Platonis Sallustius

Platonis Sallustius was a fourth-century Neoplatonic writer who wrote On the Gods and the World.  In this treatise he evidently resolved to trace somewhat of a “catechism of Paganism,”—a concise, yet exhausting and incontrovertible, formulation of the truth that supports the Greco-Roman religion.

The Neoplatonic school of philosophy, whose origin is generally ascribed to Ammonius Saccas and Plotinus, accepted Plato’s doctrines from a predominantly mystical point of view.  The idealism of the Neoplatonists contributed to Amos Bronson Alcott’s formulation of the doctrine of Genesis or Lapse—in which the universe is seen to be an emanation of God, with the divine Nous as the source of all things, from human beings down to animals, plants, molecules, and finally atoms.