Chapter V: Resemblances to Christianity

TRINITARIAN SIGNIFICANCE OF PLOTINOS.

Plotinos's date being about A.D. 262, he stands midway between the Christian writings of the New Testament, and the Council of Nicaea, A.D. 325. As a philosopher dealing with the kindred topics--the soul and its salvation,--and deriving terminology and inspiration from the same sources, Platonism and Stoicism, we would expect extensive parallelism and correspondence. Though Plotinos does not mention any contemporaneous writings, we will surely be able to detect indirect references to Old and New Testaments. But what will be of most vital interest will be his anticipations of Nicene formulations, or reflection of current expressions of Christian philosophic comment. While we cannot positively assert this Christian development was exclusively Plotinian, we are justified in saying that the development of Christian philosophy was not due exclusively to the Alexandrian catechetical school; that what later appears as Christian theology was only earlier current Neoplatonic metaphysics, without any exclusive dogmatic connection with the distinctively Christian biography. This avoids the flat assertion of Drews that the Christian doctrine of the Trinity was dependent on Plotinos, although it admits Bouillet's more cautious statement that Plotinos was the rationalizer of the doctrine of the Trinity.[509] This much is certain, that no other contemporaneous discussion of the trinity has survived, if any ever existed; and we must remember that it was not until the council of Constantinople in A.D. 381, that the Nicene Creed, by the addition of the Filioque clause, became trinitarian in a thoroughgoing way; and not until fifty years later that Augustine, again in the West, fully expressed a philosophy and psychology of the trinity.

To Plotinos therefore is due the historical position of protagonist of trinitarian philosophy.

NON-CHRISTIAN ORIGIN OF PARALELLISMS TO CHRISTIANITY.

Christian parallelisms in Plotinos have a historical origin in Christian parallelisms in his sources, namely, Stoicism, Numenius and Plato.

To Christian origins in Plato never has justice been done, not even by Bigg. His suggestion of the crucifixion of the just man, his reference to the son of God are only common-places, to which should be added many minor references.

The Christian origins in Numenius are quite explicit; mention of the Hebrews as among the races whose scriptures are important, of Moses among the great religious teachers, of the Spirit hovering over the waters, of the names of the Egyptian magicians which, together with Pliny, he hands down to posterity. He also was said to have told many stories about Jesus, in an allegorical manner.

The Christian origins in Stoicism have been widely discussed; for instance, by Chaignet. But it is likely that this influence affected Christianity indirectly through Plotinos, along with the other Christian ideas we shall later find. At any rate Plotinos is the philosopher who uses the term "spiritual body" most like the Christians.[510] The soul is a slave to the body,[511] and has a celestial body[512] as well as a spiritual body.[513] Within us are two men opposing each other,[514] the better part often being mastered by the worse part, as thought St. Paul,[515] in the struggle between the inner and outer man.[516]

With Plotinos the idea of "procession" is not only cosmic but psychological. In other words, when Plotinos speaks of the "procession" of the God-head, he is not, as in Christian doctrine, depicting something unique, which has no connection with the world. He is only referring to the cosmic aspect of an evolution which, in the soul, appears as educational development.[517] As the opposite of the soul's procession upwards, there is the soul's descent into hell,[518] or, in other words, the soul's descent and ascension.[519] This double aspect of man's fate upward or downward is referred to by Plotinos in the regular Christian term "sin," as consisting in missing one's aim.[520] The soul repents,[521] and its duty is conversion.[522] As a result of this conversion comes forgiveness.[523]

OLD TESTAMENT REFERENCES.

The famous "terrors of Jeremiah"[524] might have come mediately through the Gnostics, who indeed may have been the persons referred to as Christians.[525] More direct no doubt was God admiring his handiwork[526] and the soul breathing the spirit of life into animals.[527] God is called both the "I am what I am"[528] and "He is what He ought to be."[528] He sits above the world,[529] as the king of kings.[530]

NEW TESTAMENT REFERENCES.

Plotinos says that it would be a poor artist who would conceive of an animal as all covered with eyes. There is hardly such a reference outside of Revelations,[531] to which we must also look for a new heaven and a new earth.[532] Then we have practically a quotation of the Johannine prologue "In the beginning was the Logos," and by him were all things made.[533] Light was in the beginning.[534] We are told not to leave the world, but not to be of it.[535] The divinity prepares mansions in heaven for good souls.[536]

Pauline references seem to be that sin exists because of the law.[537] God is above all height or depth.[538] The vulgar who attend mystery-banquets only to gorge are condemned.[539] There are several heavens.[540] The beggarly principles and elements towards which some turn, are mentioned.[541] The genealogies of the Gnostics are held up to ridicule.[542] General references are numerous. Diseases are caused by evil spirits.[543] We must cut off any offending member.[544] Thus we are saved.[545] In him we breathe and move and have our being.[546] The higher divinity begets a Son, one among many brethren.[547] As the father of intelligence, God is the father of lights.[548]

However, the most interesting incident is that scriptural text which, to the reflecting, is always so much of a puzzle: "If the light that is in them be darkness," etc.[549] This is explained by the Platonic theory[550] that we see because of a special light that is within the eye.

THEOLOGICAL REFERENCES.

General theological references may be grouped under three heads: the soul's salvation, the procession of the divinity, and the trinity.

As to the soul's salvation, God is the opposite of the evil of beings,[551] which, when created in honor of the divinity[552] is the image of the Word, the interpreter of the One,[553] and is composed of several elements;[554] but it is a fall from God,[555] and its fate is connected with the "parousia."[556]

This going forth of the soul from God, when considered cosmically, becomes the "procession of the soul."[557] This is the "eternal generation,"[558] whereby the Son is begotten from eternity,[559] so that there could be no (Arian) "ên hote ouk ên," or, "time when he was not."[560] This is expressed as "light of light,"[561] and explained by the Athanasian light and ray simile.[562] We find even the Johannine and Philonic distinction between God and the Good.[563] The world is the first-begotten,[564] and the Intelligence is the logos of the first God,[565] as the hypostasis of wisdom is "ousia," or "being,"[566] and it is the "universal reason."[567]

As to the trinity, Plotinos is the first and chief rationalizer of the cosmic trinity, which he continuously and at length discusses.[568] God is father and son,[569] and they are "homoousian," or "consubstantial."[570] The human soul (as image of the cosmic divinity), is one nature in three powers.[571] Elsewhere we have discussed the history of the term "persons," but we may understand the result of that process best by Plotinos's simile of the trinity as one head with three faces,[572] in which the "persons" bear out their original meaning of masks, "personare." Henceforward the trinity was an objective idea.

NOTE

Although mentioned above, special attention should be given to the parable of the vine and the branches (iii. 3.7.--48, 1088 with Jno. xv. 1-8), and the divinity's begetting a Son (v. 8.12--31, 571). The significant aspect of this is that it is represented as being the content of the supreme ecstatic vision; what you might call the crown of Plotinos' message. "He tells us that he has seen the divinity beget an offspring of an incomparable beauty, producing everything in Himself, and without pain preserving within Himself what He has begotten.... His Son has manifested Himself externally. By Him, as by an image (Col. i. 15), you may judge of the greatness of His Father ... enjoying the privilege of being the image of His eternity."