practices. To all these Iamblicus gladly opened the door. Rather than a philosopher, he was a priest, a thaumaturgist and magician. Finally, it is obvious that neither Iamblicus nor Porphyry nor Plotinus was primarily or even seriously interested in any clear objective knowledge of material facts. Plotinus merely noticed them casually in order to illustrate his principles, while Iamblicus looked to them for miracles.
Christianity as well as Neo-Platonism was an expression of the principle that life's primordial reality is spirit. And likewise with Christians, as with Neo-Platonists, phases of irrationality may be observed in ascending and descending order. At the summit the sublimest Christian supra-rationality, the love of God, uplifts itself. From that height the irrational conviction grades down to credulity preoccupied with the demoniacal and miraculous. Fruitful comparisons may be drawn between Neo-Platonists and Christian doctors.[1]
Origen (died 253), like Plotinus, of Coptic descent, and the most brilliant genius of the Eastern Church, was by some fifteen years the senior of the Neo-Platonist. It is not certain that either of them directly influenced the other. In intellectual power the two were peers. Both were absorbed in the higher phases of their thought, but neither excluded the more popular beliefs from the system which he was occupied in constructing. Plotinus had no mind to shut the door against the beliefs of polytheism; and Origen accepted on his part the demons and angels of current Christian credence.[2] In fact, he occupied himself with them more than Plotinus did with the gods of the Hellenic pantheon. Of course Origen, like every other Christian doctor, had his fundamental and saving irrationality in his acceptance of the Christian revelation and the risen Christ. This had already taken its most drastic form in the credo quia absurdum of Tertullian the Latin Father, who was twenty-five years his
- ↑ All my Christian examples are taken from among the representatives of Catholic Christianity, because it was that which triumphed, and set the lines of mediaeval thought. Consequently, I have not referred to the Gnostics, not wishing to complicate an already complex spiritual situation. Gnosticism was a mixture of Hellenic, oriental, and Christian elements. Its votaries represented one (most distorting) way in which the Gospel was taken. But Gnosticism neither triumphed nor deserved to. It flourished somewhat before the time of Plotinus.
- ↑ See Origen, De principiis, iii. 2.
