The Wisdom of Hypatia: Ancient Spiritual Practices for a More Meaningful Life (7 page)

30 sources for hypatia's philosophy

Map

sources for hypatia's philosophy 31

There is intriguing indirect evidence that Pythagoras learned some of his spiritual practices from shamans, whom the Greeks first encountered when they opened trade routes

to the Black Sea region in the seventh century BCE, a century or so before Pythagoras was born. Essential to shamanism is the idea that the soul can be separated from the body, and this idea seems to have entered Greek thought about this time.

Many of the legends of Pythagoras have shamanic themes, and Pythagoras himself

has many of the characteristics typical of shamans.18 In particular, ancient biographies say that he was visited by Abaris, an emissary from Hyperborea, the “land beyond the North Wind,” who was led to Pythagoras by his magical golden arrow or dart, which he gave to Pythagoras. Abaris’ name seems to refer to the Avars of central Asia, and the story suggests that he was a shaman from Mongolia or Tibet, where a ritual dart or dagger (the
phurba
) is used as a magical tool and token of divine sanction. He was also called a “skywalker,”

which is an Asian way to refer to shamans and to the magical arrows by which they travel.

This and much other evidence suggest that Abaris conferred a shamanic initiation on Pythagoras, thereby establishing a Western spiritual tradition with roots in Tibet.

Shamans are the psychotherapists of indigenous cultures, negotiating and coordinating the spiritual relations among people, the natural world, and higher powers. Since they are specialists in the structure and dynamics of the soul from a practical perspective, they use their techniques for care of the soul and cure of its ailments. A common operation is
soul
retrieval
, a means of helping a patient suffering malaise due to a wandering or stolen soul.

Nowadays we would probably diagnose depression. Shamans also identify and banish ma-

lignant spirits (perhaps neurosis, psychosis, or schizophrenia).

Shamans help to assure that their communities live in accord with nature and the di-

vine order, which their spiritual practices allow them to understand. This ensures ecological balance, with the aim of ensuring good hunting and the health of livestock and crops.

Thus the Pythagoreans’ spiritually-based social programs were not inconsistent with the shamanic tradition.

Shamanic ideas also appear in Orphism, a Greek religious movement dating from at

least the sixth century BCE, which has many interconnections with Pythagoreanism, Platonism, and Neoplatonism. Orphism taught the separability of the soul from the body, reincarnation (also a Pythagorean belief ), and spiritual practices intended to ensure a blessed afterlife. (You may know the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, which is an allegory for Orphic ideas.)

32 sources for hypatia's philosophy

The Greeks might have learned shamanism from the Persian Magi, who were spiritual

teachers, prophets, and magicians of ancient Iran. Indeed, our words “magic” and “magus” come from the Persian word for these spiritual specialists. Pythagoras and several of his followers were said to have been students of the Magi. Some of Plato’s ideas have been traced to the Magi, and according to Plato’s personal secretary, a delegation of Magi visited Plato when he was on his deathbed and made offerings to him as to a demigod.

There are no surviving authentic writings from Pythagoras, and in fact it is most likely that his teaching was entirely oral. To a certain extent scholars can reconstruct his philosophy from later philosophers, but it is always difficult to separate his ideas from those of his followers. Much of what we do have comes from the Neopythagoreans, who revived

his philosophy in the first century of the Common Era, and whose philosophy is closely related to Neoplatonism. Pythagoras was an almost divine progenitor for all these philosophers, and their writings show us what they considered most important of his philosophy (at least as they understood it).

Number was of central importance in Pythagoreanism. If you know nothing else about

Pythagoras, you probably remember learning the Pythagorean theorem in school. (Remember it? “In a right triangle, the square on the hypotenuse is the sum of the squares on the other two sides.”) Attributed to Pythagoras is the discovery that concordant musical pitches could be expressed in simple numerical ratios (for example, a string half as long will sound an octave higher, strings in the ratio 2:3 sound at the interval of a fifth, etc.). This was a key discovery in the history of science, for it showed how complex natural phenomena could be understood mathematically; it is the ancestor of modern mathematical physics.

Hypatia and her father Theon were interested in Pythagorean number theory because

they both were mathematicians and astronomers. However, their interests were not pure-ly technical, for in Pythagorean philosophy numbers have a spiritual dimension, which in our time has been explored by psychologists such as Carl Jung. Although it may seem unlikely, the numbers are potent symbols of deep psychological structures, as revealed in symmetric diagrams such as mandalas, and so they have a role in the more advanced topics of Neoplatonism, which are taken up in the later chapters of this book.

There were many famous Pythagoreans, but I will pass over them, since my purpose

here is not to write a history of philosophy, but to present the sources of Hypatia’s philosophy.

The direct ancestor of Hypatia’s philosophy was Plato, and she would have called herself a Platonist. The term “Neoplatonism” was originally a derogatory term invented by sources for hypatia's philosophy 33

certain nineteenth century scholars to name what they considered to be a degeneration of Platonism from its earlier “purer” form. But Hypatia and her contemporaries intended their Platonic philosophy to be a further refinement and development of Plato’s work.

Nowadays, “Neoplatonism” is a purely descriptive term that has lost its negative connotation among scholars; it refers to Platonism after 245 CE.

Plato (427–347 BCE) was probably born in Athens; he came from an aristocratic family and Socrates (c.469–399 BCE) seems to have been his principal teacher in philosophy. However, many scholars have perceived an important Pythagorean influence on his thought.

He was friends with a number of Pythagoreans, and Pythagoreanism seems to have in-

fluenced his political philosophy and the spiritual importance that he attached to mathematics. According to a story written 750 years after Plato, over the door to his school was inscribed:

Let no non-geometer enter!

This was an allusion to a common inscription over the doors of temples: “Let no unjust person enter!” Regardless of whether the story is true, it embodies a truth: mathematics is the quickest entrée to Platonism. But don’t worry; you don’t need to be a mathematician to practice Platonism!

When Plato was about forty years old, he founded his school outside the city walls of Athens in an exercise field and olive grove sacred to Athena, the goddess of wisdom. It was called
Akademia
, and from it we get “academy,” “academic,” and related words, the original “Groves of Academe.” The location was appropriate, for in the exercise field young men practiced and exercised their physical bodies, developing their strength and coordina-tion, while in the Academy they exercised their minds and learned to practice wisdom and virtue. “A sound mind in a sound body” was an ancient Greek proverb.

Starting with Plato, the Academy operated under a continuous succession of heads for four hundred years. It suffered a period of disorganization after the Roman invasion in 88

BCE by Sulla, who cut down the trees to make war machines, and many philosophers left Athens. The Athenian Academy was reestablished toward the end of the fourth century

CE and continued in operation under a continuous succession of heads, until Justinian I in 529 CE closed all the Pagan schools. The Academy continued to exist after Justinian’s edict, but no longer as an educational institution.

34 sources for hypatia's philosophy

Plotinus

While many philosophers contributed to the development of Platonism, an especially important figure for our purposes was Plotinus (204–70 CE), for he inaugurated the phase of Platonic philosophy that scholars call Neoplatonism. He was probably born in Lycopolis (modern Asyût) in Upper Egypt, but as a young man he traveled to Alexandria to study philosophy. He tried each philosopher in turn, but was dissatisfied with them all until he came to Ammonius Saccas, who had founded a school at the beginning of the third century. We know little about Ammonius, except that ancient Neoplatonists said he was born a Christian but converted to Paganism. He was called “Saccas,” supposedly, because he dressed in a sack!19 In any case, Plotinus found in Ammonius what he was searching for, and exclaimed, “This is the man I was seeking!”20 He studied with Ammonius in Alexandria for eleven years.

We know very little about the philosophy of Ammonius Saccas, for he wrote no philo-

sophical treatises. What little we do know must be inferred from the philosophy of Plotinus, who said he owed everything to Ammonius, and from his fellow students Origen and Longinus.

In 243 Plotinus left Ammonius to join the campaign of Emperor Gordian III against

the Persians. Most likely he did not go as a soldier but as a scientific advisor, and he seems to have been motivated by a hope to contact Persian Magi and Indian sages. In particular Mani, the great Persian religious reformer and founder of Manichaeism, was supposed to be accompanying the opposing army. However, Gordian’s adventure proved to be a failure and Plotinus’ plans were unsuccessful.

Therefore Plotinus, who was about forty years old by this time, headed for Rome,

where he set up his school (about 245). Like many of the ancient schools, it admitted women, and in fact a wealthy woman, Gemina, provided space for Plotinus and his school in her house.

For the first ten years (until about 253) Plotinus’ instruction was completely oral, as befits the teaching of philosophy as a way of life. Rather than setting out a philosophical system in organized lectures, Plotinus’ teaching method was to respond to his students’

questions and problems, and to use this to illustrate more general principles, but eventually his students convinced him to write down his doctrines. His method was to first formulate his expositions completely in his mind. No doubt he used the ancient “art of memory,”

which arranges knowledge into organized images that can be vividly visualized and remembered. Once the ideas were organized in his mind, he would write them out in one

sources for hypatia's philosophy 35

go; he rarely revised his texts, for his eyesight was bad and it was difficult for him to read.

These essays were later collected and edited by his student Porphyry.

Plotinus was highly respected in Rome and many senators attended his classes. The

Emperor Gallienus and his wife Salonina were especially taken by his philosophy, and they agreed to his plan to establish a city, “Platonopolis,” in Campania (southern Italy). This was to be a home for philosophers and governed by Platonic principles, but it seems that the project was scuttled by court intrigue.

Gallienus was assassinated in 268 and around this time Plotinus’ sickness, perhaps lep-rosy, worsened. Most of his disciples stayed away, and eventually he left Rome and retired to an estate in Campania. Plotinus died in 270 at the age of 66; his last words were:
Try to bring back the god in you to the divine in the All.21

Porphyry and Iamblichus

Porphyry (c.232–c.305 CE) was a Phoenician from Tyre (in modern Lebanon), who studied under Longinus at Athens. Longinus and Plotinus differed on some philosophical matters, and so Porphyry, defending his teacher, engaged in a formal debate with one of Plotinus’

students. Eventually Porphyry was won over to Plotinian philosophy and studied under this new teacher for six years (263–8). Towards the end of this period Plotinus perceived that Porphyry was contemplating suicide, and so the master sent him to Sicily with spiritual exercises to practice. These apparently worked, but Plotinus died in 270 while Porphyry was away. Porphyry returned to Rome and wrote his teacher’s biography, which we have, and edited and collected his essays into a book called the
Enneads
, which has survived and is a rich source of Neoplatonic philosophy.