[45] Cf. Döllinger, Sektengeschichte.
[46] All my Christian examples are taken from among the representatives of Catholic Christianity, because it was that which triumphed, and set the lines of mediaeval thought. Consequently, I have not referred to the Gnostics, not wishing to complicate an already complex spiritual situation. Gnosticism was a mixture of Hellenic, oriental, and Christian elements. Its votaries represented one (most distorting) way in which the Gospel was taken. But Gnosticism neither triumphed nor deserved to. It flourished somewhat before the time of Plotinus.
[47] See Origen, De principiis, iii. 2.
[48] The Athanasian Vita Antonii is in Migne, Patr. Graec. 26, and trans. in Nicene Fathers, second series, iv. The Vita S. Martini is in Halm’s ed. of Sulp. Severus (Vienna, 1866), and in Migne, Pat. Lat. 20, and trans. in Nicene Fathers, second series, xi.
[49] See Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, ii. 413 sqq., especially 432 sqq. Also Taylor, Classical Heritage, pp. 94-97.
[50] In cap. iii. § 2 of the Celestial Hierarchy, Pseudo-Dionysius says that the goal of his system is the becoming like to God and oneness with Him (ἡ πρὸς θεὸν ἀφομοίωσίς τε καὶ ἕνωσις). He classifies his “celestial intelligences” even more systematically than the De mysteriis of Iamblicus’s school. His work is full of Neo-Platonism. Cf. Vacherot, Histoire de l’école d’Alexandrie, iii. 24 sqq.
[51] The cult of the Virgin and the saints was of very early growth. See Lucius, Die Anfänge des Heiligen Kults in der christlichen Kirche (ed. by Anrich, Tübingen, 1904).
[52] See, e.g., Grandgeorge, St. Augustin et le Néoplatonisme (Paris, 1896).
[53] On Gregory, see post, Chapter V.
[54] Epistola ad Gregorium Thaumaturgum.