Page:Arabic Thought and Its Place in History.djvu/34

 The work of Plotinus was continued by his pupil Porphyry (d. 300 A.D.) who taught at Rome, and is chiefly noteworthy as the one who completed the fusion of Platonic and Aristotelian elements in the neo-Platonic system, and especially as introducing the scientific methods of Aristotle. Plotinus had criticized adversely the Aristotelian categories (Enn. vi.), but Porphyry and all the later neo-Platonists returned to Aristotle. Indeed, he is best known to posterity as the author of the Isagoge, long current as the regular introduction to the logical Organon of Aristotle. Then came Jamblichus (d. 330), the pupil of Porphyry who used neo-Platonism as the basis of a pagan theology; and finally Proklus (d. 485) its last great pagan adherent who was even more definitely a theologian.

Neo-Platonism was the system just coming to the fore-front when the Christians of Alexandria began to be in contact with philosophy. The first prominent Alexandrian Christian who endeavoured to reconcile philosophy and Christian theology was Clement of Alexandria who, like Justin Martyr, was a Platonist of the older type. Clement's Stromateis is a very striking work which shows the general body of Christian doctrine adapted to the theories of Platonic philosophy. It does not tamper with the traditional Christian doctrine, but it is evidently the work of one who sincerely believed that Plato had partially foreseen what the Gospels taught, and that he had used a clear and efficient terminology which was in all