[VALUE OF PLOTINOS.]
IMPORTANCE IN THE PAST.
We must focus our observations on Plotinos as a philosopher. To begin with, we should review his successors, Porphyry, Jamblichus, Sallust, Proclus, Hierocles, Simplicius;[738] Macrobius;[739] Priscus; Olympicdorus and John Philoponus.[740]
Among the Arabian philosophers that follow in his steps are Maimonides and Ibn Gebirol.[741]
Of the Christian fathers we first have two who paraphrased, rather than quoted him.
St. Augustine by name quotes i. 6; iii. 2; iv. 3, and v. 1; he paraphrases parts of i. 2; ii. 1; iii. 6, 7; iv. 2, 7; vi. 5, 6.[742] St. Basil so closely paraphrases parts of Plotinos in his treatise on the Holy Spirit,[743] his letter on the Monastic Life,[744] and his Hexameron,[745] that Bouillet prints the passage in question in deadly parallel.
Other Christian Plotonic students were Gregory of Nyssa, Synesius, Dionysius the Areopagite, Theodorus, Aeneas of Gaza, Gennadius;[746] Victorinus;[747] Nicephorus Chumnus;[748] and Cassiodorus.[749]
Thomas Aquinas also was much indebted to Plotinos; and after him came Boethius, Fénélon, Bossnet and Leibnitz (all quoted in Bouillet's work).