Throughout its first three centuries, the growing Christian religion was subjected not only to official persecution but to the attacks of pagan intellectuals, who looked upon the new sect as a band of fanatics bent on worldwide domination even as they professed to despise the things of this world. Prominent among these pagan critics was Porphyry of Tyre (ca. 232-ca. 305 C.E.), scholar, philosopher, and student of religions. His book Against the Christians (Kata Christianon), was condemned to be burned by the imperial Church in 448. It survives only in fragments preserved by the cleric and teacher Macarius Magnes.This new translation of the remains of Against the Christians, by renowned biblical scholar R. Joseph Hoffmann, reveals a work of deft historical and literary criticism. Porphyry's trenchant comments extend to key figures, beliefs, and doctrines of Christianity as he roundly attacks the divinity of Jesus, the integrity of the apostles, the Christian concept of God, and the Resurrection. Porphyry dismisses the gospels as the work of charlatans and Jesus himself as a criminal and failure. In short, the gospels, as a collective account of the life and deeds of Jesus, are hardly worth the reverence with which an increasing number of Christian converts of Porphyry's own day have begun treating them.Critical notes by the translator provide a running commentary to the text. A lively introduction and comprehensive epilogue describe the "buildup" to the pagan critique of Christianity, and help put Porphyry's work in historical perspective.Accessible to the general reader, and a valuable scholarly tool as well, this new translation of Against the Christians proves a worthy addition to both classical and patristic studies.

The fourth century Neoplatonist Iamblichus, interpreting Plotinus on the topic of time, incorporates a 'diagram of time' that bears comparison to the figure of double continuity drawn by Husserl in his studies of time. Using that comparison as a bridge, this book seeks a phenomenological recovery of Greek thought about time. It argues that the feature of motion that the word 'time' designates in Greek differs from what most modern scholarship has assumed, that the very phenomenon of time has been misidentified for centuries. This leads to corrective readings of Plotinus, Aristotle, Parmenides, and Heraclitus, all looking back to the final phrase of the fragment of Anaximander, from which this volume takes its title: "according to the syntax of time."

This volume deals with the relation between Derrida and Neoplatonism (ancient, patristic, medieval), presenting that relation in the form not only of the actual reading of Neoplatonism by Derrida but also of a hypothetical reading of Derrida by Neoplatonism.

By questioning the modern categories of Plato and Platonism, this book offers new ways of reading the Platonic dialogues and the many traditions that resonate in them from Antiquity to Post-Modernity.

This study places the doctrine of evil of the Neoplatonist Proclus in its proper context, the exegetical tradition as it developed within the various schools of ancient Platonism, from Middle Platonism to early Neoplatonism. With regard to the evil of the body, there are chapters on the various interpretations of Plato's notion of a pre-cosmic disorderly motion as the source of corporeal evil and on the role of what Platonists referred to as an irrational Nature in the origin of that motion. As for evil of the soul, there are chapters dealing with the concept of an evil World Soul and with the view that the evil that is ascribed to the human soul is a form of psychological weakness.

The present book presents for the first time a detailed study of selected passages of the most important Georgian translation of a text of Greek philosophy: the translation of Proklos' Elementatio Theologica by the most eminent philosopher of the Georgian middle ages, Ioane Petrizi, who not only translated Proklos' text, but also provided it with an extensive commentary. The book discusses the paragraphs which are also extant in an Arabic translation of the early 9th century. The main scope of the book is to establish the relevance of the Georgian and Arabic translations for the history of the constitution of the text, but it provides also important insights in Petrizi's method of translation and the philosophical significance of his commentary.

This book integrates interdsciplinary work with philosophical analyses to explain facets of the perennial question of time's nature and existence, both in its contemporary and its original classical contexts, and it explains the two most influential investigations of the topic in classical Western Aristotle's and Plotinus'.

"The Commentary of al-Nayrizi (circa 920) on Euclid's Elements of Geometry" occupies an important place both in the history of mathematics and of philosophy, particularly Islamic philosophy. It is a compilation of original work by al-Nayrizi and of translations and commentaries made by others, such as Heron. It is the most influential Arabic mathematical manuscript in existence and a principle vehicle whereby mathematics was reborn in the Latin West. Furthermore, the Commentary on Euclid by the Platonic philosopher Simplicius, entirely reproduced by al-Nayrizi, and nowhere else extant, is essential to the study of the attempt to prove Euclid's Fifth Postulate from the preceding four. "Al-Nayrizi" was one of the two main sources from which Albertus Magnus (1193-1280), the Doctor Universalis, learned mathematics. This work presents an annotated English translation of Books II-IV and of a hitherto lost portion of Book I.

Plato's doctrine of the soul, its immaterial nature, its parts or faculties, and its fate after death (and before birth) came to have an enormous influence on the great religious traditions that sprang up in late antiquity, beginning with Judaism (in the person of Philo of Alexandria), and continuing with Christianity, from St. Paul on through the Alexandrian and Cappadocian Fathers to Byzantium, and finally with Islamic thinkers from Al-kindi on. This volume, while not aspiring to completeness, attempts to provide insights into how members of each of these traditions adapted Platonist doctrines to their own particular needs, with varying degrees of creativity.

Although it has long been established that Syrianus, the teacher of Proclus, was the source of much of his student's metaphysics, it is not known precisely what in Proclus' thought can be attributed to Syrianus. The problem is compounded by the fact that Syrianus wrote very little and there is uncertainty as to whether written commentaries ever existed of his teaching on Plato's Timaeus and Parmenides, the most important sources for Platonic metaphysics. This work attempts to re-construct the major tenets of Syrianus' philosophical teachings on the Timaeus and Parmenides based on the testimonia of Proclus, as found in Proclus' commentaries on Plato's Timaeus and Parmenides and, Damascius, as reported in his On First Principles and commentary on Plato's Parmenides .

Narbonne (philosophy, Laval U., Quebec) works in a milieu of ancient studies where a French edition is being prepared of the Nag Hammadi manuscripts, whence comes the new knowledge about Gnosticism. Six studies, two of them not previously published, explore the third-century quarrel between Gnostics and Neoplatonists in the Roman world, as manifested in the work of Neoplatonist champion Plotinus. They cover the controversy of the generation of matter in Plotinus, the riddle of the partly undescended soul in Plotinus, the weakness of the soul in its relation to evil, two modes of reascent as a new sign of the impact of the quarrel on Plotinus' thought, Plotinian contemplative demiurgy, and God as CAUSA SUI in Plotinus and its possible Gnostic sources. The underlying argument is that Plotinus engaged the Gnostics throughout his career, rather than just in treatises 30-33. Annotation ©2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

The belief in the immortality of the soul has been described as one of the twin pillars of Platonism and is famously defended by Socrates in Platos Phaedo. The ancient commentaries on the dialogue by Olympiodorus and Damascius offer a unique perspective on the reception of this belief in the Platonic tradition. Through a detailed discussion of topics such as suicide, the life of the philosopher and arguments for immortality, this study demonstrates the commentators serious engagement with problems in Platos text as well as the dialogue's importance to Neoplatonic ethics. The book will be of interest to students of Plato and the Platonic tradition, and to those working on ancient ethics and psychology.

Iamblichus of Chalcis (c. 240-c. 325 C.E.), successor to Plotinus and Porphyry, gave new life to Neoplatonism with his many philosophical and religious refinements. Once regarded as a religio-magical quack, Iamblichus is now seen as a philosophical innovator who harmonized not only Platonic philosophy with religious ritual but also Platonism with the ancient philosophical and religious tradition. Building on recent scholarship on Iamblichean philosophy, the ten papers in this volume explore various aspects of Iamblichus' oeuvre. These papers help show that Iamblichus re-invented Neoplatonism and made it the major school of philosophy for centuries after his death.

The works of Plutarch, notably his Moralia, provide us with exceptional evidence to reconstruct the spiritual and intellectual atmosphere of the first centuries CE. As a priest of Apollo at Delphi, Plutarch was a first range witness of ancient religious experience; as a Middle Platonist, he was also actively involved in the developments of the philosophical school. Besides, he also provided a more detached point of view both regarding numerous religious practices and currents that were permeating the building of ancient pagan religion and the philosophical views of other schools. His combining the insider and the sensitive observer's perspectives make Plutarch a crucial starting point for the understanding of the religious and philosophical discourse of Late Antiquity.