gressing in spite of contempt for its adherents,
philosophic repudiation of the doctrines of the _superstitio prava_, and
official persecution unknown in British India at least. Then also, as
always, Christ stood out far above His followers, lifted up and drawing
all men's eyes. Such in India also, in the nineteenth century, has been
the course of Christianity; parts of the record of these centuries read
like the record of the religious movements in India in these latter
days. Describing the Neo-Platonists of these centuries, historians tell
us that at the end of the second century A.D. Ammonius of Alexandria,
founder of the sect, "undertook to bring all systems of philosophy and
religion into harmony, by which all philosophers and men of all
religions, Christianity included, might unite and hold fellowship."
_There_ are the four doors of the Chet Rami sanctuary. There also we
have the Theosophical Society of India, professing in its constitution
to be "the nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood of Humanity, representing
and excluding no religious creed." Ammonius, founder of the
Neo-Platonists, was a pantheist like the present leader of the
Theosophical Society, Mrs. Besant, and like her too, curiously, had
begun as a Christian.[104] We recall that of Indian Theosophy in
general, in 1891, the late Sir Monier Williams declared that it seemed
little more than another name for the "Vedanta [or Pantheistic]
philosophy." Exactly like the earlier theosophists also, Ammonius, the
Neo-Platonist, held that the purified soul could perform physical
wonders, by the power of Theurgy. In its constitution the Theosophical
Society professed "to investigate the hidden mysteries of nature and the
psychical powers latent in man." Many can remember how, in the eighties,
Madame Blavatsky took advantage of our curiosity regarding such with
air-borne letters from Mahatmas in Thibet. Again Ammonius, we read,
"turned the whole history of the pagan gods into allegory." There we
have the Neo-Krishnaites of to-day. "He acknowledged that Christ was an
extraordinary man, the friend of God, and an admirable Theurgus." There
we have the stand point of the educated Indians who have come under
Christ's spell. For two centuries the successors of Ammonius followed in
these lines. "Individual Neo-Platonists," Harnack tells us, "employed
Christian sayings as oracles, and testified very highly of Christ.
Porphyry of Syria, chief of the Neo-Platonists of the third