barrenness and emptiness of Attic thought, up to the time when it received the few corrections and additions from Christian doctrine which enabled it to appear for a short time as a rival of heavenly truth.
The author goes with laborious scrutiny through that labyrinth of error which is included under the title of Neo-Platonism. Outside the Catholic Church, few scholars have read even the principal works of St. Thomas Aquinas. Charles Sumner was said to possess them; Disraeli the elder and George Eliot refer to them. But the former never showed that he understood their contents, and the last-named writers show that they have not. Although such a study is absolutely necessary towards acquiring a correct knowledge of the intellectual life of the Middle Age, it is rarely undertaken by non-Catholics. To study the remains of Neo-Platonism is a task of equal subtlety, and yet nothing is more common than to hear shallow speculators on history affirm that Christianity was greatly affected by the Alexandrian school. But the difference is no less marked when we come to find out what the views of the leading Neo-Platonist actually were. This “distracted chaos of hallucinations” was the highest effort of paganism. It was an attempt to reconcile and weld together all the elements of the old world, as a barrier to the new and irresistible power which was everywhere gaining ground. It was the development which was to have been expected. It was the fusion of East and West to which Christianity has been credited. But, instead of acting upon, it was radically affected by, Christianity; and, instead of bringing
forth Christianity, it was the deadliest foe of the Gospel. It is from this old armory of Alexandria that modern error draws and refurbishes the clumsy weapons which dropped thirteen centuries ago from the hands of the first opponents of Christianity. It is a good place to go for this sort of bric-à-brac. It contains a sum of all the aberrations of the human intellect. Here, stripped of its modern garb, we find the cosmic sentimentalism of Strauss. Here the absolute being of the German pantheists stares us in the face. Here, from Iamblichus and Porphyry, we hear the same mournful and unhealthy drivel which is printed and sewed up in gilt morocco by enterprising and philanthropic publishers of the present day. On rising from the perusal of Mr. Allies’ third volume, we see clearly the end of that wonderful and brilliant Hellenism which, while ever occupied “either in telling or in hearing something new,” slighted the real truth which had come into the world, and served but as a pit to its own pride.
Too much praise cannot be given to Mr. Allies for the labor bestowed upon his history of the actual development of the philosophy of Greece in the Roman Empire. He has traced each school of thought from year to year, and reproduced a correct summary of its beliefs. The Neo-Stoic philosophy, which is especially vaunted by the enemies of Christianity, is studiously delineated. The points of agreement and difference are clearly noted between its four great chiefs—Seneca, Musonius, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. The analogies and contrasts between the developed Stoic school and the Christian teachers who were its contemporaries, are also brought into relief.
In order to portray the effect of the Neo-Pythagorean doctrines and the revived Platonism, the author gives a complete analysis of that most singular and interesting character, Philo the Jew—singular, in that he was the only one of the ancient Hebrew race who became a great philosopher; interesting, because he shows us the precise difference between Platonism and Jewish belief, and the immeasurable superiority of the unreasoning Jew, who believed only that which he had received by tradition, over the highest flight of heathen genius unaided by revelation. The lecture on Philo closes with a summary of the interval between his time and Plutarch’s, and the change during that epoch from the old Roman world of Cicero, together with the cause of this change.
Following this, another lecture presents the state of the pagan intellect and the common standing ground of philosophy, from the accession of Nero to that of Severus.
Towards the close of his reign, under the auspices of the Empress Julia and from the labors of Philostratus, came forth the new gospel of paganism in the life of Apollonius of Thyana. This work, upon the strength of which modern infidels have sought to attribute a mythical origin to the Gospels, was a counterfeit of the truth, in which paganism sought to construct an ideal teacher, to oppose to that Master who was now beginning to be known throughout the world. This sketch of Apollonius of Thyana is very complete, and shows a new phase of thought yet more strikingly affected by that hated and persecuted power which was daily growing in the midst of the Roman world. Having completed
his study of pagan belief and sentiments as far as the reign of Severus, the author is fully prepared for the difficult and thankless task of reviewing the struggle between Neo-Platonism, as represented by Iamblichus, Porphyry, and Plotinus, and their followers, against divine truth. The third volume closes with a graphic summary of the intellectual results from Claudius to Constantine, and a comparative glance at the relative power of the old order and the new to reconstruct a society in stable and harmonious proportions.
With this lecture, which seems to foreshadow the contents of a fourth volume, Mr. Allies’ work stops for the present. Its publication in parts has placed it at a great disadvantage, inasmuch as ten years have passed since the first volume appeared. It may seem premature to review a work not yet complete, but enough has been published to
establish the claim of the author to a most useful and successful contribution to the needs of the time. He has grown into his task, and has accumulated both facts and reflections. There is little reason to fear that the remaining volume will not be equal to the three which have preceded it.