Thus, I think, it will be readily admitted that the Súfís certainly owed something to the Neo-Platonists. The cry for the Beloved was in their hearts before the Greek philosophers came; but Neo-Platonism appealed to their Oriental minds. It was a stepping-stone across the river of their particular spiritual tendencies, and they trod thereon, and proceeded to lay down other stones across the stream. I have pointed out the similarities between this particular Greek and Persian belief. There was, however, one very important difference. The Neo-Platonist's conception of God was purely abstract, the Súfí's essentially personal, as far as the early Súfís were concerned. We shall consider other influences which were brought to bear upon Súfíism a little later on. There is a very great difference between the early Súfíism and the elaborate additions that followed as an evolutionary matter of course. In brief, then, Neo-Platonism was the doctrine of Ecstasy. A quotation from the letter of Plotinus to Flaccus on Ecstasy will still further show the similarities between this Greek and Persian teaching: "The wise man recognises the idea of the Good within him. This he develops by withdrawal into the Holy Place of his own soul. He who does not understand how the soul contains the Beautiful within itself, seeks to realise beauty without, by laborious production. His aim should rather be to concentrate and simplify, and so to expand his being; instead of going out into the Manifold, to forsake it for the One, and so to float upwards towards the Divine Fount of Being whose stream flows within him." This is Súfíism in prose. The Súfí turned the same conception into _poetry_. II. THE EARLY SÚFÍS. Abú Hashím (ob. 150 A.H.) was the first to bear the name of Súfí, while Dhu'l-Nún-al-Misri (245 A.H.) may be said to have given Súfíism its permanent shape. Rābi'a, of Basra, was the first woman to join the sect, and her saintliness and wise sayings have been preserved by Farídu'd-Dín 'Attár. One day a great sickness fell upon Rabi'a, and on being asked the reason for it she replied: "I dwelt upon the joys of Paradise and therefore my Beloved has chastened me."