NEO-PLA'TONISM. The name applied to the teachings. primarily Of the Gneeo-Alcx andrian school of philosophy, and later of a number of Italian humanists, as well as some Englishmen. The extension of the Roman Em pire and the growing intercourse between differ ent parts of the world gave rise to an eclectic tendeney which combined features of various systems. The process of amalgamation showed itself most prominently at Alexandria, Whose central position made it a meeting-place for the chief religions and philosophies of the ancient world. Such a philosophy, therefore. as that promulgated by the Neo-Platonists, combining the peculiar mental characteristics of the East :1101 the West, naturally originated there. though it soon ceased to have any local connection. The term Neo-Platonism is sometimes loosely used to signify the whole new intellectual move ment proceeding from Alexandria, and attempts have been made to include among its exponents of the C'bristian Fathers, such as Clement of Alexandria and Origen: but the name is more properly applied to the school of Aninionins Simms (q.v.) and his followers. Plotinus (q.v.). a pupil of Ammonins, was its most important champion. Porphyrius, lambliehus. and Proclus represent a continuous decline in philo sophic interest, and a greater and greater ten deney to wild and fantastic religion, synerel km. In M111111011 With Neo-Pythagoreanism and the Juda-o-Alexandrian philosophy represented by Philo, the teaching of this school is characterized by a dualistic opposition of the divine and the ea rt lily. an abstract conception of Cod which ex clude, all knowledge of the divine essence a con tempt for the world of sense which on the Platonic doctrines of matter and of the descent of souls into bodies. the supposition of mediating forms \Olio!' carry over the divine operation, into the world of phenomena. the demand for an ascetic liberation from a life of sense. and a faith in a higher revelation obtained in ecstasy. Notwithstanding the assumption that these doc trines were deductions from the teachings of Plato, the school brought the whole of philo sophieal science under a TIM systematic. form.
In their view, the basis of the divine nature is 1111Ity, the One: ft- this as the primordial source of all things emanates 'pure intelligence': and from this, in turn, emanates the 'soul of the world,' NvlioKe creative activity produces other lesser souls. of men and animals. The doctrine of the divine immanence in this anima inundi %va4 one of the most marked points in later N.00 PlaInnkm. and led very close to pantheism. Clue of the last Neo•PlntouIsts of antiquity was I thins (q.v.). who by his continued popularity !meanie the most influential medium for the trans mission. during the earls- Nliddle Ages, of Creek philosophy to Western Europe.
The fifteenth century witnessed a strong re vival of interest. in these speculations. Nicholas of Cnsa (q.v.) and other mystics seek to over conic the doubt arising from the inadequacy of human conceptions by the theory of man's ha m ediate knowledge or intuition of God—a theory distinctly akin to the Neo-Platonic doctrine that the soul in a state of ecstasy has the power to transcend all finite limitations. The Italian humanists, in their reaction against the previous ly dominant Aristotelianism, paid great devotion to anything that seemed to derive from Plato. Marsilio Fichm, especially, by his translations of Plotinus, Porphyries, and Taniblichus, contrib uted to the spread of these doctrines. The Cam bridge Phi tonists (q.v.) were not without their af finities to the Alexandrian teaching; and Words worth's prevalent idea of the existence of a soul in nature which holds converse with the soul of man might be traced to the same source. Con sult: Whittaker, The Neo-Platonists (Cambridge, 1901) ; Bigg, The Christian Plutonists of Alex andria (Oxford, 188O) ; id.. (ib., 1895) ; }Tinier, Neuplatonisehe Studien (Vienna, 1868) Jules Simon, LYco/e (Paris, l843-45) ; Kellner, //c//en ism as and Christen thum (Cologne, 1865) ; and see NEO-PYTITAGO REANISIL