RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Neoplatonism
the highest good, to the Godhead. Logical knowledge is only a preliminary to this, which consists in immediate knowledge of and union with God. To this Plotinus himself, according to the testimony of Porphyry, attained only four times in the six years that the disciple was with him. The reason why man on earth can not remain permanently in this state is that he has not yet succeeded in turning wholly away from the earthly; the time of permanent union will come when he is no longer tormented by any restlessness of the body. On the immortality of the soul Plotinus wrote a separate treatise, in which he follows Plato in the main, especially emphasizing the fact that the soul, as incorporeal and incomposite, is incapable of dissolution. A reunion of soul and body in the higher life is inconceivable to him, since the passage into this higher life is conditioned by the desertion of the body, whose nature is in essential opposition to that of the soul.
III. Further Development of Neo-Platonism: Among the disciples of Plotinus the most important
was Porphyry (q.v.; b. at Batanea, Syi. Porphyry, ria, 233; d. in Romec. 304), the head of
the Syrian school. He wrote lives of Plotinus and Pythagoras, treatises De abstinentia and De antro nympharum, a letter to Marcella, another De diis dcemonibus ad Anebonem, a brief compendium of the doctrines of Plotinus entitled Aphormai pros ta noeta, and an introduction to the " Categories " of Aristotle, besides a number of other works not now extant. The work last named is of considerable importance in the history of philosophy, as it contains the germ of the whole controversy between realism and nominalism. -The religious character of Porphyry's philosophy is shown by his placing its aim in the " saving of the soul." He mentions four kinds of virtues: the political, which make an ordinary good man; the purifying, which make him a " daemonic " man; those which look up to the nous, their cause, constituting the rational activity of the soul; and the virtue of the nous itself, the paradigmatic. Connected with the purification on which he insists so strongly is the strict asceticism which he recommends, including abstinence from meat and from sexual intercourse. He asserts that he has reached once, but only once, and that when he was sixty-eight, the height of his desire, being permitted to approach and to be united with the most high God. While he regarded the national religions as justifiable, making no distinc-, tion between those of the Greeks and those of the barbarians, he opposed strongly the complete novelty of Christianity in his fifteen books " Against the Christians," which were totally destroyed by Theodosius II. in 335. This work is an indication that the Neoplatonists felt the whole Hellenic system and their own position to be threatened by Christianity. It was considered of so much importance that replies were published by Methodius and Eusebius of Cassarea among others.
The sober character of Neoplatonism was lost in the soaring speculations of Jamblichus (b. in Ccele- Syria c. 283; d. at Alexandria c. 330). In his belief in magic, miracles, and theurgy, or the art of compelling demons and other supernatural powers to VIII— 8
produce desired results, he goes beyond all measure. His miracle-seeking followers believed him a being of a superior order, and called
2. Jambli- him " the Divine " or " Divinest."
chus and Besides his principal work, the Syna- Others. goge ton Pythagoreion dogmaton, five others are extant, of which the most important are the Vita Pythagorica and the Adhortatio ad philosophiam. The treatise De mysteriis, said to have been ascribed to him by Proclus, is certainly not his, but probably belongs to some member of his school. Jamblichus attempted to justify the whole polytheistic system, and added a still more absolutely primal and exalted One above the One of Plotinus. The lower powers are divided into a long series of hierarchies, described with a Pythagorean fondness for exact numbers. With the whole theurgic system is connected the belief that images of the gods, whether fallen from heaven or made by men, partake of divinity and are capable of working miracles. The surest method for winning the divine protection is by prayer, which the gods can hear apart from any tangible medium. The return to the suprasensual world is made by means of the virtues, of which at first Jamblichus adopted the fourfold classification of Porphyry, afterward adding a fifth class, the priestly or simple virtues (simple as referring directly to the One), by which the soul rises to mystic union with the Supreme. Among the disciples of Jamblichus the most independent thinker was Theodorus of Asine. Others of the Syrian school were Dexippus, ^Edesius of Cappadocia, who long conducted a flourishing school at Pergamum, Chrysanthius of Sardis, and Eunapius, known by his biographies of philosophers and sophists. A singular combination of learning and attractiveness won wide renown for Hypatia (q.v.). Her disciple and admirer Synesius (q.v.) showed a great deal of Neoplatonist influence in his writings.
The Athenian school was later in time than the
Syrian, and devoted itself rather to scientific efforts,
especially the exposition of Plato and
3. The Aristotle. Its first leader was Plutarch
Athenian of Athens, head of the school there School, until 433, who seems to have followed Plotinus closely. His successor was Syrianus (until about 450), who was succeeded in his turn by Proclus the Lycian. He remained the head of the school until his death in 485. His principal works are his commentaries on Plato (especially on the Timozus and the Republic), the Stoicheiosis theologike, and the Peri tes kata Platona theologias. He undoubtedly deserves the second place in importance among the Neoplatonists for breadth of knowledge and dialectical power and acuteness. He attempted like the later scholastics to reduce the entire philosophical tradition to a complete logical system. He regarded the Platonic writings in the light of a revelation, but paid much attention also to Homer and Hesiod, and had an unbounded reverence for Jamblichus, on whom, with Plotinus, he depends for a large part of his system. Of less importance are his successors at Athens, Marinus, Zenodotus, Isidore of Alexandria, Hegias, and Damascius. In 529 the teaching of philosophy at Athens was suppressed by Justinian and the prop-
Neoplatonism Neri