. . . philosophy was born again in24 neo-platonism4, the offspring of the coition of East and West in Alexandria, where all religions and all philosophies met together. The world and the flesh were crucified that by the spirit, man might enter into God5. Pure in its ethical mood, neo-platonism, says Harnack, led surely to intellectual bankruptcy; the irruption of the barbarians was not altogether the cause of the eclipse of natural knowledge: to transcendental intuition the wisdom of the world had become foolishness. Yet even then, as again and again, came the genius of Aristotle to save the human mind. The death of Hypatia was the death of the School of Alexandria, but in Athens neo-platonism survived and grew. Proclus, ascetic as he was, was versed also in Aristotle; and he compelled the Eastern mysteries into categories: so that on the closure of the School of Athens by Justinian (a.d. 529) a formal philosophy was bequeathed to the Faith; the first scholastic period w. . . Read More