A Dictionary of All Religions and Religious Denominations/Ammonians

by Hannah Adams

AMMONIANS, so called from Ammonius Saccas, who taught with the highest applause in the Alexandrian school, about the conclusion of the second century. This learned man attempted a general reconciliation of all sects, whether philosophical or religious; his creed was therefore a mixture of Christianity and oriental Philosophy, in which he was deeply skilled.

With regard to moral discipline, Ammonius permitted the people to live according to the law of their country, and the dictates of nature: but a more sublime rule was laid down for the wise. They were to raise above all terrestrial things, by the towering efforts of holy contemplation, those souls, whose origin was celestial and divine. They were ordered to extenuate, by hunger, thirst, and other mortifications, the sluggish body, which restrains the liberty of the immortal spirit, that in this life they might enjoy communion with the supreme Being, and ascend after death, active and unincumbered to the universal Parent, to live in his presence forever.^[1]

Original footnotes

1. Mosheim, vol i. p. 137—144.