Chapter V: Introduction

When Cleopatra died and Egypt became part of the Roman Empire, it seemed that the career of Alexandria was over. Her life had centred round the Ptolemies who had adorned her with architecture and scholarship and song, and when they were withdrawn what remained? She was just a provincial capital. But the vitality of a city is not thus measured. There is a splendour that kings do not give and cannot take away, and just when she lost her outward independence she was recompensed by discovering the kingdom that lies within. Three sections of her citizens—Jews, Greeks and Christians—were attracted by the same spiritual problem, and tried to solve it in the same way.

_The Problem._ It never occurred to these Alexandrian thinkers, as it had to some of their predecessors in ancient Greece, that God might not exist. They assumed that he existed. What troubled them was his relation to the rest of the universe and particularly to Man. Was God close to man? Or was he far away? If close, how could he be infinite and eternal and omnipotent? And if far away, how could he take any interest in man, why indeed should he have troubled to create him? They wanted God to be both far and close.

_The Solution._ Savages solve such a problem by having two gods—a pocket fetich whom they beat when he irritates them, and a remote spirit in the sky, and they do not try to think out any connection between the two. The Alexandrians, being cultivated, could not accept such crudities. Instead, they assumed that between God and man there is an intermediate being or beings, who draw the universe together, and ensure that though God is far he shall also be close. They gave various names to this intermediate being, and ascribed to him varying degrees of dignity and power. But they became as certain of his existence as of God’s, for in philosophy their temperament was mystic rather than scientific, and as soon as they hit on an explanation of the universe that was comforting, they did not stop to consider whether it might be true.

After this preliminary, let us approach the three great sections of Alexandrian thought.

I. THE JEWS.

THE SEPTUAGINT—about B.C. 200.
THE WISDOM OF SOLOMON—about B.C. 100.
PHILO—cont. with Christ.

The seat of the Jews was Jerusalem, where they had evolved their cult of Jehovah and built him his unique temple. But as soon as Alexandria was founded they began to emigrate to the lucrative and seductive city, and to take up their quarters near the modern Ibrahimieh. Soon a generation arose that was Greek in speech. The Hebrew Scriptures had to be translated for their benefit, and seventy rabbis—so the legend goes—were shut up by Ptolemy Philadelphus in seventy huts on the island of Pharos, whence they simultaneously emerged with seventy identical translations of the Bible. This was the famous Septuagint version—made as a matter of fact over many years, and not completed till B.C. 130.

* * * * *

But the new generation was Greek in spirit as well as speech, and diverged increasingly from the conservative Jews at Jerusalem. Both sections worshipped Jehovah, but the Alexandrian grew more and more conscious of the churlishness and inaccessibility of his national god. Thought mingled with his adoration. How could he link Jehovah to man? And, utilising a few hints in the orthodox scriptures, he produced as his first attempt a fine piece of literature called “The Wisdom of Solomon”; it is at present included in the Apocrypha. The author—his name is unknown—not only wrote in Greek but had studied Stoic and Epicurean Philosophy and Egyptian rites. He had the cosmopolitan culture of Alexandria. And, solving his problem in the Alexandrian way, he conceived an intermediate between Jehovah and man whom he calls Sophia or Wisdom.

Wisdom is more moving than any motion: she goeth through all things
by reason of her pureness. Being but one she can do all things and
in all ages entering into holy souls she makes them friends of God,
and prophets. She is more beautiful than the sun and all the order
of stars: being compared with the light she is found beyond it. For
after this cometh night, but vice shall not prevail against wisdom.

In such a passage Wisdom is more than “being wise.” She is a messenger who bridges the gulf and makes us friends of God.

* * * * *

In Philo the Jewish school of Alexandria reaches its height. Little is known of his life. His brother was head of the Jewish community here and he himself was sent (A.D. 40) on a disastrous embassy to the mad Emperor Caligula at Rome.

Being an orthodox Jew, he states his philosophic problem in the language of the Old Testament. Thus:—

Jehovah had said I AM THAT I AM—that is to say, nothing can be predicated about God except existence. God has no qualities, no desires, no form, and no home. We cannot even call God “God” because “God” is a word, and no word can describe God. While to regard him as a man is to commit “an error greater than the sea.” God IS, and no more can be said of him.

Yet this unapproachable being has created us. How? And why?

Through his Logos or Word. This Logos of Philo is, like “Wisdom,” a messenger who bridges the gulf. He is the outward expression of God’s existence. He created and he sustains the world, and Philo uses the actual language of devotion concerning him, calling him Israel the Seer, the Dove, the Dweller in the Inmost,—language which naturally recalls and possibly suggested the opening of St. John’s Gospel. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.” Philo might have written this. But he could not have written “the Word was God” nor “the Word was made flesh” for it was, as we shall see, the distinction of Christianity to conceive that the link between Man and God should be himself both God and Man.

By this doctrine of the Logos, Philo made the Hebrew Jehovah intelligible and acceptable to the Alexandrian Jews. It is a doctrine not found in the Old Testament, and to extract it he had to employ allegory and to wrest words from their natural meanings. This gives his philosophy a frigid timid air, and obscures its real sublimity. Only once or twice does he break loose, and declare that the path to truth lies not through allegory but through vision. “Those who can see” he exclaims, “lift their eyes to heavens, and contemplate the Manna, the divine Logos. Those who cannot see, look at the onions in the ground.” After his death, the Jews of Alexandria accomplished no more in philosophy. They had stated the problem. The restatement was for the Greeks and the Christians.

JEWISH INSCRIPTIONS FROM IBRAHIMIEH: Museum, Room 21.

II. NEO-PLATONISM.

PLOTINUS (204-262).
PORPHYRY (233-306).
HYPATIA (d. 415).

The Ptolemies had imported some Greek philosophers, as part of the personnel of the Mouseion, but they were second-rate, and it was not until the Ptolemies had passed away, and the city herself was declining, that philosophy took root and bore the white mystic rose of Neo-Platonism. It developed out of a doctrine of Plato’s. Six hundred years before, Plato had taught at Athens that the world we live in is an imperfect copy of an ideal world. He had also taught other things, but this was the doctrine that the “New Platonists” of Alexandria took up and pursued to sublime and mystic conclusions. Whatever Plato had thought of this world as a philosopher, he had enjoyed it as a citizen and a poet, and has left delightful accounts of it in his dialogues. The Neo-Platonists were more logical. Since this world is imperfect, they regarded it as negligible, and excluded from their writings all references to daily life. They might be disembodied spirits, freed from locality and time, and it is only after careful study that we realise that they too were human,—nay, that they were typically Alexandrian, and that in them the later city finds her highest expression.

* * * * *

The School was founded by Ammonius Saccas, who had begun life as a porter in the docks, and as a Christian, but abandoned both professions for the study of Plato. Nothing is known of his teaching, but he produced great pupils—Longinus, Origen, and, greatest of all, Plotinus. Plotinus was probably born at Assiout; probably; no one could find out for certain because he was reticent about it, saying that the descent of his soul into his body had been a great misfortune, which he did not desire to discuss. He completed his main training at Alexandria, and then took part in a military expedition against Persia, in order to get into touch with Persian thought (Zoroastrianism), and with Indian thought (Hinduism, Buddhism). He must have made a queer soldier and he was certainly an unsuccessful one, for the expedition suffered defeat, and Plotinus was very nearly relieved of the disgrace of having a body. Escaping, he made his way to Rome, and remained there until the end of his life, lecturing. In spite of his sincerity, he became fashionable, and the psychic powers that he had acquired not only gained him, on four occasions, the Mystic Vision which was the goal of his philosophy, but also discovered a necklace which had been stolen from a rich lady by one of her slaves. He was indifferent to literary composition; after his death his pupil Porphyry collected his lecture-notes and published them in nine volumes—the “Enneads.” The Enneads are ill arranged and often obscure. But they contain a logical system of thought, some account of which must be attempted—Alexandria produced nothing greater. And they deal with the usual Alexandrian problem—the linking up of God and Man.

Like Philo, and like the Christians, Plotinus believes in God, and since his God has three grades, we may almost say that he believes in a Trinity. But it is very different to the Christian Trinity, and even more difficult to understand. The first and highest grade in it he calls the One. The One is—Unity, the One. Nothing else can be predicated about it, not even that it exists; it is more incomprehensible than the Jehovah of Philo; it has no qualities, no creative force, it is good only as the goal of our aspirations. But though it cannot create, it overflows (somewhat like a fountain), and from its overflow or emanation is generated the second grade of the Trinity—the “Intellectual Principle.” The Intellectual Principle is a little easier to understand than the “One” because it has a remote connection with our lives. It is the Universal mind that contains—not all things, but all thoughts of things, and by thinking it creates. It thinks of the third grade—the All Soul—which accordingly comes into being. With the All Soul we near the realm of the comprehensible. It is the cause of the Universe that we know. All that we grasp through the senses was created by it—the Gods of Greece, etc. in the first place, then the demi-gods and demons, then, descending in the scale, ourselves, then animals, plants, stones; matter, that seems so important to us, is really the last and feeblest emanation of the All Soul, the point at which creative power comes to a halt.—And these three grades, the “One,” the “Intellectual Principle,” and the “All Soul,” make up between them a single being, God; who is three in one and one in three, and the goal of all creation.

Thus far the system of Plotinus may appear unattractive as well as abstruse; we must now look at the other and more emotional side. Not only do all things flow from God; they also strive to return to him; in other words, the whole Universe has an inclination towards good. We are all parts of God, even the stones, though we cannot realise it; and man’s goal is to become actually, as he is potentially, divine. Therefore rebirth is permitted, in order that we may realise God better in a future existence than we can in this; and therefore the Mystic Vision is permitted, in order that, even in this existence we may have a glimpse of God. God is ourself, our true self, and in one of the few literary passages in the Enneads, the style of Plotinus catches fire from his thought and we are taught in words of immortal eloquence, how the Vision may be obtained.

But what must we do? How lies the path? How come to vision of the
inaccessible Beauty, dwelling as if in consecrated precincts, apart
from the common ways where all men may see?

“Let us flee to the beloved Fatherland.” This is the soundest
counsel. But what is the flight? How are we to gain the open sea?

The Fatherland is There whence we have come, and There is the
Father.

What then is our course, what the manner of our flight? This is not
a journey for the feet; the feet bring us only from land to land;
all this order of things you must set aside and refuse to see; you
must close the eyes and call instead upon another vision which is to
be waked within you, a vision the birth-right of all, which few can
see....

Withdraw into yourself and look. And if you do not find yourself
beautiful yet, act as does the creator of a statue that is to be
made beautiful; he cuts away here, he smooths there, he makes this
line lighter, that purer, until a lovely face has grown upon his
work.

When you know that you have become this perfect work, when you are
self-gathered in the purity of your being, nothing now remaining
that can shatter that inner unity—when you perceive that you have
grown to this, you are now become very vision; now call up all your
confidence, strike forward yet a step—you need a guide no
longer—forward yet a step—you need a guide no longer—strain and see.

This is the only eye that sees the mighty Beauty. If the eye that
ventures the vision be dimmed by vice, impure or weak, then it sees
nothing even though another point to what lies plain before it. To
any vision must be brought an eye adapted to what is to be seen, and
having some resemblance to it. Never did eye see the sun unless it
had first become sunlike, and never can the soul have vision of the
first Beauty unless itself be beautiful.[4]

Footnote 4:

S. McKenna’s Translation.

This sublime passage suggests three comments, with which our glance at Plotinus must close. In the first place its tone is religious, and in this it is typical of all Alexandrian philosophy. In the second place it lays stress on behaviour and training; the Supreme Vision cannot be acquired by magic tricks—only those will see it who are fit to see. And in the third place the vision of oneself and the vision of God are really the same, because each individual is God, if only he knew it. And here is the great difference between Plotinus and Christianity. The Christian promise is that a man shall see God, the Neo-Platonic—like the Indian—that he shall be God. Perhaps, on the quays of Alexandria, Plotinus talked with Hindu merchants who came to the town. At all events his system can be paralleled in the religious writings of India. He comes nearer than any other Greek philosopher to the thought of the East.

* * * * *

Porphyry, the pious disciple of Plotinus, was himself a philosopher of note, and the Neo-Platonic School continued to flourish all through the 4th cent. Its main temper kept the same; it was pessimistic as regards the actual world and actual men, but optimistic as regards the future because it believed that the world and all in it has emanated from God and has been granted the means of reverting to him. It recognised the presence of Evil but not its eternal existence, and consequently it was a practical support to its believers, and upheld the last of them, Hypatia, through martyrdom.

When I do contemplate your words and you
revered Hypatia, then I kneel to view
the Virgin’s starry home; there in the skies
your works and perfect words I recognise,
a star unsullied of instruction wise.[5]

Footnote 5:

Translated by R. A. Furness.

Thus wrote an unknown admirer at the beginning of the 5th Century. None of Hypatia’s discourses have been preserved, but we know that with her and with her father, Theon, the great tradition of Plotinus expired at Alexandria.

III. CHRISTIANITY.