Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/939

 The Roman empire fell because so few of its citizens cared to do anything to preserve it.

It was but natural that men, even of strong patriotic feeling, like Synesius, should turn from the degradation of official life to live in thought among the glories of the heroic age of action in the pages of Homer, and the heroic age of thought in those of Plato. His philosophical studies did not meet with much encouragement among the people of Pentapolis. "I never hear in Libya the sound of philosophy, except the echo of my own voice. Yet if no one else is my witness, assuredly God is, for the mind of man is the seed of God, and I think the stars look down with favour on me as the only scientific observer of their movements visible to them in this vast continent." He pursued the study of astronomy, not only from his love for the beauties of nature, but as a valuable introduction to the highest branches of philosophy. To him, as to Plato, astronomy is "not only a very noble science, but a means of rising to something nobler still, a ready passage to the mysteries of theology." He had received instruction in it from Hypatia, his "most venerated teacher," at Alexandria. While at Constantinople he sent his friend Paeonius a planisphere, constructed in silver according to his own directions, with a letter giving a curious description of it. He mentions that Ptolemy, and the sacred college of his successors, had been contented with the planisphere on which Hipparchus had marked only the 16 largest stars by which the hours of the night were known, but he himself had marked on his all the stars down to the 6th degree of magnitude.

In philosophy Synesius is not entitled to rank as an independent thinker. He is simply an eclectic blending together the elements of his belief from widely different sources, without troubling to reduce them to a strictly harmonious system. He had neither depth nor precision of thought sufficient to win a high place in the history of philosophy. But he constantly speaks of his delight in philosophical studies, and always claims as his especial title of honour the name of a philosopher. If he had been asked which he considered the most philosophical of his writings, he would probably have answered his poems. For, from his point of view, poetry was inseparably connected with philosophy; for both are occupied with the highest problems of life; both look at the ideal side of things, and in the union of the two religion itself consists. The Homeric poems were valuable to him, not only for literary excellency, but as furnishing a rule of conduct. He quotes Homer as a Christian then quoted his Bible. He evidently regarded Homer as an authority in political, social, moral, and even religious questions. He was certainly well versed in the whole range of Greek literature. There is hardly a poet, historian, or philosopher of eminence not quoted or alluded to by him. In this, as in other respects, he faithfully represents one of the latest phases of thought in the Alexandrine school. The ascetic system of Plotinus and Porphyry had failed as an opposing force to the rising tide of Christianity. The theurgical rites and mysterious forms of magical incantation with which Iamblichus and others sought to prop up the falling creed had had but a limited success. Repeated laws of increasing severity had been passed to repress the magical arts, and many accused of practising them imprisoned and even executed. Besides, the very persons over whose credulity such pretensions could exercise any influence would in the 4th cent. naturally be much more attracted by the far more wonderful pretensions of the Christian hermits, and the countless tales of visions seen and miracles wrought by monks of Nitria and Scetis, which continually excited the wonder and stimulated the religion of the people of Alexandria. In supposed miracles, as in real austerities, no pagan philosopher was likely to rival Anthony or Ammon. Among the higher classes the great majority of thinking men, who were still unwilling to embrace Christianity, were chiefly influenced in the Eastern empire by their attachment to Greek literature, in the Western empire by their reverence, partly political, partly religious, for Rome itself, whose greatness seemed to them to depend on the maintenance of that system, partly political, partly religious, under which it had been acquired. The Greek mythology had lost its hold on their belief, but the poetry that mythology had inspired still retained its power over the imagination of educated men among the cities of the Eastern empire, which, however slightly Greek in origin, had become thoroughly Greek in language and in culture. Besides, the ideal of life presented in Greek literature was far more attractive to many minds than that presented by the popular teaching of Christianity, especially to those minds in which the intellectual were stronger than the moral impulses. Those who "still cared for grace and Hellenism," to use Synesius's expression, turned with increasing fondness from the intellectual degeneracy of their day to the masterpieces of former times, seeking to satisfy the universally felt craving for a definite religious creed, by taking from all the writers they admired the elements of a vague system, which they called a philosophy, but which depended far more upon poetical feelings than philosophical arguments.

Synesius's own poems are his most original works. Their literary merit is not of the highest order. His power lay not so much in the strength of imagination as in warmth of poetical feeling. The metres are unfortunately chosen and not sufficiently varied to escape monotony. The fatal facility of the short lines constantly led to a jingling repetition of the same cadences and turns of construction. Still, the ten hymns extant would be interesting, if only as specimens of a style of lyrical poetry, the meditative poetry partly philosophical and partly religious, which was hardly ever attempted in ancient Greece, though common enough in modern times. Their chief value, however, consists in the light thrown on the religious feelings and experiences of a man of deeply interesting character. Any one who wishes to know the religious aspect of neo-Platonism and the different phases of thought through which an able man of strong religious feelings could in