Not only in the abstract realm of Metaphysics, therefore, is the world indebted to Greek thought; but even in the realm of religion a Stoic reinterpretation of Platonism, itself reinterpreted in a different language has given a lasting inheritance to the spiritual aspirations of the ages. V. RESEMBLANCES TO CHRISTIANITY. TRINITARIAN SIGNIFICANCE OF PLOTINOS. Plotinos's date being about A.D. 262, he stands midway between the Christian writings of the New Testament, and the Council of Nicaea, A.D. 325. As a philosopher dealing with the kindred topics--the soul and its salvation,--and deriving terminology and inspiration from the same sources, Platonism and Stoicism, we would expect extensive parallelism and correspondence. Though Plotinos does not mention any contemporaneous writings, we will surely be able to detect indirect references to Old and New Testaments. But what will be of most vital interest will be his anticipations of Nicene formulations, or reflection of current expressions of Christian philosophic comment. While we cannot positively assert this Christian development was exclusively Plotinian, we are justified in saying that the development of Christian philosophy was not due exclusively to the Alexandrian catechetical school; that what later appears as Christian theology was only earlier current Neoplatonic metaphysics, without any exclusive dogmatic connection with the distinctively Christian biography. This avoids the flat assertion of Drews that the Christian doctrine of the Trinity was dependent on Plotinos, although it admits Bouillet's more cautious statement that Plotinos was the rationalizer of the doctrine of the Trinity.[509] This much is certain, that no other contemporaneous discussion of the trinity has survived, if any ever existed; and we must remember that it was not until the council of Constantinople in A.D. 381, that the Nicene Creed, by the addition of the Filioque clause, became trinitarian in a thoroughgoing way; and not until fifty years later that Augustine, again in the West, fully expressed a philosophy and psychology of the trinity. To Plotinos therefore is due the historical position of protagonist of trinitarian philosophy. NON-CHRISTIAN ORIGIN OF PARALELLISMS TO CHRISTIANITY. Christian parallelisms in Plotinos have a historical origin in Christian parallelisms in his sources, namely, Stoicism, Numenius and Plato. To Christian origins in Plato never has justice been done, not even by Bigg. His suggestion of the crucifixion of the just man, his reference to the son of God are only common-places, to which should be added many minor references.