cphil_postar2
GREEK PHILOSOPHY
D. ECLECTICISM
1. Philo (2nd-1st century B.C.) [Larissa] was a disciple of Clitomachus. He was head of the Fourth or Very New Academy from about 110 B.C. to about 88 B.C. He lectured in Rome and was known to Cicero. He began with moderately skeptical position, held by his predecessors, Arcesilas and Carneades, he developed a position called “dogmatism,” but which appears to have been an anticipation of “common sense realism,” the view that we are able to perceive the external world directly, and that sense data either do not exist or play a subordinate role in perception. It was this position that characterized the Fourth Academy. His point seems to have been that skepticism can never be more than a methodological gambit, and behind it stands the eulogon, that is, the probable or the reasonable. Thus the mind has every possibility of being related to some truths. What is true with respect to knowledge holds also with respect to ethics. Positive moral principles may be discovered behind the facade of moral skepticism.
2. Antiochus (?B.C.-68 B.C.) [Ascalon] was a disciple of Philo of Larissa whom he succeeded as head of the Fourth Academy, holding this position from 88 B.C. until his death in 68 B.C. The skepticism of the Second and Third Academies had by then dissipated, and Antiochus argued against skepticism that the intellect had in itself a sufficient test of truth. Antiochus related Plato and Aristotle in the manner of the middle Stoics, Panaetius and Posidonius. He was called by Cicero an eclectic Stoic.
3. Varro, Marcus Terentius (116-27 B.C.) [Rome] was a friend and aide to both Pompey and Caeser. He was involved in the latter’s project to collect Greek and Latin literature. Philosophically, Varro was a disciple of Antiochus of Ascalon, and an eclectic mingling the dogmatism of the Fourth Academy with the Stoic doctrine of soul, Panaetius’ theology, and the influence of Posidonius. He is mentioned by his contemporary, Cicero. His principal writings are: Menippean Satires; On the Latin Language; On Country Life.
4. Cicero, Marcus Tullius (106-43 B.C.) [Arpinum, Rome] Through his translations and expositions of Greek philosophy, he made the insights of Plato, Aristotle, and the leading schools, the Skeptics, Stoics, and Epicureans, available to the Roman people, while the gracefulness of his style lent added charm to the material. His principal writings are: On the Nature of the Gods; On Duties; On Divination; On the Greatest Good and Evil; On the Republic; On Laws.
a. If one word could characterize his philosophy, that word is “moderation.” He espoused a moderate skepticism, rejecting both dogmatism and extreme skepticism in theory of knowledge. He espoused a Stoic ethic while moderating the rigor of its asceticism. He insisted on the importance of traditions while seeing the equal importance of their progressive transformation; he wished to see peaceful change without violence.
b. He pictured men living in a harmonious universe controlled by a rational deity. The decisions of this being, built into the universe, constitute a natural law which stands above the positive laws of human societies, and gives them measure.
c. Holding Rhetoric to be not merely the art of speech but an art of thought related to all of the sciences, and especially to philosophy. Cicero regarded systems of persuasion not so founded as empty verbalism. In his elaboration of the techniques of effective speech he held that the good orator must be a good man, and the perfect orator a perfect man.
5. Potamon (1st century B.C.) [Alexandria] founded a professedly Eclectic School. According to Diogenes Laertius the School was named Eklektike hairesis and it seems to have combined Stoic and Peripatetic elements, though Potamon also wrote a commentary on Plato’s Republic.
6. Quintus Sextius (B.C. 70) [Rome] started a School which combined with Stoicism certain features of Pythagoreanism and Platonic-Aristotelian elements. His primary emphasis was upon ethics, adopting the Pythagorean customs of self-examination and abstinence from flesh-meat. He believed that the life of man is a constant battle against folly and that man should reckon or consider his own moral status every day.
7. Sotion (1st century B.C.) [Alexandria] was a disciple of Sextius and took over from the Pythagoreans the theory of metempsychosis. The School does not appear to have been of any great consequence, though Seneca was a disciple of Sotion.
The old Pythagorean School seems to have become extinct in the 4th century B.C., but in the 1st century B.C. the School came to life again in the form which is known as Neo-Pythagoreanism, which endured through the 2nd century A.D. It was related to the old School, not only by reverence for its Founder, but also by a certain interest in scientific pursuits, and above all by its religious coloring. Much of the old asceticism was adopted, based on the soul-body dualism to which was added mystical elements, claiming direct intuition of the Deity, and revelation – so much so that the philosopher is sometimes depicted as a prophet and wonder worker, as for example, Appollonius of Tyana. The School had eclectic tendencies, drawing widely on the Platonic, Aristotelian, and Stoic philosophies. But these borrowed elements were not fused into one synthesis, common to all members of the School. Each member constructed his own synthesis. Neo-Pythagoreanism is historically important because it marks a step on the way to Neoplatonism. The Neo-Pythagoreans identified the divine reality with the One, and all other realities as emanating from the One, which exactly fits the Neoplatonist scheme, and is almost certainly responsible for it.
Nigidius Figulus (1st century B.C.), according to Cicero, was the most prominent Neo-Pythagorean of his time. His point of view fused mystical and astrological interests with philosophical concepts from Pythagorean and Platonic traditions. His principal writing was On the Gods.
Nicomachus, whose philosophy was an admixture of Platonic and Philonic ideas, held ideas to be numbers, providing the model for creation. The numbers pre-exist in the mind of God. The one, or unity, is itself the principle of reason and the divine, while the two or dyad is the principle of matter. His treatise on arithmetic was translated by Boethius and Apuleius, was the subject of numerous commentaries, and was used as a text well into the Renaissance. His principal writings are: Introduction to Arithmetic; Manual of Harmony; Life of Pythagoras.
Apollonius, who after extensive travels, established a School of philosophy in Ephesus. He taught Pythagoreanism as a popular philosophy, presenting it as a philosophy of life in which man is a citizen of the universe. He held that there is a supreme God above all other gods, beyond the reach of reason and not requiring sacrifices.
Moderatus, a contemporary of Apollonius of Tyana, held numbers to stand for principles, thus providing a key to the interpretation of the intelligible realities. His principal writing was Pythagorean Scholiae.
Numenius is sometimes regarded as the founder of Neoplatonism. He combined Pythagorean and Platonic ideas with those of Philo and the Egyptian mystery religions. According to Clement of Alexandria he spoke of Plato as “Moses speaking Attic Greek “(Mouses attikizon). His principal work is Differences among the Various Academics.
a. His system contained a succession of three Gods. The first God is an absolute transcendent unity and the Principle of Being (ousias arche). He is also the activity of Pure Thought (nous), and has no direct share in the formation of the world. He is also the Good. He thus seems to have identified the Platonic Form of the Good with the Aristotelian Self-thinking Thought (noesis noeseos). Related to the first God is the system of Pythagorean numbers, which are identified with the Platonic Ideas.
b. The second God, representing the Principle of Generation or Becoming (geneseos arche), is the Demurge, who is good by participation in the being of the first God, and who creates the world in accordance with the number-forms.
c. Next is the third God who rules the created world.
d. Inferior to this divinity is a series of divine and demonic beings of various kinds.
e. The hierarchy of creation finally leads down to prime matter, which is principle of non-being.
f. His psychology is dualistic, postulating two souls in man, a rational soul and an irrational soul. He declared that the entry of the soul into the body was something evil, as a “fall.” He seems also to have taught the existence of a good and a bad world-soul.
g. The individual, although imprisoned in the body, can through ascetic practices achieve an ecstatic union with the first God who is the principle of being.
The Middle and New Academies inclined to skepticism, and, when the Academy returned to dogmatism under Antiochus of Ascalon, he maintained the theory of fundamental unity of the Platonic and Peripatetic philosophies. Thus Eclecticism is one of leading characteristics of the Middle Platonism, taking over the Peripatetic, logic since the Peripatetics had a more carefully elaborated logical foundation than the Platonists had. Platonism, like Neo-Pythagoreanism, felt the influence of contemporary religious interests and demands. Hence in Middle Platonism there is the same insistence on the divine transcendence that there was in Neo-Pythagoreanism, together with the theory of intermediary beings and a belief in mysticism. Conflicting with tendency toward eclecticism was also a movement toward philosophic “orthodoxy,” stressing an intense reverence for the person and actual words of the founder, and emphasizing the differences between Platonism and the other philosophical systems. Middle Platonism was Middle Platonism, a transition-stage to Neoplatonism.
1. Eudorus (1st century B.C.) [Alexandria] combined Platonism with Pythagorean and Stoic influences. He divided philosophy into logic, ethics, and physics; and he distinguished a threefold One, anticipating Neoplatonism.
2. Plutarch (c. 45-125 A.D.) [Chaeronea in Boetia, Athens, Rome] is the author of the celebrated biography of parallel lives of forty-six Greek and Roman worthies, Roman paired with Greek. Besides the Parallel Lives and Opera moralia, he wrote commentaries on Plato, books against the Stoics and Epicureans, works on psychology and astronomy, on ethics and on politics. He also wrote on family life, on pedagogy and on religion. He studied in Athens, where he became interested in mathematics by the Platonist Ammonius. He later established his own school in his native town. He lived for some time in Rome, lecturing on philosophy, and made friends of many important persons in the imperial city. He became Archon Eponymos of his native city and was for some years priest to the Delphic Apollo.
a. His aim was a purer conception of God. This led him to deny God’s authorship of evil. Some other cause had to be found for evil in the world, and this he found in the World-Soul. This he postulated as the cause of evil and imperfection in the world and set it over against God who is pure Good, so that he asserted a dualism of two principles, good and evil. Thus God, freed from all responsibility for evil, is elevated far above the world. Plutarch introduced intermediary beings below God, accepting the star-gods and following Xenocrates and Poseidonius in postulating a number of “Demons” who form the connecting link between God and man. Some of these are more akin to God, others are tainted by the evil of the lower world. The good demons are the instruments of Providence. Although opposing superstition he did not reject all popular religion. According to him the various religions of mankind all worship the same God under different names, and he used allegorical interpretation to justify popular beliefs. He argued that the world was created in time, for this is necessitated by the principle of the soul’s priority over the body and of God’s priority over the world. He held that there are five elements (adding ether) and five worlds.
b. His psychology gives evidence of mythological and fantastic notions of the origin of the soul and its relations with the Demons. He asserted a dualism between the soul (psyche) and the mind (nous), that is superimposed upon the soul-body dualism. Just as the soul is better and more divine than the body, so is the mind better and more divine than the soul, the latter being subject to passions, the former being the “Demon” in man and the element which should rule. He affirmed the immortality of the soul, and depicted the happiness of the after-life, when the soul not only attains to a knowledge of the truth but also enjoys once more the company of relatives and friends.
c. In his ethics he was influenced by the Peripatetic tradition, emphasizing the need for attaining the happy mean between the excess and defect. To get rid of feelings is neither possible nor desirable; we should aim rather at moderation and the golden mean. Following the Stoics he permitted suicide and was influenced by their Cosmopolitanism.
3. Gaius (2nd century A.D.) was head of an eclectic Platonic School, associated in time and content with the Fourth Academy. Synthesizing Platonism with Stoicism he interpreted Plato in a religious and mystical sense. Among his students were Albinus and Apuleius. His principal writing is Outline of Platonic Doctrines.
4. Albinus (2nd cent. A.D.), a disciple of Gaius the Middle Platonist, distinguished the First God, Mind, and Soul. The First God is unmoved (like Aristotle) but is not the mover; it does not operate immediately but operate through the Mind or World-Intellect. Between God and the world are the star-gods and others made by God. The Platonic Ideas are the eternal ideas of God and are the pattern or exemplary causes of things: the Aristotelian Forms are subordinated to them as copies. In this fusion of Platonic and Aristotelian elements Albinus helped to prepare the way for Neoplatonism.
5. Apuleius (?B.C.-125 A.D.).
6. Atticus (c. 176 A.D.) represents the more orthodox Platonic tradition in contrast to the eclectic tendency. He attacked Aristotle for neglecting Divine Providence, teaching the eternity of the world, and denying immortality of the soul or not expressing it clearly. He seems to have been influenced by Stoic doctrine, as he emphasizes the Divine Immanence and stresses the all-sufficiency of virtue, in contrast to the Peripatetic doctrine that corporeal and external goods are necessary for happiness. He naturally maintained the Platonic Ideas, but made them the thoughts or ideas of God. He identified the Demiurge of Timaeus with the Form of the Good, and he attributed to matter an evil soul as its principle.
7. Celsus (c. 179 A.D.) is best known as a determined opponent of Christianity: his book The True Word (Alethes Logos) against Christianity was answered by Origen of Alexandria. He stressed God’s utter transcendence and would not allow the corporeal is the work of God. To bridge the gulf between God and the world he allowed a hierarchy of spiritual beings, “Demons,” angels and heroes. God’s Providence has the world as its object and not man, as the Christians believed. Contact between man and God could occur only in the highest part of the soul.
8. Maximus (c. 180 A.D.) [Tyre] similarly emphasized the Divine Transcendence, together with the admission of inferior gods and demons, and referring evil to matter. He speaks of the vision of God. He said that the only prayer which God answers is the prayer for goodness, peace, and hope in death. He maintained that the angels are servants of God and helpers.
1. The Essenes (c. 160 B.C.) [Palestine] was a Jewish monastic sect which shows Orphic-Pythagorean traits. They maintained a clear dualism of soul and body, with which they coupled a belief, not only in the soul’s survival after death, but also in its pre-existence before birth. Blood-offerings and the consumption of flesh and wine were banned, and great importance was attached to belief in angels or intermediary beings. The sect was communal, esoteric, and severely ascetic. They lived away from settled areas, favoring arid regions such as the regions of the Dead Sea.
2. Philo (c. 30 B.C.-50 A.D.) [Alexandria] was the chief figure of the Jewish-Hellenistic philosophy, an outstanding representative of the Jewish Diaspora in Egypt. His style of writing was mostly commentary on the Jewish Scriptures. His principal writings are: Concerning the Artisan of the World; That God is an Immutable Being; On the Contemplative Life; On the Eternity of the World.
a. Filled with admiration for the Greek philosophers, Philo maintained that the same truth is to be found in both the Greek philosophy, especially Platonism and Stoicism, and Jewish Scriptures. Convinced that the teachings of Moses anticipated the wisdom of the Greeks and believing that the philosophers had used the Sacred Scriptures, Philo interpreted the Scriptures allegorically in effort to demonstrate his point. He recognized two senses in the anthropomorphic passages of Scriptures, a higher and allegoric sense and a lower and literal sense. Although he considered the allegoric sense as higher, he did not intend to replace the literal with the allegorical sense, but rather that both senses be considered. His intention was not to destroy Jewish orthodoxy but rather to reconcile it with philosophy, while at the same time preserving the observance of the Law.
b. Philo held that God is personal, as in Jewish theology, but he also held that God is also Pure Being, absolutely simple, free and self-sufficient. God does not occupy space or place but rather contains all things within Himself; yet He is absolutely transcendant, transcending even the Idea of the Good and the Idea of Beauty. Man attains to knowledge of God, not through scientific understanding, but in immediate intuition. God is thus ineffable Being, Who is above thought and can be attained only through non-conceptual rapture or ecstasy. He thus is the founder of Negative Theology, that is, that the only approach to God is by means of saying what God is not, not by saying what he is.
c. This emphasis on God’s utter Transcendence led to the conception of intermediary beings, in order to bridge the gulf between God Himself and material cosmos. The highest of intermediary beings is the Logos or Nous. He speaks of the Logos as the first-born of God. The Logos is for Philo definitely inferior to God and is to be placed in the rank of that which is made. The Philonic conception of the Logos is not the same as the New Testament doctrine of the Logos. The Platonic Ideas are placed in the Logos. Philo distinguishes two aspects or functions of the Logos: with respect to the immaterial world of the Ideas, and with respect to the visible things of this world. The first function as the Divine Reason and second as the Divine Maker of the world, taking as His model the intelligible Ideas.
d. In addition to the Logos, Philo also mentions a hierarchy of other beings including the divine wisdom, the divine man, the Spirit, and the angels. The hierarchy and style of thought has obvious similarities to Gnostic and Neoplatonic systems.
e. Influenced by Platonism, Philo maintains a sharp dualism of soul and body or of the rational and sensual elements in man, and insists on the necessity of man liberating himself from the power of the sensual. Virtue is the only true good, and in regard to the passions apathy is to aimed at. Although influenced by Stoic and Cynic ethical teachings, Philo emphasized trust in God rather than trust in oneself. Virtue then is to be pursued and man’s task is to attain the greatest possible likeness to God. This is an interior task and so public life is discouraged because of its distracting influence, while science is to be pursued in so far as it is an aid to the soul’s inner life. In addition Philo’s influence on early Christian thought, Philonism helped to prepare the way for Neoplatonism.
Plotinus was Egypto-Roman philosopher who was born in Lycopolis, Egypt. He was attracted to philosophy by Ammonius Saccas who taught in Alexandria until 242 A.D. Plotinus joined the Persian expedition of the Emperor Gordian, in order to get acquainted with Persian philosophy. But the expedition ended when Gordian was assassinated in Mesopotamia, and Plotinus made his way to Rome in 245, where he founded his own school of philosophy. The school attracted students widely from the professions, including senators, and even members of the imperial household. He is the principal figure in the movement of Neoplatonism. His writings were collected by his disciple, Porphyry, into six volumes, each of which had nine chapters, hence they were called the Enneads.
a. For Plotinus God is absolutely transcendent: He is the One, beyond all thought and all being, ineffable and incomprehensible. Neither essence nor being nor life can be predicated of the One, not of course because it is less than any of these things but because it is more. The One cannot be identical with the sum of individual things, for it is these individual things which require a Source or Principle, and this Principle must be distinct from them and logically prior to them. Moreover, if the One were identical with each individual thing taken separately, then each thing would be identical with every other and the distinction of things, which is an obvious fact, would be an illusion. “Thus the One cannot be any existing thing, but is prior to all existents.” The One of Plotinus is not the One of Parmenides, a monistic principle, but is the One, whose transcendence was emphasized by the Neo-Pythagoreans and the Middle Platonist. Plotinus sets the ultimate God, the One or first God, beyond being. This does not mean that the One is nothing or non-existent; rather it means that the One transcends all being of which we have experience. The concept of being is drawn from the objects of our experience, but the One transcends all those objects and consequently also the concept that is founded on those objects.
b. Since God is one, without any multiplicity or division, there can be in the One no duality of substance and attribute, and Plotinus accordingly does not ascribe to God any positive attributes. We should not say the One is “thus” or “not thus,” for if we say this we thereby delimit it and make it a particular thing, whereas in reality, it is beyond all things which can be delimited by such predication. However, Goodness may be attributed to the One, provided that it is attributed as an inhering quality. God is accordingly The Good rather than “good.” In addition, neither thought or activity can be ascribed to the One. Not thought, since thought implies a distinction between thinker and the object of his thought; not will, since this would be a distinction between the agent and the object on which he acts. God is the One, beyond all distinctions whatsoever; he cannot even distinguish Himself from Himself, and so is beyond self-consciousness. Plotinus does allow the predicates of unity and goodness to be ascribed to God; yet he stresses the fact that even these predicates are inadequate and can be applied to God analogously. For unity expresses the denial of plurality and goodness expresses an effect on something else. All we can say is that the One is, though, indeed, God is beyond being, One, indivisible, unchanging, eternal, without past or future, a constant self-identity.
c. On this view of God, the One, how can Plotinus account for the multiplicity of finite things? God cannot limit Himself to finite things, as though they were part of Him; nor can He create the world by a free act of His will, since creation is an activity and we are not justified in ascribing any activity to God and so impairing His unchangeability. Plotinus solved this problem by use of the metaphor of emanation. By this he meant that the world issues from God or proceeds from God by necessity, there being a principle of necessity that the less perfect should issue from the more perfect. He held it be a necessary principle that every nature should make that which is immediately subordinate to it, unfolding itself, as a seed unfolds itself, the procession being from an undivided source or principle to a goal in the universe of sense. Plotinus liken the One to the sun, which illuminates, itself undiminished. He also employs the comparison of the mirror, since the object which is mirrored is reduplicated, yet without itself undergoing any change or any loss. This emanation is not pantheistic in character; the emanations are not part of God. Plotinus rejects any pantheistic conception of God as being in individual things or that the individual things are part of God. He rejects a monistic theory of reality for what is ultimately a dualistic theory, having rejected the idea that God create ex nihilo.
d. The first emanation from the One is Thought or Mind (Nous), which is intuition or immediate apprehension, having a twofold object, (a) the One, (b) itself. In Nous exist the Ideas, not only of classes but also of individuals, though the whole multitude of Ideas is contained indivisibily in Nous. Nous is identified with realm of the Platonic Ideas or forms. Plotinus uses the phrase “father of the cause” (pater tou aitiou) for the One, identifying the cause (aition) with the Nous and the forms. It is in Nous that multiplicity first appears, since the One is above all multiplicity. Nous is eternal and beyond time, its state of blessedness being not an acquired state but an eternal possession. Nous enjoys, therefore, that eternity which time does not mimic. In the case of Soul, which is the next emanation, its objects are successive, now Socrates, now a horse, now some other thing; but Nous knows all things together, having neither past nor future but seeing all in an eternal present.
e. From the Nous, which is Beauty, proceeds Soul, corresponding to the World-Soul of the Timaeus. This World-Soul is incorporeal and indivisible, but it forms the connecting link between the super-sensual world and the sensual world, and so looks not only upward to the Nous but also downwards towards the world of nature. Plotinus posits two World-Souls, in contrast to Plato’s one World-Soul: a higher and a lower, the former standing nearer the Nous and being in no immediate contact with the material world, the latter being the real soul of the phenomenal world. This second Soul Plotinus called Nature (phusis). Moreover, although the phenomenal world owes all its reality to its participation in the Ideas, which are in the Nous, these Ideas do not operate in the sensible world and have no direct connection with it, but rather the Ideas are reflected in the World-Soul, their reflections Plotinus calls Rational Seeds (logoi spermatikoi), saying that they are comprised within Reason (logos) – an obvious adoption of the Stoic doctrine. The Demiurge of Plato and the Self-thinking thought of Aristotle thus come together in the Plotinian World-Soul.
f. Individual human souls proceed from the World-Soul, and, like the World-Soul, they are subdivided into two elements, a higher element which belongs to the sphere of Nous and a lower element, which is directly connected with the body. The soul pre-existed before union with the body, which is represented as a fall, and survives the death of the body, though apparently without memory of the period of earthly existence. He does not deny personal immortality, but the individuality of soul is lost as the individual souls are bound together in the unity of the World-Soul, all being one together.
g. Below the sphere of Soul is that of the material world. In accordance with his conception of emanation as like the radiation of light, Plotinus pictures light as proceeding from the center and passing outwards, growing gradually dimmer, until it shades off into that total darkness which is matter-in-itself, conceived as the privation of light. Matter proceeds from the One, but in itself, it is the lowest limit, the lowest stage of the universe and the antithesis to the One. In so far as it is illuminated by form and enters into the composition of material objects, it cannot be said to be complete darkness; but in so far as it stands over against the intelligible, it is unilluminated, darkness. Thus Plotinus combines Platonic with Aristotelian themes.
h. Plotinus also asserts the Orphic and Neo-Pythagorean view of matter as the principle of evil. At the lowest level, as devoid of quality, as unilluminated privation, is evil itself, and so stands over against the Good as its radical antithesis. Thus Plotinus comes close to asserting a dualism, but it must be remembered that for Plotinus matter is itself privation and not a positive principle. It would seem that this view of matter Plotinus would be lead logically to depreciation of the visible world, though in fact he does not do so. Plotinus opposed the Gnostic contempt of the world and praised the world as the work of the Demiurge and the World-Soul: it is an eternal and unified creature, bound together in a harmony of parts, governed by Divine Providence. This universal harmony and cosmic unity form the rational basis for prophecy and for the magical influencing of superhuman powers. Plotinus allowed for the star-gods, and other “gods” and “demons,” which are invisible to man.
i. In his psychology Plotinus distinguishes three part to the individual soul. The highest of these (corresponding to the Nous of Aristotle) is uncontaminated by matter and remains rooted in the intelligible world, but in so far as the soul enters into real union with body, to form the compositum, it contains matter, and so there follows the necessity of an ethical ascent, with becoming like God as the proximate goal and union with the One as the ultimate goal. In this ascent the ethical element is subservient to the theoretical or intellectual element, as in Aristotle. The first stage of the ascent, undertaken under the impulse of Eros (compare with Plato’s Symposium) consists in the process of purification by which man frees himself from the dominion of the body and the senses and rises to the practice of the four cardinal virtues. In the second stage the soul must rise above sense-perception, turning towards Nous and occupying herself with philosophy and science. A higher stage carries the soul beyond discursive thought to union with Nous which Plotinus characterizes as the first good. In this union the soul retains her self-consciousness. But all these stages are but a preparation for the final stage, that of mystical union with God or the One (Who transcends beauty) in an ecstasy characterized by the absence of all duality. In thought of God or about God, the Subject is separated from the Object; but in ecstatic union there is no separation. This ecstatic union is of brief duration so far as this life is concerned: there is a looking forward to a complete and permanent ecstatic union in the future state, when the soul is freed from the hindrance of the body.
Porphyry became a disciple of Plotinus in Rome in 262 A.D. In addition to compiling the Enneads of Plotinus, he wrote a Life of Plotinus and many other works on a variety of subjects, his most celebrated book being his Isagoge or introduction to the Categories of Aristotle. He composed many commentaries both on Plato and Aristotle, and tired to show in one book that the Platonic and Aristotelian philosophies are in essential agreement. Porphyry brought the list of predicables to five by including “species” among them. He is widely known for his diagram of the relationship between genus, species, and individuals known as the Tree of Porphyry (Arbor Porphyrii). Porphyry set himself to propound the doctrine of Plotinus in a clear and comprehensible manner, but he laid more stress on the practical and religious sides than even Plotinus had done. The end of philosophy is salvation, and the soul must purify itself by turning its attention from what is lower to what is higher, a purification to be accomplished by asceticism and knowledge of God. Although generally in close agreement with his master, Plotinus, Prophyry gave a different explanation of evil. For Plotinus evil was a privation of being, a property of matter. For Prophyry evil is a lack of control by the intelligible principle. This control can be gained through meditation and ascetic purification. In so doing the soul begins its ascent toward divine union. There are a set of virtues of ascending rank through which the soul will pass. The soul begins its ascent with civil and political virtues, exchanging these for the virtues of apathy in the Stoic sense. On the third level are the virtues leading the soul toward the Nous or the intelligible world. On the final level are the virtues of the Nous itself. Prophyry supported popular and traditional religion, making the pagan myths allegorical representations of philosophic truth. He insisted on the importance of works, affirming that God does not prize the wise man’s words, but his deeds. During his residence in Sicily he composed fifteen books against the Christians. These polemical works were burnt in 448 A.D. under Emperors Valentinian III and Theodosius II, and only fragments survived.
Iamblichus (c. 270-330 A.D.) [Chalcis, Coele-Syria] is the chief figure of the Syrian School of Neoplatonism. He studied under Anatolius and Porphyry. He was immensely influential in his own time and later. He carried much further the Neoplatonic tendency to multiply the members of the hierarchy of beings, which he combined with an insistence on the importance of theurgy and occultism in general. Above the One of Plotinus, he asserted yet another One, which exceeds all qualification whatsoever and stands beyond the Good. This One, which transcends all predicates or indeed any statements on our part, except that of unity, is therefore superior to the One of Plotinus, which is identical with the Good. From the One proceeds the world of Ideas or intelligible objects and from this again the world of intellectual beings, consisting of the Nous, an intermediary hypostasis and the Demiurge. The Soul he divided into a triad of psychic gods; and Nature is divided into a series of hundreds of gods, including heavenly gods, gods of nations, and individuals. This swarm of gods influence natural events, possesses knowledge of the future, and will response to prayer and offerings. Thus theurgy, that is, an occult art, often involving rites and incantations, for controlling divine and beneficent spirits, is a feature of the system. The scheme of gods is built largely on threes and sevens. The soul of man descends into the body by necessity, but has freedom of choice, once embodied. Man’s task is to return to the supersensible realm through virtuous activities; five classes of virtues are mentioned: political, cathartic, theoretical, paradigmatic, and priestly. It may be necessary for the soul to pass through several bodies before effecting its return.
A 4th century school of Neoplatonism founded by
a. Edesius of Cappadocia, a disciple of Iamblichus. His philosophy is characterized mainly by its interest in theurgy and in the restoration of polytheism.
b. Maximus, one of the Emperor Julian’s tutors, gave particular attention to theurgy.
c. Sallustius wrote a work On the Gods and the World as a propaganda for polytheism.
d. Libonius, a rhetorician and another tutor of Julian, wrote against Christianity.
e. Eunapius of Sardes also wrote against Christianity.
f. Julian, the Emperor (322-363 A.D.), was brought up as a Christian but became a pagan. In his short reign (361-363 A.D.), he was a fanatical opponent of Christianity and an adherent of polytheism, combining this with Neoplatonic doctrines, for which he relied largely on Iamblichus. He interpreted the worship of the sun according to the Neoplatonic philosophy, by making the sun the intermediary between the intelligible and the sensible realms.
The most classical school of Neoplatonism which existed from about 380 to 529 A.D.; this school searched for a single viewpoint in the thinking of Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, and other philosophies such as Stocism. The school, hostile to Christianity, was closed by Emperor Justin in 529 A.D.
a. Plutarch of Athens, the son of Nestorius and Athenian Scholarch (d. A.D. 431), wrote commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima.
b. Syrianus, successor of Plutarch in the headship of the School of Athens (A.D. 432), wrote a commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics. He was no believer in the agreement of Plato and Aristotle: on the contrary not only did he account the study of the philosophy of Aristotle merely a preparation for the study of Plato, but he defended the Platonic ideal theory against Aristotle’s attacks, clearly recognizing the differences between Plato, the Pythagoreans, the Ophics, and the “Chaldaic” literature.
c. Domninus, a Syrian of Jewish origin, succeeded Syrianus and wrote on mathematics.
d. Proclus (410-485 A.D.) [Constantinople, Athens] studied under Olimpiodorus in the Alexandrian School of Neoplatonism and with Syrianus in Athens. He followed Syrianus as head of the School of Athens and was Athenian Scholarch for many years. He attempted to find a system of thought which would accommodate the doctrines of the School of Athens, those of Plotinus and Iamblichus, as well as the systems of Plato and Aristotle. He was a man of untiring diligence, and though much of his work has perished, we still possess his commentaries on the principal works of Plato. His principal writings are Elements of Theology; Plato’s Theology; Elements of Physics; Ten Doubts Concerning Providence; Concerning Providence and Fate; On the Subsistence of Evil. The main motif of Proclus’ dialectical systematization is that of triadic development. He attempted to explain the process of emanation by the concepts of identity, difference, and return. The first concept (“identity”) applies primarily to remaining in the divine unity, the second (“difference”) to proceeding out by emanations from the unity, and the third (“return”) to turning-back toward the divine unity to the immediate source of those emanations. The universe is thus held in balance by the interplay of emanation and return. This explanation led Proclus to a doctrine of henads. From the primary One proceeds the Units or henades, which are looked on as super-essential and incomprehensible gods, the source of providence, and of which goodness is to be predicated. From the Henads proceeds the sphere of Nous, which subdivides into three spheres which correspond to the concepts of Being, Life and Thought. Proclus further subdivides each sphere of Nous into three further subdivisions. The analysis lead Prochus to conclude that the universe was full of gods, who thus constitute the unity of the whole in relation to the One. Interacting with such a universe he supported theurgy, regarding it as a power above all human wisdom. The human soul has the faculty above thought by which it is capable of an ecstatic return to the One. He also attributed to the soul an ethereal body composed of light, which is midway between the material and immaterial and is imperishable. It is with the eyes of this ethereal body that the soul perceive theophanies. The soul ascends through the different grades of virtue to ecstatic union with the primary One. He distinguishes three stages in the soul’s ascent, Eros, Truth, and Faith. Truth leads the soul beyond love of the beautiful and fills it with knowledge of true reality, while Faith consists in the mystical silence before the Incomprehensible and Ineffable.
e. Marinus (5th century A.D.) [Neapolis in Samaria] succeeded Proclus in the headship of the School. He wrote a Life of Proclus and distinguished himself in mathematics and through his sober and restrained interpretation of Plato.
f. Isidorus succeeded Marinus as Scholarch.
g. Damascius (c. 470-530 A.D.) was the last of Athenian Scholarchs, who Marinus had instructed in mathematics. Having been forced to the conclusion that the human reason cannot understand the relation of the One to the proceeding beings, Damascius seems to have considered that human speculation cannot really attain to truth. The One can be determined neither positively nor negatively, since the nature of the infinite and perfect cannot be approached by the finite and imperfect. Mysticism is then the only way of reaching the One.
h. Simplicus (527-565 A.D.) was a well known disciple of Damascius, who wrote commentaries on the Categories, Physics, De Caelo and De Anima of Aristotle. In the year 529 A.D. the Emperor Justinian forbade the teaching of philosophy at Athens, and Damascius, together with Simplicus and five other members of the Neoplatonic School, went to Persia, where they were receive by king Chosroes. In 533 A.D. they returned to Athens, apparently disappointed with the cultural state of Persia.
Related to the School of Athens was the Alexandrian School of Neoplatonism, which existed from about 430 A.D. until the Mohammedan conquest of Alexandria in 642 A.D., and burned its famous library. A number of the members of this school were themselves Christians; the other members were amicable to Christianity.
a. Hypatia (d. 415) wrote on mathematics and astronomy and he is said to have lectured on Plato and Aristotle.
b. Asclepiodotus (2nd half of 5th century A.D.), who later resided in at Aphrodisias in Caria, studied science and medicine, mathematics and music.
c. Ammonius, Ioannes Philoponus, Olympiodorus and others commented on works of Plato and Aristotle. In the commentaries of the School special attention was paid to the logical works of Aristotle, and in general it may be said of these commentaries that they show moderation and a desire on the part of their authors to give the natural interpretation of the works on which they are commenting. Metaphysical and religious interests tend to retreat from the foreground, the multiplication of intermediary beings, so characteristic of Proclus and Iamblichus, being abandoned and little attention being paid to the doctrine of ecstasy.
d. There was close relationship between Neoplatonism and Christianity. They shared common philosophical vocabulary and concepts. Neoplatonism exercised a profound influence on Christian thinkers at Alexandria and Christian thinkers were not without influence on non-Christian philosophers.
a. Chalcidius (1st half of 4th century A.D.) made a Latin translation of Plato’s Timaeus and wrote a Latin commentary on it.
b. Marius Victorinus (4th century A.D.) was a Latin Christian, who translated into Latin Aristotle’s Categories and De Interpretatione, Porphyry’s Isagoge and some Neoplatonist works. He also wrote commentaries on Cicero’s Topics and De Inventione and composed original works De Definionibus and De Syllogismis Hypotheicis. His works had great influence in the Middle Ages, and his doctrine of providence influenced St. Augustine.
c. Vettius Agonius Praetextatus (d. 384) translated Themistius’ paraphrase of Aristotle’s Analytics.
d. Macrobius (4th century A.D.) wrote the Saturnalia and also a commentary on Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis about 400 A.D. In this commentary the Neoplatonist theories of emanation appear and it seems that Macrobius made use of Pophyry’s commentary on the Timaeus. He expressed both Stoic and Neoplatonic ideas in his writings, and it was reported that he converted to Christianity.
e. Marianus Capella (early 5th century A.D.) composed his (still extant) De Nuptiis Mercurii et Philologiae, which was much read in the Middle Ages. This work, which is a kind of Encyclopedia, treats of each of the seven liberal arts, book three to nine being each devoted to one of the arts. In the Middle Ages this was made the basis of education as the Trivium and Quadrivium.
f. Boethius (c. 480-524 A.D.), who studied at Athens, held high office under Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, and was finally executed on a charge of treason after a term of imprisonment, during which he composed the famous De Consolatione Philosophiae. Although he had also intended to translate all the works of Aristotle into Latin, and to furnish them with commentaries, he was not able to carry out his project. He did, however, translate into Latin the Categories, the De Interpretatione, the Topics, both Analytics and the Sophistical Arguments. He also translated Porphyry’s Isagoge, and the dispute concerning universals which so agitated the early Middle Ages took its point of departure in remarks of Porphyry and Boethius. Boethius also furnished the Isagoge with a double commentary and commentaries on the works of Aristotle he translated into Latin, as well as on Cicero’s Topics. He wrote a number of original treatises as well as theological works. Boethius, because of this extensive work of translating and commenting, was the principal bridge between Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy and the Middle Ages, “the last Roman and the first Scholastic.” Until the end of the 12th century “he was the principal channel by which Aristotelianism was transmitted to the Middle Ages.”