The Alexandrian Neoplatonic School of Ammonius Saccas

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Charles Kingsley · Hellenic and Hellenistic Papers Series · 76 pages

A seventy-six page compilation in two parts, the first from Helena Petrovna Blavatsky on the Alexandrian Neoplatonic school and the second drawing on Charles Kingsley's Alexandria and her Schools, whose title supplies the running head. A contents and abstract stands at the front. It is the most recently revised file in the section, dated February 2025.

The first part sets out what the school was and what it claimed. Its theosophy is described at the head as a mystery to the philosophicules, a riddle to the profane and an absurdity to the masses — and the name of the present publisher is glossed in passing, Philaletheians meaning seekers of truth, who believe in gods understood as sparks of one eternal and infinite absolute Deity, the Dark Fire exemplified by the plane of the boundless circle. The ethical condition attached is stated immediately: that it is only by extending empathy and sympathy to all men and every sentient creature that one may approach the majesty of truth, whose spirit is compassion and self-sacrifice. The historical narrative follows. After the divine science of magic retreated along with the expiring theurgic rites of Christianised Greece, it emerged again in the capital of ancient Egypt, though in India it had never died out. Ptolemy I Soter, the Macedonian general and successor of Alexander, is credited with commanding the construction of the Library and of the Lighthouse, and Ptolemy II Philadelphus with expanding the Library and patronising research. The school itself is dated to 193 AD and founded by Ammonius Saccas — whose byname means porter of sacks — described as so chaste and pure that his pupil Plotinus had no hope of ever seeing any mortal comparable to him.

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