Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/940

 the 5th cent. pass to Christianity, can hardly do better than study these hymns.

The God to Whom he thus offers the "unbloody sacrifice" of his prayers is at once One and Three—"one root, one source, a triple form." To attempt to explain the mystery of this Trinity would be the atheistic boldness of blinded men. The three persons of the Trinity, to use the Christian form of expression never employed by Synesius himself, are not as with Plotinus—Unity, Intelligence, Soul. Most frequently the Christian terms are used—Father, Spirit, Son—for the resemblance between the attributes assigned in neo-Platonic philosophy to the soul, the third God, the ruler of the world, and the attributes assigned by Christianity to the Son apparently led Synesius to place the Son third in his system of the Trinity. The Father is also called the Unity. The Spirit is nowhere called the Intelligence, but is often called the Will. The Son, Who emanates from the Father through the Spirit, is also called, with a curious combination of expressions, the Word, the Wisdom, and the Demiurgus. The stream of life and intelligence descends from the Father through the Son to the intellectual worlds, and from them to the visible world which is the image of the intellectual. To all in heaven and in the sky, and on the earth and beneath the earth, the Son imparts life and assigns duties. Nor is the Father, however mysterious in His nature, so "hidden in His glory" as to be inaccessible to sympathy for His children. In the efficacy of prayer and in the reality of spiritual communion with God Synesius firmly believed. "Give, O Lord, to be with me as my companion the holy angel of holy strength, the angel of divinely inspired prayer. May he be with me as my friend, the giver of good gifts, the keeper of my life, the keeper of my soul, the guardian of my prayers, the guardian of my actions. May he preserve my body pure from disease, may he preserve my spirit pure from pollution, may he bring to my soul oblivion of all passions." And again in the beautiful prayer of the soul for reunion with God: "Have pity, Lord, upon Thy daughter. I left Thee to become a servant upon earth, but instead of a servant I have become a slave. Matter has bound me in its magic spells. Yet still the clouded eye retains some little strength, its power is not altogether quenched. But the deep flood has poured over me and dimmed the God-discerning vision. Have pity, Father, on Thy suppliant child, who, often striving to ascend the upward paths of thought, falls back choked with desires, the offspring of seductive matter. Kindle for me, O Lord, the lights which lead the soul on high."

Synesius has nowhere expressly stated that he regarded matter not as created by God but as existing independently and necessarily evil, but this idea is most consistent with the language he generally employs. God is nowhere said to have created the world, but the Son is said to have framed the visible world as the form and image of the invisible. At all events the corruption of the soul in each individual is attributed to the seductive influence of matter, a view expressed at some length in his very curious treatise on Dreams. The soul, he says, descends from heaven in obedience to a law of Providence to perform its appointed service in the world. It then receives, as a loan, the imagination, figuratively called the boat or chariot by which the soul travels on its earthward voyage. In other words, it is the connecting link between mind and matter. It is something intermediate between the corporeal and incorporeal, and philosophy therefore has great difficulty in determining its real nature. It is the duty of the soul to purify and elevate the imagination. It is the constant aim of the daemon of matter to corrupt and degrade it.

The action of Providence in the government of the world is described by Synesius in his treatise written at Constantinople. All existence, he says, proceeds from God and has been assigned by Him to an infinite variety of beings, descending in regular gradations from God Himself, Who is pure existence, to matter, which, being in a state of constant flux, does not, properly speaking, admit of existence at all. The beings of the highest order are called gods, and they are divided into two classes, the first controlling the upper parts of the universe, the other ruling this earth: These gods find their chief happiness in contemplating the God Who is above them, but to preserve the earth from the evils which would soon result from the destructive activity of the earth-daemons they must interpose from time to time. This they do gladly, because thus they render their appointed service to the supreme Deity.

As regards a future state, Synesius says that philosophy teaches us that it is the result of the present life. With death the husk of matter, which we call the body, perishes, but the soul and the imagination remain.

He repeatedly protests against giving publicity to doctrines which are above the comprehension of men not thoroughly trained in philosophical studies. "Philosophy is one of the most ineffable of all ineffable subjects." He reproves his friend Herculian for talking of such with unphilosophical persons, and will not even discuss them in letters lest they fall into the hands of others. Proteus is the problem of the true philosopher eluding vulgar curiosity by concealing the divine under earthly forms, and only revealing it to the persistent efforts of heroic men. This desire for secrecy arose from a fear lest the highest truths should be corrupted and degraded by those unfit to receive them, a feeling by no means unknown in the Christian church at that time. Lysis, the Pythagorean, quoted by Synesius with great approbation, says that "the publicity given to philosophy has caused many men to look with contempt upon the Gods." Doubtless enough is plainly stated for us to form a sufficiently accurate idea of Synesius's philosophical and religious views, but there are subjects—e.g. the nature of the Trinity, the connexion between the old mythology and philosophy, the reabsorption of the soul and of all intelligence and existence into