Neoplatonism: A mystical philosophic system initiated by Plotinus of Alexandria A.D. 233, which combined the philosophy of ancient Greece with more modern spiritual cravings. Although to some extent founded on the teaching of Plato, it was undoubtedly sophisticated by a deep mysticism, which in all probability emanated from the traditions of the laud in which it originated. To a great extent it coloured the thought of mediaeval mysticism and magic. Plotinus, its founder, commenced the study of philosophy in Alexandria at the age of 28. He early experienced an earnest desire to reach the truth concerning existence, and to that end made a deep study of the dialogues of Plato and the metaphysics of Aristotle. He practised the most severe austerities, and attempted to live what he called the "angelic" life, or the life of the disembodied in the body. He was greatly drawn to Apollonius of Tyana by reading his Life by Philostratus, and gave credence to many of the marvels recorded therein. The union of philosopher and priest in the character of Apoliontus fired the imagination of PJotinus, and in his Pythagorean teachings the young student discovered the elemants of both Orientalism and Platonism,—for both Pythagoras and Plato strove to escape the sensuous, and to realise in contemplative abstraction that tranquility superior to desire and passion which made men approach the gods; but in the hands of the later Pythagoreans and PSatonists, the principles of the Hellenic masters degenerated into a species of theurgic freemasonry. Many of the Pythagoreans had joined the various Orphic associations, and indeed had sunk to be mere itinerant vendors of charms.
It is probable that at Alexandria Plotinus heard from Orientals the principles of eastern theosophy, which he did not find in Plato. But everywhere he found a growing indifference to religion as known to the more ancient Greeks and Egyptians. By this time, the Pantheons of Greece, Rome and Egypt, had become fused in the worship of Serapis, and this fusion had been forwarded by the works of Plutarch, Apuleius, and Lucian. The position of philosophy at this time was by no means a strong one. In fact speculation had given place to ethical teaching, and philosophy was regarded more as a branch of literature, or an elegant recreation. Plotinus persuaded himself that philosophy and religion should be one; that speculation should be a search after God. It was at this time that he first heard of Ammonius Saccas, who shortly before had been a porter in the streets of Alexandria, and who lectured upon the possibilities of reconciling Plato and Aristotle. "Scepticism," said Ammonius, "was death." He recommended men to travel back across the past, and out of the •whole bygone world of thought to construct a system greater than any of its parts. This teaching formed an epoch in :he life of Plotinus, who was convinced that Platonism, exalted into a species of illuminism and drawing to itself like a magnet all the scattered truth of the bygone ages, could alone preserve mankind from scepticism. He occupied himself only with the most abstract questions concerning knowledge and being. " Truth," according to him, "is not the agreement of our comprehension of an external object with the object itself, but rather the agreement of the mind with itself. For the philosopher the objects we contemplate, and that which comtemplates are identical: both are thought." All truth is then easy. Reduce the soul to its most perfect simplicity, and we find it is capable of exploration into the infinite; indeed it becomes one with the infinite. This is the condition of ec-:tasy, and to accomplish it a stoical austerity and asceticism was necessary. The Neoplatonists were thus ascetics and enthusiasts. Plato was neither. According to Plotinus, the mystic contemplates the divine perfection in himself ; ail worldly things and logical distinctions vanish during the period of ecstasy. This, of course, is purely Oriental and not Platonic at all. Plotinus regards the individual existence as phenomenal and transitory, and subordinates reason to ecstasy where the Absolute is in question. It is only at the end of his chain of reasoning thp.t he introduces the supernatural. He is first a rationalist, afterwards a mystic, and only a mystic when he finds thit he cannot employ the machinery of reason. The letter of Plotinus, written about 260 A.D. well embodies his ideas on these heads, and is as follows :—
" Plotinus to Flaccus.—I applaud your devotion to philosophy ; I rejoice to hear that your soul has set sail, hkc the returning Ulysses.tfor its native land—that glorious, that only real country—the world of unseen truth. To fj.low philosophy, the senator Rogatianus, one of the noblest of my disciples, gave up the other day all but the whole of his patrimony, set free his slaves, and surrendered all the honours of his station.
" Tidings have reached us that Valerian has been defeated and is now in the hands of Sapor. The threats of Franks and Allemanni, of Goths and Persians, are alike terrible by turns to our degenerate Rome. In days like these, crowded with incessant calamities, the inducements to a life of contemplation are more than ever strong. Even my quiet existence seems now to grow somewhat sensible of the advance of years. Age alone I am unable to debar from my retirement. I am weary already of this prison-house, the body, and calmly await the day when the divine nature within me shall be set free from matter.
" The Egyptian priests used to tell me that a single touch with the wing of their holy bird could charm the crocodile into torpor; it is not thus speedily, my dear friend, that the pinions of your soul will have power to still the untamed body. The creature will yield only to watchful, strenuous constancy of habit. Purify your soul from all undue hope and fear about earthly things, mortify the body, deny self,—affections as well as appetites, and the inner eye will begin to exercise its clear and solemn vision.
" You ask me to tell you how we know, and what is our criterion of certainty. To write is always irksome to me. But for the continual solicitations of Porphyry, I should not have left a line to survive me. For your own sake, and for your father's, my reluctance shall" be overcome.
" External objects present us only with appearances. Concerning them, therefore, we may be said to possess opinion rather than knowledge. The distinctions in the actual world of appearance are of import only to ordinary and practical men. Our question lies within the ideal reality which exists behind appearance. How does the mind perceive these ideas ? Are they without us, and is the reason, like sensation, occupied with objects external to itself ? What certainty could we then have, what assurance that our perception was infallible ? The object perceived would be a something different from the mind perceiving it. We should have then an image instead of reality. It would be monstrous to believe for a moment that the mind was unable to perceive ideal truth exactly as it is, and that we had not certainty and real knowledge concerning the world of intelligence. It follows, therefore, that this region of truth is not to be investigated as a thing external to us, and so only imperfectly known. It is within us. Here the objects we contemplate and that which contemplates are identical,—both are thought. The subject cannot surely know an object different from itself. The world of ideas lies within our intelligence. Truth, therefore, is not the agreement of our apprehension of an external object with the object itself. It is the agreement of the mind with itself. Consciousness, therefore, is the sole basis of certainty. The mind is its own witness. Reason sees in itself that which is above itself as its source ; and again, that which is below itself as still itself once more.
" Knowledge has three degrees — Opinion, Science, Illumination. The means or instrument of the first is sense; of the second, dialectic; of the third intuition. To the last I subordinate reason. It is absolute knowledge founded on the identity of the mind knowing with the object known.
" There is a raying out of all orders of existence, an external emanation from the ineffable One (prudos). There is again a returning impulse, drawing all upwards and inwards towards the centre from whence all came (epistrophe). Love, as Plato in the Banquet beautifully says, is the child of Poverty and Plenty. In the amorous quest of the soul after the Good, lies the painful sense of fall and deprivation. But that Love is blessing, is salvation, is our guardian genius; without it the centrifugal law would overpower us, and sweep our souls out far from their source toward the cold extremities of the Material and the Manifold. The wise man recognises the idea of the Good within him. This he develops by withdrawal into the Holy Place of his own soul. He who does not understand how the soul contains the Beautiful within itself, seeks to realize beauty without, by laborious production. His aim should rather be to concentrate and simplify, and so to expand his being; instead of going out into the Manifold, to forsake it for the One, and so to float upwards towards the divine fount of being whose stream flows within him.
" You ask, how can we know the Infinite ? I answer, not by reason. It is the office of reason to distinguish and define. The Infinite, therefore, cannot be ranked among its objects. You can only apprehend the Infinite by a faculty superior to reason, by entering into a state in which you are your finite self no longer, in which the Divine Essence is communicated to you. This is Ecstasy. It is the liberation of your mind from its finite consciousness. Like only can apprehend like; when you thus cease to be finite, you become one with the Infinite. In the reduction of your soul to its simplest self (aplosis), its divine essence, you realize this Union, this Identity (enosin).
" But this sublime condition is not of permanent duration. It is only now and then that we can enjoy this elevation (mercifully made possible for us) above the limits of the body and the world. I myself have realized it but three times as yet, and Porphyry hitherto not once. All that tends to purify and elevate the mind will assist you in this attainment, and facilitate the approach and the recurrence of these happy intervals. There are, then, different roads by which this end may be reached. The love of beauty which exalts the poet; that devotion to the One and that ascent of science which makes the ambition of the philosopher ; and that love and those prayers by which some devout and ardent soul tends in its moral purity towards perfection. These are the great highways conducting to that height above the actual and the particular where we stand in the immediate presence of the Infinite, who shines out as from the deeps of the soul."
Plotinus appears to have been greatly indebted to Numenius for some of the ideas peculiar to his system. Numenius attempted to harmonise Pythagoras and Plato, to elucidate and confirm the opinions of both by the religious dogmas of the Egyptians, the Magi and the Brahmans ; and he believed that Plato was indebted to the Hebrew as well as to the Egyptian theology for much of his wisdom. Like Plotinus he was puzzled that the immutable One could find it possible to create the Manifold without self-degradation, and he therefore posited a Being whom he calls the Demi-urge, or Artificer, who merely catried out the Will of God in constructing the universe.
Taken in a nutshell, the mysticism of Plotinus is as lollows: One cannot know God in any partial or finite manner; to know him truly we must escape from the finite, from all that is earthly, from the very gifts of God to God Himself, and know him in the infinite way by receiving, or being received into him directly. To accomplish this, and to attain this identity, we must withdraw into our inmost selves, into our own essence, which alone is susceptible of blending with the Divine Essence. Hence tie inmost is the highest, and as with all systems of mysticism introversion is ascension, and God is found within.
Porphyry entered the school of Plotinus when it had become an institution of some standing. At first he strongly opposed the teachings of his master, but soon became his most devoted scholar. He directed a fierce assault on Christianity, and at the same time launched strictures at Paganism; but both forces were too strong
for him. The attempt of the school to combine religion and philosophy robbed the first of its only power, and the last of its only principle. Religion in the hands of the Neoplatonists lost all sanctity and authoritativeness, and philosophy all scientific precision, and the attempt to philosophise superstition ended in mere absurdity. But they succeeded in one thing, and that was in making philosophy superstitious—no very difficult task.
Porphyry modified the doctrine of Plotinus regarding ecstasy, by stating that in that condition the mind does not lose its consciousness of personality. He calls it a dream m which the soul, dead to the world, rises to a species of divine activity, to an elevation above reason, action and liberty. He believed in a certain order of evil genii, who took pleasure in hunting wild beasts, and others of whom hunted souls that had escaped from the fetters of the body; so that to escape them, the soul must once more take refuge in the flesh. Porphyry's theosophic conceptions, based on those of Plotinus, were strongly and ably traversed by the theurgic mysteries of lamblichus, to whom the priest was a prophet full of deity. Criticising Porphyry, lamblichus says :—
" Often, at the moment of inspiration, or when the afflatus has subsided, a fiery Appearance is seen,—the entering or departing Power. Those who are skilled in this wisdom can tell by the character of this glory the rank of divinity who has seized for the time the reins of the mystic's soul, and guides it as he will. Sometimes the body of the man subject to this influence is violently agitated, sometimes it is rigid and motionless. In some instances sweet music is heard, in others, discordant and fearful sounds. The person of the subject has been known to dilate and tower to a superhuman height; in other cases, it has been lifted up into the air. Frequently, not merely the ordinary exercise of reason, but sensation and animal life would appear to have been suspended; and the subject of the afflatus has not felt the application of fire, has been pierced with spits, cut with knives, and been sensible of no pain. Yea, often, the more the body and the mind have been alike enfeebled by vigil and by fasts, the more ignorant or mentally imbecile a youth may be Who is brought under this influence, the more freely and unmixedly will the divine power be made manifest. So clearly are these wonders the work, not of human skill or wisdom, but of supernatural agency! Characteristics such as these I have mentioned, are the marks of the true inspiration.
" Now, there are, 0 Agathocles, four great orders of spiritual existence,—Gods, Daemons, Heroes or Demi-gods, and Souls. You will naturally be desirous to learn how the apparition of a God or a Daemon is distinguished from those of Angels, Principalities, or Souls. Know, then, that their appearance to man corresponds to their nature, and that they always manifest themselves to those who invoke them in a manner consonant with their rank in the hierarchy of spiritual natures. The appearances of Gods are uniform, those of Daemons various. The Gods shine with a benign aspect. When a God manifests himself, he frequently appears to hide sun or moon, and seems as he descends too vast for earth to contain. Archangels are at once awful and mild; Angels yet more gracious; Daemons terrible. Below the four leading classes I have mentioned are placed the malignant Daemons, the Anti-gods.
" Each spiritual order has gifts of its own to bestow on the initiated who evoke them. The Gods confer health of body, power and purity of mind, and, in short, elevate and restore our natures to their proper principles. Angels Snd Archangels have at their command only subordinate bestowments. Daemons, however, are hostile to the aspirant,—afflict both body and mind, and hinder our escape from the sensuous. Principalities, who govern the sublunary elements, confer temporal advantages. Those of a tower rank, who preside over matter, often display their bounty in material gifts. Souls that are pure are, like Angels, salutary in their influence. Their appearance encourages the soul in its upward efforts. Heroes stimulate to great actions. All these powers depend, in a descending chain, each species on that immediately above rt. Good Daemons are seen surrounded by the emblems of blessing, Daemons who execute judgment appear with the instruments of punishment.
" There is nothing unworthy of belief in what you have been told concerning the sacred sleep, and divination by dreams. I explain it thus :—
" The sou! has a two-fold life, a lower and a higher. In sleep that soul is freed from the constraint of the body, and enters, as one emancipated, on its divine life of intelligence. Then, as the noble faculty which beholds the objects that truly are—the objects in the world of intelligence—stirs within, and awakens to its power, who can be surprised that the mind, which contains in itself the principles of all that happens, should, in this its state of liberation, discern the future in those antecedent principles which will make that future what it is to be ? The nobler part of the soul is thus united by abstraction to higher natures, and becomes a participant in the wisdom and foreknowledge of the Gods.
" Recorded examples of this are numerous and well-authenticated ; instances occur, too, every day. Numbers of sick, by sleeping in the temple of £sculapius, have had their cure revealed to them in dreams vouchsafed by the god. Would not Alexander's army have perished but for a dream in which Dionysius pointed out the means of safety ? Was not the siege of Aphutis raised through a dream sent by Jupiter Ammon to Lysander ? The night-tune of the body is the day-time of the soul."
We thus see how in the process of time the principles on which the system of Plotinus rested were surrendered fittle by little, while divination and evocation were practised with increasing frequency. Plotinus had declared the possibility of the absolute identification of the divine with human nature—the broadest possible basis for naysticism. Porphyry took up narrower ground and contended that in the union which takes place in ecstasy, •we still retain consciousness of personality. lamblichiis diminished the real principle of mysticism still farther in theory, and denied that man has a faculty, eternally active and inaccessible, to passion: so that the intellectual ambition so lofty in Plotinus subsided among the followers of lambh'chus into magical practice.
Proclus was the last of the Greek Neoplatonists. He elaborated the Trinity of Plotinus into a succession of impalpable triads, and surpassed lamblichus in his devotion to the practice of theurgy. With him, theurgy was the art which gives man the magical passwords that carry him through barrier after barrier, dividing species from species of the upper existences, till at the summit of the hierarchy he arrives at the highest. Above all being is God, the Non-Being, who is apprehended only by negation. When we are raised out of our weakness and on a level with God, it seems as though reason were silenced for then we are above reason. In short we become intoxicated with God. Proclus was an adept in the ritual of invocations among every people in the world, and a great magical figure. With the advance of Byzantinism, he represented the old world of Greek thought, and even those who wrote against him as a heathen show the influence he exercised on their doctrines. Thus Dionysius attempted to accommodate the philosophy of Proclus to Christianity, and greatly
admired his asceticism. The theology of the Neoplatonists was always in the first instance a mere matter of logic. They confounded Universal with Causes. The highest became with them merely the most comprehensive. As has been said Ncoplatonistn exercised great power among the scholiasts and magicians of the middle ages. In fact all that medievalism knew of Plato was through the medium of the Neoplatonists. In Germany in the four-teneth century it became a vivifying principle ; for although its doctrine of emanation was abandoned, its allegorical explanation, its exaltation of the spirit above the letter was retained, and Platonism and mysticism together created a party in the church—the sworn foes of scholasticism and mere lifeless orthodoxy.



 

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