Alexandria in the mid-second century CE.17 The school’s representatives, Clement and Origen, give us examples of exegetical education in their day (like Philo), but not of how or where they taught Platonism.18 Origen’s own homilies and commentaries never refer to Greek philosophical sources, and explicitly discourage instruction in rhetoric.19 Other sources give a different picture: Porphyry, not the most impartial of witnesses, says that the textbooks used in Origen of Alexandria’s school were essentially the same as those in Plotinus’s, which would mean Middle Platonic commentaries, chiefly those of Numenius, and a good dose of Stoics and Peripatetics.20 Eusebius describes a wide curriculum ranging from the basic to advanced study, where Origen was so overwhelmed by classes that he assigned his student Heraclas to teach the “preliminaries.”21 Yet there is no conclusive evidence that the “school” was formal, was officially affiliated with the (proto)-orthodox community, or had a steady succession of teachers; rather, we see that a range of instruction, including both elementary education and introduction to philosophy, was available in a Christian context in the third century CE.22 However, this education was largely propaedeutic and in the service of ethical, hermeneutical, and apologetic concerns.23 It is hard to imagine Parmenides commentaries or the Chaldean Oracles being read or composed there. If Plotinus’s opponents were educated in a Jewish or Christian milieu like that of Philo or the Alexandrian “catechetical school,” their texts do not show it. If we are to understand the background and significance of Plotinus’s Christian opponents and their claims to foreign authorities, we must look at the culture of the Greek schools themselves.24
It is no comfort that our knowledge of the social makeup of philosophical circles in the Roman Empire is also limited.25 However, the modus operandi of philosophical discourse at least appears to be clear: Platonists of the first two centuries CE seem to have preferred a medium akin to the modern reading group or philosophy club. The character of each group seems to have been dependent on that of each particular teacher, as well as attendant circumstances.26 For instance, Ammonius taught at what looked like his home.27 (The same has been suggested of Philo, Justin Martyr, and Origen.)28 Plutarch organized a group (σχολή) in which he lectured and texts were read and debated.29 Like Apuleius of Madaura,30 Aulus Gellius attended a formal but improvised classroom—his instructor, Calvenus Taurus Gellius, would have students over for dinner and even supervise outings.31 Similarly, Iamblichus had his own school in Syria, where he set up a curriculum, lectured, and supervised journeys, in addition to taking his students to local festivals.32 Very little is known of Porphyry’s school, if he founded one at all.33 If it existed, it could have been funded, like Plotinus’s school, by a wealthy matron.34
Plotinus’s career in Rome may give us a good idea of how philosophers set up shop—it was ad hoc.35 When he arrived in Italy, he held his salons in the homes of his wealthy patrons.36 Everybody there was considered to be comrades, from the serious students, like Amelius, to the wealthy patrons dropping in and out, like Marcellus Orontius or even the emperor himself.37 In their seminars, they debated and conducted exegesis on difficult passages in his favorite treatises.38 Fellow teachers engaged the group by epistle and the occasional visit.39
We see, then, that the philosophical reading groups were private, even if ostensibly open to anybody, which usually amounted to the philosophers’ patron(s), advanced students, and young nobles getting their feet wet or completing their educations.40 This distinction was fluid: a patron or noble could abandon politics for philosophy.41 The bulk of serious students are said to have started their careers by studying in several groups before settling on a particular mentor within a particular school (αἵρεσις).42 The most earnest students would formally declare their devotion to the study of philosophy.43 Once ensconced within the school atmosphere, the students formed extremely close, even devotional, relationships with their masters.44 While these groups were clearly small (perhaps up to a dozen people at a time, allowing for a revolving door of veterans and new arrivals) and ad hoc, they still followed the schedule of the ancient school year.45 Relatively formal (if equally small) rival institutes of advanced study do not appear in Athens and Alexandria until the later fourth century CE.46
This brief survey of the evidence underscores how important Porphyry’s evidence is among the ancient philosophical sources but tells us little about what the Gnostics known to Plotinus were like. As scholars like Arthur Darby Nock have suggested, sophistic literature offers us great evidence for fleshing out a picture of the social context of ancient philosophy.47 The logic of the move is simple: philosophers (or at least Platonists) were, presumably, educated individuals; education in the Roman world began with grammar school and led to rhetoric; rhetoric was taught by sophists.48 Philosophers, then, came from similar backgrounds to those of sophists and spent a good deal of their formative years, if not their entire lives, around them. Indeed, many philosophers began as professional rhetoricians before moving to philosophy.49 An analysis of the culture motivating rhetorical education in the Roman Empire might answer our questions about Plotinus’s Gnostic opponents and their interest in “foreign” authorities. Even Gnostics had to go to school, especially if they wanted to join the philosophy club.
GOING TO SCHOOL
Philostratus (early to mid-third century CE) understood himself to be part of a revival of the art of rhetoric traced back to the legacy of the classical sophist Aeschines, and distinguished from its more ancient counterpart today by the name “Second Sophistic.”50 The term describes the rhetorical culture spanning the years 50–250 CE, with roots in the mid-first century and ebbing away in the Rome of Plotinus and the rhetor Longinus.51 This culture was no mere linguistic development in the history of rhetoric but a social movement that produced a concrete ideology.52 This culture was shared with contemporary philosophers, through their common experience in basic schooling, rhetorical training, and religious life—and it strongly contrasts with Gnostic thought.
The close association of sophism and philosophy is indicated foremost by the terminology used by the ancients themselves.53 Philostratus says he is writing about both sophists and philosophers, and that his circle, whose matron was “the philosophical Julia,” included sophists, philosophers, and astrologers (γεωμετρίαι) in the 190s CE.54While many intellectuals themselves sharply distinguished sophists and philosophers (“the lady doth protest too much”),55 the professions were also occasionally confused.56 Such confusion is not surprising, given that philosophical and sophistic texts often circulated in the same schools. Philosophy was part of the sophistic education, if only as one of many branches of study; the Platonic corpus itself loomed large in rhetorical study.57 Moreover, sophists were interested in all the various philosophical sects, at times eschewing adherence to any particular one.58 Finally, sophists and philosophers were bound in the legal sphere, occasionally sharing the privilege of exemption from taxation.59 Such comparable civic status was to be expected, given the similarity of their civic roles.
These roles were deeply politicized. Some have emphasized that Greek philosophers under the empire were quietists, bystanders to the civic turmoil of their age. The “crises” of the imperial period, especially the third century,60 have been repeatedly invoked in explaining not only the origins of Gnostic “anti-cosmism”61 but the pronounced turn to mysticism that seems to occur with Plotinus.62 This approach is unsound for several reasons. The concept of a general political crisis is far too general as a singular, blanket explanation for particular anecdotes (such as Aristides’ hypochondria). Gnosticism, supposedly a symptom of decline, is traceable to that “happiest of reigns,” Hadrian.63 Finally, while the mid-third century CE did see a great deal of political instability, it did not necessarily affect the empire’s entire population, for whom localized breakdowns of military power were more tangible than political machinations in Rome.64 Yet even without recourse to the clichés of dualism and
