Note (return) — APPENDIX III.

The forerunners of Neoplatonism were, on the one hand, those Stoics who recognise the Platonic distinction of the sensible and supersensible world, and on the other, the so-called Neopythagoreans and religious philosophers, such as Posidonius, Plutarch of Chæronea, and especially Numenius of Apamea.456 Nevertheless, these cannot be regarded as the actual Fathers of Neoplatonism; for the philosophic method was still very imperfect in comparison with the Neoplatonic, their principles were uncertain, and the authority of Plato was not yet regarded as placed on an unapproachable height. The Jewish and Christian philosophers of the first and second centuries stand very much nearer the later Neoplatonism than Numenius. We would probably see this more clearly if we knew the development of Christianity in Alexandria in the second century. But, unfortunately, we have only very meagre fragments to tell us of this. First and above all, we must mention Philo. This philosopher, who interpreted the Old Testament religion in terms of Hellenism, had, in accordance with his idea of revelation, already maintained that the Divine Original Essence is supra-rational, that only ecstasy leads to Him, and that the materials for religious and moral knowledge are contained in the oracles of the Deity. The religious ethic of Philo, a combination of Stoic, Platonic, Neopythagorean and Old Testament gnomic wisdom, already bears the marks which we recognise in Neoplatonism. The acknowledgment that God was exalted above all thought, was a sort of tribute which Greek philosophy was compelled to pay to the national religion of Israel, in return for the supremacy which was here granted to the former. The claim of positive religion to be something more than an intellectual conception of the universal reason, was thereby justified. Even religious syncretism is already found in Philo; but it is something essentially different from the later Neoplatonic, since Philo regarded the Jewish cult as the only valuable one, and traced back all elements of truth in the Greeks and Romans to borrowings from the books of Moses.