outside of mankind?... If the _form_ of the Divine presence is not now
the same, we are as much agreed that God is among us to-day, as that
He was in the world then." He argues in another place that all other
species of spiritual beings must have had their Incarnations of
Christ; a doctrine which was afterwards condemned, but which seems to
follow necessarily from the Logos doctrine. These arguments show very
clearly that for the Greek theologians Christ is a cosmic principle,
immanent in the world, though not confined by it; and that the scheme
of salvation is regarded as part of the constitution of the universe,
which is animated and sustained by the same Power who was fully
manifested in the Incarnation.

The question has been much debated, whether the influence of Persian
and Indian thought can be traced in Neoplatonism, or whether that
system was purely Greek.[151] It is a quite hopeless task to try to
disentangle the various strands of thought which make up the web of
Alexandrianism. But there is no doubt that the philosophers of Asia
were held in reverence at this period. Origen, in justifying an
esoteric mystery-religion for the educated, and a mythical religion
for the vulgar, appeals to the example of the "Persians and Indians."
And Philostratus, in his life of Apollonius of Tyana, says, or makes
his hero say, that while all wish to live in the presence of God, "the
Indians alone succeed in doing so." And certainly there are parts of
Plotinus, and still more of his successors, which strongly suggest
Asiatic influences.[152] When we turn from Alexandria to Syria, we
find Orientalism more rampant. Speculation among the Syrian monks of
the third, fourth, and fifth centuries was perhaps more unfettered
and more audacious than in any other branch of Christendom at any
period. Our knowledge of their theories is very limited, but one
strange specimen has survived in the book of Hierotheus,[153] which