The Wisdom of Hypatia: Ancient Spiritual Practices for a More Meaningful Life (8 page)

Porphyry wrote about sixty philosophical works of his own, but less than a dozen survive; they are very valuable for understanding his philosophy. From these it appears that he was more interested in the spiritual dimensions of philosophy than was his teacher. For example he wrote about the philosophy in the
Chaldean Oracles
, about which I’ll have more to say later. Porphyry lived about a century before Hypatia, and his philosophy is perhaps the most similar to hers.

Iamblichus was born about 240 CE in Chalcis (mod. Qinnesrin) in Syria. He was from

an aristocratic family, which is perhaps why he kept his Semitic name at a time when most wealthy families chose Greek names; for example, Porphyry changed his Phoenician name
Malchus
, meaning King, to Greek
Porphyrios
, which means Purple (referring to the royal 36 sources for hypatia's philosophy

purple). Iamblichus’ decision may reflect his opinion that the Greeks had too little respect for the ancient wisdom of the “old nations” of the Middle East. As was typical, he traveled around studying philosophy, and eventually became a student of Porphyry, who was just four years older. We are unsure how directly the two interacted.

Around 305 Iamblichus returned to Syria, where he founded his own school in Apamea

near Antioch. Much is made of the disagreements between Iamblichus and Porphyry, but they are more a matter of emphasis than of fundamental difference. In particular they disagreed about the importance of ritualistic (as opposed to contemplative) spiritual practices, which were intended to lead to mystical insights. Iamblichus designed the definitive Neoplatonic curriculum. It began with his
Collection of Pythagorean Doctrines
in ten “books”

(scrolls), but only four of them survive, along with fragments of a fifth. His surviving book commonly known as
On the Mysteries
is a valuable explanation of the theoretical principles underlying his spiritual practices; I’ll discuss it in a later chapter. Iamblichus died around 325, some 75 years before Hypatia’s teaching activity.

Scholars think the Alexandrian Neoplatonists tended more to the Porphyrian than to

the Iamblichan position on ritual, and so we might expect this of Hypatia too, but there is evidence that both Theon and Hypatia incorporated ritual into their spiritual practice, including ritual invocations. Therefore I will teach you these spiritual exercises in an appropriate place.

Hypatia’s Philosophy

So far as we know, Hypatia wrote nothing about her philosophy; it was all taught in person, which had been the traditional approach for more than a millennium. She did write about mathematics and astronomy, and her works, long thought lost, have been partly

reconstructed, but that is of no use to us here. How then can we learn how to live her philosophy?

In fact, we can infer a pretty accurate picture of her philosophy. One historian writing twenty years after her death reported that “she succeeded in the school of Plato and Plotinus,”22 and we are fortunate to have Plotinus’
Enneads
, which sets out his philosophy in detail, if somewhat obscurely. Also, as explained in the previous section, we have a number of important philosophical texts from Porphyry and Iamblichus, who lived only a century before her. We are also aided in reconstructing her philosophy by the fact that she was apparently not much of a philosophical innovator; she seems to have been satisfied with the philosophy she had learned from her father and their Neoplatonic predecessors. In a sources for hypatia's philosophy 37

culture such as ours, which values innovation for its own sake, this can be considered a failing, but her goal was to teach her students to live well, not to change doctrine for the sake of novelty.

We know some of the philosophy of Hypatia’s most prominent disciple, Synesius of

Cyrene (c.373–c.414), who later converted to Christianity and became Bishop of Ptolemais (in Libya). Despite their religious differences, they remained devoted friends until death.

We have 159 letters that he wrote to many contemporaries, including a dozen to Hypatia and his fellow students, several essays, and ten metaphysical hymns. Synesius sent two philosophical essays, which we have, to Hypatia for her approval, and it is reasonable to assume that they are consistent with her philosophy. (Unfortunately, we do not have Hypatia’s replies to Synesius.) The hymns, including those written after his conversion, are also consistent with what we would expect of her Neoplatonic philosophy. Mercifully, Synesius, who had already lost his three sons, died before learning of the murder of her whom he called his “divine guide,” “the most holy and revered philosopher.”

We also know a reasonable amount about the Neoplatonic philosophy that was being

taught in Alexandria shortly after Hypatia’s death. For example, we know something of the philosophy of Hierocles of Alexandria, who was teaching just twenty years after her assassination. He was Pagan, but seems to have been interested in reconciling his philosophy with Christianity. Nevertheless, his views offended the powers in control, and he was banished from Alexandria for a time. He traveled to Constantinople, where he also managed to offend the party in power there, who had him beaten by a group of thugs.

Covered with blood, he plunged the cup of his hand into his own blood and sprinkled

the judge with it, saying: “Here, Cyclops, drink this wine now that you have eaten human flesh.”23

(The quotation is from the
Odyssey
.) You will not be surprised to learn that he was exiled from Constantinople! Later he was allowed to return to Alexandria and resume

studies with his students. We have Hierocles’
Commentary on the Pythagorean Golden Verses
complete and fragments of works on providence and fate.

The surviving works of Proclus (415–85 CE) are some of our best sources for Neopla-

tonic philosophy in the years immediately after Hypatia’s death. He was born in Constantinople, educated in Alexandria, and eventually settled in Athens, where he became the head of the Platonic Academy. In a sense he brought Pagan Neoplatonism to its final form, but most of his refinements are not especially relevant to the practice of Neoplatonism in our time.

38 sources for hypatia's philosophy

By combining these sources, interpolating between her predecessors, contemporaries,

and successors, we can get a reasonably accurate picture of Hypatia’s philosophy, certainly accurate enough to be a guide for living well, if not for every technical nuance.

Later Neoplatonism

As I said, my purpose is not to write a history of Western philosophy or even of Neoplatonism. Rather, I have tried to show the sources from which Hypatia got her philosophy and the sources from which we can reconstruct it. Nevertheless it’s worthwhile to say a few words about Neoplatonism after Hypatia’s time.

Hierocles and other Pagan philosophers continued to teach Neoplatonism in Alexan-

dria, but after Hypatia’s murder they kept a low profile and stayed clear of politics. Eventually, an Alexandrian Neoplatonic succession was reestablished by Hermeias (c.410–c.450) and his son Ammonius (440–521/517), and it was quite active in the fifth and sixth centuries.

Pagan Neoplatonism was also pursued in other parts of the Greek-speaking world,

but it was curtailed after Emperor Justinian in 529 CE closed the Pagan schools. When this occurred, seven philosophers from the Athenian Academy traveled to the Middle East seeking a more tolerant culture, and they were welcomed at the court of the Persian king Chosroes. However, the philosophers were not happy, and so they returned to the Byz-antine Empire, but not before Chosroes negotiated a treaty with Justinian ensuring that the Pagan philosophers would not be persecuted. Some scholars believe that they settled near the border with Persia in a city called Harrân, which was still famous for Neoplatonic philosophy 500 years later.

Many Neoplatonic ideas were incorporated into Christianity, which used Neoplatonism

as a philosophical foundation for Christian theology. For example, Hypatia’s disciple Synesius used Neoplatonic ideas to explain the doctrine of the Trinity. Also, St. Augustine of Hippo (354–430), a contemporary of Hypatia, was a Manichaean until about age thirty, when he began to study Neoplatonism, especially Plotinus and Porphyry. After he converted to Christianity he used Neoplatonism (and Stoicism) as a framework for Christian theology.

Especially important to Christian mysticism are four works written under the name

“Dionysius the Areopagite” (
Acts
17:34), but attributed by scholars to some pseudo-Dionysius of the late fifth or early sixth century. These works (
Mystical Theology
,
Divine Names
,
Celestial Hierarchy
,
Ecclesiastical Hierarchy
) are almost pure Neoplatonism, so much so sources for hypatia's philosophy 39

that some scholars suspect the author of being a closet Pagan. Later, St. Thomas Aqui-nas (1225–74) blended Neoplatonic and Aristotelianism philosophy into his theology, and Meister Eckhart’s (c.1260–1327) mysticism and negative theology owe a large debt to Neoplatonism. The ascent to divine union taught by St. Bonaventura (1221–74) is based on the Neoplatonic ascent that I will explain in chapter 11. Platonic and Neoplatonic ideas and practices have been especially influential in Greek Orthodox Christianity.

Alexandrian Neoplatonic (especially Plotinian) ideas are prominent in the thought of a number of Islamic philosophers, including the Persian Ibn Sina (Avicenna, 980–1037), al-Farabi (c.872–c.950), al-Ghazali (c.1055–1111), Suhrawardi (1155–91), and Ibn ‛Arabi (1165–1240). Neoplatonism was also important in Sufi thought, perhaps as early as Dhu’l-N‛n (died 859).

Neoplatonic and Neopythagorean influence is apparent in the Jewish mystical tradi-

tion, the
kabbalah
, both in the doctrine of emanation and in the importance attached to the first ten numbers. Neoplatonic quotations can be found in the writings of Moses de Leon (c.1250–1305), whom Gershom Scholem, the eminent historian of the kabbalah, credits

with writing the
Zohar
, the principal kabbalistic text. Neoplatonism also influenced the Jewish philosophers Solomon ibn Gabirol (c.1021–c.1058) and Moses Maimonides (1135–

1204).

Although never really absent from the Western intellectual landscape, Neoplatonism

made an important reappearance beginning in 1438. In this year the Council of Florence was convened in order to reconcile the Western and Eastern branches of the Christian church. The Eastern branch was represented by George Gemistos (c.1360–c.1450), who

called himself Plethon. What was suspected, but not known until after his death, was that he was a Pagan Neoplatonist, and secretly practiced his religion with a small group of followers at Mistra (in the Peloponnese). When he died, his papers were discovered and most of them were burned, preserving only enough to prove his “crime.”

However, at the Council of Florence he was representing the Greek Orthodox Church,

and presented lectures arguing the superiority of Plato over Aristotle, who was favored in the West. His descriptions of the Platonic Academy so fired the imagination of Cosimo de Medici (1389–1464) that he decided to establish a Platonic Academy in Florence. Eventually he chose the young scholar Marsilio Ficino (1433–99) to head the Florentine Academy, which was established in 1462 in a villa at Careggi. Ficino’s first task was to translate the texts of Plato and the Neoplatonists from Greek to Latin, which made them widely accessible in the West. Ficino came under some suspicion for engaging in Pagan rituals and 40 sources for hypatia's philosophy

spiritual practices in the Academy, and eventually he was obliged to reaffirm his Christian faith. In any case, his written works present a Christian Neoplatonic philosophy.

The Florentine Academy became a fount of Neoplatonic ideas and inspiration in phi-

losophy, the sciences, the arts, music, and literature, which helped to precipitate the Italian Renaissance and the rebirth of learning throughout Europe.

One of Ficino’s students was Pico della Mirandola (1463–94), who in some ways went

further than Ficino, combining Christian Neoplatonism with kabbalah and Hermetic mag-ic. The church condemned some of his claims and he had to recant. We still read his
Oration on the Dignity of Man
, with its famous quotation from a Hermetic text:
What a great miracle is man!24

The Cambridge Platonists were an influential group of seventeenth-century Cam-

bridge University graduates, including Henry More (1614–87), Ralph Cudworth (1617–

88), and Anne Conway (1631–79), who advocated Christian Neoplatonism for its harmony with reason.

An important modern Pagan Neoplatonist was Thomas Taylor (1785–1835), who was

known in his time as “the English Platonist.” He made many of the first translations into English of Neoplatonic texts, some of which are still valuable today. His writings significantly influenced the English romantic poets William Blake (1757–1827), William Word-sworth (1770–1850), and Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822), as well as the American Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) and the other Transcendentalists of the nineteenth century.

As you can see, the Platonic philosophy—from Pythagoras to Neoplatonism—has been

a fruitful spiritual tradition for two and one-half millennia. That is what you will learn, but let’s begin by entering the Epicurean Garden to learn the First Degree of Wisdom.

of Wisdom

in the Garden

Goals of the First Degree

You are embarking on a path of spiritual growth so that you can live a more fulfilling life by direct interaction with divinity. But this will be difficult to achieve if you are stressed out, working long hours, perpetually dissatisfied with how you spend your time, striving to advance in your career, anxious and fearful about the future, worried about money, and so on. Where will you find the time and energy—let alone the mental focus and peace—for spiritual practices? Therefore, you need to begin living a more tranquil life as a foundation for advanced spiritual practices. Nevertheless, most of us cannot devote our lives to spiritual pursuits; we need to work for our food, shelter, clothes, and other necessities, and living happily is easier if we have more than the bare necessities. How can we establish a base of happiness and tranquility on which to build a spiritual practice?