THEIR MYSTICISM. 215 



Syrian philosopher of this school, was beheaded by the former empe- 

 ror on a charge that he had bound the winds by the power of magic. 8 

 But Julian, who shortly after succeeded to the purple, embraced with 

 ardor the opinions of Iamblichus. Proclus (who died a. d. 487) was 

 one of the greatest of the teachers of this school ; 9 and was, both in his 

 life and doctrines, a worthy successor of Plotinus, Porphyry, and Iam- 

 blichus. We possess a biography, or rather a panegyric of him, by his 

 disciple Marinus, in which he is exhibited as a representation of the 

 ideal perfection of the philosophic character, according to the views of 

 the Neoplatonists. His virtues are arranged as physical, moral, puri- 

 ficatory, theoretic, and theurgic. Even in his boyhood, Apollo and 

 Minerva visited him in his dreams : he studied oratory at Alexandria, 

 but it was at Athens that Plutarch and Lysianus initiated him in the 

 mysteries of the New Platonists. He received a kind of consecration 

 at the hands of the daughter of Plutarch, the celebrated Asclepigenia, 

 who introduced him to the traditions of the Chaldeans, and the prac- 

 tices of theurgy ; he was also admitted to the mysteries of Eleusis. He 

 became celebrated for his knowledge and eloquence ; but especially for 

 his skill in the supernatural arts which were connected with the doc- 

 trines of his sect. He appears before us rather as a hierophant than a 

 philosopher. A large portion of his life was spent in evocations, puri- 

 fications, fastings, prayers, hymns, intercourse with apparitions, and 

 with the gods, and in the celebration of the festivals of Paganism, es- 

 pecially those which were held in honor of the Mother of the Gods. 

 His religious admiration extended to all forms of mythology. The 

 philosopher, said he, is not the priest of a single religion, but of all the 

 religions of the world. Accordingly, he composed hymns in honor of 

 all the divinities of Greece, Rome, Egypt, Arabia; — Christianity alone 

 was excluded from his favor. 



The reader will find an interesting view of the School of Alexandria, 

 in M. Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire's Rapport on the Memoires sent to the 

 Academy of Moral and Political Sciences at Paris, in consequence of 

 its having, in 1841, proposed this as the subject of a prize, which was 

 awarded in 1 844. M. Saint-Hilaire has prefixed to this Rapport a dis- 

 sertation on the Mysticism of that school. He, however, uses the term 

 Mysticism in a wider sense than my purpose, which regarded mainly 

 the bearing of the doctrines of this school upon the progress of the 

 Inductive Sciences, has led me to do. Although he finds much to ad- 



« Gibbon, iii. 852. * Beg. iii. 419. 



