether in argument or in wonder working, must inevitably rouse the suspicions of those very persons whose antagonism they were most anxious not to excite.

They accordingly produced an account of a man whose existence no one could question, and whose character they portrayed in colours so attractive as to gain a measure of approbation even from their opponents. Round his name they grouped a series of incidents, copied from the Christian Gospels, but with sufficient alteration to escape the charge of direct plagiarism. By this means they hoped to secure the allegiance of many who admired the Christian faith, but whose conservatism made them anxious to cling to the old religion, if only it could be shown to hold its own against the attacks of its opponent. The lack of all scientific criticism in the modern sense, among pagans and Christians alike, secured them from detection. The list of authorities quoted by Philostratus would more than suffice for the acceptance of all the miracles here recorded: and, without making their intention too obvious, it was possible for them to place in the mouth of Apollonius discourses which tended steadily to the advancement of pagan conservatism and pagan tolerance as opposed to the revolutionary and bigoted teaching of Christianity,

In confirmation of the view here expressed it may be added, that whether or no it was so intended by the authors, there can be no doubt that later apologists of paganism did make use of the Life of Apollonius in the way that has been described. Thus in his Plain words for the Christians we find Hierocles of Bithynia giving a catalogue of the miracles of Apollonius, and then proceeding: “Why then have I mentioned these events? It is in order that the reader may compare our reasoned and weighty judgment of each detail with the vapourings of the Christians. For we speak of him who has wrought all these things, not as God, but as a man divinely gifted; but they, for the sake of a few paltry miracles, do not hesitate to call their Jesus God.”

The revival promoted by Julia Domna was not altogether successful. But the spirit which prompted it survived and reappeared nearly half a century later. The silence of Plotinus upon the subject of Christianity is difficult to explain until we see that it is deliberate and intentional. In the whole of his published writings—for Porphyry makes it clear that he collected and edited all that he was able to find—Christianity is not once mentioned by name, and the most careful search has produced hardly a single instance even of indirect reference. It is scarcely possible to ascribe this silence to ignorance: Plotinus was hardly in his grave before Porphyry published an attack upon the Church based upon a careful study of Christian writings and practices, and it is moreover difficult to suppose that he was entirely unacquainted with the works of Origen, who had been like himself a pupil of Ammonius Saccas. Nor can we set his silence down to an idea that the Christians were not worthy of his criticism. If he condescended to write a treatise against the Gnostics, why did he not deign to spend a passing thought upon the larger and more important body of orthodox Christians?

The very fact that direct reference to Christianity can nowhere be found, although its indirect influence seems to be distinctly traceable in Plotinus' system, points towards intentional concealment of his obligations on the part of the writer. Indeed, it may even be said that Plotinus is specially careful to avoid using Christian terminology where he approaches most nearly to Christian doctrines. Thus it is difficult to believe that Plotinus’ doctrine of Mind is not connected with Philo's speculations on the Word (Logos). In both alike we find the distinctive theory that the Platonic Ideas, in accordance with which the visible world was formed, are contained in this principle. Yet Plotinus studiously avoids using the term Logos as the title of the second principle of his trinity. Now it is not easy to see why Plotinus, whilst using Philo’s doctrine should thus avoid Philo's terminology, unless he had some reason for so doing: and the simplest explanation is that the word Logos had in his view been so contaminated by Christian associations that he preferred to avoid it altogether, and to go back to the term of the old Greek philosophy. His practice throughout suggests that the adoption by the school of the position of apologists for the old religion was not a later development, but an essential characteristic of Neoplatonism. The method changed as time went on. Plotinus endeavored to secure his aim by haughtily ignoring the Christians: Porphyry condescended to make a literary attack upon them: Hierocles would not trust to literary weapons alone, and supplemented the pen with the sword: but the attitude of the school remained the same throughout.

If this view be correct: if Neoplatonism was from the first an endeavour to justify on its own merits the existence and the supremacy of the old system, it is not surprising that the search for the direct use of Christian doctrines by the Neoplatonists has been productive of such very scanty results. They naturally preferred not to parade any obligations to their opponents under which they might labour: they sought out from earlier systems of philosophy those elements which were in keeping with the spirit of their day, and carefully concealed the principles upon which their selection was based. Just as Philostratus and Julia Domna had corrected and improved the Gospel story, so Plotinus edited and retouched Christian theology in the light of Platonic philosophy.