ments, it draws its inspiration wholly from the philosophies
of the past, from the thought and culture of Greece. On the
whole, therefore, it is properly classified as the last school
of Greek philosophy.
The long interval of time which elapsed between the rise of
the preceding Greek schools, whose history we have traced,
and the foundation of Neo-Platonism, was filled up by the
continued existence, in more or less fossilized form, of the
main Greek schools, the Academic, the Peripatetic, the
Stoic, and the Epicurean, scattered and harried at times by
the inroads of scepticism. It would be wearisome to follow
in detail the development in these schools, and the more or
less trifling disputes of which it consists. No new thought,
no original principle, supervened. It is sufficient to say that,
as time went on, the differences between the schools became
softened, and their agreements became more prominent. As
intellectual vigour wanes, there is always the tendency to
forget differences, to rest, as the orientals do, in the good-
natured and comfortable delusion that all religions and all
philosophies really mean much the same thing. Hence eclec-
ticism became characteristic of the schools. {370} They
did not keep themselves distinct. We find Stoic doctrines
taught by Academics, Academic doctrines by Stoics. Only
the Epicureans kept their race pure, and stood aloof from
the general eclecticism of the time. Certain other tenden-
cies also made their appearance. There was a recrudescence
of Pythagoreanism, with its attendant symbolism and mys-
ticism. There grew up a tendency to exalt the conception
of God so high above the world, to widen so greatly the gulf
which divides them, that it was felt that there could be no
community between the two, that God could not act upon
matter, nor matter upon God. Such interaction would con-
taminate the purity of the Absolute. Hence all kinds of
beings were invented, demons, spirits, and angels, intended
to fill up the gap, and to act as intermediaries between God
and the world.As an example of these latter tendencies, and as precursor
of Neo-Platonism proper, Philo the Jew deserves a brief
mention. He lived at Alexandria between 30 B.C. and 50
A.D. A staunch upholder of the religion and scriptures of
the Hebrew race, he believed in the verbal inspiration of
the Old Testament. But he was learned in Greek studies,
and thought that Greek philosophy was a dimmer revela-
tion of those truths which were more perfectly manifested
in the sacred books of his own race. And just as Egyp-
tian priests, out of national vanity, made out that Greek
philosophy came from Egypt, just as orientals now pretend
that it came from India, so Philo declared that the origin of
all that was great in Greek philosophy was to be found in
Judea. Plato and Aristotle, he was certain, were followers
of Moses, used the Old Testament, and gained their wis-
dom therefrom! {371} Philo’s own ideas were governed by
the attempt to fuse Jewish theology and Greek philosophy
into a homogeneous system. It was Philo, therefore, who
was largely responsible for contaminating the pure clear
air of Greek thought with the enervating fogs of oriental
mysticism.Philo taught that God, as the absolutely infinite, must be
elevated completely above all that is finite. No name, no
thought, can correspond to the infinity of God. He is the