NEO-PLATONISM
943
NEO-PLATONISM
"A prince, who had studied human nature, and who possessed the treasures of the liornan empire, could adapt his arguments, his promises, and his rewards to every order of Christians, and the merit of a seasonable conversion was allowed to supply the defects of a candi- date, or even to expiate the guilt of a criminal. As the army is the most forcible engine of absolute power, Julian applied himself with peculiar diligence to cor- rupt the religion of his troops. , . . The holy name of Christ was erased from the Labarum ; and the symbols of war, of majesty, and of pagan superstition were so dexterously blended that the faithful subject incurred the guilt of idolatry when he respectfidly saluted the person or image of his sovereign. The soldiers passed successively in review ; and each of them, before he re- ceived from the hand of Julian a liberal donation, pro- portioned to his rank and services, was required to cast a few grains of incense into the flame which turned upon the altar. . . . i^y the frequent repetition of these arts, and at the expense of sums which would have purchased the service of half the nations of Scythia, Julian gradually acquired for his troops the imaginary protection of the gods, and for himself the firm and ef- fectual support of the Roman legions" (//isi. of Decline, etc., ii, 430, 431 [Harper's ed. N! Y. 1852]).
Julian's work against the Christians (Kara Xptcrria- vioi) shared the fate of the similar one by Porphyry, and we are indebted to the reply of Cyril for such ex- tracts from it as are extant. The plans and purposes of Julian against the Christian faith were overruled by him who is Master alike of philosophers and kings, and later tradition reports of him that, gathering into his hand the blood flowing from his wound, he cast it into the air, with the words, fitviKtiKag ra\i\cnt, "Thou hast conquered, O Galitean."
Julian's successor, Jovian, proclaimed emperor on the field, responded to the acclamations of the troops by declaring himself a Christian, and that he "could not hope for divine protection, or the success of their arms, were he to take the command of men trained up in the principles of the late emperor Julian." The sol- diers replied, "You shall command Christians. The oldest of us were trained by Constantine, the next by Constantius, and the reign of Julian has been too short to bind any men among us to his persuasions." Jovian soon issued an edict which "placed the Christian relig- ion on a legal basis," and put an end to the persecution of its followers. Thus imperial power, princely learn- ing, philosophy falsely so called, and lavish prodigality of treasure had been employed in vain to overthrow the temples of God erected in the hearts of men.
(12.) "In practical life Neo-Platonic philosophy was unable to vie with Christianity; its mission was simply the preservation of the olden learning, science, and art." When, therefore, the political direction given to it dur- ing the reign of Julian had failed to renovate "the an- cient cultus and the ancient faith," its representatives applied themselves anew to scientific pursuits, especially to the study and exegesis of Plato and Aristotle. The "philosophy became again a mere matter of the school," whose seat was transl'erred to Athens, where Plutarch, the son of Nestorius (born about A.D. 350, and died 433), taught. This Plutarch was styled by the later Neo- Platonists " the Great," to distinguish him from the historian and Platonist who lived in the reign of Tra- jan. He ap|iears to have been a Sjmcretist, and to have maintained, after Jamblichus, the efficacy of theurgic rites for uniting man with God. According to Proclus, he " distinguished between the One, the Nous, the Soul, the forms ijpimanent in material things and matter." Syrianus, his pupil and a teacher of Proclus, wrote a commentary on the metaphysics of Aristotle, whose philoso[)hv he considered as a stepping-stone to that of Plato.
(13.) Proclus (A.D. 411-485), surnamed Aiddoxoc, " the Successor," was by far the most celebrated of the later Neo-Platonists, " the Scholastic among the Greek
philosophers." He was born at Byzantium, spent his youth at Xanthus, studied at Alexandria, and subse- quently at Athens under Plutarch and his daughter, Asclepigenia, and Syrianus. During his travels he was initiated into the mysteries and arcana of theurgy, and was wont to say that it had been revealed to him in a dream that he was the last link of the Hermaic chain (aiipa 'EpfiaiKi]), i, e. of the men consecrated by Hermes to preserve by perpetual tradition the esoteric doctrines of the mysteries. His biographer, Marinus, tells of his wonderful precocity, his quick comprehension, and ex- traordinary memory ; of his ascetic virtues, his scrupu- lous observance of the mystic rites, his fastings, vigils, his profound knowledge of the Orphic and Chaldaean mysteries ; and says that in several instances the gods appeared to him. In philosophy his aim was to com- bine, according to the principles of dialectics, the mass of transmitted philosophy, enlarged by additions of his own, into a rigidly scientific form. His theology rests on the same general principles as that of Plotinus, with the same hypostases in the same order, but differing in the particular that each hypostasis is divided into a new trinity. There is but one real principle of things, unity, from which all things emanate by triads — all reality being subject to this triadic development. That which is produced is at once like and unlike its cause ; so far as it is like it is immanent in the cause, and so far as it is unlike, it is separated from it. The devel- opment is a descending one, Vrom the higher to the lower. All things tend to return to their source, unity. Out of this first essence issue a plurality of unities, all "exalted above being, life, reason, and our power of knowledge, that operate in the w.irld. ami ••ire tlic a.miits of Provi- dence, the gods." Alter the iiiiiiifs follow •• ilie triad of the intellif/ibh', iiitdl/'jiblt-inlcU^-c/iuil, and i/iftlleclmd es- sences," of which the second participates in the first, and the third in the second. The Intelligible or Being (oiiaia) includes three triads. The intelligible-intellect- nul sphere contains female divinities, and is subdivided into inferior triads. The intellectual essences "are ar- ranged according to the number seven," by a sevenfold division of which Proclus makes up seven hebdomads of intellectual essences. Souls emanate from the intel- lectual, are by nature eternal, are divincj of dnjmons and of men. The human soid possesses freedom of will, and is therefore responsible. Matter is neither good nor evil, but is the source of natural necessity.