'The Builder' Magazine Which Was Published Between January 1915 and May 1930
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Please do not assume that a book's appearance in 'The Builder' library means it can be used in any manner anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liability can be quite severe. The Webmaster I5-9E CHIEF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHIES. ^ NEOPLATONISM BY C BIQG, 13. D. CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD. : PUBLISHED UNDER. THE DIRECTION 4 OF THE GENERAL LITERATURE COMMITTEE. LONDON: SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, NORTHUMBERLAND W.C. AVENUE, ; 43; QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C BRIGHTON: 129, NORTH STREET. NEW YORK: E. & J. B. YOUNG & CO. 1895. RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED, LONDON & BUNGAY. CONTENTS CHAP. I. STOICISM 9 II. THE PYTHAGOREANS .27 III. THE PLATONISTS, ATTICUS, ETC. 46. IV. PLATONISTS, NIGRINUS, .DION CHRYSOS- TOMUS 63 V." PLUTARCH 81 VI. CELSUS ... 98 VII. THE NEOPLATONIC TRINITY ... 119 viii. "HELLENISM" IX. THE GNOSTICS AND APOLOGISTS X. THE ALEXANDRINES XI. PLOTINUS 1 80 XII. THE WORLD -OF SENSE I. ... 191 XIII. THE WORLD OF SENSE II. ... 201 XIV. THE INTELLIGIBLE WORLD ... 2I 3 XV. DOCTRINE OF GOD 225 XVI. GOD, HIS NATURE AND OPERATIONS ... 2 4 I XVII. MAN IN NATURE ... 25 1 XVIII. THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 259 Vlll CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE XIX. ETHICS ... 266 XX. ON BEAUTY 273 XXI. VISION ... 279 XXII. PORPHYRY 2 9 2 XXIII. IAMBLICHUS AND THE MEN OF JULIAN 302 XXIV. THE SCHOOL OF ATHENS ... ... 317 XXV. LATER INFLUENCE OF PLATONISM ON THE CHURCH ... ... ... 334 NEOPLATONISM STOICISM IN this little volume it is proposed to run over the history of the later Platonism, a large and intricate subject. But, narrow as are our limits, it is not possible to enter fairly upon the task without a brief review of Stoicism. This school of thought, the Porch, as it is often called, from the Painted Porch at Athens where its first professors lectured, was founded in the third century before Christ, by Zeno, Cleanthes and Chry- sippus, and was predominant in Rome from the time of Nero to that of Marcus Aurelius. It affected Platonism partly by direct influence, but still more by way of re-action. In the days of Epictetus, under the Flavian emperors, the only schools, that could be regarded as serious rivals of Stoicism in the capital, were the Academics and the Epicureans. Peripatetics, the disciples of Aristotle, were, he tells us, few and faint hearted Plato himself was hardly rea4 at all. 10 NEOPLATONISM The Epicureans were atomists in science, and utili tarians in morals. They taught that the world was made by the fortuitous aggregation of infinitesimally small particles of matter, and they admitted no standard of right or wrong but pleasure. They did not deny the existence of but held that gods ; they the gods were made in exactly the same way as everything else, and took no part whatever in the government of the " sat their " world. They around nectar," and lived a careless life." Hence the Epicureans were commonly regarded as atheists. The Academics, degenerate representatives of the Academy of Plato, were universal doubters. They had learned from Plato himself to distrust the senses, and from the conflict of opinions to distrust reason. Their maxim was, " Suspend thy " is judgment," or, as Pliny expresses it, only one thing certain, that nothing is certain." Epicureanism is not necessarily coarse. Men may " in of be utilitarians without being swine," spite Horace. But it is necessarily selfish and relative. Even of its modern social form the form given to it is differ in their ideas by Mr. J. S. Mill this true. Men of what is agreeable, and each is supreme judge in his own case. Hence, though the pursuit of pleasure may establish a coterie, it cannot build a society or organize a state. It is at this point that Epictetus attacks Epicurus. He charges him with denying the great moral truth of " the natural brotherhood of man with man." But now, he proceeds, see what happens ! These audacious thinkers, who would destroy the obvious and whole- STOICISM 1 1 some facts of human nature, are compelled by that very nature to assert the very facts which they deny. "What does Epicurus say? Do not be mocked, good people. There is no natural brotherhood between one reasonable being and another, believe me. Those who tell you this are deluding you. Well, but what does it matter to you ? Let us be deluded. Will you be any the worse off, if the rest of the world believes that there is a natural brotherhood, and that they ought zealously to cherish this faith ? Nay, it will be far better and safer for you. Good sir, why trouble your head about us ? Why lie awake for our sake? Why light your lamp, and get up early, and write books, lest we should be deluded into thinking that the gods care for men, or lest we should imagine that the Good is something else, and not pleasure ? If that be so, go to bed and sleep, live like the worm whose equal you make yourself; eat, drink, and snore. Why should you care what others think about these things? For what bond is there between us and you?" Epicurus takes pains to make people follow pleasure. Surely, says Epictetus, it is Nature herself who thus convicts him out of his own mouth. With the same weapon the Stoic smites the apostles of doubt. " If I were the slave of an I Academic, would plague him finely, though I were to be flogged for it every day of my life. Bring me oil, boy, he would say, for the bath. I would take fish-sauce, and pour it over him. What is this? he would cry. By my fortune, I would answer, my 1 2 NEOPLATONISM senses tell me that it is oil. Or again, Boy, give me my barley-water. I would bring him a bason full of brine. Did I not call for barley-water? Yes, sir, * this is barley-water. Is not this brine, sirrah ? * Why not barley-water ? Take it and smell it, cries he in a fury, take it and taste it. And what, if ? sir, is the good of that, our senses deceive us O, if I had three or four fellow-slaves of the same mind as rnyself, I would make him hang himself or recant." " " It is the same argument that coxcombs urged with a grin against the idealist Berkeley, and no doubt a man may question the existence of an objective cause of sensation without denying the reality of the sensations themselves. But these lively passages show very clearly the position taken up by Stoicism against its two most formidable opponents. The Stoic agreed with the Epicurean, that sense and reflection upon the data of sense are the two sources of all that we can be said to know. As against the Academic, he insisted that both can be trusted, if we have learned to use them aright. As against the Epicurean, he maintained that reflection on the order of nature teaches us that of man there is a God ; that reflection on the mind teaches us that it contains a faculty, the reason or con rule that reflection on life science, which ought to bear ; shows that we are social beings, owing certain duties to one another. The sum of these reflections is what the Stoic meant by nature. When he enunciated his " great maxim, Live according to Nature," he was not " of the " state nature of the French thinking of fhilosQ^ STOICISM 13 phe, still less of the animal instincts which we some times call natural.