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 
Aristotelianism 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 comparee des philosophies 
medievales" (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. 

Notes 

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'ecole 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