Chapter 31

CHAPTER XVIII

TRANSITION TO

NEO-PLATONISM

It has been doubted whether Neo-Platonism ought to be
included in Greek philosophy at all, and Erdmann, in his
“History of Philosophy,” places it in the medieval division.
For, firstly, an interval of no less than five centuries sepa-
rates the foundation of Neo-Platonism from the foundation
of the preceding Greek schools, the Stoic, the Epicurean,
and the Sceptic. How long a period this is will be seen if
we remember that the entire development of Greek thought
from Thales to the Sceptics occupied only about three cen-
turies. Plotinus, the real founder of Neo-Platonism, was
born in 205 A.D., so that it is, as far as historical time
is concerned, a product of the Christian era. Secondly,
its character is largely un-Greek and un-European. The
Greek elements are largely swamped by oriental mysticism.

Its seat was not in Greece, but at Alexandria, which was

not a Greek, but a cosmopolitan, city. Men of all races met

here, and, in particular, it was here that East and West

joined hands, and the fusion of thought which resulted was

Neo-Platonism. But, on the other hand, it seems wrong to

include the thought of Plotinus and his successors in me-

dieval philosophy. The whole character of what is usually

called medieval philosophy was determined by its growth

upon a distinctively Christian soil. It was {369} Chris-

tian philosophy. It was the product of the new era which

Christianity had substituted for paganism. Neo-Platonism,

on the other hand, is not only unchristian, but even anti-

christian. The only Christian influence to be detected in it

is that of opposition. It is a survival of the pagan spirit in

Christian times. In it the old pagan spirit struggles desper-

ately against its younger antagonist, and finally succumbs.

In it we see the last gasp and final expiry of the ancient

culture of the Greeks. So far as it is not Asiatic in its ele-