Elias (philosopher)

Elias ( Greek  Ἠλίας Ēlías ) was a late antique philosopher of the Neoplatonic direction. His teaching activity probably falls into the middle and second half of the 6th century. He apparently belonged to the Philosophical School of Alexandria and wrote in Greek.

Life

No information has come down to us about the life of Elijah; all assumptions made in research are conclusions from evidence in his works. That he was at least nominally a Christian is deduced from his Christian name, but has not been proven. His thinking is shaped by Neoplatonism, the dominant philosophical direction in late antiquity.

Numerous passages in writings, some of which are certain and some of which presumably come from Elias, agree with passages in the works of Olympiodoros the Younger . Olympiodorus was a prominent Pagan philosopher; he taught in the Neoplatonic School of Alexandria. It is therefore reasonable to assume that Elias also lived and taught in Alexandria and that he was a disciple of Olympiodorus. However, it is speculative that Olympiodoros was the head ( scholarch ) of the school and that Elias succeeded him in this office. From Elias' probable participation in the lessons of Olympiodoros an approximate chronological classification of his philosophical activity results, because Olympiodoros is attested for the last time as living in the year 565.

Elias had the title apo epárchōn ( Apoeparch , former Eparch ). Since the term Eparch was often used for high administrative officials, it has been assumed that the philosopher Elias was identical to an Eparchen ( Praetorian prefect ) of Illyria who was attested in 541 as officiating. In the Eastern Roman Empire the title of Apoeparch was also given to scholars on an honorary basis; therefore, the inference that Elijah held an office is not mandatory.

Works

The works of Elijah were probably not intended for publication by him. As with many late antique writings of this kind, it is at least partially unauthorized transcripts by students from his lessons. With this restriction, the following works ascribed to him are considered authentic:

• Prolegomena to Philosophy , an anonymously handed downintroduction to the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle consistingof twelve lessons (práxeis) . It deals with the theory of definition and the definitions and division of philosophy. The prolegomena have the character of a protrepticos , a script that encourages philosophy. Elias emphasizes the Platonic thought, philosophy deified man, and enthusiastically extols philosophical activity. With many quotations he invokes Plato, Homer and other conventional authorities.
• An introduction and a commentary on the isagogue of the Neo-Platonist Porphyrios . The work has survived anonymously, but is quoted in Byzantine scholias with the name of the author Elias.
• Scholien on the writing De interpretatione (Peri hermēneías) of Aristotle. Elias is handwritten as the author. The scholias are probably part of a lost commentary by Elias on this work by Aristotle.
• A commentary on Aristotle's Analytica priora , of which only the beginning has survived. It is identified in the heading as a student's note from the lessons of Elijah.
• An otherwise unknown commentary on the Analytica posteriora mentioned by Elias at the end of his introduction to the Isagoge , which has either been lost or has not yet been identified.

The following works may or may not be authentic:

• A commentary on the categories of Aristotle (explanation of the ten categories of philosophy) with an introduction to Aristotelian philosophy. In Alexandria it was customary to add such an introduction to a category comment. This work has not only survived in Greek, but also in an incompletely preserved Armenian version, the beginning and end of which are missing in the only manuscript. While no author's name can be found in the Armenian manuscript, in Greek tradition the work is referred to as a transcript from the teaching of the philosopher David , another Neoplatonist. In research it is controversial who wrote it. The editor Adolf Busse , followed by a number of philosophical historians, advocates an attribution to Elias; other researchers, including Ilsetraut Hadot, believe that David is the author. A clue for the dating arises from the fact that the commentary on categories by Johannes Philoponos , which emerged in the first half of the 6th century, is quoted.
• Prolegomena on the philosophy of Plato , an anonymous work. The unknown author belongs to the school Olympiodoros' the Younger; possibly one of his disciples - perhaps Elias - or one of Elias' disciples.
• A commentary on the isagogue , which in the handwritten tradition is partly attributed to David and partly to Elias, but which in reality cannot come from either of these two philosophers. The designation of the author as pseudo-Elias has become common.
• About the directions (Greek Peri hairéseōn ), a commentary on Galen 's De sectis , to which Elias possibly alludes at one point in his Prolegomena on philosophy . The reference is indistinct and otherwise nothing is known about such a work by Elijah. In any case, it does not mean a publication about schools of philosophy.

Teaching

Elijah's religious worldview is unclear. There are two difficulties in determining it. Firstly, it is uncertain whether the relevant evidence in the comment on the categories of Aristotle attributed to him can be used, since the authenticity of the comment is disputed. Second, it is probable that individual clearly Christian remarks in the Prolegomena on philosophy are insertions ( interpolations ) that do not originate from the author, because their content is foreign. Since the traditional text apparently contains such additions by a Christian, the authenticity of all Christian references in Elijah's works is questionable. However, it is also possible that Christian remarks, some of which are polemically formulated in an anti-pagan way and contradict the rest of the content, were interspersed by the author himself because he wanted to protect himself against suspicion of disbelief in this way.

In any case, it is certain that the author of the category commentary , who may be identical to Elias, shares the conviction of the pagan Neoplatonists that the physical world exists forever. So he implicitly rejects the church doctrine of the creation of the world in time and of the future end of the world. It can therefore be assumed that he was either pagan or only very superficially Christianized. The prolegomena of philosophy are also shaped by pagan thinking. Hence Christian Wildberg even doubts the existence of a philosopher named Elias; he thinks that the works ascribed to Elias come from an unknown pagan Neoplatonist.

In the Isagogue Commentary, Elias claims that the idea that God is physical is not absurd. This statement, which is unusual and offensive-sounding for a Platonist as well as for a Christian, should not be understood to mean that Elias believed in a physical God. Rather, he only examined the possibility of a material God in theory.

reception

In Byzantine logic compendia from the end of the 6th to the middle of the 8th century, texts by Elias and David were used. At that time there was a need for concise, summarizing presentations of Aristotelian logic that presented the material of the relevant textbooks of the late Alexandrian school in a didactically prepared form.

Text output

• Adolf Busse (Ed.): Eliae in Porphyrii Isagogen et Aristotelis Categorias commentaria (= Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca , Vol. 18 Part 1). Georg Reimer, Berlin 1900 (critical edition of the Prolegomena to philosophy , the introduction and commentary on the Isagoge and the Categories comment with)
• Sen S. Arevšatyan (Ed.): Erkasirowt'iwnk 'p'ilisop'ayakank'. Haykakan SSH GA Hrat, Erevan 1980, pp. 193-300 (edition of the Armenian version of the categories comment)
• Adolf Busse (Ed.): Ammonius: In Aristotelis De interpretatione commentarius (= Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca , Vol. 4 Part 5). Georg Reimer, Berlin 1897, pp. XXVI – XXVIII (critical edition of Elias's Scholien zu De interpretatione )
• Leendert Gerrit Westerink (Ed.): Elias on the Prior Analytics . In: Leendert Gerrit Westerink: Texts and Studies in Neoplatonism and Byzantine Literature. Collected papers . Hakkert, Amsterdam 1980, ISBN 90-256-0765-9 , pp. 59-72 (critical edition)

Translations

• Sebastian Gertz (translator): Elias and David: Introductions to Philosophy, with Olympiodorus: Introduction to Logic. Bloomsbury Academic, London et al. 2018, ISBN 978-1-3500-5174-4 , pp. 15-77 (English translation of the Prolegomena on Philosophy )
• Olof Gigon (translator): Aristotle: introductory writings . Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-423-06117-0 (p. 322–343 contains a partial translation of the introduction to the categories - comment: "The ten main points of Aristotelian philosophy")
• Athanase Papadopoulos: Un ouvrage inconnu du philosophe Élie. Un nouveau manuscrit des “Prolégomènes à la philosophie” de David . In: Revue roumaine des sciences sociales. Série de philosophie et logique 13, 1969, pp. 343–353 (pp. 349–353 contains a French partial translation of the commentary on the Analytica priora based on a manuscript in Bucharest)

literature

• Richard Goulet: Élias. In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques. Volume 3: d'Eccélos à Juvénal. CNRS Éditions, Paris 2000, ISBN 2-271-05748-5 , pp. 57-66
• Christoph Helmig : Elias and David. In: Christoph Riedweg et al. (Ed.): Philosophy of the Imperial Era and Late Antiquity (= Outline of the history of philosophy . The philosophy of antiquity. Volume 5/3). Schwabe, Basel 2018, ISBN 978-3-7965-3700-4 , pp. 2084-2096, 2182-2185
• Leendert Gerrit Westerink: The Alexandrian commentators and the introductions to their commentaries. In: Richard Sorabji (Ed.): Aristotle Transformed. The Ancient Commentators and Their Influence. 2nd revised edition, Bloomsbury, London 2016, ISBN 978-1-47258-907-1 , pp. 349-375
• Christian Wildberg: Three Neoplatonic Introductions to Philosophy. Ammonius, David and Elias. In: Hermathena. No. 149, 1990, ISSN  0018-0750 , pp. 33-51.

Web links

• Christian Wildberg:  Entry in Edward N. Zalta (Ed.): Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy .

Remarks

1. ↑ Leendert Gerrit Westerink pleaded for the identification of the philosopher Elias with the Praetorian prefect: Elias on the Prior Analytics . In: Mnemosyne 14, 1961, pp. 126-139, here: 127f .; later, however, he expressed himself skeptically, see Westerink (ed.): Prolégomènes à la philosophie de Platon , Paris 1990, p. XXXIf.
2. ↑ Richard Goulet provides a research overview: Élias. In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques, Volume 3, Paris 2000, pp. 57–66, here: 58f., 60–65. See also Valentina Calzolari: David et la tradition arménienne . In: Valentina Calzolari, Jonathan Barnes (eds.): L'œuvre de David l'Invincible et la transmission de la pensée grecque dans la tradition arménienne et syriaque , Leiden 2009, pp. 15-36, here: 29-32; Manea Erna Shirinian: The Armenian Version of David the Invincible's Commentary on Aristotle's Categories . In: Valentina Calzolari, Jonathan Barnes (eds.): L'œuvre de David l'Invincible et la transmission de la pensée grecque dans la tradition arménienne et syriaque , Leiden 2009, pp. 89-102.
3. ↑ See the considerations of the editor Leendert Gerrit Westerink: Prolégomènes à la philosophie de Platon , Paris 1990, pp. LXXVI – LXXXIX.
4. ↑ The commentary is edited by Leendert Gerrit Westerink: Pseudo-Elias (Pseudo-David): Lectures on Porphyry's Isagoge , Amsterdam 1967. On the author's question, see Miroslav Markovich: Pseudo-Elias on Heraclitus . In: American Journal of Philology 96, 1975, pp. 31-34, Henry J. Blumenthal: Pseudo-Elias and the Isagoge Commentaries Again . In: Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 124, 1981, pp. 188–192 and Wanda Wolska-Conus: Stéphanos d'Athènes et Stéphanos d'Alexandrie. Essai d'identification et de biography . In: Revue des Études byzantines 47, 1989, pp. 5–89, here: 69–80.
5. ↑ Elias, Prolegomena philosophiae Chapter 3, p. 6 lines 7–9 Busse.
6. ↑ Leendert Gerrit Westerink: Philosophy and Medicine in Late Antiquity . In: Janus 51, 1964, pp. 169–177, here: 172f.
7. ^ Christian Wildberg: Three Neoplatonic Introductions to Philosophy. Ammonius, David and Elias. In: Hermathena 149, 1990, pp. 33-51, here: 42-45.
8. ↑ Elias Tempelis: The School of Ammonius, Son of Hermias, on Knowledge of the Divine , Athens 1998, pp. 114–116.
9. ↑ Mossman Roueché: Byzantine Philosophical text of the Seventh Century . In: Yearbook of Austrian Byzantine Studies 23, 1974, pp. 61–76.