THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS
As a "Concluding Part" to "The Myths of Plato," Professor J.A. Stewart wrote a chapter on the Cambridge Platonists of the seventeenth century, his object being to show that the thought of Plato "has been, and still is, an important influence in modern philosophy."
It was a not unnatural reaction that diverted the scholars of the Renaissance from Aristotle to Plato. The medieval Church had been Aristotelian, and "antagonism to the Roman Church had, doubtless, much to do with the Platonic revival, which spread from Italy to Cambridge." But, curiously enough, the Plato whom Cambridge served was not Plato the Athenian dialectician, but Plato the poet and allegorist. It was, in fact, Philo, the Jew, rather than Plato, the Greek, that inspired them.
"Philo never thought of doubting that Platonism and the Jewish Scriptures had real affinity to each other, and hardly perhaps asked himself how the affinity was to be accounted for." Philo, however, would have had no difficulty in accounting for it; already in his day the quaint theory was prevalent that Athens had borrowed its wisdom from Jerusalem. The Cambridge Platonists went with Philo in declaring Plato to be "the Attic Moses." Henry More (1662) maintained strongly Plato's indebtedness to Moses; even Pythagoras was so indebted, or, rather, "it was a common fame [report] that Pythagoras was a disciple of the Prophet Ezekiel." The Cambridge Platonists were anxious, not only to show this dependence of Greek upon Hebraic thought, but they went on to argue that Moses taught, in allegory, the natural philosophy of Descartes. More calls Platonism the soul, and Cartesianism the body, of his own philosophy, which he applies to the explanation of the Law of Moses. "This philosophy is the old Jewish-Pythagorean Cabbala, which teaches the motion of the Earth and Pre-existence of the Soul." But it is awkward that Moses does not teach the motion of the earth. More is at no loss; he boldly argues that, though "the motion of the earth has been lost and appears not in the remains of the Jewish Cabbala, this can be no argument against its once having been a part thereof." He holds it as "exceedingly probable" that the Roman Emperor "Numa was both descended from the Jews and imbued with the Jewish religion and learning."
Thus the Cambridge Platonists of the seventeenth century are a very remarkable example of the recurrent influence exercised on non-Jews by certain forms of Judaism that had but slight direct effect on the Jews themselves. Indirectly, the Hellenic side of Jewish culture left its mark, especially in the Cabbala. It would be well worth the while of a Jewish theologian to make a close study of the seventeenth century alumni of Cambridge, who were among the most fascinating devotees of ancient Jewish wisdom. Henry More was particularly attractive, "the most interesting and the most unreadable of the whole band." When he was a young boy, his uncle had to threaten a flogging to cure him of precocious "forwardness in philosophizing concerning the mysteries of necessity and freewill." In 1631 he entered Christ's College, Cambridge, "about the time when John Milton was leaving it," and he may almost be said to have spent the rest of his life within the walls of the college, "except when he went to stay with his 'heroine pupil,' Anne, Viscountess Conway, at her country seat of Ragley in Warwickshire, where his pleasure was to wander among the woods and glades." He absolutely refused all preferment, and when "he was once persuaded to make a journey to Whitehall, to kiss His Majesty's hands, but heard by the way that this would be the prelude to a bishopric, he at once turned back." Yet More was no recluse. "He had many pupils at Christ's; he loved music, and used to play on the theorbo; he enjoyed a game at bowls, and still more a conversation with intimate friends, who listened to him as to an oracle; and he was so kind to the poor that it was said his very chamber-door was a hospital for the needy." But enough has been quoted from Overton's biography to whet curiosity about this Cambridge sage and saint. More well illustrates what was said above (pp. 114-116)—the man of letters is truest to his calling when he has at the same time an open ear to the call of humanity.