Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/351

Rh NEOPLATONISM 337 Plotinus. He was no original or productive thinker, but lie was a solid and diligent student, distinguished by great learning, by a turn for keen historical and philological criticism, and by an earnest purpose to disseminate the true philosophy of life, to uproot false teaching especially Christianity, to ennoble men and train them to goodness. That a spirit so free and noble yielded itself up wholly to the philosophy of Plotinus and polytheistic mysticism shows how irresistible was the tendency of the age, and means also that the age had no better thing to offer than religi ous mysticism. The system of Porphyry is distinguished from that of Plotinus by being still more emphatically practical and religious. The object of philosophy, accord ing to Porphyry, is the salvation of the soul. The origin and the blame of evil are not in the body, but in the desires of the soul. Hence the strictest asceticism (abstinence from flesh, and wine, and sexual intercourse) is demanded, as well as the knowledge of God. As he advanced in life, Porphyry protested more and more earnestly against the rude faith of the common people and their immoral worships. &quot;The ordinary conceptions of God are such that it is more impious to share them than it is to slight the images of the gods.&quot; But, outspoken as he was in his criticism of the popular religions, he had no wish to give them up. He stood up for a pure worship of the many gods, and maintained the cause of every old national religion and the ceremonial duties of its adherents. His work Against the Christians was directed, not against Christ, nor even against what he believed to be Christ s teaching, but against the Christians of his own day and their sacred books, which, according to Porphyry, were the work of deceivers and ignorant people. In his trenchant criticism of the origin of what passed for Christianity in his time, he spoke bitter and severe truths, which have gained for him the reputation of the most rabid and wicked of all the enemies of Christianity. His work was destroyed, 1 and even the answers to it (by Methodius, Eusebius, Apollinaris, Philostorgius, &c.) have been lost. But the copious extracts which we find in Lactantius, Augustine, Jerome, Macarius Magnus, and others are sufficient to show how profoundly Porphyry had studied the Christian writings, and how great was his talent for real historical research. Porphyry marks the transition to a new phase of Neoplatonism, in which it becomes completely subservient to polytheism, and seeks before everything else to protect the Greek and Oriental religions from the formidable assault of Christianity. In the hands of IAMBLICHUS (q.v.), the pupil of Porphyry (ob. 330), Neoplatonism is changed &quot;from a philosophical theory to a theological doctrine.&quot; The distinctive tenets of lamblichus cannot be accounted for from scientific but only from practical considerations. In order to justify superstition and the ancient forms of worship, philosophy becomes in his hands a theurgy, a knowledge of mysteries, a sort of spiritualism. To this period also belongs a set of &quot;philosophers,&quot; with regard to whom it is impossible to say whether they are dupes or impostors the &quot; decepti deceptores &quot; of whom Augustine speaks. In this philosophy the mystical properties of numbers are a leading feature; absurd and mechanical notions are glossed over with the sheen of sacramental mystery ; myths are explained by pious fancies and fine- sounding pietistic reflexions ; miracles, even the most ridiculous, are believed in, and miracles are wrought. The &quot; philosopher &quot; has become a priest of magic, and philosophy a method of incantation. Moreover, in the unbridled exercise of speculation, the number of divine beings was 1 It was condemned by an edict of the emperors Theodosius II. and Valentinian, in the year 448. increased indefinitely ; and these fantastic accessions to Olympus in the system of lamblichus show that Greek philosophy is returning to mythology, and that nature- religion is still a power in the world. And yet it is undeniable that the very noblest and choicest minds of the 4th century are to be found in the ranks of the Neoplatonists. So great was the general decline that this Neoplatonic philosophy offered a welcome shelter to many earnest and influential men, in spite of the charlatans and hypocrites who were gathered under the same roof. On certain points of doctrine, too, the dogmatic of lamblichus indicates a real advance. Thus his emphatic assertion of the truth that the seat of evil is in the will is noteworthy ; and so also is his repudiation of Plotinus s theory of the divinity of the soul. The numerous followers of lamblichus (^Edesius, Chrysanthius, Eusebius, Priscus, Sopater, Sallust, and, most famous of all, Maximus) rendered little service to speculation. Some of them (Themistius in particular) are known as commentators on the older philosophers, and others as the missionaries of mysticism. The work De Mysteriis jEgyptiorum is the best sample of the views and aims of these philosophers. Their hopes rose high when their protdgd, the enthusiastic, noble-minded, but mentally ill-balanced Julian, ascended the imperial throne (361-363). But the emperor himself lived long enough to see that his romantic policy of restoration was to leave no results ; and after his early death all hope of extinguishing Christianity was abandoned. But undoubtedly the victory of the church in the age of Valentinian and Theodosius had a purifying influence on Neoplatonism. During the struggle for supremacy, the philosophers had been driven to make common cause with everything that was hostile to Christianity. But now Neoplatonism was thrust from the great stage of history. The church and church theology, to whose guidance the masses now surrendered themselves, took in along with them their superstition, their polytheism, their magic, their myths, and all the machinery of religious witchcraft. The more all this settled and established itself certainly not without opposition in the church the purer did Neoplatonism become. While maintaining intact its religious attitude and its theory of knowledge, it returned with new zest to scientific studies, especially the study of the old philosophers. If Plato still remains the divine philosopher, yet we can perceive that after the year 400 the writings of Aristotle are increasingly read and valued. In the chief cities of the empire Neoplatonic schools flourished till the beginning of the 5th century ; during this period, indeed, they were the training-schools of Christian theologians. At Alexandria the noble Hypatia taught, to whose memory her impassioned disciple Synesius, afterwards a bishop, has reared a splendid monument. But after the beginning of the 5th century the fanaticism of the church could no longer endure the presence of &quot; heathenism.&quot; The murder of Hypatia was the death of philosophy in Alexandria, although the school there main tained a lingering existence till the middle of the 6th century. But there was one city of the East which, lying apart from the crowded highways of the world, had sunk to a mere provincial town, and yet possessed associations which the church of the 5th century felt herself power less to eradicate. In Athens a Neoplatonic school still flourished. There, under the monuments of its glorious past, Hellenism found its last retreat. The school of Athens returned to a stricter philosophical method and the cultivation of scholarship. Still holding by a religious philosophy, it undertook to reduce the whole Greek tradi tion, as seen in the light of Plotinus, to a comprehensive and closely knit system. Hence the philosophy which XVII. 43