The history of Neo-Platonism from Plotinus to the last teachers of the Athenian Academy falls into the era in which the world of Antiquity was transformed into the new Christian world. These two world-philosophies, the Neo-Platonic and the Christian, had some common elements, notably that both strove for the purest possible conception of God. This despite many differences, of which the most important was the Neo-Platonic doctrine that the world is an emanation of the divine essence and is incorruptible. Some of their representatives could be even both, a Neo-Platonist and a Christian. But after Porphyry's treatise against the Christians it was evident that a permanent ideological connection was out of question. It was said that a declining paganism retreated before Christianity into Platonism, the last stronghold of its spiritual, moral and religious life.¹ But only a small part of that world could retire into this citadel, only people capable of philosophical learning. "The poor in spirit" could not enter there, and it was just they who were blessed by Christ. Christianity emerged victorious from this struggle. But as happens to victorious nations which accept the language and culture of the vanquished enemy, so Christianity absorbed elements of the antique culture. In philosophy these were Platonic and Neo-Platonic ideas. When Christianity was accepted as the state religion of the Roman Empire and though the Neo-Platonic teachers — especially those who pursued theosophy and theurgy — were persecuted and expelled from the schools, that condemned philosophy nevertheless already influenced — and this not always to the detriment of the true faith — the minds of the greatest Christian scholars.