NEOPLATONISM IN RELATION TO CHRISTIANITY

 

V

THE RELATIONS BETWEEN NEOPLATONISM AND CHRISTIANITY

 

The broad features of the relations between Neoplatonism and Christianity have been roughly sketched in the last chapter. There was at first a period of apparent friendship. Ammonius may or may not have been a Christian in his youth, but it seems certain that the Christian Origen attended his lectures, and moreover that the Neoplatonist Porphyry had at one time personal dealings with Origen. This early period of alliance gave place to a second period of direct antagonism. Porphyry wrote an important treatise against the Christians, and the next two generations saw Hierocles the governor of Bithynia using every means of persecution against the Church, and Julian endeavouring to re-establish paganism as the dominant religion of the Empire, whilst the early years of the fifth century brought the murder of Hypatia at the hands of the mob at Alexandria. But before the end of the fourth century there were already signs of returning friendship between the philosophers and the theologians. As early as the year 387 St Augustine had passed through a period of attachment to Neoplatonism before his final conversion to Christianity, and if in 415 Hypatia was put to death by the ignorant fanatics, her pupil Synesius had already been elevated to the office of a Christian Bishop. The period of antagonism was followed by the absorption of various Neoplatonic principles by Christian writers such as 'Dionysius the Areopagite', and the vitality of these principles was evinced centuries later by the appearance of a great teacher like Joannes Scotus (Erigena), who drew his inspiration from the study of Neoplatonist writings, and whose doctrines, if audacious, formed a valuable tonic to the barren theology of his day.

But it is necessary to enter into a more detailed discussion of the course of these relations between Neoplatonism and Christianity, and to trace, as far as is possible, in what their mutual obligations consisted.

The question has often been discussed, as to the amount of borrowing that took place between the two systems in the early period, and the answer given has usually been that little or no direct borrowing could be traced, although the indirect influence exercised by each system upon the other was probably considerable. It is necessary to investigate the nature and the extent of this indirect influence, and the traces, if such there be, of direct obligations on either side.

What then are the facts and probabilities of the case? There is a general agreement among modern writers that in a certain sense the rise of Neoplatonism was the result of the spread of Christianity. There is no doubt whatever that from the time of Porphyry to the time of Julian one of the chief objects of the school was the defence and maintenance of the old paganism. The question therefore that arises is this: was this conflict between the philosophers and the Christian Church a mere accident, or are we to regard Neoplatonism as being from the outset an attempt to reform and centralise the old religion, and to find some coherent system wherewith to oppose the organized advance of the new faith? If the latter view be correct, if we are to view Neoplatonism as a deliberate attempt to re-establish paganism on its own merits, the early stage of its history assumes a new aspect. Whatever the attitude of Christianity might be towards Neoplatonism, Neoplatonism was essentially opposed to Christianity. But it does not therefore follow that it was the best policy for the Neoplatonists to denounce their opponents. Another method was open to them, more diplomatic, and from their own point of view, more dignified. Denunciation of the new sect, whether effective or not, at least implied its recognition: but to pass it over in silence was more statesmanlike.

In support of the view here suggested, that Plotinus by his very silence was aiming a blow against Christianity, it will be worth while to examine more closely a work to which allusion has already been made. The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, written by Philostratus, is an account of an actual man, the main lines of whose history correspond with the broad features of this memoir. But the notes of Damis of Nineveh were so transformed by Philostratus that the resulting picture is not that of the historical Apollonius but of the incarnation of the religious ideal of the Neopythagorean circle by whom the book was published. In this biography there is no direct reference to Christianity, but as we read the work of Philostratus we are again and again struck by its resemblance to the Christian Gospels. In the first place there is a general similarity of outline. Apollonius is born, mysteriously, at about the same date as Jesus Christ: after a period of retirement and preparation, in which he shows a marvellous religious precocity, we find a period of public ministry followed by a persecution which corresponds in some sense to our Lord's Passion; a species of resurrection, and an ascension.

There are also numerous analogies in detail. Apollo's messengers sing at the birth of Apollonius, just as the angels at Bethlehem hymned the birth of Christ. Apollonius too has from the first numerous enemies who are nevertheless unable to harm him: he is followed by a chosen band of disciples in whose ranks we find disaffection and even treason. He sets his face steadily to go to Rome in spite of the warnings of his friends that the Emperor is seeking to kill him. He is set at nought by the servants of Nero, just as Jesus was mocked by Herod's soldiers. He is accused of performing his miracles by magic and illegal means—a charge precisely similar to that brought against Christ. Like our Lord, too, Apollonius is represented as having constantly driven out daemons by his mere word. It is even possible to compare individual miracles on either side. A parallel to the devils who entered into the herd of swine is to be traced in the story of a demoniac at Athens, whose evil spirit enters into a statue which it overthrows, and at Rome there is a resuscitation of a dead child which is strangely similar to the raising of Jairus' daughter. Apollonius too appears miraculously to certain followers after his departure from earth, and is clearly represented as being then free from the limitations of material existence.

Nor are the analogies confined to the Gospels. Just as Jesus appeared to Saul on the way to Damascus, Apollonius appears miraculously to a declared adversary whom he converts. Like St Peter, or St Paul at Philippi, he breaks his bonds, and like the disciples at Pentecost he has the gift of tongues.

There is of course a danger of pressing these analogies too far: indeed there are probably several cases in which parallels could be adduced from sources that are admittedly free from all connexion with the Gospels. But the collective weight of the whole series is considerable, and it is difficult to believe that the similarity is not due to conscious imitation. Now it has already been noted that throughout the whole of Philostratus' work there is no direct reference to Christianity, and this too can hardly have been accidental. Is it then unreasonable to suppose that in the brilliant circle which gathered round the Empress Julia Domna there were men capable of devising an attempt to cut away the ground beneath the feet of the Christians, by re-writing the Christian gospel in the support of paganism, without acknowledgment and without any show of controversy?

The advantage of such a device is obvious. A work that claimed to be historical would gain access in quarters where a controversial treatise would be debarred. It might be possible to gain for Apollonius some share of reverence even among the Christians themselves. And if this were the editors' aim the absence of all reference to Jesus Christ becomes not only possible but natural. To mention Him with reverence would not suit their purpose; to introduce Him as coming into conflict with Apollonius and as being by him vanquished, whether in argument or in wonder working, must inevitably rouse the suspicions of those very persons whose antagonism they were most anxious not to excite.

They accordingly produced an account of a man whose existence no one could question, and whose character they portrayed in colours so attractive as to gain a measure of approbation even from their opponents. Round his name they grouped a series of incidents, copied from the Christian Gospels, but with sufficient alteration to escape the charge of direct plagiarism. By this means they hoped to secure the allegiance of many who admired the Christian faith, but whose conservatism made them anxious to cling to the old religion, if only it could be shown to hold its own against the attacks of its opponent. The lack of all scientific criticism in the modern sense, among pagans and Christians alike, secured them from detection. The list of authorities quoted by Philostratus would more than suffice for the acceptance of all the miracles here recorded: and, without making their intention too obvious, it was possible for them to place in the mouth of Apollonius discourses which tended steadily to the advancement of pagan conservatism and pagan tolerance as opposed to the revolutionary and bigoted teaching of Christianity,

In confirmation of the view here expressed it may be added, that whether or no it was so intended by the authors, there can be no doubt that later apologists of paganism did make use of the Life of Apollonius in the way that has been described. Thus in his Plain words for the Christians we find Hierocles of Bithynia giving a catalogue of the miracles of Apollonius, and then proceeding "Why then have I mentioned these events? It is in order that the reader may compare our reasoned and weighty judgment of each detail with the vapourings of the Christians. For we speak of him who has wrought all these things, not as God, but as a man divinely gifted; but they, for the sake of a few paltry miracles, do not hesitate to call their Jesus God."

The revival promoted by Julia Domna was not altogether successful. But the spirit which prompted it survived and reappeared nearly half a century later. The silence of Plotinus upon the subject of Christianity is difficult to explain until we see that it is deliberate and intentional. In the whole of his published writings—for Porphyry makes it clear that he collected and edited all that he was able to find—Christianity is not once mentioned by name, and the most careful search has produced hardly a single instance even of indirect reference. It is scarcely possible to ascribe this silence to ignorance: Plotinus was hardly in his grave before Porphyry published an attack upon the Church based upon a careful study of Christian writings and practices, and it is moreover difficult to suppose that he was entirely unacquainted with the works of Origen, who had been like himself a pupil of Ammonius Saccas. Nor can we set his silence down to an idea that the Christians were not worthy of his criticism. If he condescended to write a treatise against the Gnostics, why did he not deign to spend a passing thought upon the larger and more important body of orthodox Christians?

The very fact that direct reference to Christianity can nowhere be found, although its indirect influence seems to be distinctly traceable in Plotinus' system, points towards intentional concealment of his obligations on the part of the writer. Indeed, it may even be said that Plotinus is specially careful to avoid using Christian terminology where he approaches most nearly to Christian doctrines. Thus it is difficult to believe that Plotinus' doctrine of Mind is not connected with Philo's speculations on the Word (Logos). In both alike we find the distinctive theory that the Platonic Ideas, in accordance with which the visible world was formed, are contained in this principle. Yet Plotinus studiously avoids using the term Logos as the title of the second principle of his trinity. Now it is not easy to see why Plotinus, whilst using Philo's doctrine should thus avoid Philo's terminology, unless he had some reason for so doing: and the simplest explanation is that the word Logos had in his view been so contaminated by Christian associations that he preferred to avoid it altogether, and to go back to the term of the old Greek philosophy. His practice throughout suggests that the adoption by the school of the position of apologists for the old religion was not a later development, but an essential characteristic of Neoplatonism. The method changed as time went on. Plotinus endeavored to secure his aim by haughtily ignoring the Christians: Porphyry condescended to make'a literary attack upon them: Hierocles would not trust to literary weapons alone, and supplemented the pen with the sword: but the attitude of the school remained the same throughout.

If this view be correct: if Neoplatonism was from the first an endeavour to justify on its own merits the existence and the supremacy of the old system, it is not surprising that the search for the direct use of Christian doctrines by the Neoplatonists has been productive of such very scanty results. They naturally preferred not to parade any obligations to their opponents under which they might labour: they sought out from earlier systems of philosophy those elements which were in keeping with the spirit of their day, and carefully concealed the principles upon which their selection was based. Just as Philostratus and Julia Domna had corrected and improved the Gospel story, so Plotinus edited and retouched Christian theology in the light of Platonic philosophy.

1.

It is then hardly surprising that we can find no reference to Christianity in the writings of Plotinus. But if we attack the problem from the other side, and seek to discover traces of the use of Neoplatonism by Christian writers, it is possible that better results may be found. The third century was a period in which Christian speculation was unusually free, and the great Alexandrine Fathers had no hesitation about turning to Christian use the resources of pagan philosophy. We have already remarked the free use which Clement of Alexandria makes of the writings of Plato and Philo: let us now compare the positions of Plotinus and Origen. In both alike we see an attempt to reach a plane of philosophical agreement above all religious controversy, far removed from all superstition and ritualism, be it Christian or pagan. Yet their attitudes are perfectly distinct. Origen, when pressed, is essentially a Christian. He accepts with the fullest reverence the Christian scriptures. If he pleads for freedom to indulge in mystical speculation, he is ready to acknowledge the claim of the ordinary man to be as truly a member of Christ's Church as himself; moreover, as a theologian, he does not often permit his philosophy to appear.

Plotinus on the other hand is essentially a philosopher writing to philosophers. The audience to whom he speaks is small and select: in the ordinary man he takes no interest whatever. Religion in the popular sense is a subject which he avoids: "the gods must come to me, not I to them", was his reply when Amelius invited him to accompany him to a sacrificial feast, and it exactly expressed his attitude to the popular system. He had no great love for polytheism, but he thought it the most convenient system for the mass of mankind, and endeavored to point out a philosophical basis upon which it might be supposed to rest.

Turning now to a more detailed comparison of the doctrines of Plotinus and Origen, we notice in the first place that a considerable mass of teaching was common to them both. The main features of this common teaching, together with the doctrines added thereto in Christian theology, are admirably summarized in the Confessions of St Augustine. Writing about the Neoplatonist books of which he was at one time a student, he tells us that he found in them, not indeed the words, but the substance of much of the Christology of St Paul and St John, with, however, serious gaps. The great eternal verities described in the opening verses of St John's Gospel he found set forth by the Neoplatonists, but all that brings the Christian into close personal contact with the Eternal Son of God was omitted.

" For that before all time and above all time Thy Only-begotten Son abideth unchangeable and co-eternal with Thee, and that of His fulness all souls receive, in order that they may be blessed, and that by participation of Thy eternal wisdom they may be renewed in order that they may be wise,—this is there. But that in due time He died for the ungodly: that Thou sparedst not Thy only Son, but deliveredst Him up for all,—this is not there."

It is much the same with the other great articles of the Christian faith. The Unity and the Goodness of God, and even in some sense the three Persons of the Holy Trinity are doctrines upon which the Neoplatonist, no less than the Christian theologian, lays much emphasis. But the love of a heavenly Father for His children, and the idea that the very highest of all Beings could be approached by the humblest of mankind, are thoughts which we find in Christian writers alone.

In addition to this partial identity of teaching, there was some similarity in the methods employed by Origen and the Neoplatonists. For example, Origen was at one, if not with Plotinus himself, at least with the general practice of the school, in attaching the highest importance to the allegorical method of interpretation. The use of allegorical interpretation was not new. It had been employed by many earlier writers, pagan, Jewish, and Christian alike, and it arose, not from the particular tenets of any one school, but from the difficulty which inevitably arises, when books written in one period and at one stage of civilization come to be accepted as sacred, and invested with special reverence by later generations whose civilisation is more advanced.

But although the mystical method of interpretation was not peculiar either to Christianity or to Neoplatonism, the extent to which it was employed by both alike calls for at least a passing reference. The difficulty mentioned above was felt severely by the early Christians. They had adopted the Old Testament in its entirety: they gloried in the link thus obtained with an almost prehistoric antiquity: but they found themselves in consequence confronted with difficulties which their enemies were not slow to turn to account. If the Old Testament was the Word of God, why did the Christians set aside the whole of the sacrificial enactments of the Law? If God, in the Old Testament, be a Being Whose attributes are Justice, Mercy, and Goodness, what explanation can be given of such texts as "I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation"; or again, "There is no evil in the city which the Lord hath not done?"

In the same manner, educated heathens were brought face to face with problems of a similar kind. If the various local divinities were all different manifestations of the same God, or members of a vast host, who all owned one supreme deity as their Lord and Master, how was it that Homer described the Gods as quarrelling and even fighting one with another? The time had not yet come either for the Christian to speak of a "progressive revelation", or for the heathen to work out a theory of the evolution of a gradually deepening conception of the deity. Accordingly, both alike took refuge in the allegorical method of interpretation, and, once introduced, both alike employed it freely, even in cases where there was no difficulty to be solved. If Origen's explanation of the water-pots at Cana appears to us to be far-fetched and unnecessary, Porphyry's account of the Nymph's Grotto affords a parallel instance on the other side.

But the resemblance between Plotinus and Origen is not limited to their general similarity of standpoint or of method. Definite points of contact, which may be grouped in three classes, are to be traced in the positive teaching of both alike. In the first class we may place the doctrines which are not specially characteristic of the teaching of either Origen or Plotinus, the retention of which serves only to increase the general similarity between the two systems. In the second class may be placed those instances in which there is real harmony between them on points of importance, whilst the third class contains cases in which it would appear that the teaching of Origen, without being identical with that of Plotinus, has been distinctly influenced by Neoplatonic theories. We cannot here do more than refer to one or two examples of each class, but the question is one that deserves more attention and more detailed study than it has hitherto received.

An example of the first group may be found in the view, taken by both alike, that the stars are living beings possessed of souls. Strange as it sounds to modern ears, this doctrine was by no means new, and as his authority for its truth Origen refers, not to Greek philosophy nor even to Philo, but direct to the Old Testament. Instances of this kind are perhaps of small individual importance, but they increase the bulk of teaching common to both systems—a point that must not be lost sight of, if we are to gain an adequate conception of the relations between them.

More important however is the second class, of which two or three examples may be quoted. The pre-natal existence of the soul is a doctrine which Origen may have derived either from Greek or from Jewish sources: it is even possible to quote the New Testament in support of it. But the theory of the transmigration of souls is one of those bolder flights of imagination which are so characteristic of Origen and it is moreover in the fullest harmony with Neoplatonic thought. We may however observe that whereas Plotinus, in a section that recalls the famous passage in Plato's Republic, accepts the possibility of human souls passing into the bodies of lower animals, Origen explicitly denies that such a thing is conceivable. It may be added that in later years Proclus adopts the same position as the Christian Fathers, and interprets the story of Er the Armenian allegorically.

Another instance of the same kind is to be found in the view held by Origen that evil is non-being. In his exposition of the third verse of St John's Gospel, he endeavors to support his interpretation by adducing a number of passages from both the Old and the New Testament: but it is obvious that the conception of evil as "that which is not" is derived, not from Scripture, but from philosophy. Origen is careful however to stop short of the view that "that which is not" is identical with matter, or of allowing his philosophy to carry him into any form of Gnosticism.

The third group is perhaps the most interesting of all. We have here to deal, not with direct imitation or adoption of Neoplatonic theories, but with their indirect influence upon doctrines essentially Christian, and to point out how far this influence tended to prevent the Christian teaching, and how far it served to bring out more fully its deeper meaning.

There is in Origen's commentary on St John's Gospel a passage so remarkable as to be worth inserting in full. Speaking of the relation between the Son and the Holy Spirit, Origen says: "Perhaps we may say even this, that in order to be freed from the bondage of corruption, the creation, and especially the race of men, needed the incarnation of a blessed and divine Power which should reform all that was on the earth: and that this duty fell, as it were, to the Holy Spirit. But being unable to undertake it, He made the Saviour His substitute, as being alone able to endure so great a struggle. And so, while the Father, as Supreme, sends the Son, the Holy Spirit joins in sending Him and in speeding Him on His way: promising in due time to descend upon the Son of God, and to co-operate with Him in the salvation of mankind."

The boldness of this conception is astounding, and it is clear that no orthodox writer could have ventured a century and a half later to declare one Person of the Holy Trinity to be thus inferior to another. For it is to be noticed that although the Holy Spirit joins in sending the Son and in speeding Him on His way, He does so in consequence of His own inability to perform the office which had fallen to Him. We are not however now concerned with the orthodoxy of Origen's view, but with the source from which it is derived, and if we admit that "Origen was deeply influenced by the new philosophy, which seemed to him to unveil fresh depths in the Bible," the answer to this question is not far to seek. In the Neoplatonic trinity the difference between Mind and Soul is accentuated by the fact that the latter has elected to become united with the world of phenomena. Such union could not but incapacitate soul for the work of redemption, since it is clear that the redeemer must be free from the defects and limitations of that which he redeems.

If this explanation be correct, the case is one in which Origen was led by his Neoplatonist tendencies into something very like heresy. But the passage passed unnoticed. The need for defining the relations between the Persons of the Holy Trinity was not yet felt, and more than a century had still to elapse before the doctrine of the Holy Spirit attracted much attention.

It is only fair to add another instance, in which Origen's view, fiercely opposed during his lifetime and for many years after his death, is nevertheless in complete agreement with modern thought.

To the Christian and to the Neoplatonist alike, the consummation of man's existence is ultimately to be found in assimilation to God. It is true that this is not a doctrine which was borrowed by the Church from the Neoplatonists: on the contrary it is possible that Neoplatonism was in this matter affected by Christian influences. But the form in which it was cast by Origen may be in part due to Neoplatonism. Thus we notice the earnest protest which Origen makes against the extremely literal interpretation current in his day of the doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body. There will be, he says, a resurrection body, for incorporeity is the prerogative of God alone, but we have St Paul's authority for saying that it will differ from our present body alike in form and in composition as widely as the full grown plant differs from the seed. And this conception of a body, differing indeed from that which we now possess but united to it by the continuance of personality, he fortifies by a reference to the Many Mansions in our Father's House. These are, he maintains, a number of resting places in a continual upward progress, each of which throws a flood of light upon the stage through which the soul has passed, and opens up a new vision of greater mysteries beyond. So we are led on to Resurrection, Judgment, Retribution and final Blessedness, each of which Origen describes in careful accordance with the words of Scripture. Thus the Resurrection body, instead of being gross and material, will be of fine incorruptible texture, whilst the complete identity of each person will be preserved. Judgment and Retribution are not arbitrary acts of a capricious tyrant but the unimpeded action of divine law and the just severity of a righteous king; and the final Blessedness so far from being a state of indolent repose will be a vision of divine glory, with an ever growing insight into the infinite mysteries of the divine counsels.

It is true that there is no Neoplatonic doctrine that Origen can here be said to have adopted, and in some particulars he is following in the steps of Clement of Alexandria. Yet it is difficult to believe that his insight is wholly unconnected with the teaching of Plotinus, that "the soul aspires to freedom from the trammels of matter, and that rising ever to higher purity it ultimately comes to nothing else except itself; and thus, not being in any thing else, it is in nothing save in itself." In this way, untrammelled by Neoplatonic dogmas, yet filled with the spirit of reverent speculation which prompted them, Origen has succeeded, "by keeping strictly to the Apostolic language, in anticipating results which we have hardly yet secured." In truth it was by no mere accident that Justinian, who closed the Neoplatonic school at Athens, was also the Emperor who procured a formal condemnation of Origen.

2.

We cannot however linger over this early period of alliance, but must pass on to the period of direct antagonism, inaugurated by Porphyry and closed by Julian. The struggle thus occupied almost a century, and the plan of campaign was not always the same. Each of the great Neoplatonist leaders, Porphyry and Iamblichus, Hierocles and Julian, had his own characteristic method of dealing with the problem, and it is our task to describe what these methods were, and what the resulting attitude of contemporary Christian writers.

The attitude of Porphyry, alike towards Christianity and towards the popular religion, has already been described, together with the treatise in which the supporters of pagan ritual defended their position. It will be well to remember that much of the language there applied to pagan divinities and pagan ceremonies might with slight modifications be employed with reference to the more mystical side of Christianity. Thus Origen, in his Commentary on St John's Gospel, had already said that we must rise from practical to theoretical theology, and he had moreover in other points anticipated the writer of the De Mysteriis. He speaks of the Unity of God and the diversity of His powers, and adduces scriptural proofs for the existence, below God, of gods, thrones, "Sabai" and the like. In the second book of his Commentary he elaborates his system yet further. The highest being is Absolute God, after Whom come successively the Word, the various Images of God, represented by the sun, moon and stars, and lastly the beings who are gods in name but not in reality. Corresponding to these orders of beings we find a variety of religions. In the lowest class are the worshippers of daemons or idols: in the next, those who worship the powers of nature, but are yet free from idol-worship: above them come the ordinary Christians who "know nothing save Jesus Christ and Him crucified," who are, that is, incapable of rising from the adoration of the Incarnate Word to that of the Eternal; whilst the highest class consists of the favoured few to whom the Word of God has come, and who are capable of worshipping God alone, without the mediation even of the Incarnate Son.

These classes of worship are described as though they were definitely crystallized forms of religion. Origen makes it clear however that they are also stages in men's religious education; that men can and do pass from one to another of them, and that, in order to reach the highest form of worship, each individual must pass through one at least of the lower. To this highest class none but the highest spirits can attain during this present life, but Origen clearly believes that in some future state of existence all men will ultimately be brought into complete communion with God. The whole of his teaching upon this subject is closely allied to that of Philo, who maintains that astronomy has played an important part in the religious education of mankind.

It may of course be said that Origen's philosophy is as essentially a philosophy of the few as that of Plotinus himself. That is in a sense true, for the inner circle to whom his mystical teaching is addressed can never have been large. At the same time there is a difference between Origen and Plotinus, for whereas the latter addresses himself solely to philosophers, Origen never entirely loses sight of the needs of the ordinary Christian. He usually inserts a simple exposition of each text for the benefit of the "man in the congregation" before entering upon the more imaginative speculation which he considers necessary for the full interpretation of scripture.

The De Mysteriis marks the second stage of the struggle between Church and School. In this stage the plan adopted was not that of attacking the new system, but of strengthening the old. Between Porphyry and Hierocles we hear of no Neoplatonist who wrote against the Christians, the energies of the school were devoted rather to the defence and elaboration of theurgical practices.

The next writer of importance with whom we have to deal is Eusebius. His twofold relation to Neoplatonism has been mentioned above, so that we need not here do more than refer to passages in his works which bear out what has already been said. The references to Porphyry in the Ecclesiastical History give us Eusebius' estimate of him as the opponent of Christianity, who employs abuse instead of argument, and falsifies the story of Ammonius Saccas in order to prove the superior attractions of paganism. In the earlier books of the Praeparatio Evangelical we find Eusebius criticizing Porphyry as the apologist of paganism; pouring contempt on his justification of the use of images, or on his endeavor to account for the existence of the world by means of deities who are themselves dependent upon this world for their very existence,

On the other hand, when dealing with Neoplatonism apart from questions of religious controversy, Eusebius shows a distinct sympathy for the teaching of the school. Of this sympathy one or two examples will here suffice, although it would not be difficult to increase the number. The opening chapter of the Praeparatio Evangelica has about it an undoubted ring of Neoplatonism. Eusebius describes the blessings promised by the Gospel as including "all that is dear to the souls that are possessed of intellectual being," whilst his definition of the true piety, and his reference to the "Word sent like a ray of dazzling light from God" recall to our minds the phraseology of Plotinus. In the later books the indications of sympathy are yet more marked. He speaks for instance of the Platonists as foreshadowing the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, and quotes Plotinus upon the immortality of the soul.

Before passing on to the Emperor Julian, a word must be said about the attitude of Athanasius towards Neoplatonism. Into the larger question of the Arian controversy we cannot enter: we can only note in passing that the point at issue was no mere theological quibble: it was the question, whether in spite of the victory of Christianity over paganism, a new polytheism was yet to be allowed to crush the life out of Christian teaching, or whether the Church was strong enough to bear the strain of finding her ranks suddenly swelled by throngs of new converts each of whom brought with him a certain residuum of pagan ideas. The influence of Neoplatonism upon the course of the controversy seems to have been less than we might have expected: it does not appear that the Arians as a party made use of Neoplatonic doctrines, or that, even at the height of the controversy the orthodox party broke away from all contact with the school.

In his Oration against the Gentiles Athanasius speaks in terms which remind us of Origen or Eusebius, so completely does he reproduce in Christian form the teaching of Plotinus. The following may serve for an example, "for when the reason of man doth not converse with bodies, then hath it not any mixture of the desire which comes from these, but is wholly at one with itself, as it was at the beginning. Then, passing through sensible and human things it becomes raised up, and beholding the Word, sees in Him also the Father of the Word, delights itself with the contemplation of Him, and continually renews itself afresh with the longing after Him: even as the Holy Scriptures say that man (who in the Hebrew tongue was called Adam) with unashamed boldness maintained his mind towards God, and had intercourse with the saints in that contemplation of intelligible things, which he held in the place figuratively termed by Moses Paradise."

This extract will be sufficient to show that the greatest of the Nicene Fathers was thoroughly in sympathy with the higher side of Neoplatonism, a fact which goes far to explain the absence of appeal to Neoplatonic doctrine on the part of his opponents. To confront the teaching of the New Testament with that of Plotinus would be to abandon all claim to be considered Christians, and without doing this it was difficult to show themselves more in sympathy with Neoplatonism than the orthodox party.

3.

We now reach the last great effort that was made by the Neoplatonists to oust Christianity from the position which it had won, and to restore the old pagan system in its stead. With regard to the philosophy of Julian something has been said in an earlier chapter; it remains to discuss briefly his attitude towards the Church. His aversion to Christianity is not difficult to explain. The faith reached him through the agency of insincere teachers: it was tainted with Arianism, and poisoned by association with the name of Constantius. On the other hand paganism could now appeal to his sympathy as a persecuted religion: it brought with it all the attractions of Greek poetry and Greek philosophy, and was in fact associated with all that was bright in the recollections of his boyhood. From professed adherence to Christianity he passed through Neoplatonism to an attachment to paganism, at first concealed, but after his cousin's death openly avowed.

What then was the policy which Julian adopted towards Christianity? Persecution, so far as was possible, he avoided, but all methods of checking Christianity short of persecution he welcomed. He wrote against the Christians, he forbade Christians to teach the classics, and more striking than either of these methods, he endeavoured to remodel paganism on Christian lines. In his seven books against the Christians he seems to have argued against Christian refusal to recognise the inherence of evil in matter, to have quoted a number of passages from the Old Testament to prove the immorality and impotence of God, and to have subjected the New Testament to the same unsparing criticism. He utterly failed to understand Christianity, and he allowed his prejudice against it to influence the whole of his writings on the subject.

The educational edict was no less a part of the attempt to restore paganism. If the old religion was to recover its ground, it was needful to help it to make a start, and the manifest unfairness, in Julian's eyes, of allowing the classics to be taught by those who refused to accept the gods in whose honour they were written, seemed to justify this ingenious measure of repression. It was doubtless intended to aid the side of paganism by giving a pagan bias to the whole of the higher education of the Empire as well as by conferring a valuable monopoly upon pagan teachers.

But the most interesting of all Julian's actions were his endeavors to reform paganism. He recognised the enormous superiority of the Christians, in their general standard of morality and in the organization of their Church. In both points Julian attempted to learn a lesson from his opponents. "He introduced an elaborate sacerdotal system. The practices of sacred reading, preaching, praying, antiphonal singing, penance and a strict ecclesiastical discipline were all innovations in pagan ritual. Added to these was a system of organized almsgiving like that to which Julian attributed so much of the success of Christianity; with the proceeds temples might be restored, the poor succoured, the sick and destitute relieved. Nay, if Gregory's words are more than rhetoric, even monasteries and nunneries, refuges and hospitals, were reared in the name of paganism."

The attempt however failed. Julian had over­estimated the power of heathenism as much as he had underestimated that of Christianity. He hoped that by extending to paganism that patronage which had for the last forty years been given to Christianity, the old religion would be able to assert itself and eject the usurper. But it was too late, and Julian's effort proved to be, not as he had hoped, the dawn of a new day, but the last flicker of paganism before its lamp went out for ever.

4.

We have now endeavored to trace the attitude of Neoplatonism towards Christianity from the time of Plotinus to that of Julian. Sometimes the Church was treated by the School with disdainful silence: sometimes there was an outbreak of open antagonism; but the official attitude, if we may use the term, was never friendly. At the same time there are several instances of individual pagans who were first attracted by the teaching of the Neoplatonists, and who passed from that to a belief in Jesus Christ, finding in the Gospel something which satisfied them in a way which the abstract teaching of philosophy was unable to do. Such a man was Hilary of Poictiers. Born in Western Gaul at the very beginning of the fourth century, he was well educated like many other provincials of his day. He learned Greek, and in his earlier manhood he studied Neoplatonism; and thus in middle life he approached Christianity. We cannot say whether it was before or after his conversion that he became acquainted with the works of Origen, but at some period he appears to have been a careful student, not of Origen only but of Clement and even of Philo. The way in which he was led on from Neoplatonism to Christianity may best be described in his own words: "While my mind was dwelling on these and on many like thoughts, I chanced upon the books which, according to the tradition of the Hebrew faith were written by Moses and the prophets; and found in them words spoken by God the Creator, testifying of Himself I AM THAT I AM, and again HE THAT IS hath sent me unto you. I confess that I was amazed to find in them an indication concerning God so exact that it expressed in the terms best adapted to human understanding an unattainable insight into the mystery of the divine nature. For no property of God which the mind can grasp is more characteristic of Him than existence, and it was worthy of Him to reveal this one thing, that HE IS, as an assurance of His absolute eternity."

Nor does Hilary stand alone, as an educated pagan who passed through Neoplatonism to Christianity. Born half a century later, in 354 AD, at Thagaste in North Africa, Augustine travelled on almost the same road. He differed indeed from Hilary in that his mother was a Christian, so that he "sucked in the name of Christ with his mother's milk," but Monnica, though a saint, was not an intellectual woman, and for many years she had little influence over her brilliant but wayward son. He followed his own bent. Questions of one kind and another soon began to trouble him, and first of all he turned to the Manicheans for an answer. They offered to solve one half of his difficulties by sweeping away the Old Testament with all its problems, and the other half by declaring that the world is as bad as it can be, so that no man is responsible for his own sins. But Augustine could not rest satisfied with this creed for long. His own common sense, and the evil lives of some of the Manicheans, decided him to seek for something better: and in his twenty-ninth year, when lecturer in Rhetoric at Milan, he began to apply himself closely to the study of Neoplatonism. This cleared away his intellectual difficulties, but still it failed to satisfy him. The Neoplatonic conception of sin as a pure negation which does not really affect the inner life and soul of the sinner, and which can be driven out of the system by a course of discipline, he felt to be incomplete: and the sermons of Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, drew him on to a fuller understanding of the depth and comfort of the Christian faith. So he passed on to his baptism at the age of thirty-two, and four years later he was ordained. In 395 he was consecrated Bishop as coadjutor to Valerius, after whose death in the following year he became Bishop of the diocese of Hippo. This office he continued to hold, up to the time of his death in 430 AD.

It will be well to consider the case of Augustine a little more closely, for we are fortunate in possessing ample evidence as to the effect produced by Neo­platonism upon his life and thought. We have in the first place the detailed account of his conversion written by himself in the Confessions and we also find in his later writings a mass of material out of which to form an estimate of the permanence of the mark left by Neoplatonism upon his theology.

Neoplatonism, as we have seen, was the half-way house at which Augustine made a& stay between Manicheism and Christianity. At the time of his baptism, and indeed for some years after, its influence upon him was very strong, but gradually his feeling of obligation to the school faded away, and in his later writings we sometimes find him using stern language about the dangers of philosophy. There was however one lesson of enduring value which Augustine owed to the Neoplatonists. It was to them that he owed his first grasp of the doctrine of the Being of God. From the Neoplatonists he would learn about the transcendent greatness of God, how God is so entirely beyond our knowledge that. it is better to confess ignorance than rashly to claim that we comprehend Him. It is impossible to describe Him in positive terms, and all that we can do is to define in some directions what He is not. Thus God is simple and unchangeable, incorruptible and eternal, untrammelled by limitations of time and space, ever present, yet always in a spiritual, not in a corporeal sense, infinitely great, infinitely good, infinite in His power and justice. And it is to be noted that not only is Augustine's teaching about the Being of God similar to that of Plotinus, but that there is a close parallelism between the arguments and illustrations whereby the two writers seek to establish their respective positions. It is not too much to say that in this department of theology, Augustine's expression of his doctrine was largely coloured by the writings of Plotinus which he had studied.

But Christian doctrine and Augustinian theology carry us beyond bald statements about the attributes of the Deity, and it will be well for us to compare the teaching of Augustine with that of Plotinus on the subject of the Trinity. There is of course at first sight an obvious similarity between Neoplatonism and Christianity in this matter. Both alike speak of the Supreme Being as in some sense threefold. Both alike insist on Existence and Unity and Goodness as the absolute prerogatives of the ultimate source of all being. There is moreover a close resemblance between the terms Mind and Word, Soul and Spirit, which they apply respectively to the second and third manifestations of the One Deity. At the same time, a very little examination will make it plain that this resemblance is only superficial. The very word Subsistence, which is applied by both to the Persons or Principles of the Trinity, is used in different senses. In the writings of Plotinus, it signifies substantial existence, and when the Neoplatonists distinguish between three Subsistences in their trinity, they are emphasizing the very doctrine which the orthodox party in the Arian controversy strained every nerve to refute— the doctrine that there is a difference of substance between the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. On the other hand, when a post-Nicene Father employs the term, he signifies by it a Person, and this in turn is what Plotinus refused to predicate of his first Principles.

And when we go further, and compare the two doctrines in detail, we cannot fail to be struck by the utter absence of love in the Neoplatonic system. Not only is The One absolutely impersonal, but it takes cognizance of nothing except itself. It is true that Mind emanates from The One, and in due course Soul emanates from Mind, but in each case, the superior principle entirely ignores the existence of that below, and looks simply and solely to itself and to that above. There is thus no thought of the mutual Love which subsists between the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity, and the three principles of Neoplatonism are subordinated one to another, and are in no sense coeternal together and coequal. The only real identity of teaching lies in this, that Christian and Neoplatonist alike emphasize the Unity of God, and both alike hold that this unity somehow admits of plurality, and that there is some kind of Trinity connected with the Supreme Being.

It may be remarked that the Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity is anterior to the rise of Neoplatonism, so that it is not to be imagined that the Church derived her teaching from the philosophers. At the same time it is possible that the writings of Philo and the Neoplatonists helped the Christian Fathers to clear their ideas, when it became necessary to expand and define the doctrine of the Church. There is of course a difference between the stand-points of the two, for the Christian dogma is not a philosophical thesis but a verity of revealed religion. But in maintaining the philosophical reasonableness of the doctrine, the Christian apologist found an ally in Plotinus, for part at all events of the struggle; and of his help Augustine is willing to avail himself so far as it goes.

We next pass on to the relations between God and the created world. In the view of Plotinus and of Augustine alike, the world is the result of God's action: but there their agreement ceases. We have seen that the Neoplatonic principles are devoid of love; they are no less devoid of will. It is true that the intelligible world owes its origin to Mind and the physical world has been derived from Soul, but neither of these creative acts is an expression of the will. Each world is rather the inevitable result of the goodness of the creator, the necessary shadow or reflection of the infinite. Plotinus compares the creating principle to a spring or to the life in a tree, and creation to the ripples on the surface of the water, or to the twigs and branches in which the life gives evidence of its presence. To Augustine on the other hand there is no question of necessity or inevitability. The world is in a real sense created, not generated; it owes its existence to the Will of God, and it was made out of nothing. There is in fact no need for the interposition of a series of links between God and matter. We find then in Plotinus three subsistences, emanating one from another, and giving birth to the world by the sheer necessity of their nature, and in Augustine, the creation of the world by the voluntary act of the One God, freely done out of His loving kindness towards His creatures. It remains to compare the teaching of Plotinus with that of Augustine upon the problem of evil. According to Plotinus, the source of evil in the world is to be found in the inherent qualities of matter. Matter contains elements of change and decay, and it is therefore the absolute antithesis of true existence or goodness. And just as the world contains elements of good, because it has come into existence through the inevitable working of the goodness of Soul, so, taking as it does its visible form from matter, it contains no less inevitably elements of evil. At the same time, evil is devoid of real existence—it is in fact but a lesser degree of good—so that the physical world, albeit imperfect, is still a true copy of the intelligible. Indeed the world as a whole is good and happy, and it is as foolish to condemn the whole because parts are faulty, as it would be to condemn the whole human race because it produced a Thersites. Now man's sinfulness is the necessary result of his bodily nature, but this union of soul and body is not entirely evil. In spite of the tendency to sin, human liberty is safeguarded, for the soul is capable, if it chooses, of detaching itself from the sensible world and turning back towards the intelligible, nor can the body prevent it from so doing. It is therefore possible for man, by a long course of self-discipline, to purify himself, and to rise at last into union with The One.

These views of Plotinus made a profound impression on the mind of Augustine. Not only had he himself passed through Manicheism in his earlier years, but after his conversion he was still engaged in combating Gnostic dualism. And in discussing the problem of evil, no less than in maintaining the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, he was always ready to make use of such help as Neoplatonism could supply. Nor was it difficult for him to do so. Church and School alike based their teaching on the doctrine that the world owes its existence to the goodness of God, and in this particular connection there was no need to draw attention to the difference between Generation and Creation. Accordingly Augustine makes free use of statements and illustrations which recall the teaching of Plotinus. He reminds us that there is abundant evidence of God's good providence in the world, and asserts that the world is indubitably the work of a perfect craftsman. Yet the fact remains that we see evil all around us. How can this be explained? We see it because the world, though good, is not perfect. If it were perfect, it would be incorruptible: were it not good it would be below the possibility of further corruption. And evil, in spite of appearances to the contrary, is devoid of true existence: for, if it possessed true being, it would of necessity be good.

Again, like Plotinus, Augustine is confident of the ultimate triumph of good, and like him too he suggests that evil may even be regarded as a factor in the progress of mankind. Poverty and sickness are sometimes conducive to the well-being of the body, and it may be that our sins actually conduce to the progress of the universe. At this point however the Christian Father is faced with a problem from which the heathen philosopher is free. If this view be correct, if evil actually leads us on towards good, why does God punish the guilty? Augustine parries the question by answering that it is the sin that is punished, whilst it is the soul that makes the progress. Indeed it is this system of reward for good and punishment for sin that enables the universe to be as perfect as it is. For sin is not truly natural to us, but a voluntary affection of our nature, and in the same way punishment must be regarded, not indeed as natural, but as a penal affection consequent upon sin. The key to the whole problem of evil is found by Augustine and Plotinus alike, in the unbroken chain of causation which we see in the universe. Nothing comes to pass by mere chance: everything is the result of some cause, and everything too produces its own effect. We must not then complain blindly against the existence of sin, for sin is the result of free will, and without free will man would be less perfect than he is. Indeed the world would fall short of its present perfection, were it not composed of many different elements, some of them higher in the scale of being and some lower. We must not complain because the earthly sphere is not on the same level as the heavenly, but we might reasonably complain if there were no heaven for us to gaze at from earth. Evil then has a legitimate place in the world, but it is simply a negation, a falling short of the highest possibilities.

There is of course another great section of Augustine's work to which no reference has as yet been made—his controversy with the Pelagians upon the question of Original Sin. But a full discussion of this subject would carry us far beyond the scope of the present essay, and it will be sufficient to note that Augustine's view of original sin does not appear to be connected with Plotinus' account of the contamination of the soul due to its descent into matter. But enough has been said to indicate the extent to which Augustine was indebted to the Neoplatonists and the points at which he found their system defective. It was to him a temporary shelter, where he could release himself from the entanglements of Manicheism and make ready for his final conversion to Christianity. But, that conversion once effected, the influence of Neoplatonism declined. There was indeed no sudden break, and to the end of his life Augustine did not disdain, when necessary, to borrow a weapon from the Neoplatonic armoury. But the system ceased to excite his enthusiasm: it had done its work, and after that it failed to satisfy Augustine as it failed to conquer the world.

5.

In the earlier part of the present chapter, an attempt has been made to trace the influence which was brought to bear upon the leaders of Christianity by the great representatives of Neoplatonism. It will be well for us, before going further, to consider the influence, less direct but not less important, which Neoplatonism exercised upon the development of Christian thought through the writings of its greatest Christian exponent. The name of Origen has always possessed a remarkable fascination for churchmen of every school, and this fascination is due to a variety of causes. It is in part due to the unique position occupied by Origen in ecclesiastical speculation. There cannot fail to be something interesting about a writer who is denounced as the father of Arianism, and who yet finds a champion in Athanasius. But it is due no less to the simple holiness of his ascetic life, the memory of which survived for centuries, even among those who looked on him as a dangerous heresiarch. "There is a perplexed controversy" writes a German chronicler of the fifteenth century, "in which sundry people engage about Samson, Solomon, Trajan and Origen, whether they were saved or not. That I leave to the Lord."

The position and the teaching were not long suffered to pass unchallenged. Even before his death in 253, attacks were made upon him by Demetrius, Bishop of Alexandria, who seems twice to have procured his condemnation. On the first of these occasions there was no direct reference to doctrine, the charges preferred dealing simply with the irregularity of Origen's ordination to the Priesthood. It is however possible that questions of doctrine formed part of the second attack, when a gathering of Egyptian Bishops declared that his ordination was to be considered null and void. But this sentence, although it is said by Jerome to have been ratified by the Bishop of Rome, carried but little real weight. It merely reflected the personal feelings of Demetrius, and after his death it was soon forgotten. Heraclas, the successor alike of Origen at the Catechetical School and of Demetrius as Bishop of Alexandria, did nothing to express his approval or disapproval of the condemnation, but Dionysius, who followed Heraclas in both offices, openly defended Origen's teaching and character, and in particular maintained stoutly the value of allegorical interpretation. Among those who came after him at Alexandria may be mentioned the names of Theognostus, who wrote several books in imitation of the De Principiis, and Pierius, whose support of Origen's views, alike on the subordination of the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son, and on the pre-natal existence of the human soul, earned for him the name of "the Second Origen."

But whilst at Alexandria the influence of Origen soon reasserted itself, there were other quarters in which attacks were made upon his teaching. The treatise published by Methodius of Patara has already been mentioned. This was immediately answered by Pamphilus and Eusebius, who set to work in 306 to compile a defence of the impugned doctrines. It is not necessary to enter into the details of their argument: suffice it to say that, whilst maintaining the general orthodoxy of Origen in matters of faith, they admitted that in cases where the church was silent, he had indulged in speculations of varying merits. Such tentative theories, however, must not be placed on a level with statements of doctrine, nor was it fair to stigmatize their author as heretical.

It has been remarked in an earlier chapter that the direct influence of Neoplatonism upon the Arian controversy was less than might perhaps have been expected. At the same time, the struggle had not gone far before the name of Origen was dragged in. He was denounced by many of the orthodox party as the father of Arianism, and the Arians were, for the most part, ready enough to claim his authority for their doctrine of the Logos. At the same time there were curious exceptions to this rule. Aetius, an Arian writer, attacked both Origen and Clement, and on the other side Athanasius defended Origen, and maintained that the view of the Logos set forth in his writings was orthodox. It is true that there were speculations and suggestions of which Athanasius could not approve, but his doctrine was in the main sound, and his life had been that of a holy and wonderful saint.

A few years later, in the middle of the fourth century, there appears on the scene the little band of Cappadocian Fathers, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa. All three were enthusiastic students of Origen, and the two former edited in his defence the series of extracts from his writings known as the Philocalia. It may be of interest to add an account of the teaching of Gregory of Nyssa, in order to illustrate the extent to which the Cappadocians were indebted to their master, and the modifications which the lapse of a century had brought into his system. According to Gregory, Philosophy is not identical with Theology, nor yet on an equality therewith; it rather occupies the position of handmaid. The teaching of Plato can indeed be employed in the defence of Christianity, against polytheism, but there are times when it is necessary for us to leave the Platonic car. He adopts Origen's view that evil is non-being, and he very nearly identifies the principle of evil with matter. God, from Whom all goodness flows, is unchangeable, but the act of creation was itself a change from non-existence into being, and it therefore leaves a possibility of change in its results. On the other hand, Gregory seldom refers to the Neoplatonic distinction between intelligible and sensible, and prefers to make use of the Christian distinctions between Creator and created, Infinite and finite.

In thus attempting to set forth Christian doctrines in a philosophical form, it was inevitable that Gregory should be in some sense the pupil of him who had led the way in this branch of research, and to whom the existing vocabulary of Christian philosophy was due. Hence we are not surprised to find that Gregory adopts and approves of the allegorical method of interpretation. But in other matters we find him introducing changes into his master's system. Thus he combats Origen's theory of the pre-natal existence of the soul, accepting the traducianist view, that the world of spirits was created in idea at the beginning, but that each individual soul comes into existence like the body by generation. So too in the case of the resurrection of the body. Gregory partly adopts Origen's teaching, and partly modifies it, and asserts that creation is to be saved by man's carrying his created body into a higher world.

There is then plenty of evidence of the popularity of Origen's writings in the Eastern Church, and of the influence which they exerted. At the same time there was no lack of opposition. Epiphanius, the "sleuth-hound of heresy" was on his track, and made no less than four separate attacks upon his doctrine. His objections fall into three classes, attacks on the alleged Arian tendencies of Origen's teaching, attacks on his psychology, and attacks on the allegorical method of interpretation. But the object of the present section is not so much to give a history of the Origenistic controversies, as to trace out the power and influence of Origen's writings, and therefore we must turn back for a moment, and mark the spread of these doctrines among the Latin-speaking Christians of the West.

The days had long since passed away when Greek was the natural language, in which to address the Christians of Italy, and, although there were of course exceptions, the majority of Western Christians read Greek philosophy and theology only through the medium of Latin translations. Thus it was in Victorinus' translations that Augustine first read the works of the Neoplatonists1, and in the prefaces to Jerome's commentaries we find references to those Christians who are unable to read Alexandrian theology in the original tongue. Accordingly, at the beginning of the fourth century there was but little real knowledge of Origen in the Western Church, although there was some uneasiness about the views ascribed to him. But in the latter part of this century, two scholars set themselves to translate his works into Latin for the benefit of their fellow-countrymen. These were Jerome and Rufinus, who had gone to Palestine to preside over monasteries at Bethlehem and on the Mount of Olives respectively. Jerome is said by Rufinus to have translated no fewer than seventy of Origen's treatises, and several of his extant works, for instance his Commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians, are largely derived from this source Nor had Jerome, at this early period, any hesitation about defending Origen against his detractors. In a letter to Paula written in 385 AD, he declares that these attacks are due, not to love of orthodoxy, but to envy of the Alexandrian Father's genius.

But soon there comes a change.In 392 an Egyptian monk named Aterbius visited Jerusalem, and accused Rufinus of heresy, on account of his support of Origen. This accusation caused Jerome considerable alarm, and when, two years later, Epiphanius followed with a yet stronger indictment, Jerome declared himself the opponent of Origen's doctrine. Rufinus on the other hand stood firm. He published translations, first of the Apology of Pamphilus and Eusebius, and then of Origen's De Principiis, and begged his readers to disregard the cry of heresy, and to learn the truth for themselves. At the same time, he tried to reassure them by declaring his own firm belief in the Holy Trinity and in the resurrection of the body, and by asserting that the heretical passages in Origen's works were later interpolations.

It would be a thankless task to discuss in detail the long and wearisome controversy which followed. Both Jerome and Rufinus allowed themselves to be so far carried away by the heat of the conflict as to forget the moderation which their position as theologians of the Christian Church demanded. The victory rested with the opponents of Origen. Anastasius, Bishop of Rome, after an examination, not indeed of the whole of Origen's works, but of a series of excerpts forwarded to him by the partizans of Epiphanius, formally condemned his writings, and reprimanded Rufinus. The later stages of the quarrel assumed a political rather than a theological character, and need not detain us. But the whole controversy shows the importance of the position which Origen was felt to occupy in Christian speculation, and the interest that was taken in his writings. Even after his condemnation there were probably many like Theophilus of Alexandria, who continued to read his works "culling the flower and passing by the thorn." Nor must the influence of the Latin translations be forgotten, for even if the works of Rufinus were regarded with disfavour, there was no such stigma attaching to the earlier writings of Jerome, several of which were largely based on Origen.

It is pleasant to turn from the polemics of Epiphanius and Jerome to one of the most delightful characters of the ancient world. Of Synesius the philosopher something has been said in the last chapter: we are now concerned with Synesius the Christian. It is not easy to assign a date to his conversion. He married a Christian lady, perhaps in 403 AD, and it is probable that three out of his six Christian hymns were written before 406. It is thus reasonable to suppose that he was converted four or five years before his elevation to the Episcopate in 409. But at a yet earlier date, during his visit to Constantinople, we find him ready to pray in the Christian Churches, and it is probable that he had scant sympathy with those Neoplatonists who still indulged in theurgy, and opposed Christianity. It has been suggested that his conversion was brought about by two main causes, "a deepening sense of his own difficulty in keeping clean from matter, and a growing sympathy for the needs and sorrows of common people." In other words, he learned by experience the defects of unaided Neoplatonism; its inability to raise man to the high standard which it set forth, and its lack of a message for any but the intellectual few.

At the same time Synesius felt no difficulty in maintaining his philosophical tenets side by side with the Christian faith. His friendship with Hypatia was interrupted only by death, and in spite of the recent controversies, he boldly proclaimed his Origenistic sympathies before he would permit himself to be consecrated Bishop of Ptolemais. He refused to give up his belief in the pre-natal existence of the soul, in the eternity of the world, and in Origen's doctrine of the resurrection of the body. "If I can be Bishop on these terms, philosophizing at home and speaking in parables abroad, I accept the office...What have the people to do with Philosophy? Divine truth must be and is rightly an unspeakable mystery." He adopts in fact the position of Origen, respecting the claim of the "man in the congregation" for recognition as a true member of the Church, but reserving, for himself and those like him, the right to maintain an esoteric doctrine to which ordinary persons could not attain. Happily for the people of Ptolemais, and happily too for the Church, Theophilus of Alexandria was willing to accept him on these terms, and to consecrate the man who so boldly maintained the doctrines which he had himself elsewhere endeavoured to stamp out.

We must not linger over the history of Synesius' episcopate. As our knowledge of the man would lead us to suppose, it was marked by a courageous championship of the poor and suffering, an unflinching determination to attack and reprove wrong doing in high places, and a readiness to protect the former wrong doer when he in turn was threatened with injustice. Synesius died at some date between 413 and 431, and our knowledge of the Church over which he presided comes to a close.

6.

It now remains to add some account of the two writers through whose works the ideas of Neoplatonism continued to influence men's thought during the Middle Ages. Both of them were acute thinkers, strongly influenced by the school of Proclus: one seems to have been a monk, connected probably with Edessa, and living at the close of the fifth century; the other was one of the most famous scholars and statesmen of the early decades of the sixth. The name of the statesman was Boethius, the name of the monk is unknown, but his works were published under the pseudonym of 'Dionysius the Areopagite.'

Let us first turn to 'Dionysius'. We find the earliest mention of his writings in 533 AD when an appeal was made to their authority by the Severians, a monophysite sect at Constantinople. The appeal was disallowed by the orthodox party on the ground that a work of the Apostolic age which was unknown to Cyril and Athanasius was hardly to be considered authentic. But before many years had elapsed the writings won their way to wide-spread popularity.

It is true that Photius, in the ninth century, pointed out that the books were unknown to Eusebius and the early Fathers, and that they contained various anachronisms. But this criticism came too late to interfere with the influence and authority of 'Dionysius.' For two centuries and a half the books had been quoted with respect by many Greek writers, and in 827 AD, fifteen or twenty years before the date of Photius' objections, a copy of the writings presented by Michael the Stammerer to Louis I of France had been enshrined with much ceremony in the Abbey of St Denis, where the Areopagite was reputed to have been buried. From that moment their position in Europe was secure. Not only did the works of 'Dionysius' exercise a considerable influence upon Joannes Scotus in the ninth century, but from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries they formed the subject of a whole series of commentaries and translations, written by eminent scholars and ecclesiastics of the day. It was only after the Renaissance that the doubts about their authenticity were revived, and the Dionysian origin of the books finally disproved.

It was not without reason that the unknown author assumed a title which suggested the combination of Christianity with Greek philosophy. In the four great treatises which are still extant we find a careful attempt to show that the teaching of Proclus and the teaching of the Church supplement and illuminate each other. In the first treatise, On the Heavenly Hierarchy, 'Dionysius' describes a mighty series or system of creatures, called into existence by God, and together forming an immense ladder of being, stretching down from God's throne. At every stage in this series there is a certain knowledge of God attainable by the faithful worshipper, at every stage too it is possible for him to climb to the stage above, where he will gain a closer fellowship with the Supreme Being. Man is but one link in this mighty chain, and man's view of God is necessarily incomplete. Man is finite and God is infinite, so that man can only speak and think of God in finite and imperfect terms. Yet man's knowledge of God, though incomplete, is not necessarily false, for God reveals Himself to man, alike in the world around us, and by special means which He has employed at various times; and if man makes use of these opportunities, God will lead him on to something higher.

We need not linger over the details of the Heavenly Hierarchy, or follow 'Dionysius' as he traces out the functions of the nine orders of angels. We pass on to the treatise On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy. Here we learn that there is on earth an image or reflection of the great system in the heavens. It stands on a lower level than its heavenly counter­part, just as the material world in which we move is on a lower level than the spiritual world in which the angels have their being. Yet the Church, the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, is none the less divine in origin, and it has a mighty task entrusted to it. It is the task of bringing salvation to men and to those above us,—a salvation that consists in being made like God. The doctrines of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy have been enshrined in Holy Scriptures, which are themselves inspired by God ; its organization, and the sacraments and other services which it employs, symbolize for us various aspects of its fellowship with God. The writer then proceeds to describe in detail various sacraments and ordinances of the Church, adding in every case an explanation of the symbolism.

The object of the third treatise, On the Divine Names, is to show that, while we cannot know God entirely as He is, we are yet able, by the right use of our powers and opportunities, to obtain a partial knowledge of Him. We must begin by asserting the Unity of God. God is above all One; all that exists comes from Him, and was therefore itself originally one. And when creation comes to that perfection for which God has designed it, it will be completely at unity with itself and with Him. But while it is easy to assert the Unity of God, it is not possible to comprehend it. For the Unity of the infinite God is beyond all mind, and most of all is it beyond the comprehension of our minds. At the same time there are names which we are right in applying to God, not because they give a complete description of God, but because they are true so far as they go, and describe Him so far as we are able to do so. Some of these names apply to the whole Godhead, for instance Being, Goodness and the like. Others, as Father, Son, Word, Spirit, apply to particular Persons. But both sets of terms are true, and both are inadequate, since they only express God in terms suitable for our limited understandings.

The next great characteristic of God, after His Unity, is His Goodness. Just as the sun, because it is the sun, shines on all alike, so God, because He is God, extends His love to all His creatures. There is no corner of creation beyond His reach: there is no creature to which He is not ready to show Himself a loving Father. Or, in other words, "Everything that is is from the fair and good, and is in the fair and good, and turns to the fair and good." But if this be so, what are we to say about evil? The answer is that evil, as such, has no real existence. It is a falling short, a failure to reach the full development of which this or that creature was capable. Evil objects exist in abundance, but they owe their existence to the fact that they all partake in some measure, however small, of good. Evil itself is a falling short, and it therefore varies according to the peculiar character of every object in which it is said to occur. It springs from defects of many different kinds, as free beings fail in one way and another to reach the development for which God intended them, "But," says 'Dionysius,' "God knows the evil as it is good." He looks, that is, not at the extent to which this or that being has fallen short of His design, but at the extent to which it is fulfilling it. And it is because to some extent, however small, the evil powers are working for good, that He allows them to continue. In the case of man the matter is further explained by this, that God has given man freedom of choice, and He respects the free will that He has given. He will not compel man to be good by force.

But a further question arises. If evil has no real existence, and if the sinner is to some extent working out God's purpose, why does God punish him? It is because God gave the sinner power to do a great deal more than he is doing towards carrying His purpose into effect, and He punishes the negligence which the sinner's free choice has caused. 'Dionysius' then goes on to show that all creation is in harmony with God. The purpose for which it was made, and the gradual realisation of that purpose both owe their existence to God, and are derived from Him.

In the last treatise, On Mystical Theology ' Dionysius' tries to carry us a little further. He endeavors to enable the reader to rise above the world that we can see and touch and think about, and to secure a truer knowledge of God by laying aside every form of thought or expression which seems to limit Him to the things of this world. In the work On the Divine Names the method employed is for the most part affirmative. The writer takes the names which describe God's nature and expounds their meaning. In the present work the negative method naturally predominates, and God is described, not by the attributes which He possesses, but by the limitations from which He is free.

The style of 'Dionysius' is wearisome and verbose, and it is easy to quote phrases and paragraphs which appear to the modern reader to be meaningless jargon. But the foregoing summary will suffice to show that 'Dionysius' made a real contribution to human thought, and that apart from the title which he assumed, his works contained a living message for those who could understand them.

The personal history of 'Dionysius' can only be pieced together from the internal evidence of his writings. With Boethius however the case is different. His father, Aurelius Manlius Boethius, held various important posts under Odovacar, rising to the consulship in 487 AD. Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius was born in or about the year 480, and though he was yet a mere child when his father died, he was carefully educated by his kinsmen Festus and Symmachus. He learned Greek and was soon attracted by Greek works on science and philosophy of all kinds, many of which he translated for the benefit of his Latin-speaking contemporaries. He also wrote several commentaries on the works of Aristotle, and composed a series of Theological Tracts in which he attempted to apply philosophical methods to the current doctrinal controversies. Boethius must have become acquainted with Theodoric soon after that Emperor's arrival in Rome in the year 504: for we find him elected Sole Consul in 510, and he enjoyed the Emperor's favour long enough to see his two sons elevated to the Consulship in 522. But suddenly his fortune changed. An injudicious speech in praise of old Roman freedom awakened Theodoric's suspicions: Boethius was arraigned and imprisoned, and after being condemned by the Senate he was tortured and put to death with a club.

During his imprisonment he wrote five books On the Consolation of Philosophy. In the first book he describes himself in the prison, weeping and striving in vain to distract his thoughts by writing verses. Suddenly there appears before him the stately figure of Philosophy. She is a woman, venerable in appearance yet ever young, clad in a robe of her own weaving, holding a book in one hand and a sceptre in the other. She drives away the Muses, and stays herself to comfort the prisoner. In the remainder of the work Boethius tells how his mysterious visitor reasoned with him, brushing aside his anger against Fortune, who is a true friend only when she frowns: showing how insufficient are the aims which most men seek to achieve, and pointing out that while the triumph of the wicked in the world is always more apparent than real, their punishment is swift and inevitable. This leads on to a discussion about the difference between Providence and Fate, and the relation of both to the divine Simplicity: and the work closes with an elaborate discussion of man's free will, as it exists side by side with the fore­knowledge of God.

It is remarkable that in this work the leading ideas of Christianity should be almost entirely omitted. There is no reason to suppose that Boethius was a heathen. The Theological Tracts show clearly enough that he was well acquainted with western theology; and yet in the books with which he solaced the dreariness of his imprisonment there is no word about a Redeemer. The standpoint from which he writes is throughout that of the Neoplatonist, and the references to Christianity are few and far between. Are we to suppose that Boethius had given up all faith in the Gospel and turned instead to the consolations of Philosophy? Yet if that were so we should expect to find some expression of disappointment or bitterness against the support that had failed him. Another explanation has however been suggested. The style of the treatise is throughout cold and formal, and it may be that it was written, like the verses which Boethius was composing when Philosophy appeared, merely to while away the tedious hours of confinement. If this be so, we should be mistaken in regarding the work as the expression of Boethius' ultimate grounds of confidence, and must look on it rather as a task undertaken in order to distract his attention during a time of suspense. If this theory be accepted, the treatise loses somewhat in reality, but we have at the same time a key to a problem which might otherwise be difficult to solve.

The popularity of Boethius in the Middle Ages was extraordinary. It would be difficult to find a secular writer whose works were more often translated or more widely read. In our own land his influence is to be traced in Beowulf, the earliest of Anglo-Saxon epics (c. 800 AD), whilst the Consolation of Philosophy was translated or paraphrased by King Alfred (878), and in later days by Chaucer (1340-1400). Nor were other countries less willing to do him honour. Between the eleventh and the fourteenth centuries translations of the Consolation were published in France, Italy, Germany, Spain and Greece, and indirect references are to be found in many poems and romances as well.

The fame and influence of 'Dionysius' and of Boethius alike, have long since died away. There are few persons of ordinary culture today who could if asked either tell the names or describe the contents of their writings. Nor is the reason difficult to find. They transmitted to the Middle Ages something of the spirit of Greek philosophy, and in so doing they conferred a great and lasting benefit. But when in the fifteenth century learning revived, and men began once more to study the Greek classics for themselves, the lustre of 'Dionysius' and Boethius was bound to wane. They had done their work, and when the literature from which their inspiration was derived came to be widely known and read, they relapsed into comparative obscurity.

It is impossible, within the bounds of this essay, to trace the influence of Neoplatonism upon mediaeval and modern thought. The speculations of Joannes Scotus, and their reception by the theologians of his time, the rise of the Cambridge Platonists in the seventeenth century, the attention that is paid today, alike to Plotinus and his school, and to the Christian Fathers who in part reflect their teaching, show clearly that the force of Neoplatonism did not perish when Justinian closed the lecture-rooms. But these themes, attractive and fascinating as they are, would carry us far beyond the limits of the present work.

Two questions however remain upon which a few words may be added. What caused the failure of Neoplatonism to hold its own against the spread of Christianity, and what was the contribution that it made to the development of Christian theology? To the first of these questions the answer would seem to be, that Neoplatonism even in its highest and purest form, was incapable of answering all the questions which man seeks to solve. It dealt exclusively with abstract Principles. It spoke of a supreme Being, but never of a personal God. It told of beauty and goodness, but never of love. And therefore it failed to claim the allegiance of the whole man. It was in fact throughout an intellectual system, and it could never satisfy the cravings of the human heart.

But, with regard to the second question, it would be a mistake to suppose that Neoplatonism made no contribution to Christian theology. "In divers portions and in divers manners, God spoke in time past to the fathers in the prophets." Little by little, as man was able to receive it, the message was given. And, though the revelation was completed once and for all, in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, it was still necessary for its content to be worked out and assimilated. And Neoplatonism, under the guiding hand of God, helped to bring out some aspects of the truth which might otherwise have long remained unnoticed. The earliest Christians, trained under the strict discipline of the Jewish law, had received definite teaching about the unity and the eternal existence of God. They knew that the world was made by Him, and that it is not co-extensive with Him. They knew also that He is not the author of evil, and that the evil in the world is not destined to be eternal. But soon the Gospel spread to men and races unfamiliar with these doctrines, and there was a danger that they would be allowed to lapse. It was the task of the Neoplatonists, through the Christians who came under their influence, once more to draw men's attention to such truths as these, and to prevent them from falling into oblivion. This was its work in the third and fourth centuries, when so many of the doctrines of Christian theology were taking definite shape. And its reappearance from time to time in the ages that have followed has served as a witness that the eternal verities are still beyond human comprehension, It reminds us that our theology should be a living organism, that we must not be contented merely to, repeat the formulae of an earlier age, but strive constantly after fuller knowledge and closer fellowship with the Divine.