Aeneas of Gaza (d. ''c.'' 518) was a

Neo-Platonic Neoplatonism is a strand of Platonic philosophy that emerged in the 3rd century AD against the background of Hellenistic philosophy and religion. The term does not encapsulate a set of ideas as much as a chain of thinkers. But there are some ide ...

philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

and a convert to

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...

who flourished towards the end of the fifth century. In a dialogue entitled ''Theophrastus,'' he alludes to Hierocles of Alexandria as his teacher, and in some of his letters he mentions as his contemporaries writers whom we know to have lived at the end of the fifth century and the beginning of the sixth, such as

Procopius of Gaza Procopius of Gaza ( 465–528 AD) was a Christians, Christian sophist and rhetorician, one of the most important representatives of the famous Rhetorical School of Gaza, school of his native place.Vikan, Gary, Alexander Kazhdan, and Zvi 'Uri Ma� ...

. He is considered part of the Rhetorical School of Gaza, which flourished in Byzantine Palaestina in the fifth and sixth centuries.Vikan, Gary, Alexander Kazhdan, and Zvi 'Uri Ma῾oz. "Gaza." In ''The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium''. Oxford University Press, 1991. Like all the Christian Neo-Platonists, Aeneas held

Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...

in higher esteem than

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...

. Like

Synesius Synesius (; el, Συνέσιος; c. 373 – c. 414), was a Greek bishop of Ptolemais in ancient Libya, a part of the Western Pentapolis of Cyrenaica after 410. He was born of wealthy parents at Balagrae (now Bayda, Libya) near Cyrene between ...

Nemesius Nemesius of Emesa ( grc-gre, Νεμέσιος Ἐμέσης; la, Nemesius Emesenus; fl. c. AD 390) was a Christian philosopher, and the author of a treatise ''Περὶ φύσεως ἀνθρώπου'' or ''De natura hominis'' ("On Human Nature"). ...

, and others, he found in Neo-Platonism the philosophical system which best accorded with Christian revelation. But, unlike Synesius and Nemesius, he rejected some of the most characteristic doctrines of the Neo-Platonists as being inconsistent with Christian dogma. For instance, he rejected the doctrine of

pre-existence Pre-existence, preexistence, beforelife, or premortal existence, is the belief that each individual human soul existed before mortal conception, and at some point before birth enters or is placed into the body. Concepts of pre-existence can enco ...

(according to which the soul of man existed before its union with body), arguing that the soul before its union with the body would have been "idle", incapable of exercising any of its faculties.

Migne Jacques Paul Migne (; 25 October 1800 – 24 October 1875) was a French priest who published inexpensive and widely distributed editions of theological works, encyclopedias, and the texts of the Church Fathers, with the goal of providing a u ...

, ''

Patrologia Graeca The ''Patrologia Graeca'' (or ''Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Graeca'') is an edited collection of writings by the Christian Church Fathers and various secular writers, in the Greek language. It consists of 161 volumes produced in 1857– ...

'', LXXXV Similarly, he rejected the doctrine of the eternal duration of the world, on the ground that the world is corporeal, and, although the best possible "mechanism", contains in itself the elements of dissolution Again, he taught that "man's body is composed of matter and form", and that while the matter perishes the "form" of the body retains the power of resuscitating the "matter" on the last day.

References

Sources

* Aeneas of Gaza, ''Theophrastus'', transl. by John Dillon and Donald Russell. With Zacharias of Mytilene, ''Ammonius'', transl. by Sebastian Gertz, coll. Ancient commentators on Aristotle, London, Bristol Classical Press, 2012. * Michael W. Champion, ''Explaining the cosmos : creation and cultural interaction in late-antique Gaza'', coll. Oxford studies in late antiquity, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014. * Manfred Wacht, ''Aeneas von Gaza als Apologet : seine Kosmologie im Verhältnis zum Platonismus'', coll. Theophaneia, Bonn, Hanstein, 1969. * * 5th-century births 5th-century Christians 6th-century Christians 5th-century philosophers 6th-century philosophers 6th-century deaths Converts to Christianity from pagan religions Christian philosophers Neoplatonists People from Gaza City 5th-century Byzantine writers {{AncientGreece-philosopher-stub

See also

References

Sources