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Plotinus,^[1] with sufficient completeness to be presented to the devout polytheist as a rule of life. In general conception, the new faith did not differ essentially from the scheme advanced by the founder of the Academy, but, with its deficiencies supplied from exotic sources, it was propounded solemnly as a theosophy which revealed the whole purport of human existence. As a practical religion, this revival, Neoplatonism by name, enjoined a purity of life which should free the soul from defilement by contact with the world, and allow it to coalesce with the divine potential whence it had emanated.^[2] The crowning allurement of the system was that this blissful conjunction might be attained by the fervid votary even during life. Those who had subjugated all their natural, and, therefore, evil passions, might rise by contemplation to an ecstatic union with the Deity, the transcendant

↑ Born at Lycopolis in 205; died in Campania, 270.
↑ There was no creed in Neoplatonism, and, therefore, what was believed has to be deduced from a study of the Enneads of Plotinus, so-called as consisting of a series of books, six in all, each containing nine treatises. The logical germ of the conception is that the One emits continually the Nous or intelligence; and the latter the Soul. The Soul animates the world, but becomes lost should it allow itself to coalesce with matter by yielding to sin. The subject has been treated exhaustively by Vacherot, L'école d'Alexandrie, Paris, 1846; and by Zeller, Philosophie der Griechen, iii, Leipzig, 1881. Neither of these works has been translated, but there is an excellent summary by Bigg (Neoplatonism, Lond., 1892), who has dealt with some phases of the movement at length in his Christian Platonists of Alexandria, 1886. According to Bigg's expression, the Christian Father, Clement Alex. (c. 190), "separated the thinker from the thought, and thus founded Neoplatonism." Numenius, who was, perhaps, a Jew, made some advances in the definition of the Platonic trinity; and Plotinus was accused of borrowing from him; see Bigg's latter work, pp. 64, 250, etc. Ammonius Saccas, a porter of Alexandria, was the teacher of Plotinus, and is considered to be the immediate begetter of Neoplatonism.

[1] Born at Lycopolis in 205; died in Campania, 270.

[2] There was no creed in Neoplatonism, and, therefore, what was believed has to be deduced from a study of the Enneads of Plotinus, so-called as consisting of a series of books, six in all, each containing nine treatises. The logical germ of the conception is that the One emits continually the Nous or intelligence; and the latter the Soul. The Soul animates the world, but becomes lost should it allow itself to coalesce with matter by yielding to sin. The subject has been treated exhaustively by Vacherot, L'école d'Alexandrie, Paris, 1846; and by Zeller, Philosophie der Griechen, iii, Leipzig, 1881. Neither of these works has been translated, but there is an excellent summary by Bigg (Neoplatonism, Lond., 1892), who has dealt with some phases of the movement at length in his Christian Platonists of Alexandria, 1886. According to Bigg's expression, the Christian Father, Clement Alex. (c. 190), "separated the thinker from the thought, and thus founded Neoplatonism." Numenius, who was, perhaps, a Jew, made some advances in the definition of the Platonic trinity; and Plotinus was accused of borrowing from him; see Bigg's latter work, pp. 64, 250, etc. Ammonius Saccas, a porter of Alexandria, was the teacher of Plotinus, and is considered to be the immediate begetter of Neoplatonism.

[1]

[2]