 Chapter 18. A History of Philosophy. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. History of Philosophy by William Turner. Chapter 18. Philosophy of the Romans. The Pythagoreans of Magna Grigia were the first to introduce Greek philosophy into Italy. Pythagorean philosophy, however, never took deep root in Roman soil. Indeed, although Pythagorean speculation flourished in Italy as early as the 6th century, it was not until the beginning of the 2nd century before Christ that Rome began to fuel the power of Greek literature and Greek art, and it was about the same time that the influence of Greek philosophy was first felt. That the Romans did not accept, without a struggle, this imposition of a foreign culture is evident from the fact that in 161 BC, residence in Rome was, by a decree of the Senate, forbidden to philosophers and rhetoricians. Later, however, the conquest of Greece and the military expeditions of Pompey, Caesar, Antony and Augustus broadened the minds of the Romans, rendered them susceptible to the beauty of Greek literature and led to the inflow of Greek learning and to the establishment in Rome of the representative teachers of Greek philosophy. Cicero was, therefore, contrasting his own age with the more conservative past when he said, Pilosofia Iacuitusque ad hanc eitatem. In accepting the philosophy of Greece, the Roman spirit asserted its practical tendency, selecting what was more easily assimilated and modifying what it accepted by imparting to it a more practical character. Thus it was the ethical philosophy of the Epicureans and Stoics and the eclectic systems of later times, rather than the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, that throw when transplanted to Roman soil. Cicero. Life. Marcus Julius Cicero is the best known representative of Roman ecleticism. He was born at Arpinum in 106 BC and died at Formier, 43 BC. He had for teachers Fidris the Epicurean, Philo of Larissa representing the New Academy, Diadotus the Stoic and Antiochus, an exponent of the later ecleticism of the Academy. In addition to the advantages to be derived from such a training, he possessed the knowledge, widely extended if not always accurate, of the philosophical literature of pre-Socratic and Socratic schools. He did not lay claim to any great independence as a philosopher, being willing, as he tells us, to take credit merely for the art with which he clothed Greek philosophy in Roman dress. In this self-appointed task, Cicero is not always successful, his account of the doctrines of the pre-Socratic philosophers being especially inaccurate. Sources. Cicero's principal philosophical works are Akademica, or Quaisiones Akademicae, Tusculana Disputationes, De Finibus, De Natura de Orum, De Oficis, De Diwinatione, Unfinished, De Repubblica, of which about a third part was discovered and published in 1822 by Cardinal May, Paradoxa Stoicorum, De Senectute, De Amiquitia, De Fatto. General idea of philosophy. Cicero describes himself as a member of the New Academy. His philosophy is, in point of fact, an eclecticism based on skepticism. So impressed was he with the war of philosophical systems that he despaired of arriving at certainty and was content to accept probability as the guide of conduct. But whenever he discovered that philosophical schools could be reconciled, he strove to coordinate the common elements into a system loosely connected, as is every system of eclecticism. Theory of knowledge. All our knowledge rests in ultimate analysis on immediate certainty, which is variously called Notiones in Natae, Notiones Noves in Citae, or since immediate knowledge is common to all men, Consensus Gentium. In the Tusculan Disputations, for example, Cicero speaks of the principles of morality as Inet, Sunt Enim in Geni Isnostris Semina in Natauirtutum. These elements of knowledge are antecedent to all experience. We have therefore, in Cicero's theory of knowledge, the first explicit expression of the doctrine of Inet ideas. Theological Notions. Cicero, in his proof of the existence of God, falls back on the Inet idea of God, the presence of which, in the minds of all men, is proved by the universality of the belief in a supreme being. He brings forward also the teleological argument in its stoic form, contending that the Epicurean doctrine of chance is as absurd as would be the expectation that the 21 letters of the Latin alphabet could, by being poured out at random, produce the annals of Ines. He attaches great importance to the doctrine of providence and of the divine government of the universe. Anthropology. With the belief in God is intimately associated the conviction of the dignity of men. The soul is of supernatural origin, animorum nulla in terris origo in veniri potest. It is different from matter. Still, Cicero does not altogether exclude the stoic idea of the soul as a fire-like substance. He teaches that the soul is immortal, having recourse to the Platonic arguments as well as to the inner conviction and universal consent. In his incomplete treatise, de facto, he proves the freedom of the will by similar arguments. Ethics. In this portion of his philosophy, Cicero is a follower of the eclectic stoics. On the one hand, he rejects the Epicurean doctrine that pleasure is the highest good, but when, on the other hand, he adopts the stoic doctrine of virtue, he is too much of a man of the world not to recognize that the stoic morality is too exalted or too severe to be applied to everyday life. Accordingly, he modifies the severity of stoicism by introducing the Platonic and Aristotelian teaching that honors, wealth, etc. are goods, although subordinate to virtue, which is the chief good. He teaches that, while virtue is sufficient for wittabeata, external goods are also necessary for wittabeatissima, a distinction borrowed from Antiochus of Escalon. The morally good, Honestum, is that which is intrinsically praiseworthy. Historical position. Cicero, as has been said, laid no claim to originality as a philosopher. He merely collected and assimilated the philosophical doctrines of the Greeks. He is the truest representative of the eclecticism of this period. Chief among Cicero's followers was Varo, 116-27 BC, Homsenica calls Doctissimos Romanorum. He was more famous as a scholar than as an independent philosopher. Like Cicero, he was a stoic and an eclectic. Unlike the other philosophers of Rome, Titus Lucretius Carus, 95-51 BC, is not an eclectic. In his poem Dererum Natura, he adheres closely to the doctrine of Epicurus. Under the first emperors, the School of the Sextians acquired considerable importance. The founder, Quintus Sextius, was born about 70 BC. He was succeeded by his son, under whose leadership the school came to include among its adherents Sotian, Celsus and Fabianus. Soon, however, it dwindled into the significance so that in Seneca's time it had entirely ceased to exist. From the few scattered utterances of the Sextians which have come down to us and from the account given by Seneca, it is evident that the teaching of the school was stoicism tinged in one or two points of doctrine with Pythagoreanism. In the first century of our era, there flourished in Rome an important branch of the stoic school. It included Lucia Zanaeus Carnotus, died AD 68, Alaspercius Flecus, AD 34-62, Lucia Zanaeus Seneca and his nephew, Marcus Zanaeus Seneca, AD 39-65. Seneca, the most important of these, was born about the beginning of the Christian era at Córdoba in Spain. He owed his philosophical training to the Sextians and other stoics. In AD 65, he committed suicide by order of Nero, whose counselor he had been. His writings possess great value as sources for the history of the stoic school. He agrees in all essentials with the early stoics, although in many points of detail, he follows the later representatives of the school, who modify the doctrines of Zeno and Chrysippus in more than one respect. Towards the end of the first century, Mussonius Rufus was distinguished in Rome as a teacher of stoic philosophy. He confined his teaching, however, more strictly than Seneca had done to the ethical application of stoicism. The most important of his disciples was Epictetus, the philosopher-slave, a Phrygian who lived in Rome from the time of Nero to that of Trajan, AD 117. The works entitled Diatribae and Anteerilion contain the discourses of Epictetus as written down by his disciple Arian. Epictetus defines philosophy to consist in learning what to avoid and what to desire. In accordance with this definition, he develops a system of practical philosophy teaching with the stoics that happiness is to be found in independence of external things. Closely allied to Epictetus is the emperor-philosopher Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, AD 121-180. His work, entitled Ta-eis Ealton, consists of aphorisms written down in the form of memoranda or notes for personal guidance. His teaching agrees with that of the stoics. He insists more than did the other stoics on the kinship of man to God. In order to secure happiness, man must lose his soul from the bonds of interest in things external and, retiring within himself, learn to become like to God by becoming resigned to the will of God and by loving all his fellow men, excluding neither the weak nor the ungrateful and hostile. Retrospect. The philosophy of the Romans reflects the essential traits of the Roman character. It is practical in its aims. It subordinates theoretical inquiry to problems of conduct, thus depriving itself of the power of systematic development and condemning itself to the circumscribed task of assimilating and applying what the Greek masters had taught. Character of Greek philosophy We have now reached the point whence we may look back over the whole course of the development of Greek speculation before we turn to the study of a new era in which Greek civilization and Greek philosophy came into contact with the religions of the East and were influenced by them. The civilization of Greece had a character peculiar to itself. The national spirit, to use a Hegelian phrase which dominated the life of the nation, determined the character of the literature, the art, the political institutions, as well as the philosophy of the country. What, then, is the character which the national spirit of Greece imparted to Greek philosophy? The answer to this question is best reached by a comparison of Greek with Oriental philosophy on the one hand and with medieval and modern philosophy on the other. Compared with Oriental philosophy, the philosophy of Greece is remarkable in the first place for its many-fold completeness. It contained in germ all the systems that were to appear in subsequent times. Scarcely a problem of speculative or practical philosophy failed to receive attention at the hands of the philosophers of Greece. Oriental speculation, on the contrary, being centered around a few problems of physics, theology, and ethics, fell far short of Hellenic speculation in breadth and completeness. In the next place, while Oriental thought was stagnant, producing throughout long ages of inquiry, not more than a few schools, and exhibiting in its development a certain language sameness, the course of thought in Greece was free and active, producing a variety of systems of speculation and manifesting all the freedom, force, and supple pliancy of the Greek mind. Finally, the comparison of Greek with Oriental philosophy furnishes an instance of the essential racial difference between Greece and the Orient. The East was ruled by metaphor, the Oriental mind being strangely averse to the direct and natural mode of expression. The Greek mind, on the contrary, abhorred all intricacy and metaphorical tortuousness. It went towards the truth with a directness and formulated conclusions with a boldness which may appear childish in the case of a Thales or an Anneximander, but which, nevertheless, must commend our admiration when we come to reflect how far Thales and Anneximander have advanced beyond the mythological concept of the universe. Completeness, productive activity, and directness are, therefore, the qualities which Greek philosophy exhibits when compared with the philosophy of the East. The comparison of Greek with modern philosophy suggests at the very outset the trait which is most distinctive of Greek civilization. Greek life, Greek art, Greek literature, and Greek religion were objective. Modern civilization, on the contrary, is more subjective than objective. To this general contrast of Greek life and modern life, the philosophy of Greece and modern philosophy offer no exception. At first, in the period of beginnings, Greek philosophy was entirely objective. In the second period, the period of greatest perfection, the subjective element in philosophical speculation received due attention. It was only the third period when philosophy began to degenerate that the subjective element became unduly prominent. In Greek philosophy, at the period of its greatest perfection in its golden age, we find the union of the subjective and objective elements, the belief in the continuity of the spiritual with the material, a continuity which is not incompatible with the distinction between matter and spirit. We find, too, the conviction that the inquiry into the conditions of knowledge does not destroy, but rather confirms the trustworthiness of our impressions of the external world. Modern philosophy, on the contrary, starts out with the supposition that there is an original antithesis between object and subject, between matter and mind, between the impression of sense and the verdict of pure reason. The Greek, even in his most abstract idealism, was never so abstract as the modern transcendentalist, and in his philosophical realism, he always knew how to stop short of the crudeness of materialism. Modern speculation has tended toward centralizing philosophy on self. The Greek always considered that other self, nature, is the chief subject of inquiry. In a word, Greek philosophy, at least in the golden age of its development, was more true to nature than modern speculation is. This fidelity to nature is, however, a source of weakness as well as of strength. The spirit of naturalness prevented the Greek from looking beyond nature for his ideal in art. It prevented him in his philosophy from carrying his theological speculations far enough to determine, for example, the notion of personality. It was left for Christian speculation to complete the work of Plato and Aristotle, and, by laboring in the Greek spirit of completeness and manyfoldness, to determine, as it did in the golden age of medieval philosophy, that faith and reason are at once distinct and continuous. In this way, Christian philosophy carried the Greek fidelity to nature into the region of the supernatural, refusing to admit an antagonism between these two phases of reality, the world of reason and the world of faith. Just as the Greeks had refused to admit the antithesis between mind and matter, which is the postulate of modern philosophy. Before we come to the philosophy of the Christian era, it is necessary to outline the rise and course of thought in the Alexandrian school, for it was in Alexandria that the ancient world first came into contact with the civilization of the new era. End of chapter 18 Chapter 19 of History of Philosophy This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. History of Philosophy by William Turner Section C. Greek Oriental Philosophy The Alexandrian Movement The scientific movement in Alexandria, of which mention has already been made, was but a phase of the general intellectual revival, which was centered in the capital of Egypt during the last centuries of the old era and the first century of the new. This revival may be said to date from the foundation of the city, 332 B.C., by Alexander the Great, who, owing probably to the influence of Aristotle, always held philosophy in the highest esteem and took a lively interest in the spread of philosophical knowledge. After the division of the Macedonian Empire, consequent on the death of Alexander, the Seleucidae in Syria, the Atalai in Pergamus, and the Ptolemy's in Egypt, continued to protect and encourage philosophy. The Ptolemy's were especially zealous in the cause of learning, and under a rule, Alexandria soon became the Athens of the East, the center of the intellectual, as well as of the commercial life of the Orient, and the point where the eastern and the western civilizations met. The famous museum, founded about the beginning of the third century before Christ by Ptolemy Sotr, was literally a home of learning, and the no less famous library, in all that was best in Grecian, Roman, Jewish, Persian, Babylonian, Phoenician, and Hindu literature. The protection and encouragement extended to learning by the Ptolemy's were continued by the Roman emperors after Egypt became a Roman province. From this intellectual movement, there arose a new phase of philosophical thought, which may be broadly characterized as an attempt to unite in one speculative system the philosophy of Greece and the religious doctrines of the Orient, an attempt which was rendered particularly opportune by a variety of circumstances. The Jews had settled in large numbers in Alexandria, and there was constant communication between Alexandria and Palestine, which was at the time dependent on Egypt. The translation known as the Septuagint had brought the sacred books of the Hebrews within the reach of Greek scholars, and Greek philosophy was not unprepared for the task of adjusting itself to the new ideas thus presented to the Greek mind. Indeed, Greek philosophy had reached the point where its own resources having been exhausted, it welcomed the inflow of new ideas to the east, which had ever been to the Greek imagination the home of the mysterious and the spiritual. Besides, the conviction was gaining ground that Greek philosophy and oriental religion had a common origin. What, therefore, could seem more natural than that the two should be reunited. Finally, the movement had a practical as well as a theoretical aim. It was hoped that the diffusion of the new religious ideas would bring about a reform of the popular religion. At the end of a generation of skepticism, such a reform was sadly needed. In the movement thus broadly characterized as an effort to reform the intellectual and moral life of the time by a synthesis of Greek philosophy and oriental religion, the religious element was naturally the dominant element, and the philosophy, which resulted was more properly a theosophy than a system of philosophies strictly so-called. In the stream of theosophical thought we may distinguish two currents. One, Greek-Jewish philosophy and two, Neopithegorianism and Neoplatonism. In Greek-Jewish speculation, Greek philosophy turned to the religious tradition of the East. In the Neopithegorian and Neoplatonic systems it turned rather towards a mystic enlightenment, a revelation of the deity to the individual soul. Chapter 19 Greek-Jewish Philosophy Greek-Jewish philosophy may be described as an effort to harmonize the sacred books of the Hebrews the tenets of Greek philosophy. The Jews of Alexandria were steadfast in the belief that their sacred books contain wisdom infinitely superior to the wisdom of philosophers. Yet they could neither resist the inroad of Greek culture and Greek philosophy, nor refrain from admiring the wisdom of the Greeks. They set themselves therefore the task of finding Plato in the law in Plato, being guided in the accomplishment of this purpose by some such principles as the following. 1. Revelation is the highest possible philosophy. It includes what is best in Greek philosophy. 2. The Greeks derived their doctrines ultimately from the Jewish scriptures or at least from Jewish tradition. 3. The difference between the revealed doctrines of the Jews and the philosophy of the Greeks consists chiefly in this that in the sacred books of the Jews truth is expressed in symbols and figures, whereas Greek philosophy puts the figure aside and sets before us the thought which the figure expressed. The practical conclusion of all this was the adoption by the Alexandrian Jews of the allegorical method of interpretation. Aristopolis around 160 BC was the first to apply these exegetical principles in a treatise of which some fragments are preserved by Eusebius. The first to build on them a system of thought was Phylo of Alexandria. Phylo Life Phylo was an Alexandrian Jew. Little is known of his life beyond the fact that in 8040 he was sent to Rome to represent his co-religionists in their contest with Apean. Sources Phylo's works composed in Greek are very voluminous. Besides these writings we have as sources of information the references which Eusebius and other writers of the early church make to the teachings of Phylo. General aim of Phylo's philosophy It was Phylo's aim so to expound the scriptures as to bring the revealed religion of the Old Testament into agreement with the philosophy of the Greeks and especially with Platonism, Aristotelianism and Stoicism. For to each of these systems he had recourse according as each in turn seemed best suited to the text under consideration. On account of this mixture of different elements it is impossible to find harmony or unity in his philosophical doctrines. God, the first cause is the starting point of Phylo's system. He is above all created things from his works we know that he exists but what he is is above our comprehension. He transcends all predicates except the predicate of being, Ho'on which he applied to himself I am who am. Nevertheless since men will speak of God after their own fashion he is called one unbegotten unchangeable free independent of all things. The world The Stoics thought that the world is God. Phylo teaches that it is the work of God. It is not eternal. It was made in time by God who wished by creating to manifest his goodness. God being supremely immaterial did not create the world by his own immediate action. He had recourse to the intermediate agency of certain powers djunamis which are described at one time as divine ideas and at another as agents, souls angels and demons. All these powers are comprehended in the divine logos. The logos This is one of the peculiar tenets of Phylo's philosophy. Phylo might have taken the platonic term idea to designate the logos. For his notion of the logos is more akin to the platonic world of ideas with another notion in Greek philosophy. He chose the word logos, however, because of the biblical use of the term in the expression word of God and because of the Stoic use of it in the phrase logos spermatikos. Indeed, the logos in Phylo's philosophy corresponds to the Stoic concept of a world soul as well as to the platonic world of ideas. Just as in man there are the extrinsic word and the indwelling reason so in the divine logos we may consider the logos endiathetos or aggregate of ideas in the divine mind which is divine wisdom and the logos proforikos or world soul which is divine power pervading all things and giving life to all. The logos then is the first begotten of God the son of God a. God with a capital G but not God himself. Its principal function is that of mediation like the high priest it stands between the creator and the creature. Phylo, however, fails to determine in any definite manner what the logos is in itself. The obscurity, the apparent contradiction of the expressions which he employs show how vague is his concept of the nature of the logos although he has a definite concept of its function. Anthropology In his doctrine concerning men Phylo distinguishes the ideal man made to the image in likeness of God and the men of our own experience in whom he makes a further distinction of rational natures. At times he elaborates this distinction still further teaching that there are 8 different natures in men. In speaking of the rational soul he renews the Pythagorean doctrine of transmigration the stoic doctrine of the kinship of the soul to God and the platonic doctrine of the soul's pre-existence. The soul of men does not differ from the angelic nature. In punishment for some original sin it was degraded to a union with the body which is its prison, its grave the source of all its ills and all its misery. Theory of Knowledge Phylo distinguishes 3 faculties of cognition Iestasis which has for its object the concrete and the sensible logos which is the reasoning faculty and noose which is the faculty of immediate contemplation of intellectual truths. Contemplation then is the highest kind of knowledge by it only can men attain absolute certainty. It is not however like reason and sense dependent on the natural powers of the mind. Its light is a light from above an illumination which God alone can give and which he gives through the logos to those who pray for it. The doctrine of mystical illumination leads to the ethical doctrine of mystical ecstasy. Ethics The body is constantly inclining the soul towards sin. Man's first duty is therefore to free his soul from the tramos of the body without the world of sense to acquire the apathy which the Stoics inculcated. His next duty is to rise from reason to contemplation until the soul at last becomes one with the divine wisdom and man and God become united in mystical ecstasy. In this ecstatic union consists the supreme happiness of man. Phylo, true to his oriental instinct places contemplation above action above the cardinal virtues which belong to the active life he places confidence in God, piety penance and contemplative wisdom. The possessor of this wisdom the truly wise is truly free. Wisdom rescues him from the dominion of matter. Historical position Despite the inconsistency of his doctrines, Phylo exercised a considerable influence not merely on the nostics of the first centuries of the church but also on the Jewish opponents of scholasticism during the Middle Ages. The most characteristic qualities of his philosophy are its spirit of mysticism its ethical quietism and its psychological and ethical dualism the separation of body and soul the presence of evil and of good in man. End of Chapter 19 Chapter 20 of History of Philosophy This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by David Brent History of Philosophy by William Turner Chapter 20 Neo-Pythagoreanism and Neoplatonism During the Greco-Oriental period of its history philosophy seemed to turn to the supernatural for light and assistance while, however Phylo sought to supply his supernatural element by bringing to bear on philosophical problems the whole wealth of Jewish religious ideas Neoplatonism looked for supernatural light not in any system of religion but in such communication with the divine as each man may by his own individual effort attain. In the Neoplatonic movement we may distinguish one the transition schools two, Neoplatonism in its earlier form three, the Syrian school four, the school of Constantinople five, the Athenian school six, the Alexandrian school One, transition schools The way was prepared for the Neoplatonic movement by Neop Pythagoreans and Pythagorizing Platonists who before the time of Plotinus agreed in admitting that philosophical knowledge is to be supplemented and perfected by communication with a more or less vaguely defined transcendent divine something The chief Neop Pythagoreans were Figurus 45 BC of whom Cicero speaks Apollonius of Tyana and Moderatus of Gades both of whom lived in Nero's time and Nicomachus of Gerazza who lived in the time of the Antonines The philosophy of the Neop Pythagoreans is a blending of Pythagorean traditions with Platonism, Aristotelianism and Stoicism The Neop Pythagoreans taught a highly spiritual notion of God in accordance with which they interpreted the numbers and the ideas of their predecessors to mean ideas in the mind of God They attached great importance to the spiritual elements in human life to mysticism ecstasy and prophecy and around the lives of Pythagoras and Apollonius they threw a halo of supernaturalism exalting these philosophers into ideals of human conduct into prophets and servants of God Of the Pythagorizing Platonists the best known or Eudorus of Alexandria died about 25 BC Thracilus died AD 36 Plutarch AD 50 to 125 Maximus of Tyre End of the second century Celsus the opponent of Christianity and Numenius End of the second century To this school belong also the so-called Hermetic books the writings of the pretended Hermes Trismegistus which date from the latter part of the third century and come apparently from an Egyptian branch of the school All these writers manifest an inclination on the part of the Platonists to admit the religious ideas of the east as supplemental to philosophy They lay stress on the antagonism between the spiritual and the carnal in man between the spiritual and the material in the universe and in order to bridge over the chasm between these antithetical elements they admit the existence of creatures intermediate between God and the material world 2. Neoplatonism in its earlier form Amonius Saccas AD 176 to 242 of Alexandria is regarded as the founder of Neoplatonism He did not commit his teachings to writing It is to his disciple Plotinus that we owe the first written exposition of his system Plotinus Life Plotinus a native of Lycopilus in Egypt lived from 205 to 270 In 253 he went to Rome for philosophy, the emperor Galienus and his wife Salonina In 263 he retired to Campania where he died 6 or 7 years later Sources Footnote For bibliography of Neoplatonism cross-reference Ritter and Prillo opposite page 519 AD Wittiker The Neoplatonists London 1901 End footnote The works of Plotinus consisted originally of 54 apostles After having, as some maintain undergone a previous recession at the hands of Eustochius these apostles were collected by Porphyry and arranged according to subject matter in 6 Enneads Doctrines General character of Neoplatonism The Neoplatonists in use of the Agrafa dogmata Footnote Cross-reference page 95 End footnote And in general were more influenced by platonic tradition than by the teaching of the dialogues In this way they were led to accentuate more and more the mystical element in human thought to separate matter from spirit and to have recourse to the doctrine of emanations The philosophy of Plotinus centers around 3 ideas The one The noose And the world's soul Which for him constitute a kind of philosophical trinity The one Plotinus, like Philo starts with the notion of God God is described as the one the good rather than a being or mind for he transcends all being and all rational nature of primal reality therefore he is not properly styled intelligence because intelligence, noose implies two elements the act of knowing and the object known and duality cannot be primal because it presupposes unity God therefore is absolute unity undifferentiated by any act of his will or intellect or by any predication on our part except the predication of unity and goodness but goodness leads to emanation which is at least an apparent breaking up of the unity of the one into the multiplicity of the manifold Plotinus however explains that created things come from the primal one not by a transference of part of the nature of the one nor by an act of will but by a process called emanation the process then is not one of creation nor is it a process of emanation in the pantheistic sense it is an overflow of the perfection of the one supreme reality a being sent forth from the infinite light and with these metaphorical expressions Plotinus seems to have contented himself being unable to describe more definitely the nature of the process of emanation the one sheds around itself an usia or essence which like a light conveys the luster of the one and is also its image the image turning to the one recognizes itself as an image thus does the essence become intellect a dual principle the source of all subsequent differentiation of the one the intellect is like the logos of phylo the glomerate of ideas it is indeed expressly identified by Plotinus with Plato's world of ideas now the ideas are differentiated in the intellect by an act of reflection precisely in the same way as the intellect differentiated itself from the one by an act of reflection but the act of reflection while it distinguishes the ideas in the intellect does not dissociate or separate them from it they sever themselves because they are essentially operative powers by this separation they give rise to the world of phenomena not indeed immediately but through the further mediation of the world soul the world soul as the noose is an image of the one the world soul is an image of the noose being the image of an image it is as it were doubly dual in fact while it is in part akin to the intellect it is in part unlike the intellect for it is in part essentially inclined to realize the ideas in concrete phenomena however before we come to the material phenomenon there is still another step another intermediate emanation the world soul gives rise to individual souls or more properly to plastic forces these in turn give rise to matter with which they combine to constitute material phenomena matter therefore emanates from the plastic forces which emanate from the world soul the world soul as we have seen it emanates from the intellect and intellect emanates from the one in this way light in the series of emanations becomes darkness for matter is the antithesis of the one matter is multiplicity change not being privation the source of all evil the protu kakoi it is present everywhere in the world of phenomena in composition with the plastic forces in the heavens where it is united with a most perfect soul in the stars where it is united with the visible gods in the powers of air and sky where it is united with the demons who mediate between the stars and the souls of men in the body of man where it is united with the human soul and in inorganic bodies where it is united with the lowest of the plastic forces where ever it is present it is the principle of imperfection limitation and evil psychological doctrines man is therefore a compound of matter and that plastic force which is the human soul the soul is immaterial it existed before the union with the body it was united with the punishment for some primordial guilt it survives the body but is liable to be sent back into the bodies of animals or plants according to the degree in which it attached itself to material things during its union with the body this doctrine of future retribution implies freedom on the part of the soul and Plotinus maintains the doctrine of freedom in opposition to the teaching of the stoics return of the soul to God Plotinus, following Plato attaches little importance to the senses as means of acquiring knowledge of reality in order to attain knowledge of the ideal which alone is real the soul must retire into itself and there contemplate the intellect which is indwelling in each of us proceeding along this path of self contemplation the soul rises from the contemplation of the intellect within us to a contemplation of the one this final step is not however to be attained unless the one himself sheds upon the soul a special light whereby the soul is enabled to see the one in the splendor of that light all apprehension and all consciousness disappear the soul is wrapped in ecstasy ecstasis and is reunited with the one whence all things have emanated this ecstasy is the supreme happiness of man it is therefore man's duty first to withdraw from the world of sense by a process of purification then freed from the bonds of sense to rise in contemplation of God not truly spiritual the man of God the prophet Tan Maturgus historical position the philosophy of Plotinus is an elaborate attempt to bring the transcendent spiritual element of religion into harmony with the philosophy of Plato or more correctly with the philosophy of the Platonists Plotinus the pagan accomplished what Philo the Jew had attempted to accomplish two centuries before he imagined that by his doctrine of emanations he had bridged over the chasm between the one and the world of sense phenomena but like all monists he was doomed to failure his exclusion of volition and thought from the concept of the deity forbade the introduction of a principle of differentiation did not consistently maintain the origin of the multiple from the one among the disciples of Plotinus Porphyry AD 233-304 is best known on account of his treatise Isagogi Istas Categorias an introduction to the logic of Aristotle it was he who reduced the works of Plotinus to their present form his exposition of the doctrines of Plotinus contains some material additions to his master's teaching in regard to questions of asceticism the use of magic and the worship of demons 3. Syrian school Iamblichus of Syria died about AD 330 a pupil of Porphyry developing the mystical religious ideas of the Neo-Platonists elaborated a system defense of polytheism above the one he places the absolute first the noose he divides into an intelligible and intellectual each of which he divides into triads these are the superterrestrial gods the terrestrial gods he divides into 300 and 60 celestial beings 72 orders of sub-celestial and 42 orders of natural gods inferior to these are angels, demons and heroes Iamblichus endeavored to introduce the worship of Pythagoras writing for this purpose a life of Pythagoras full of legend and fable Peritu Pythagorico Vio 4. School of Constantinople after the failure of the Neo-Platonic attempt to restore pagan philosophy an attempt which received the imperial sanction of Julian who reigned from AD 361 to 363 the Neo-Platonists went back once more to the works of Plato and Aristotle inaugurating an era of more eager study and more elaborate exegesis of the writings of these great masters at Constantinople under the patronage of the Christian emperors Themistius devoted himself to the task of commentating the works of Aristotle though he remained a pagan Themistius was obliged to make concessions to the Christian religion which was just then emerging victorious from its struggle with pagan civilization Constantinople however did not long remain the center of the new movement its place was taken by Athens which once more became the focus of the Hellenistic philosophy and Constantinople disappeared from the history of philosophy to reappear in Byzantine times 5. The Athenian School About the beginning of the 5th century a new school of Platonism arose in Athens its chief representatives were Plutarchus, Sirianus and Proclus Proclus from 133410 to 485 endeavored by means of Aristotelian dialectic to synthesize and systematize the neoplatonic doctrines he retained the essential elements of neoplatonism monism doctrine of the noose emanation antithesis of matter and spirit mysticism belief in demons magic etc the principle on which he endeavored to unify all these was that of triadic development that which is produced is similar to that which produces it at the same time it differs from it as the derivative differs from the original by reasons of this difference from the original the derivative differentiates or produces while by reason of its identity with the original it tends to return to it thus we have the original the emergence from the original and return in a lower form to the original moni proodos epistrafi the three stages of triadic development the absolute original is the one superior to all created unity to all being to all knowledge from the one come by the first emanation they alone are related to the world they are the supreme gods it is they who exercise providence of a worldly affairs next from the hernades come by a second emanation the triad intelligible intelligible intellectual and intellectual being having for chief properties being life and thought each member of the triad is further differentiated to a hebdomad a series is thus formed of which each member corresponds to one of the divinities of the pagan pantheon the most important point of difference between proclus and plotinus is the doctrine of the origin of matter according to proclus matter is derived immediately from the unlimited the first of the intelligible triads according to plotinus on the contrary is derived from the plastic forces and thus ultimately through the world soul and the intellect from the one proclus maintained that the duty of man is to rise from the sensuous to the super sensuous in the hope of reaching the mystical union with god which constitutes supreme happiness like plotinus he believed that such a union is impossible without a special illumination from on high and he advocated as means of attaining this illumination all religious helps magic, demon worship hero worship which a decadent paganism could offer it was proclus who gave neoplatonism its final most complete form his successor simplicius is more important as a commentator than as an independent thinker 6. alexandrian school among the pupils of proclus was ammonius who taught at alexandria during the 5th century with him are associated the names demascius john feliponus 6th century simplicius and alympiodorus it was at alexandria that hypatia during the first decade of the 5th century attempted to restore pagan philosophy after her time feliponus and alympiodorus the last representatives of neoplatonism in the east became converts to christianity and the warfare so long waged between the new religion and the old philosophy came to an end pagan platonism gave way before the platonism of the christian church historical position neoplatonism is platonism in the condition of senile debility the contrast between plato and proclus is sufficient to show that philosophy degenerated rather than developed in its unequal struggle with the new religion and the degeneracy was not confined to the speculative portion of plato's philosophy that it extended also to ethics is manifest from the substitution of the practice of magic for the practice of virtue what prolonged the life of neoplatonism was the opposition of the pagan world and especially of the learned world of paganism to christianity when ad 529 Justinian forbade the teaching of philosophy at Athens the platonists immigrated to Persia 30 years later there was no platonism outside the christian church neoplatonism is the last phase of pagan philosophy although the most important systems of neoplatonism fall within the christian era they belong in spirit and in contents to the pagan world with the history of neoplatonism therefore the history of ancient philosophy comes to an end end of chapter 20 and end of part 1 part 2 chapters 21 and 22 of history of philosophy this is a Librivox recording all Librivox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit Librivox.org history of philosophy by William Turner part 2 philosophy of the christian era introduction all who have studied the history of human thought in the light of the christian idea of providence have regarded the philosophy of greece and rome as a preparatio euangelica a preparation for the gospel of christ the church which christ founded was not it is true a school of philosophy by virtue of its divine commission it rose above all schools and all systems still although christ in his teachings discarded all formal definition and formal proof these teachings reform the world of speculation as they reform the practical ideas of men and the church being by its nature and essence endowed with that power of adaptations or external conditions which is characteristic of a living organism has an inherent right to speak to each generation in the language which that generation best understands in the systematic development of dogmatic truth the church avails itself of the doctrines of philosophers and formulates its dogmas in the language of the schools of philosophy thus the coming of christ divides the history of philosophy as it divides the history of the world from this point onward there will be the religious view and the rationalistic view of every question philosophy made profit by the teachings of religion it may accept revelation as an extension of the horizon of human hopes and opening up of new fields of human investigation it may acknowledge the debt due to that institution to whose teachings we owe it that doctrines concerning the nature of god the immortality of the soul and the duties of men which the noblest intellects of antiquity could barely grasp have become the truisms of the village school the proverbs of the cottage and of the alley or on the contrary philosophy may deny the special authority of christian revelation it may cite the doctrines of christ and his church before the tribunal of reason and pass sentencing them denying the right of appeal to a higher court henceforth then there will be the religious attitude and the rationalistic attitude in presence of the great problems which ancient philosophy discussed without reference to any source of knowledge superior to reason itself christianity will be an ever present factor in philosophical speculation the rationalist who refuses its aid and the religious philosopher who accepts that aid show reason for such refusal or acceptance but though the rationalistic spirit and the religious spirit pervade the whole history of the philosophy of the christian era they are not always present in equal proportion or in equal strength from the first to the 15th century the religious spirit prevailed while from the 15th century onward the rationalizing spirit remained preponderant there were rationalists in the first centuries and there were religious minded philosophers in the 19th the difference on which the division is based is a difference in the spirit of the age not in the character of individual philosophers the prevailing religious period is divided according to another basis of division into patristic philosophy extending from the first century to the period of the great invasions of the barbarians and scholastic philosophy which begins with the reconstruction of european civilization in the 9th century and ends with the reformation in the 15th we may therefore divide the philosophy of the christian era as follows section A patristic philosophy extending to the end of the 5th century section B scholastic philosophy extending from the 9th century to the 15th section C modern or post-reformation philosophy from the 15th century to our own time section A patristic philosophy from the account given of pre-christian systems of speculation you should be evident that philosophy, like every other department of human thought and human activity is continuous in its growth in philosophical speculation there is no possibility of breaking completely with the past and so the philosophy of the first christian writers was connected in its origin with the systems that preceded it these writers took whatever truth the older systems contained and made it part of their own theory of reality rejecting whatever contradicted the teachings of faith or whatever could not bear the light of reason reinforced by the light of revelation from the beginning however the rationalizing spirit of which mention has been made began to assert itself in a tendency on the part of some christian writers to subordinate revelation to the teachings of pagan philosophy it was from this tendency that the heretical system sprang at the same time the religious spirit working in the minds of the orthodox exponents of the teachings of christianity led them to place high above all human speculation the authority of christ in his church although they did not reject the philosophy of the pagan world but made use of it in their expositions of revealed truth writers of this class are the true philosophers of the early christian era on account of the influence which they exerted on succeeding generations they are styled the fathers or spiritual progenitors of the church's theology and philosophy the orthodox patristic philosophers are to be subdivided according as they undertook merely to defend christianity against the misconceptions and calamities of paganism or sought to establish a positive system of christian speculation the apologists as the former are called belong chiefly to the period of intellectual struggle which preceded the great council of nicaea ad 325 the constructive thinkers of the patristic period belong, for the most part to the post nicene age it will therefore be convenient to study 1. heretical systems 2. anti-nicene fathers 3. post-nicene fathers chapter 21 heretical systems of the heretical systems which sprang up during the first centuries of the christian era monarchianism arianism and apollinarism belong exclusively to the history of theological opinions gnosticism and manicism are of great interest in the history of patristic philosophy sources besides the work entitled piste sofia and a few fragments which constitute the entire body of original gnostic literature, we have the writings of ironias and hippolytus to these must be added the works of clement of alexandria origin, eusebius, saint augustin and the second of the ineads of platinus for our knowledge of manichean we are indebted to the writings of saint augustin gnosticism Corinthus, Saturninus Marcian, Carpocrates Basilides and Valentinus all of whom flourished during the second century were the principal teachers of the gnostic doctrine dissatisfied with the explanation which the christian religion had to offer on such questions as the origin of evil and the nature of men, the gnostics turned to pagan philosophy for a solution to these and other problems but, while they thus made reason the basis and criterion of all truth, they were not willing to set aside altogether the authority of christ's teaching they had recourse therefore to the theory that christ besides the exoteric doctrines which imparted to all his listeners committed to his chosen disciples a higher exoteric doctrine which constitutes the true essence of christian teaching this exoteric doctrine gnosis is the alleged source of all that the gnostics taught in point of fact, the gnostic teaching is a mixture of the philosophies of phillow and platinus with certain elements of christianity the gnostics maintain the essential antithesis of the spiritual and the material the origin by emanation from god of numberless eons the sum of which is the pleroma and the final return of all things to god by a universal redemption they recognize no mystery in the christian sense of the word the gnosis being the merest subterfuge and human reason the really ultimate test of all truth supernatural as well as natural manicism the sect was founded by manes a persian who in the third century became a christian and sought to introduce interchristian theology and philosophy the parsee conception of the dualism of god and matter there's no doubt that his followers in developing the teachings of the founder of the sect were influenced to a large extent by the gnostic dualism and laid claim as the gnostics did to a special gnosis they concern themselves chiefly with the problem of evil assuming the existence of two eternal principles the one essentially good the other essentially evil and deriving from the letter all the evil, physical and moral which exists in the world they maintain that from the good principle they are emanated in the first place primeval men who was the first to enter into the struggle with evil in the next place the spirit of life who rescued primeval men from the powers of darkness finally the world soul christ the son of primeval men who restored to men the light which he had lost in the struggle with darkness they distinguished in men two souls the soul that animates the body and the soul of light which is part of the world soul christ the former is the creation of the powers of darkness the latter is an emanation from light itself thus men soul is a battlefield on which light and darkness are at war as they are in the universe human action depends on the outcome of the contest there is no freedom of choice all matter is evil and the cause of evil chapter 22 anti-nicene fathers to the period extending from the beginning of the christian era to the end of the third century belong the great apologists such as justin martyr 100 to 160 effin agoras died about 180 tation and theophilus both belong to the end of the second century who devoted their attention to the defense of christianity against the last attacks of the representatives of pagan civilization the period includes also ironias 140 to 102 hypothesis first half of the third century and tertulian 160 to 240 whose life work consisted in the refutation of the gnostics and other heretics finally the period includes clement of alexandria origen are nobius and lectentious who during the third and fourth centuries expounded in their catechical treatises the dogmas of christianity and developed in their exposition the first systems of constructive christian philosophy tertulians hostile attitude towards philosophy is expressed in the well-known which is attributed to him it must be remembered however that tertulian being a controversialist was not always so measured in his language as he might have been had he, like clement and origen devoted himself to the task of building up a system of positive doctrine clement of alexandria died about AD 217 in the cohortatio agentes the pedagogus and the stromata exposes the extravagances and absurdities of paganism and undertakes a systematic arrangement and defense of the moral and dogmatic teachings of the church following justin, he maintains on the one hand that whatever is true in greek philosophy is to be traced to the divine logos who enlightened every men that cometh into the world and on the other hand that whatever errors are found in greek philosophy must be attributed to men's weak and urring nature gnosis is not the alleged esoteric doctrine of christ but the teaching of the gospels and of the church which christ founded he who was sent to the teaching of christ and the church without striving by the aid of philosophy to give an intellectual basis to his assent possesses faith but he does not possess the gnosis which is to faith what the full grown man is to the child just as the stoics idealize the wise men the clement set up the christian gnostic as the idealized type of the christian origen 185-254 a disciple of clement possessed by far the most synthetic mind among the christian writers of this period in his work pedi archon he exhibits a sense of system more imperative than that shown by any of his predecessors or contemporaries he assimilated into his exposition dogma elements from Plato, Aristotle, Philo the neoplatonists and the gnostics on such questions as the pre-existence of the human soul the eternity of the world and the final return of all things to God apocatastasis his orthodoxy has been a matter of dispute his greatest achievement was the scientific formulation of the creationist account of the origin of the universe it is true that clement also taught the doctrine of creation but he did not develop it so systematically as did origen historical position clement and origen are representatives of the great school of alexandrian speculation which in the third century renewed the intellectual and philosophical prestige of the ancient capital of egypt successful as greek philosophy had been in defining the relations between matter and spirit it had failed to determine satisfactorily the notion of personality and to explain the origin of primal matter this is what patristic speculation accomplished by its definition of the personalities of the divine trinity and by its doctrine of creation the work begun by clement and origen was completed by their successors after the council of nicaea end of chapter 22 part 2 chapter 23 of history of philosophy this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org history of philosophy by William Turner part 2 patristic philosophy chapter 23 the post nicene fathers the period extending from the council of nicaea 325 to the end of the 5th century was one of great literary and speculative activity in the christian church 4 although the definitions of the council stayed the progress of the arian heresy still the contest with the arians was by no means ended day by day the theology of the church was organized into a system which offered an impregnable front to heretic and schismatic and side by side with theology they are developed a stronger and more complete philosophy which chiefly through the influence of the latin fathers discarded the last remnants of neoplatanism and gnosticism and sought inspiration in the earlier and healthier form of platonic teaching among the great fathers of this period are Athanasius of Alexandria died 373 and the three capedosians Gregory of Nisa 331 to 394 Basil died 379 and Gregory Neziansen born 330 these men devoted their energies to the defense of the church in the great trinitarian controversy as did also Cyril of Alexandria died 444 in the controversy with Nestorius concerning the personality of christ besides these writers they are flourished towards the end of the patristic period two others who devoted special attention to philosophy Pseudo Dionysus and St John of Damascus Pseudo Dionysus the works entitled De de Winis Nominibus Theologia Mystica and De Caelesti Ecclesiastica Herarchia which were at one time attributed to Dionysus the Areopagite of whom mention is made in the Acts of the Apostles are now universally acknowledged to belong to the end of the fifth century they contain the last exposition of Christian Neoplatonism the ineffable superiority of God with respect to the world the emanations of creatures from God the arrangement of all created beings in a scale of gradual descent from God the final return of all things through their first source the return of men to God by means of contemplative ecstasy all these neoplatonic elements are present in the philosophy of Dionysus there can however be no doubt that Dionysus understood these doctrines in a sense perfectly compatible with the teaching of the church the works of Dionysus and his follower Maximus Confessor 580-662 were translated by John Scudda's original at the beginning of the scholastic era Saint John of Damascus and of the seventh century composed a work entitled Fountain of Knowledge Pegid Noseus and the treatise De Fide Ortodoxa in the former he gives an exposition of Aristotelian dialectic and ontology by some he is said to be the author of the saying philosophy is the handmade of theology Anchilla Theologii the phrase is probably of later origin among the Latin fathers of this period are to be mentioned Saint Hilary died 368 Saint Ambrose 340-397 and Saint Jerome 346-420 they belong to the history of theology rather than to that of philosophy it was in the writings of Saint Augustine that patristic philosophy attained the zenith of its course Augustine is the greatest as well as the last of the masters of speculative thought who made it possible for the patristic age to hand down to the middle ages a complete system of Catholic theology at the same time he stands among the foremost Saint Augustine Life Aurelius Augustinus was born at Tagasty in the media in the year 354 his father patricius was a pagan his mother Monica was a most exemplary Christian at Madora and at Carthage whether he went for the purpose of completing the education begun in his native city Augustine was lured into the career of sin which he describes in his confessions during this period of his life it seemed to him that the Manichean sect offered the best solution of the enigma of existence later however when after having completed his education he taught rhetoric at Carthage and at Rome the contradictions in which he perceived Manicheanism to be involved drove him to the academy where he learned to be content with probability in the year of certainty he learned to study Plato and it was Plato who first stirred within his soul the impulse to rise from the moral degradation into which he had fallen to the influence of these studies must be added the prayers of his mother and the persuasive eloquence of Saint Ambrose Augustine was baptized in the year 387 after his conversion he devoted himself to the study of the scriptures to the refutation of Manichean and other heresies and to the task of instituting a systematic philosophical inquiry concerning God and the human soul in 395 he was made bishop of Hippo in Africa he died in 430 after 35 years of active Episcopal administration sources the principal works of Saint Augustine which are of interest in the study of his philosophy against free academics soliloquy of animal immortality of free arbitration of equity of gods confessions retractions and his treatises against the Manicheans the treatise entitled Principia Dialecticus may be genuine although the treatise Categoria Idechem which is usually appended to it is certainly spurious doctrines general idea of philosophy the central ideas of Saint Augustine's philosophical inquiry are God and the human soul deum et animam skire cupio nihil ne plus nihil omnino deus semper idem noerim me noerim te on the problems of the existence of God and the nature of the soul all philosophical science dialectic is made to converge knowledge which cannot be brought to bear on the soul teaching it to love God is unprofitable it is the knowledge which puffeth up far from ascending to the maxim attributed to Tertullian credo qui absurdum Augustine view the relation between faith and reason in the light of the principles which the scholastics formulated in the maxims credo ut intelligam intelligo ut credam he says for example in de praidestinatione sanctorum nun nos quipe credit nisi prius cogitaverit esse credendum and in deo era religione nostrum est considerare quibus velrominibus vellibris credendum sit Saint Augustine however does not define accurately the relations between philosophy and theology this was a task reserved for the mastermind of the 13th century theory of knowledge in his treatise contra académicos Saint Augustine begins by discussing the possibility of arriving at certain knowledge the academy maintained that a high degree of probability is the most that the human mind can attain Saint Augustine refutes this assertion and proves by the following arguments that certitude is possible of attainment one probability exposes certitude four that is probable which is like the truth if there is no truth there is no probability two no one can be happy unless he possesses wisdom for all men desire wisdom and no one is happy unless he attains that which he desires to deny that wisdom is possible of attainment is therefore to deny that happiness is possible three the alleged inability of men to attain certitude is not founded on fact it is not true that the senses are altogether untrustworthy nor is it true that thought is utterly dependent on the impressions of the senses it would be absurd to suppose that intellect is not more reliable than sense four the possibility of arriving at certainty may be proved by positive argument four whatever else is called in question our own mental states are beyond the region of doubt you may doubt whether you are one or multiple you may doubt whether you are moving or at rest but you cannot doubt that at this moment you think you may contend that I am deceived but the very fact that I am deceived proves that I exist quod si fallor sum a man's doubt proves that he exists qu'on d'occu de'em etium si dubitat we wait this last argument certainly suggests the Cartesian cogito ergo sum it must however be remembered that while Decarte, according to the commonly received view, intended his argument to be a demonstration if indeed he intended the cogito ergo sum to be an argument at all Augustine intended the quod si fallor sum to be merely an indirect refutation of the principles of the academy and not a direct demonstration of the existence of the thinking subject having shown that certainty is possible of attainment sent Augustine proceeds to inquire into the conditions of intellectual knowledge there are two ways, he says, in which the human mind arrives at a knowledge of intelligible objects the first is by rising from the data of sense to an understanding of the hidden causes of things and ultimately to a knowledge of him who is the highest cause this is the process of which Saint Paul speaks in visibilia dei peraea quai facta sunt intelecta conspici untur the second method is one of introspection no li foras exire he says in interiore homine habitat veritas the truth is indwelling in us the most excellent means of attaining higher intellectual knowledge is the contemplation and study of our own intellectual life for this purity of heart and the practice of virtue are necessary the purer the heart the freer is the soul from all defilement and the more perfectly will the mind mirror truth for then it will mirror him who is the source of all truth this leads to the next point in Saint Augustine's theory of knowledge god is the source of all truth this principle is proved as follows in order to know anything as good or beautiful or true and to distinguish it from what is not good or beautiful or true we must possess a rule or standard by which our judgment regarding the object in question is determined our standard in order to be trustworthy must be immutable and in order to be available it must be present to our minds such a standard absolute immutable omnipresent goodness and truth and beauty is god in this light the light of eternal truth is all truth known whether we rise in contemplation from the date of sense to the hidden world of intelligible objects or from an introspective knowledge of self to a knowledge of higher truths we do so in virtue of the illumination which is the light of the glory of god in the word of god which is the wisdom of the father there dwell the unchangeable essences the reasons of things the types according to which all things were made to deny the existence of these archetypal forms would be to maintain that god created things irrationally he the all wise creator made all things according to his wisdom that is according to the rationes aeterna in dwelling in the word singular property is created rationibus corresponding to the egg types in the world of concrete existence are the prototypes whose locus is not a separate intelligible world but the divine wisdom the logos the son of god this according to saint augustin is what Plato inspired by biblical teaching understood by the topos noitos god is therefore the source of all truth and of all intellectual light in him are the essential types of truth he it is who illumines the egg types so that from a knowledge of them we may rise to a knowledge of truth and he it is who illumines the soul itself from within so that when we turn our thoughts inward on the soul we may rise in contemplation to him who is the light of the soul as the son is the light of the physical world in saint augustin's theory the lines of thought are undoubtedly platonic the ontologists however are mistaken when they understand the platonism of saint augustin to include the doctrine of immediate intuition of god or of the divine ideas when he teaches that we know the essences of things he's careful to point out that we rise from the data of sense or from a study of our own intellectual life to a knowledge of these essences his meaning is that the essences of things could neither be nor be known by us unless they first existed and were known in the mind of god that there is a divine element in our knowledge of created things saint thomas as well as saint augustin maintained it is god who made the object of our knowledge who endowed the mind with the power whereby it abstracts the data of sense the necessary and universal element which is the object of thought and who cooperates in the act of the mind by which the potentially intelligible is rendered actually intelligible in this sense does the word illumine every man that cometh into the world it is clear then that the ontologists exaggerate the divine element in human knowledge when they maintain that we have immediate intuition of god and of the ideas contained in the divine mind such exaggeration was as far from the mind of the play toe of christianity as it was from the mind of the great christian Aristotle of the 13th century it must be admitted nevertheless that the platonic form of saint augustin's teaching lends more favor to the ontologists interpretation than does the aristotelian form in which saint thomas expressed his theory of knowledge theology and cosmology while admitting the validity of the teleological argument for the existence of god as well as that of the argument from the testimony of conscience saint augustin bases his whole system of theodicy on the argument derived from the immutability and permanence of the object of our intellectual knowledge the argument is as follows we know the truth and we strive for the good but nothing is true or good in this world of change and imperfection except insofar as it participates in the absolute truth and goodness of him who never changes whoever denies that god exists must be prepared to maintain that knowledge and virtue have no object the existence of god is therefore the essential condition of the moral and intellectual life god cannot be comprehended by the mind he is above all predicates and all categories when therefore we speak of him we are nearer to the truth when we say what he is not than when we say what he is when we speak of god we are little children lisping a language which we do not understand beus melius chitur nesquiendo and again weerius enim cogitatru deus cogitatru this truly christian humility in presence of the great problems of theodicy we shall find to be as characteristic of the great masters of scholasticism as it is of the greatest of the patristic philosophers the fathers in the schoolmen were as willing as any modern agnostic is to admit the inability of the human mind to grasp the truth of god's nature and the inadequacy of human language to express our thoughts about god god is immutable, eternal all powerful, all knowing absolutely devoid of potentiality or composition he is formed without matter essence unparticipated and his account of the origin of the universe sent augustin maintains that god from all eternity designed to create the world god did not create matter however until the beginning of time for before matter existed time did not exist god is the cause of matter as well as of intelligible being he made it out of nothing creation it did not proceed from the substance of god emanation together with matter all things else were created at the beginning creawit omnia simul creation was the act of an instant the mosaic account of the six days of creation being merely a description of the six orders or grades of perfection in which things were created not all things however were created in the full possession of what came to be called their specific perfection augustin distinctly admits a process of development as when in the treatise entitled he says 523 here he is alluding to the seminaria irrationes of which he speaks elsewhere as destined god is not the author of evil he merely permits it the order of the universe beings require that some things should be less perfect than others god would not permit evil if he could not draw good from it moral evil alone is opposed to the divine will man is a microcosmus a compendium of the universe he is the only being that mediates between god and matter for while augustin admits the existence of ministering angels he rejects the whole celestial hierarchy of the neoplatonists psychology the soul is simple immaterial, spiritual it is devoid of quantity it has no extension in space in his proof of the immateriality of the soul augustin has recourse among other arguments to the following which was formulated before his time by platinus if the soul were not immaterial it could not be in all parts of the body now the soul is in all parts of the body at the same time for wherever an impression is made upon the body the soul perceives that impression and it is not part of the soul it perceives but the whole ego therefore the soul is immaterial the soul is essentially individual the notion of a universal soul is absurd equally absurd is the doctrine of transmigration the material cannot enter into composition with that which is material and irrational mortality is the only bond of kinship between men and brute the angel like men possesses a body but the angelic body is immortal the brute possesses a mortal body but the soul of the brute is irrational men is therefore unique in this that he is an animal the argument which sent augustin augustin adduces in favor of the immortality of the soul savor of platonic influence they are as follows 1. that in which the imperishable exists must be imperishable imperishable truth dwells in the soul therefore the soul is imperishable 2. the soul is inseparable from reason for reason and the soul are not united in space and it is only in space that separation can take place but reason is imperishable because the principles of reason are immortal therefore the soul cannot perish the body is animated that is endowed with life the soul on the contrary is life to maintain therefore that the soul could be deprived of life would be to say that life is not life or that the soul is not the soul with regard to the origin of the soul sent augustin teaches that the soul of Adam was created at the beginning at some subsequent time the soul of Adam was united to the body not because of any sin on the part of the soul but because the soul requires the body the souls of the descendants of Adam come into existence at the moment of their union with the body as to how they come into existence whether by an act of creation creationism or by virtue of the generative process by which the body originates, traducianism sent augustin is unable to decide the soul and body together form one substance man the soul gives being and species to the body it acts on the body the body however has no independent power of acting on the soul whatever power the body possesses is conferred on it by the soul itself between soul and body is interposed a subtle element partaking at the same time of the material nature of the body and of the spiritual nature of the soul it is analogous to light and air the function of this element is to mediate between the soul and the organs of the body and to unite in some mysterious manner soul and body in one substance the faculties of the soul are thus classified faculties of the sense appetite and knowledge divided into external senses and internal senses which are divided into sensus comunis imagination or wis spiritualis and sensuous memory faculties of the soul as spirit divided into will, voluntas, libero marbitrium and knowledge divided into intellectual memory and intelligence divided into intuitive men's and discursive ratio sent augustin attaches special importance to the idea of will voluntas as quipe in omnibus omnis nihil aljud quam volontates sunt it is the will that moves the intellect to action and it is the element of will in the act of faith that makes faith meritorious free will is the proximate cause of moral evil sent augustin's discussion of free will in its relation to grace and predestination which belongs to the history of theology ethics the supreme good of men consists in the eternal contemplation and love of God in the life to come here on earth men's duty is so to act that he may attain the happiness which is reserved for him beyond the grave the path of duty is clearly marked out by the divine law the destiny of the human soul and the law of God are therefore the determinants of moral good to fulfill the law men must practice virtue virtue is defined virtue does not imply apathy as the stoics taught the emotions are not to be destroyed or eradicated but to be kept under control and restrained within the limits prescribed by the law of God now the law of God is the law of love men should love God above all things should love himself with a rational love seeking what is best and doing what is best for himself in the light of his eternal destiny he should love his fellow men desiring what is best for him and aiding him to attain it charity therefore which is love is the foundation of all virtue on this foundation are built prudence fortitude, temperance and justice historical position from this summary sketch of the philosophy of St. Augustine it is possible to glean something of the vastness of his system of speculative thought his enquiries cover the whole range of speculation he synthesizes the best elements of pagan philosophy into a system of Christian thought and wherever his enquiries lead him he exhibits that spirit of coherent system that perfect grasp of his subject that sublimity of thought and language which distinguish him among all the philosophers of Christian times as the Plato of Christianity and when we remember that St. Augustine was as distinguished among theologians as he was among philosophers we realize that his was a mind almost superhuman in its transcendent power of synthesis the debt which philosophy owes to St. Augustine includes besides many original contributions to the definition of the Christian concept of God of the human soul and of the destiny and duty of men the first essay on the part of a Christian philosopher to discover and expound the philosophy of human history in the treatise he appears as the exponent of the law of progress which governs the history of humanity and of which even those against it become instruments in the hands of providence according to the divine plan it is scarcely necessary to call attention to the preponderance of the influence of Plato on the philosophic thought of St. Augustine like all the other fathers of the church St. Augustine esteemed Plato more highly than Aristotle the latter he styled Weir exchelentes ingenii et platonicuidem impar set multos faciles superans although however the era of Christian Platonism virtually came to an end with Augustine the scholastic era in which the importance of Aristotle grew until it reached its maximum in the 13th century was not oblivious of the debt which Christianity and philosophy owe to the men who first Christianized the teachings of Plato the period between the death of St. Augustine and the rise of scholasticism of comparatively little intellectual activity throughout Europe men like Claudianus momentus middle of 5th century Boethius 470 to 526 Castiodorus 468 to 575 Saint Isidore of Seville 7th century and venerable bead 674 735 labored merely to preserve what the past had bequeathed to times more favorable for the growth and development of Christian speculation retrospect patristic philosophy exhibits all the characteristics of the age to which it belonged the era of the struggle and triumph of Christianity and of the first adjustment of Christian thought to pagan civilization and culture to the period of struggle belongs the work of the apologists to the first centuries of triumph the earliest constructive attempts of the Alexandrian school while to the later centuries of the period intervening between the triumph of Christianity and the invasion of the barbarians belongs St. Augustine's systematic effort to harmonize Christian teaching with the greatest achievements of pagan thought after the time of St. Augustine the condition of Christian Europe was not favorable to speculation and it was not until the dawn of neo-Latin civilization that in new circumstances and in a different social and political climate the school men completed the task begun by the fathers patristic philosophy is fragmentary and devoid of unit it belongs to an epoch in which everything except religion was decadent and in which religion itself, though vigorous had not yet succeeded in infusing the Christian ideal into the life and thought of Europe scholastic philosophy will begin with the opening of the new era it will grow into the new life of Christianized Europe and will attain the golden age of its development whenever and wherever the ideal of the Christian life shall have transformed the social and political conditions into an atmosphere most congenial to Christian speculation the fathers defined at least provisionally the intellectual basis of the dogmatic system of the church they protested successfully against agnostic which was in reality the rationalistic subordination of revelation to reason and they stated the question which scholastic philosophy took up and answered how can reason and revelation be shown to be distinct and at the same time consistent sources of truth