Matter is the emanation which is most distant from the One. The Nous is the emanation of the One, the world-soul is the emanation from the Nous, individual souls are a kind of intermediate emanation from the world-soul, and matter is the emanation of the individual souls. That is to say, the world-soul, with the forces that are native to it, generates matter and then, by uniting itself through its forces with matter, produces the world of corporeal things. What is the character of matter with which the world-soul forms this union?It is space. Space conditions all earthly existence. It is the same as Plato’s conception of the absolutely negative non-Being and the merely possible. It is absolute sterility, entirely evil and devoid of good. Matter has no dualistic independence of the One. What is the character of the nature world? It has the same character and quality as the formative forces that unite with this negative matter—it is no more and no less eternal. The world of nature to Plotinus is one of magic, and not merely teleological. He says that the heavens are the union of a perfect soul with matter; the stars are the visible gods united with matter; the powers of the air and sky are dæmons, which mediate between the stars and the souls of men, united with matter; the body of man is the human soul united with matter; inorganic nature is the lowest of the plastic forces united with matter. Wherever there is matter (space), there is found imperfection and limitation and evil. Man as an individual is sympathetically and mysteriously bound to all parts of the universe. Scientific investigation of nature is entirely ruled out by this neo-Platonic teaching. It never could be the instrument for penetrating a magical universe. Faith and superstition take the place of science, and prophecy alone undertakes to solve nature’s riddle.
The world of nature is thus broken in two. In one sense it is bad, ugly, and irrational. In another sense it is good, beautiful, and rational, because it is formed by the souls that enter into it. In opposition to the Gnostics Plotinus praised the harmony and beauty of the world, and promulgated his metaphysics of the beautiful as a last farewell of Hellenic civilization. Beauty is not composite, but the simple Idea of worth shining throughthe world of sense. Beauty is from the inner and for the inner. Art does not imitate nature, but expresses the reason; it supplements the defects of nature and creates something new. Yet the world of nature is beautiful, because down to the lowest deeps it is permeated by the divine.
The Return of the Soul to God.—The Ethical Problem of Plotinus. In his discussion of moral conduct Plotinus started from the point opposite to that of his metaphysics. He looked from the point of view of man up the series which descended from the Godhead. Men immersed in matter have nevertheless a share in the divine life, and their goal is independence of the world. They must free themselves from sense. Man’s ethical task is to separate the two worlds and to turn away from the material, not only in its abnormalities but in every way. The practical virtues have little value in such a sublimation of the soul, for these only bind the soul more closely to the world of matter. The political virtues are only a preparation by which the soul learns how to be free from sense. The intellectual virtues are necessary, but the goal of salvation is not reached by knowledge alone. “The wizard king builds his tower of speculation by the hands of human workmen till he reaches the top story, and then he summons his genii to fashion the battlements of adamant and crown them with starry fire.” Out of the mental condition of contemplation the soul will rise on the wings of ecstasy to the God from whom it came. The call of Plotinus is to the ascetic life. The development required is that of spirituality. Ethically Plotinus’ doctrine is dualistic, because it requires the rejection of matter as evil. The return is not an evolution nor an innovation in whichreform of the old world is demanded. There is no individual progress, but a penetration into the foundation of things. But what incentive has man to undertake this return? What arouses him from his sleep? Not sense-perception nor reflection, but his love for the beautiful. The innate impulse of Platonic love turns the soul away from matter to the illuminating Idea. He who has an immediate recognition of the pure Idea is gaining the higher perfection. Only when man is in ecstasy—an ecstasy which transcends every subjective state—does he get complete contact and union with God. In such a moment of consecration he forgets himself and becomes God. This final step never comes unless God himself illuminates the soul by a special light so that it can see God. This final state comes only to few souls, and to those but seldom.
The Syrian School.—The Systematizing of Polytheisms.—Jamblichus. This school existed about a generation after the death of Plotinus. Its founder was Jamblichus (d. about 330), whose teacher was Porphyry, the pupil of Plotinus. Jamblichus was a Syrian, who got his instruction from Porphyry at Rome, and then went back to his native country to set up for himself a school of neo-Platonism. He soon became reverenced as teacher, religious reformer, and worker of miracles. He wrote commentaries on Plato, Aristotle, and the theological works of the Orphics, Chaldeans, and the Pythagoreans. Among the crowd of his enthusiastic disciples,one notes the names of the Emperor Julian and Hypatia.[43]
The neo-Platonism of Jamblichus contained no new point of view. Metaphysically and ethically his teachingwas identical with that of Plotinus. He tried to complete the religious movement by coördinating all cults, excepting Christianity, into a unity. This was an eclecticism by which Jamblichus came naturally, for Syria was a land where eclecticism thrived. It was here that Gnosticism had its stronghold. With free eclectic hand Jamblichus filled in all the intermediary grades between the Godhead and man with the multitude of gods of all religions. In his system he placed 10 supra-terrestrial gods, 365 celestial beings, 72 orders of sub-celestial beings, and 42 orders of natural gods. To find places for them all, he had to increase the number of intermediaries; and to systematize this complex polytheism, he employed the Pythagorean numbers. His theory shows how persistent was the Hellenic civilization.
The Athenian School.—Recapitulation.—Proclus. The Syrian school failed to restore the old religions, and we find neo-Platonism, after revivals here and there, again at Athens. The city that had been the original sanctuary of Greek culture was the last stronghold of Hellenism.
The Athenian school made its appearance about 410, and its leading representatives were Plutarch, Syrianus, and Proclus. Proclus (410–485), the pupil of Syrianus, was the most important representative of the Athenian school, and he may be said to have uttered the last word of dying Hellenism. Born at Constantinople, of a Lycian family, he received his education at Alexandria; and when he became leader of the school at Athens, he received the extravagant worship of his pupils. Connected with the Athenian school were the great commentators, Philoponus and Simplicius, whose works onAristotle became of great value to later times. Their erudite compilations stand out sharply against the imaginative speculations of their age. In connection with this school Boëthius must not be overlooked. He was a neo-Platonist who called himself a Christian, and he was an important figure in the history of education. His translations and expositions of Aristotle’s logic and of the Isagoge of Porphyry were very influential in the Middle Ages.
Proclus was a theologian like Jamblichus, excepting that he tried to put theology upon a philosophical basis. By means of the dialectic he sought to systematize the entire philosophical thought of the Greeks. His insatiable desire for faith was accompanied by wonderful dialectical ability, with the result that his teaching was an intricate formalism united with mythology. He carried out his dialectical plans to the minutest detail. He drew the materials of his system from both barbarians and Greeks, and he himself had been initiated into all the Mysteries. Every superstition of the past and present influenced him, and in framing a universal system he did not feel satisfied until every transmitted doctrine had found a place in that system. He was the systematizer of paganism and its scholastic. He conceived that the fundamental problem was that of the One and the Many, and that the One is related to the Many in three stages,—permanence, going-forth, and return. The Many as a manifold effect is similar to the unity of the original cause and yet different from it. Development is the striving of the effect to return to the original cause, and this strife for a return to God was illustrated by Proclus in every realm of life, and he repeated it again and again in application to every detail. He conceived that the developmentof the world from the Godhead was continually going through this triad system of change. His philosophy, however, shows no originality other than being an ingenious formal classification in which every polytheism found a place.