PLOTINUS (A.D. 204 or 205-270 was a native of Egypt, but it is not known from what race he sprang. As a young man he studied philosophy at Alexandria, and at last found a con genial teacher in Ammonius Saccas, under whom he worked till he was 39. Then he accompanied the expedition of the emperor Gordian against Persia, hoping to have an opportunity of study ing the wisdom of the East. Gordian was assassinated in Mesopo tamia and Plotinus escaped to Antioch with difficulty. In 244 he went to Rome, where he lived for the rest of his life. There he opened a school and gathered round him an enthusiastic band of disciples. For many years the instruction was purely oral, and Plotinus took but little pains to perpetuate his teachings. We owe the preservation of it mainly to his pupil Porphyry, who edited his scattered lectures and tried to reduce them to order. The philosopher died after a long illness at the age of 66. His biographer Porphyry described him as a man of saintly character and very attractive personality. In him philosophy and personal religion were closely connected ; the apex of the dialectical pyra mid was also the beatific vision in which the mystical life culmi nates. He made no enemies and was loved and reverenced by all who knew him. The later members of the school spoke of him as "the most divine Plotinus." The importance of Plotinus in the history of thought can hardly be exaggerated. Among the philosophers of mysticism he holds an undisputed pre-eminence, since no other writer unites in the same measure metaphysical genius with intimate personal experience. On the theoretical side he draws mainly from Plato, but on Plato as interpreted by a long series of scholars, and buttressed by Aristotle and (to a less extent) by the Stoa. The rival schools of Greek philosophy were in fact beginning to coalesce into a theocentric system, at once universal and indi vidual, of religious discipline. Plotinus gave an impetus to this fusion; for the victory of his philosophy was so rapid and over whelming t'hat it absorbed the other schools, and when Neo platonism captured the Platonic Academy at Athens, the seat of the official Diadochus, it reigned almost without a rival until Justinian closed the Athenian schools in 529.
Neoplatonism remained attached to the classical tradition, and Porphyry wrote against Christianity. But even Augustine rec ognized that the differences between Platonists and Christians were slight, and the Church gradually absorbed Neoplatonism almost entire. The Christian Platonists of Alexandria led the way; then came Augustine himself, the Cappadocian fathers, and the Pseudo-Dionysius, a disciple of Proclus, whose writings, popularly ascribed to St. Paul's Athenian convert, introduced the whole scheme of Plotinian mysticism into the Church. It is no paradox to say with Eucken that the pagan Plotinus has left a deeper mark upon Christian thought than any other single man. In reading the Enneads we can realize the truth of Troeltsch's famous dictum, that the Catholic Church does not belong to the middle ages, but is rather the last creative effort of classical antiquity, which may be said to have died in giving birth to it. Troeltsch adds that in a new synthesis of Neoplatonism and Christianity lies "the only possible solution of the religious prob lem at the present day," and "does not doubt that this synthesis will once more be dominant in modern thought." Such a judg ment, from the foremost thinker of his day in Germany, is enough to show that the philosophy of Plotinus, so far from being extinct, is still a factor in modern civilization. As Eunapius said, "the altars of Plotinus are still warm." His Philosophy.—Whatever English equivalents we choose for the Plotinian technical terms must be misleading. The "Matter" of Plotinus is immaterial, being the all-but nothing which remains when we have deprived an object of contemplation of the form and meaning which make it a possible object of contemplation. "Soul" is often nearer "life," the word usually translated "intelli gence" is much nearer to "Spirit"; "God" is not the deity of personal theism, and the Absolute is "beyond existence." It is mainly mistranslation of technical terms that has caused many to ascribe metaphysical dualism to Plotinus, for which there is no ground whatever. There are no hard and fast dividing lines in this philosophy, but a graduated hierarchy of existence and value, in every grade of which the soul finds affinities.