PLOTINUS, Sylvester Hassell Plotinus, the chief Neo-Platonic philosopher, taught at Rome, and died there A.D. 270. Porphyry, of Tyre, a pupil of Plotinus, and also of Origen (born 233, died 304), edited and improved the writings of Plotinus, taught that philosophy was the means of the salvation of the soul, and, by a treatise of fifteen books (written in Sicily about A.D. 270), he made the greatest and most determined attempt of the ancient heathen world to disprove and destroy the Christian religion. He was a much more refined and powerful antagonist of Christianity than was Celsus in the second century. “He is the very prototype of the skeptics of modern times, both in his critical objections and in his professions of respect for the pure teachings of Jesus, as contrasted with the corrupt doctrines of the apostles.’” (Hassell’s History pg 378) See also the article on NEOPLATONISM