Note 79 — IX. PORPHYRY. 233–306 (?) A.D.

Neo or New-Platonism may be briefly defined as a spiritual development of the Socratic or Platonic teaching. In the hands of some of its less judicious and rational advocates it tended to degenerate into puerile, though harmless, superstition. With the superior intellects of a Plotinus, Porphyry, Longinus, Hypatia, or Proclus, on the other hand, it was, in the main at least, a sublime attempt at the purification and spiritualisation of the established orthodox creed. It occupied a position midway between the old and the new religion, which was so soon to celebrate its triumph over its effete rival. That Christianity, on its spiritual side (whatever the ingratitude of its later authorities), owes far more than is generally acknowledged to both the old and newer Platonism, is sufficiently apparent to the attentive student of theological history.