Plotinus, however, held that men would not all rise above the plane of the senses, but that many would remain caught by them, thinking that the good is identical with pleasure and pain with evil; others are more capable, he said, but they cannot turn their gaze upward, and so they devote themselves to the virtues of the practical life. But there is a third class of divine men of greater strength and keener insight, who can see and follow the gleam from above, so that they rise beyond the mists of this world to their true and natural abode, like men returning to their native city after long wandering.[257]
The soul’s final aim in its flight from evil Plotinus defines in Plato’s words: it is likeness to God.[258] That is the sum of all virtue. But the master distinguishes grades and degrees of virtue in practice. There are the social virtues of wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice, which serve to regulate the passions and help man to form right opinions. At this stage these cardinal virtues are related solely to external objects, and serve primarily to better man in his mundane activities. Next come those virtues which purify the soul from the pollution of the body, the activities which have nothing to do with the body but belong wholly to the soul; they are concerned with thought and reason. But in the highest range the virtues of the lower stages are no longer related to external objects, but have to do with the Intelligence (Νοῦς) alone. This is the contemplative life, man’s highest activity, in which he becomes himself divine.[259]
Yet the Neoplatonist held that there is a still higher stage. When man’s soul has mounted upward to Intelligence and lives the contemplative life, the space between Intelligence and God is yet unbridged. This gulf can only be crossed when the soul in ecstasy, forgetful of all thought and of self, rises to complete knowledge and union with the One.[260] This supreme privilege, according to Porphyry, was vouchsafed his master four times in the years he was his pupil; and once he too had seen the Beatific Vision.[261]
It is evident that Neoplatonism, the last stage of Greek philosophy, is no isolated or strange phenomenon. On its metaphysical side it is the consummation and final synthesis of the whole course of Greek thought from the sixth century to its own day; likewise in ethics it combined the views of its chief predecessors as its leaders understood them; and finally in the doctrine of the soul’s union with God it only carried the mystical tendencies of previous centuries to their natural conclusion.
If time allowed, we might consider the way in which the Neoplatonists reconciled their theology with the polytheism and demonology of popular belief, but that would lead us too far; indeed it would take us away from our own proper subject and from the main interest of the great leaders of this school. They were most concerned with finding out and showing men the true path to the soul’s peace and happiness, and we are chiefly interested in the history of their thought on this high theme. They found their object not in the exercise of the reason or the will alone, but in mysticism.
VII
THE VICTORY OF GREECE OVER ROME
By her victory at Zama in 202 b.c. Rome made her position as mistress of the western Mediterranean secure; and in the next century she extended her political dominion over Greece. But the same period saw captured Greece take her captor captive. Nor was this subjugation of the victor by the vanquished any sudden thing—in fact it had begun centuries earlier. The course of that conquest will be the main subject of the present lecture.
The story of the sale of the Sibylline Books to King Tarquin is familiar to all: how the Cumaean Sibyl brought to the King nine books of oracles; when he refused their purchase she went away and burned three, and offered the remaining six at the price she had originally demanded for the nine; upon his second refusal she burned three more, and then offered the last three on the original terms. Tradition says that her confidence in human curiosity was justified, and that Tarquin, after consultation with his seers, purchased the last three books.[262] Although we cannot today determine what historical truth lies behind this naïve story, the date of the reputed sale—the sixth century before our era—coincides with the first period of Greek influence at Rome.