Any attempt to describe and understand the transition between ancient and medieval philosophy is immediately confronted by the enormous quantity of writings to be evaluated and by the complexity of their interrelations. In the face of such a challenge, certain methodological premisses guiding the selection of authors, texts and themes must be established, even if that selection can only be fully justified at the conclusion of the project. The analysis to be undertaken here will employ the following explicit criteria.

First, the authors of the texts transmitted and their privileged themes will be used as the basis for investigating the readers of the transmitted texts and their privileged themes rather than the reverse. To provide some concrete examples, we will employ the ancient writer Calcidius’ presentation of the three principles of Platonism as a starting-point for the discussion of Hugh of St Victor’s medieval treatment of the same topic, or the ancient writer Boethius’ definitions of nature as a starting-point for Iohannes Scottus Eriugena’s treatment of the same issue during the ninth century, or again the ancient writer Proclus’ placing of the One beyond Being as a starting-point for Berthold of Moosburg’s medieval treatment of the same question. Discussion of the actual medieval context of such philosophical questions in a systematic or chronological manner will not be our primary concern.

Little is known of the life of Priscian of Lydia (born late fifth century ce), who is not to be confused with his older namesake Priscian of Caesarea (fl. c. 500 ce), the famous Latin grammarian. Priscian of Lydia is one of the six philosophers listed by Agathias Histories 2.30–1 to have accompanied Damascius on his journey to the Sassanian king Chosroes I (reign 531–79 ce). Agathias suggests they came of their own accord guided by the false impression that Chosroes’ reign resembled a Platonic state; he does not connect their journey to the famous closure of the Athenian school in 529. The philosophers soon discovered that Chosroes was far from the ideal king and resolved to leave quickly. Because Chosroes was well disposed towards them Priscian and the others were able to leave Chosroes under the safeguard of a treaty the Persian king concluded with Rome in 532, which comprised a clause that ‘these men should be allowed to return to their own country and live there henceforth in safety, without being forced to adopt opinions which they did not hold, or to change their own faith’. Whether they settled in Athens, or perhaps in Carrhae (Harran), where over a century later a centre of Platonic philosophy was flourishing, is still a matter of controversy.

SOLUTIONES AD CHOSROEM

Priscian is credited with a work apparently written for King Chosroes, and known to us in Latin translation3 under the title Solutiones eorum de quibus dubitavit Chosroes Persarum rex. The text does not give us any indication about the circumstances in which it originated.

In this section, we begin the treatment of Jewish and Christian thinkers who were among the first to encounter ancient Greek philosophy in a systematic way. The relationship between Judaism and Christianity (and later, Islam) as religions, on the one hand, and their theological formulations, on the other, is an ongoing theme through this book. The Hellenized Jew Philo of Alexandria is perhaps the first to see in Greek philosophy the vocabulary and the conceptual framework for articulating Biblical revelation. The principal challenge Philo faced was how to express in the language of Greek philosophy the personal nature of the first principle of all and the relation that existed between that principle and the Jewish people. The history of ancient Greek philosophy is often characterized as having separated itself from the personalized Homeric gods in favour of more rational and so more impersonal causes. But it was not so much the personal as it was the non-rational aspects of the personal that Greek philosophical theology wished to abandon. Philo’s efforts to provide a systematic allegorizing of Scripture was to be enormously influential in both Jewish and Christian attempts to commensurate the philosophical and the theological.

In Justin, Clement and Origen we have three of the earliest major thinkers to argue that Christianity was a philosophy, indeed, that it was the culmination of Greek philosophical thinking. It is already evident from the Pauline Epistles that Christianity and Greek philosophy were apt either for conflict or harmonization. This option for the latter will be reprised and also repeatedly rejected up through the Reformation and beyond. Tertullian’s (c. 160–c. 220) famous query, ‘What has Athens to do with Jerusalem or the Academy with the Church?’ is an emblematic reaction to the more eirenic or perhaps strategic efforts of the above three. It was their approach, however, that mainly prevailed. In them, we see much of the common currency of Greek philosophical language employed in a way intended to preserve the distinctiveness of the Christian message.

SYRIANUS’ LIFE AND WORKS

Information about the life of Syrianus, son of Philoxenus, is scarce, and is limited to what can be deduced from what we know about the life of Proclus, Syrianus’ disciple, who became much more famous than his master. Nevertheless, one date is certain: Syrianus became head of the Platonic school at Athens in 432 ce, after the death of his master, Plutarch. As to Syrianus’ own death, the date which is often given, of 437 ce, is only conjectural, if probable, but it is certain that he died before 439 ce, when Proclus wrote his commentary on Plato’s Timaeus; the past tense verbs in this text indicate that Proclus’ master had already passed away.

Among Syrianus’ numerous works, only his commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics has survived, and that in an incomplete form comprising only books 3, 4, 13 and 14. A commentary on two treatises by Hermogenes of Tarsus, an orator of the second to third century ce, On Types of Style and On Argumentative Stances, has also been transmitted under Syrianus’ name. However the most recent editor of these commentaries, H. Rabe, has expressed doubts concerning their authenticity.

But we know that Syrianus gave lectures, not only on works by Aristotle other than the Metaphysics, but also on Platonic dialogues. As regards the latter, we have a commentary on Plato’s Phaedrus, written by Syrianus’ disciple Hermias: he wrote this commentary on the basis of notes taken during his master’s lectures.