The Christian origins in Stoicism have been widely discussed; for instance, by Chaignet. But it is likely that this influence affected Christianity indirectly through Plotinos, along with the other Christian ideas we shall later find. At any rate Plotinos is the philosopher who uses the term "spiritual body" most like the Christians.[510] The soul is a slave to the body,[511] and has a celestial body[512] as well as a spiritual body.[513] Within us are two men opposing each other,[514] the better part often being mastered by the worse part, as thought St. Paul,[515] in the struggle between the inner and outer man.[516]
With Plotinos the idea of "procession" is not only cosmic but psychological. In other words, when Plotinos speaks of the "procession" of the God-head, he is not, as in Christian doctrine, depicting something unique, which has no connection with the world. He is only referring to the cosmic aspect of an evolution which, in the soul, appears as educational development.[517] As the opposite of the soul's procession upwards, there is the soul's descent into hell,[518] or, in other words, the soul's descent and ascension.[519] This double aspect of man's fate upward or downward is referred to by Plotinos in the regular Christian term "sin," as consisting in missing one's aim.[520] The soul repents,[521] and its duty is conversion.[522] As a result of this conversion comes forgiveness.[523]
OLD TESTAMENT REFERENCES.
The famous "terrors of Jeremiah"[524] might have come mediately through the Gnostics, who indeed may have been the persons referred to as Christians.[525] More direct no doubt was God admiring his handiwork[526] and the soul breathing the spirit of life into animals.[527] God is called both the "I am what I am"[528] and "He is what He ought to be."[528] He sits above the world,[529] as the king of kings.[530]
NEW TESTAMENT REFERENCES.
Plotinos says that it would be a poor artist who would conceive of an animal as all covered with eyes. There is hardly such a reference outside of Revelations,[531] to which we must also look for a new heaven and a new earth.[532] Then we have practically a quotation of the Johannine prologue "In the beginning was the Logos," and by him were all things made.[533] Light was in the beginning.[534] We are told not to leave the world, but not to be of it.[535] The divinity prepares mansions in heaven for good souls.[536]
Pauline references seem to be that sin exists because of the law.[537] God is above all height or depth.[538] The vulgar who attend mystery-banquets only to gorge are condemned.[539] There are several heavens.[540] The beggarly principles and elements towards which some turn, are mentioned.[541] The genealogies of the Gnostics are held up to ridicule.[542] General references are numerous. Diseases are caused by evil spirits.[543] We must cut off any offending member.[544] Thus we are saved.[545] In him we breathe and move and have our being.[546] The higher divinity begets a Son, one among many brethren.[547] As the father of intelligence, God is the father of lights.[548]
However, the most interesting incident is that scriptural text which, to the reflecting, is always so much of a puzzle: "If the light that is in them be darkness," etc.[549] This is explained by the Platonic theory[550] that we see because of a special light that is within the eye.
THEOLOGICAL REFERENCES.
General theological references may be grouped under three heads: the soul's salvation, the procession of the divinity, and the trinity.