PHILOSOPHERS'STONE.PART 37

We move onto Neoplatonism.It was the most remarkable philosophical trend in the late Hellenistic period and was inspired by plato's ideology.Plotinus(c.205-270) was the most influential in this school.It was in Alexandria that he studied philosophy and later settled in Rome.For many centuries the city Alexandria,was meeting point between Oriental mysticism and Greek philosophy especially through its gigantic library.When he came with him to settle down in Rome,his doctrine of salvation was ferociously competitive against emerging christianity.Infact,it has considerable influence on christianity.He was familiar with plato's theory of ideas and sensory world and the properly established notion of a clear division between soul and body,making man a dual creature.He believed we had also immortal soul and body composed of earth and dust like sensory world.This platonic knowledge like similar ideas from Asia,influence Plotinus conception of neoplatonism.That the world is made up of two poles or a span between them.