Neoplatonism

[6] Christian philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) had direct access to the works of Proclus, Simplicius of Cilicia, and Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, and he knew about other neoplatonists, such as Plotinus and Porphyry, through second-hand sources.

[7] The German mystic Meister Eckhart (c. 1260 – c. 1328) was also influenced by neoplatonism, propagating a contemplative way of life which points to the Godhead beyond the nameable God.

Neoplatonism also had a strong influence on the perennial philosophy of the Italian Renaissance thinkers Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, and continues through 19th-century Universalism and modern-day spirituality.

The term neoplatonism implies that Plotinus' interpretation of Plato was so distinct from those of his predecessors that it should be thought to introduce a new period in the history of Platonism.

Contemporary scholars often identify the German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher as an early thinker who took Plato's philosophy to be separate from that of his neoplatonic interpreters.

[1][note 2] Three distinct phases in classical neoplatonism after Plotinus can be distinguished: the work of his student Porphyry; that of Iamblichus and his school in Syria; and the period in the 5th and 6th centuries, when the Academies in Alexandria and Athens flourished.

Philo, a Hellenized Jew, translated Judaism into terms of Stoic, Platonic, and Neopythagorean elements, and held that God is "supra rational" and can be reached only through "ecstasy".

[15][16][17] Both Christians (see Eusebius, Jerome, and Origen) and Pagans (see Porphyry and Plotinus) claimed him a teacher and founder of the neoplatonic system.

While he was himself influenced by the teachings of classical Greek, Persian, and Indian philosophy and Egyptian theology,[19] his metaphysical writings later inspired numerous Pagan, Jewish, Christian, Gnostic, and Islamic metaphysicians and mystics over the centuries.

Plotinus taught that there is a supreme, totally transcendent "One", containing no division, multiplicity, nor distinction; likewise, it is beyond all categories of being and non-being.

In Iamblichus' system, the realm of divinities stretched from the original One down to material nature itself, where soul, in fact, descended into matter and became "embodied" as human beings.

The world is thus peopled by a crowd of superhuman beings influencing natural events and possessing and communicating knowledge of the future, and who are all accessible to prayers and offerings.

[21] Hypatia (c. 360 – 415) was a Greek philosopher and mathematician who served as head of the Platonist school in Alexandria, Egypt, where she taught philosophy, mathematics and astronomy.

She was murdered in a Church by a fanatical mob of Coptic Parabalani monks because she had been advising the prefect of Egypt Orestes during his feud with Cyril, Alexandria's dynastic archbishop.

He set forth one of the most elaborate, complex, and fully developed neoplatonic systems, providing also an allegorical way of reading the dialogues of Plato.

For Plotinus, the first principle of reality is "the One", an utterly simple, ineffable, beyond being and non-being, unknowable subsistence which is both the creative source of the Universe[23] and the teleological end of all existing things.

The original Being initially emanates, or throws out, the nous (νοῦς), which is a perfect image of the One and the archetype of all existing things.

The nous/spirit is indivisible; the world-soul may preserve its unity and remain in the nous, but, at the same time, it has the power of uniting with the corporeal world and thus being disintegrated.

But, in the actual phenomenal world, unity and harmony are replaced by strife or discord; the result is a conflict, a becoming and vanishing, an illusive existence.

[42] As a Manichaen, Augustine had held that evil has substantial being and that God is made of matter; when he became a neoplatonist, he changed his views on these things.

Plotinus refers to Thales[45] in interpreting logos as the principle of meditation, the interrelationship between the hypostases[46] (Soul, Spirit (nous) and the 'One').

The most influential of these would be Origen, the pupil of Ammonius Saccas; and the sixth-century author known as Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, whose works were translated by John Scotus in the ninth century for the West.

Because their belief was grounded in Platonic thought, the neoplatonists rejected Gnosticism's vilification of Plato's demiurge, the creator of the material world or cosmos discussed in the Timaeus.

According to Plotinus, The One is not a conscious god with intent, nor a godhead, nor a conditioned existing entity of any kind, but is rather a requisite principle of totality which is also the source of ultimate wisdom.

In the early seventh century, the neoplatonist Stephanus of Alexandria brought this Alexandrian tradition to Constantinople, where it would remain influential, albeit as a form of secular education.

Gemistos Plethon (c. 1355 – 1452; Greek: Πλήθων Γεμιστός) remained the preeminent scholar of neoplatonic philosophy in the late Byzantine Empire.

[59] The translations of the works which extrapolate the tenets of God in neoplatonism present no major modification from their original Greek sources, showing the doctrinal shift towards monotheism.

In 1462, Cosimo I de' Medici, patron of arts, who had an interest in humanism and Platonism, provided Ficino with all 36 of Plato's dialogues in Greek for him to translate.

[66] Julius Evola incorporated Neoplatonic metaphysics into his vision of Roman pagan revival, aligning with his Traditionalist critique of modernity.

Arturo Reghini, an Italian esotericist and collaborator of Evola, also promoted Neoplatonic ideas in his efforts to revive ancient Roman religion.