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Neo-Platonism

A system of idealistic, spiritualistic philosophy, tending towards mysticism,

which flourished in the pagan world of Greece and Rome during the first centuries

of the Christian era. It is of interest and importance, not merely because it is the

last attempt of Greek thought to rehabilitate itself and restore its exhausted

vitality by recourse to Oriental religious ideas, but also because it definitely

entered the service of pagan polytheism and was used as a weapon against

Christianity. It derives its name from the fact that its first representatives drew

their inspiration from Plato's doctrines, although it is well known that many of the

treatises on which they relied are not genuine works of Plato. It originated in

Egypt, a circumstance which would, of itself, indicate that while the system was

a characteristic product of the Hellenistic spirit, it was largely influenced by the

religious ideals and mystic tendencies of Oriental thought.

To understand the neo-Platonic system in itself, as well as to appreciate the

attitude of Christianity towards it, it is necessary to explain the two-fold purpose

which actuated its founders. On the one hand, philosophical thought in the

Hellenic world had proved itself inadequate to the task of moral and religious

regeneration. Stoicism, Epicureanism, Eclecticism and even Scepticism had

each been set the task of "making men happy", and each had in turn failed. Then

came the thought that Plato's idealism and the religious forces of the Orient

might well be united in one philosophical movement which would give

definiteness, homogeneity, and unity of purpose to all the efforts of the pagan

world to rescue itself from impending ruin. On the other hand, the strength and,

from the pagan point of view, the aggressiveness of Christianity began to be

realized. It became necessary, in the intellectual world, to impose on the

Christians by showing that Paganism was not entirely bankrupt, and, in the

political world, to rehabilitate the official polytheism of the State by furnishing an

interpretation of it, that should be acceptable in philosophy. Speculative Stoicism

had reduced the gods to personifications of natural forces; Aristotle had definitely

denied their existence; Plato had sneered at them. It was time, therefore, that

the growing prestige of Christianity should be offset by a philosophy which,

claiming the authority of Plato, whom the Christians revered, should not only

retain the gods but make them an essential part of a philosophical system. Such

was the origin of Neoplatonism. It should, however, be added that, while the

philosophy that sprang from these sources was Platonic, it did not disdain to

appropriate to itself elements of Aristoteleanism and even Epicureanism, which it

articulated into a Syncretic system.

Forerunners of Neoplatonism

Among the more or less eclectic Platonists who are regarded as forerunners of

the Neoplatonic school, the most important are Plutarch, Maximus, Apuleius,

Aenesidemus, Numenius. The last-mentioned, who flourished towards the end of

the second century of the Christian era, had a direct and immediate influence on

Plotinus, the first systematic neo-Platonist. He taught that there are three gods,

the Father, the Maker (Demiurgos), and the World. Philo the Jew (see PHILO

JUDAEUS), who flourished in the middle of the first century, was also a

forerunner of Neoplatonism, although it is difficult to say whether his doctrine of

the mediation of the Logos had a direct influence on Plotinus.

Ammonius Saccas

Ammonius Saccas, a porter on the docks of Alexandria, is regarded as the

founder of the Neoplatonic school. Since he left no writings, it is impossible to

say what his doctrines were. We know, however, that he had an extraordinary

influence over men like Plotinus and Origen, who willingly abandoned the

professional teachers of philosophy to listen to his discourses on wisdom.

According to Eusebius, he was born of Christian parents, but reverted to

paganism. The date of his birth is given as 242.

Plotinus

Plotinus, a native of Lycopolis in Egypt, who lived from 205 to 270 was the first

systematic philosopher of the school. When he was twenty-eight years old he

was taken by a friend to hear Ammonius, and thenceforth for eleven years he

continued to profit by the lectures of the porter. At the end of the first discourse

which he heard, he exclaimed: "This man is the man of whom I was in search."

In 242 he accompanied the Emporer Gordian to Mesopotamia, intending to go to

Persia. In 244 he went to Rome, where, for ten years, he taught philosophy,

counting among his hearers and admirers the Emporer Gallienus and his wife

Solonia. In 263 he retired to Campania with some of his disciples, including

Porphyry, and there he died in 270. His works, consisting of fifty-four treatises,

were edited by Porphyry in six groups of nine. Hence they are known as the

"Enneads".The "Enneads" were first published in a Latin translation by Marsilius

Ficinus (Florence, 1492); of recent editions the best are Breuzer and Moser's

(Oxford, 1855), and Kirchoff's (Leipzig, 1856). Parts of the "Enneads" are

translated into English by Taylor (London, 1787-1817).

Plotinus' starting-point is that of the idealist. He meets what he considers the

paradox of materialism, the assertion, namely, that matter alone exists, by an

emphatic assertion of the existence of spirit. If the soul is spirit, it follows that it

cannot have originated from the body or an aggregation of bodies. The true

source of reality is above us, not beneath us. It is the One, the Absolute, the

Infinite. It is God. God exceeds all the categories of finite thought. It is not

correct to say that He is a Being, or a Mind. He is over-Being, over-Mind. The

only attributes which may be appropriately applied to Him are Good and One. If

God were only One, He should remain forever in His undifferentiated unity, and

there should be nothing but God. He is, however, good; and goodness, like light,

tends to diffuse itself. Thus from the One, there emanates in the first place

Intellect (Nous), which is the image of the One, and at the same time a partially

differentiated derivative, because it is the world of ideas, in which are the multiple

archetypes of things. From the intellect emanates an image in which there is a

tendency to dynamic differentiation, namely the World-soul, which is the abode

of forces, as the Intellect is the abode of Ideas. From the World-Soul emanates

the Forces (one of which is the human soul), which, by a series of successive

degradations towards nothing become finally Matter, the non-existent, the

antithesis of God. All this process is called an emanation, or flowing. It is

described in figurative language, and thus its precise philosophical value is not

determined. Similarly the One, God, is described as light, and Matter is said to

be darkness. Matter, is, in fact, for Plotinus, essentially the opposite of the

Good; it is evil and the source of all evil. It is unreality and wherever it is present,

there is not only a lack of goodness but also a lack of reality. God alone is free

from Matter; He alone is Light; He alone is fully real. Everywhere there is partial

differentiation, partial darkness, partial unreality; in the intellect, in the

World-Soul, in Souls, in the material universe. God, the reality, the spiritual, is,

therefore, contrasted with the world, the unreal, the material. God is noumenon,

everything else is appearance, or phenomenon.

Man, being composed of body and soul, is partly, like God, spiritual, and partly

like matter, the opposite of spiritual. It is his duty to aim at returning to God by

eliminating from his being, his thoughts, and his actions, everything that is

material and, therefore, tends to separate him from God. The soul came from

God. It existed before its union with the body; its survival after death is, therefore,

hardly in need of proof. It will return to God by way of knowledge, because that

which separates it from God is matter and material conditions, which are only

illusions or deceptive appearances. The first step, therefore in the return of the

soul to God is the act by which the soul, withdrawing from the world of sense by

a process of purification (katharsis), frees itself from the trammels of matter.

Next, having retired within itself, the soul contemplates within itself the indwelling

intellect. From the contemplation of the Intellect within, it rises to a

contemplation of the Intellect above, and from that to the contemplation of the

One. It cannot, however, reach this final stage except by revelation, that is, by

the free act of God, Who, shedding around Him the light of His own greatness,

sends into the soul of the philosopher and saint a special light which enables it

to see God Himself. This intuition of the one so fills the soul that it excludes all

consciousness and feeling, reduces the mind to a state of utter passivity, and

renders possible the union of man with God. The ecstasy (ekstasis) by which

this union is attained is man's supreme happiness, the goal of all his endeavor,

the fulfillment of his destiny. It is a happiness which receives no increase by

continuance of time. Once the philosopher-saint has attained it, he becomes

confirmed, so to speak, in grace. Henceforth forever, he is a spiritual being, a

man of God, a prophet, and a wonder-worker. He commands all the powers of

nature, and even bends to his will the demons themselves. He sees into the

future, and in a sense shares the vision, as he shares the life, of God.

Porphyry

Porphyry, who in beauty and lucidity of style excels all the other followers of

Plotinus, and who is distinguished also by the bitterness of his opposition to

Christiani, was born A.D. 233, probably at Tyre. After having studied at Athens,

he visited Rome and there became a devoted disciple of Plotinus, whom he

accompanied to Campania in 263. He died about the year 303. Of his work

"Against the Christians" only a few fragments, preserved in the works of the

Christian Apologists, have come down to us. From these it appears that he

directed his attack along the lines of what we should now call historical criticism

of the Old Testament and the comparative study of religions. His work "De Antro

Nympharum" is an elaborate allegorical interpretation and defence of pagan

mythology. His Aphormai (Sentences) is an exposition of Plotinus's philosophy.

His biographical writings included "Lives" of Pythagoras and Plotinus in which he

strove to show that these "god-sent" men were not only models of philosophic

sanctity but also thaumatourgoi, or "wonder-workers", endowed with theurgic

powers. The best known of all his works is a logical treatise entitled eosagoge, or

"Introduction to the Categories of Aristotle". In a Latin translation made by

Boethius, this work was very widely used in the early Middle Ages, and exerted

considerable influence on the growth of Scholasticism. It is, as is well known, a

passage in this "Isagogue" that is said to have given occasion to the celebrated

controversy concerning universals in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. In his

expository works on the philosophy of Plotinus, Porphyry lays great stress on

the importance of theurgic practices. He holds, of course, that the practices of

asceticism are the starting-point on the road to perfection. One must begin the

process of perfection by "thinning out the veil of matter" (the body), which stands

between the soul and spiritual things. Then, as a means of further advancement,

one must cultivate self-contemplation. Once the stage of self-contemplation is

attained, further progress towards perfection is dependent on the consultation of

oracles, divination, bloodless sacrifices to the superior gods and bloody

sacrifices to demons, or inferior powers.

Iamblichus

Iamblichus, a native of Syria, who was a pupil of Porphyry in Italy, and died about

the year 330, while inferior to his teacher in power of exposition, seemed to have

a firmer grasp of the speculative principles of Neoplatonism and modified more

profoundly the metaphysical doctrines of the school. His works bear the

comprehensive title "Summary of Pythagorean Doctrines". Whether he or a

disciple of his is the author of the treatise "De Mysteriis Aegyptiorum" (first pub.

by Gale, Oxford, 1678, and afterwards by Parthey, Berlin, 1857), the book is a

product of his school and proves that he, like Porphyry, emphasized the magic,

or theurgic, factor in the Neoplatonic scheme of salvation. As regards the

speculative side of Plotinus's system, he devoted attention to the doctrine of

emanation, which he modified in the direction of completeness and greater

consistency. The precise nature of the modification is not clear. It is safe,

however, to say that, in a general way, he forestalled the effort of Proclus to

distinguish three subordinate "moments", or stages, in the process of emanation.

While these philosophical defenders of neo-Platonism were directing their

attacks against Christianity, representatives of the school in the more practical

walks of life, and even in high places of authority, carried on a more effective

warfare in the name of the school. Hierocles, pro-consul of Bithynia during the

reign of Diocletian (284-305), not only persecuted the Christians of his province,

but wrote a work, now lost, entitled "The discourse of a Lover of Truth, against

the Christians", setting up the rival claims of neo-Platonic philosophy. He, like

Julian the Apostate, Celsus (q.v.), and others, was roused to activity chiefly by

the claim which Christianity made to be, not a national religion like Judaism, but

a world-wide, or universal, religion. Julian sums up the case of philosophy against

Christianity thus: "Divine government is not through a special society (such as

the Christian Church) teaching an authoritative doctrine, but through the order of

the visible universe and all the variety of civic and national institutions. The

underlying harmony of these is to be sought out by free examination, which is

philosophy." (Whittaker, "Neo-Platonists", p. 155). It is in the light of this

principle of public policy that we must view the attempt of Iamblichus to furnish a

systematic defence of Polytheism. Above the One, he says, is the Absolutely

First. From the One, which is thus itself a derivative, comes intellect, which, as

the Intellectual and the Intelligible, is essentially dual. Both the Intellectual and

the Intelligible are divided into triads, which are the superterrestrial gods. Beneath

these and subordinate to them, are the terrestrial gods whom he subdivides into

three hundred and sixty celestial beings, seventy-two orders of sub-celestial

gods, and forty-two orders of natural gods. Next to these are the semi-divine

heroes of mythology and the philosopher-saints such as Pythagoras and

Plotinus. From this it is evident that neo-Platonism had by this time ceased to be

a purely academic question. It had entered very vigorously into the contest

waged against Christianity. At the same time, it had not ceased to be the one

force which could claim to unify the surviving remnants of pagan culture. As

such, it appealed to the woman-philosopher Hypatia, whose fate at the hands of

a Christian mob at Alexandria, in the year 422, was cast up as a reproach to the

Christians (see CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA). Among the contemporaries of Hypatia

at Alexandria was another Hierocles, author of a commentary on the

Pythagorean "Golden Verses".

Proclus

Proclus, the most systematic of all the Neoplatonists, and for that reason known

as "the scholastic of neo-Platonism", is the principal representative of a phase of

philosophic thought which developed at Athens during the fifth century, and

lasted down to the year 529, when, by an edict of Justinian, the philosophic

schools at Athens were closed. The founder of the Athenian school was

Plutarch, surnamed the Great (not Plutarch of Chaeronea, author of the "Lives of

Illustrious Men"), who died in 431. his most distinguished scholar was Proclus,

who was born at Constantinople in 410, studied Aristotelean logic at Alexandria,

and about the year 430 became a pupil of Plutarch at Athens. He died at Athens

in 485. He is the author of several Commentaries on Plato, of a collection of

hymns to the gods, of many works on mathematics, and of philosophical

treatises, the most important of which are: "Theological Elements", stoicheiosis

theologike, (printed in the Paris ed. of Plotinus's Works); "Platonic Theology"

(printed, 1618, in a Latin translation by Aemilius Portus); shorter treatises on

Fate, on Evil, on Providence, etc. which exist only in a Latin translation made by

William of Moerbeka in the thirteenth century. These are collected in Cousin's

edition, "Procli Opera", Paris, 1820-1825. Proclus attempted to systematize and

synthesize the various elements of neo-Platonism by means of Aristotelean

logic. The cardinal principle upon which his attempt rests is the doctrine, already

foreshadowed by Iamblichus and others, that in the process of emanation there

are always three subordinate stages, or moments, namely the original (mone),

emergence from the original (proodos), and return to the original (epistrophe). The

reason of this principle is enunciated as follows: the derived is at once unlike the

original and like it; its unlikeness is the cause of its derivation, and its likeness is

the cause, or reason, of the tendency to return. All emanation is, therefore,

serial. It constitutes a "chain" from the One down to the antithesis of the One,

which is matter. By the first emanation from the One come to "henades", the

supreme gods who exercise providence over worldly affairs; from the henades

comes the "triad", intelligible, intelligible-intellectual, and intellectual,

corresponding to being, life, and thought; each of these is, in turn, the origin of a

"hebdomad", a series corresponding to the chief divinities of the pagan pantheon:

from these are derived "forces", or "souls", which alone are operative in nature,

although, since they are the lowest derivatives, their efficacy is least. Matter, the

antithesis of the One, is inert, dead, and can be the cause of nothing except

imperfection, error, and moral evil. The birth of a human being is the descent of a

soul into matter. The soul, however, may ascend, and redescend in another birth.

The ascension of the soul is brought about by asceticism, contemplation, and

the invocation of the superior powers by magic, divination, oracles, miracles, etc.

The Last Neoplatonists

Proclus was the last great representative of neo-Platonism. His disciple,

Marinus, was the teacher of Damascius, who represented the school at the time

of its suppression by Justinian in 529. Damascius was accompanied in his exile

to Persia by Simplicius, celebrated as a neo-Platonic commentator. About the

middle of the sixth century John Philoponus and Olympiadorus flourished at

Alexandria as exponents of Neoplatonism. They were, like Simplicius,

commentators. When they became Christians, the career of the school of Plato

came to an end. The name of Olympiadorus is the last in the long line of

scholarchs which began with Speusippus, the disciple and nephew of Plato.

Influence of Neoplatonism

Christian thinkers, almost from the beginning of Christian speculation, found in

the spiritualism of Plato a powerful aid in defending and maintaining a conception

of the human soul which pagan materialism rejected, but to which the Christian

Church was irrevocably committed. All the early refutations of psychological

materialism are Platonic. So, too, when the ideas of Plotinus began to prevail,

the Christian writers took advantage of the support thus lent to the doctrine that

there is a spiritual world more real than the world of matter. Later, there were

Christian philosophers, like Nemesius (flourished c. 450), who took over the

entire system of neo-Platonism so far as it was considered consonant with

Christian dogma. The same may be said of Synesius (Bishop of Ptolemais, c.

41), except that he, having been a pagan, did not, even after his conversion, give

up the notion that Neoplatonism had value as a force which unified the various

factors in pagan culture. At the same time there were elements in Neoplatonism

which appealed very strongly to the heretics, especially to the Gnostics, and

these elements were more and more strongly accentuated in heretical systems:

so that St. Augustine, who knew the writings of Plotinus in a Latin translation,

was obliged to exclude from his interpretation of Platonism many of the tenets

which characterized the neo-Platonic school. In this way, he came to profess a

Platonism which in many respects is nearer to the doctrine of Plato's "Dialogues"

than is the philosophy of Plotinus and Proclus. The Christian writer whose

neo-Platonism had the widest influence in later times, and who also reproduced

most faithfully the doctrines of the school, is the Pseudo-Dionysius (see

DIONYSIUS, THE PSEUDO-AREOPAGITE). The works "De Divinis Nominibus",

"De hierarchia coelesti", etc., are now admitted to have been written at the end of

the fifth, or during the first decades of the sixth, century. They are from the pen of

a Christian Platonist, a disciple of Proclus, probably an immediate pupil of that

teacher, as is clear from the fact that they embody, not only Proclus's ideas, but

even lengthy passages from his writings. The author, whether intentionally on his

part, or by some mistake on the part of his readers, came to be identified with

Dionysius who is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles as a convert of St. Paul.

Later, especially in France, he was further identified with Dionysius the first

Bishop of Paris. Thus it came about that the works of the Pseudo-Areopagite,

after having been used in the East, first by the Monophysites and later by the

Catholics, became known in the West and exerted a widespread influence all

through the Middle Ages. They were translated into Latin by John Scotus

Eriugena about the middle of the ninth century, and in this form were studied and

commented on, not only by mystic writers, such as the Victorines, but also by

the typical representatives of Scholasticism, such as St. Thomas Aquinas. None

of the later scholastics, however, went the full length of adopting the metaphysics

of the Pseudo-Areopagite in its essential principles, as did John Scotus Eriugena

in his "De divisione naturae".

After the suppression of the Athenian school of philosophy by Justinian in 529,

the representatives of neo-Platonism went, as we have seen, to Persia. They did

not remain long in that country. Another exodus, however, had more permanent

consequences. A number of Greek neo-Platonists who settled in Syria carried

with them the works of Plato and Aristotle, which, having been translated into

Syriac, were afterwards translated into Arabic, Hebrew, and Latin, and thus,

towards the middle of the twelfth century, began to re-enter Christian Europe

through Moorish Spain. These translations were accompanied by commentaries

which continued the neo-Platonic tradition commenced by Simplicius. At the

same time a number of anonymous philosophical works, written for the most part

under the influence of the school of Proclus, some of which were ascribed to

Aristotle, began to be known in Christian Europe, and were not without influence

on Scholasticism. Again, works like the "Fons vitae" of Avicebrol, which were

known to be of Jewish or Arabian origin, were neo-Platonic, and helped to

determine the doctrines of the scholastics. For example, Scotus's doctrine of

materia primo-prima is acknowledged by Scotus himself to be derived from

Avicebrol. Notwithstanding all these facts, Scholastic philosophy was in spirit

and in method Aristotelean; it explicitly rejected many of the neo-Platonic

interpretations, such as the unity of the Active Intellect. For this reason all

unprejudiced critics agree that it is an exaggeration to describe the whole

Scholastic movement as merely an episode in the history of neo-Platonism. In

recent times this exaggerated view has been defended by M. Picavet in his

"Esquisse d'une histoire comparée des philosophies médiévales" (Paris, 1907).

The neo-Platonic elements in Dante's "Paradiso" have their origin in his

interpretation of the scholastics. It was not until the rise of Humanism in the

fifteenth century that the works of Plotinus and Proclus were translated and

studied with that zeal which characterized the Platonists of the Renaissance. It

was then, too, that the theurgic, or magic, elements in Neo-Platonism were

made popular. The same tendency is found in Bruno's "Eroici Furori", interpreting

Plotinus in the direction of materialistic pantheism. The active rejection of

Materialism by the Cambridge Platonists in the seventeenth century carried with

it a revival of interest in the neo-Platonists. An echo of this appears in Berkeley's

"Siris", the last phase of his opposition to materialism. Whatever neo-Platonic

elements are recognizable in the transcendentalists, such as Schelling and

Hegel, can hardly be cited as survivals of philosophic principles. They are rather

inspirational influences, such as we find in Platonizing poets like Spenser and

Shelley.

CREUZER AND MOSER, edd., Plotini opera (Oxford, 1835) tr. TAYLOR (London, 1794-1817);

JOHNSON (tr.), Three Treatises of Plotinus (Osceola, Missouri, 1880); COUSIN, Procli Opera (Paris,

1864), tr, TAYLOR (London 1789 and 1825); NAUCK ed., Porphyrii opuscula (Leipzig, 1860 and

1886), tr. TAYLOR; IDEM, tr. (London, 1823); WHITTAKER, The Neo-Platonists (Cambridge, 1901);

BIGG, The Christian Neo-Platonists of Alexandria (Oxford, 1886); Neoplatonism (London, 1895);

VACHEROT, L'Ecole d'Alexandrie (Paris, 1846-1851); SIMON, Histoire de l'école d'Alexandrie

(Paris, 1843-1845); ZELLER, Philosophie der Griechen, III (4th ed., Leipzig, 1903), 2,468 sqq.;

TURNER, History of Philosophy (Boston, 1903), 205 sqq.

William Turner

Transcribed by Geoffrey K. Mondello

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume X

Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor

Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

The Catholic Encyclopedia: NewAdvent.org