Longinos

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Longinos ( Greek Kassios Longinos , Latin Cassius Longinus ; * around 212 ; † 272 in Emesa ) was an ancient philosopher ( Middle Platonist ) and philologist. The sometimes occurring form of the name "Kassios Dionysios Longinos" is wrong; it is based on a mix-up with another author ( pseudo-Longinos ).

Origin and studies

Longinos on his mother's side came from a respected family in Emesa (now Homs in Syria). His father is unknown. Already in his childhood, when he accompanied his apparently wealthy parents on numerous trips, and later in his academic years, he got to know the east of the Roman Empire. He met many philosophers and other representatives of cultural life. He studied in Alexandria with the philosopher Ammonios Sakkas , the founder of a school from which the current known as Neoplatonism emerged . Another teacher of Longinos was the Platonist Origen , who taught at the school of Ammonius.

Teaching and works

After completing his training, Longinos settled in Athens and began teaching Platonic philosophy and rhetoric there. The school he directed became a meeting place for important scholars and an important center of Platonism , which competed with the Roman school of Plotinus . One of the students of Longinos in the 1950s was Porphyrios , who later went to Rome, where he became a student of Plotinus.

Longinos' philological work testified to his extensive education and contributed primarily to his fame. His authority in stylistic matters was extraordinary. He wrote numerous works that have been lost except for fragments. This included comments on the works of Plato, a handbook of rhetorical technique and philological writings (especially on lexicography , the art of style and etymological questions, especially Homer philology ). His famous philological lectures comprised 21 books.

The attribution of the script Peri hýpsous (“On the Sublime”) to Longinos is erroneous. The anonymous author is now known as Pseudo-Longinos .

Eusebius of Caesarea mentions a Kassios Longinos in his chronicle, who wrote a chronicle in 18 books. Whether this author can be identified with the well-known philosopher and philologist is controversial in research.

Political activity

Longinos' adult life coincided with the tremors caused by the imperial crisis of the 3rd century , which led to his embarking on political activities that ultimately became his undoing. After the Heruli had destroyed Athens around 267, he went to Phenicia , where he became an advisor to Zenobia , the ruler of the part of Palmyra , which was virtually independent of Rome . For the attempt to influence or even direct a ruler as a Platonic philosopher, Plato himself, who had striven for this in Syracuse , could serve as a model. Apparently Longinos was one of the leading minds behind the plan to form an independent state from large parts of the Roman East with Palmyra as its capital, and he used his rhetorical skills to serve this idea. When the Roman emperor Aurelian defeated the Palmyrenians in 272, Zenobia and Longinos were captured and brought to court in Emesa for high treason. Zenobia put the blame on her advisors. She got away with her life and Longinos was executed. The process caused a sensation. For the later tradition, Longinos became the role model of a philosopher who steadfastly professes his convictions because of his steadfastness in court.

Teaching

Although Longinos was a contemporary of Plotinus and a pupil of his teacher Ammonios Sakkas, he is not assigned to Neoplatonism, but rather to Middle Platonism because of his relatively conservative attitude. He attached great importance to being true to the original tradition of Plato, whose birthday was celebrated in great style every year. But he also tried to integrate the Aristotelian logic into the Platonic teaching structure. The most striking difference to Plotinus Neoplatonism concerns the ontology . It is that Longinos assigned a higher ontological rank to the intellect ( nous ) than Plotinus and Plotinus rejected the notion that ideas exist within the nous. In the doctrine of the soul, Longinos fought against the views of the Stoics and the Epicureans ; he emphatically defended the immortality of the soul .

reception

The aftermath of Longino's philological works was greater and more lasting than that of the philosophical. During his lifetime he was primarily famous as a style critic. Plotinus criticized Longinos with the remark that he was actually only a philologist and not a philosopher. In late antiquity - and in the Byzantine Empire even in the 11th century - Longino's competence as a literary critic of a high level was proverbial: In order to describe a literary critic as a dilettante, one used to dismissively remark that he did not judge in the way of Longinos. Eunapios of Sardis donated Longinos high praise in his collection of biographies “The Lives of Philosophers and Sophists”; he called it "a living library and a walking museion" because of its literacy.

swell

  • Jan Radicke (Ed.): Felix Jacoby 'The Fragments of the Greek Historians' continued , Part IV A: Biography , Fasc. 7: Imperial and undated authors. Brill, Leiden 1999, ISBN 90-04-11304-5 , pp. 326–339 ​​(No. 1091)

literature

Overview representations

Investigations

  • Irmgard Mannlein-Robert: Longin. Philologist and philosopher. An interpretation of the certificates received. Saur, Munich / Leipzig 2001, ISBN 3-598-77692-6

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ Paweł Janiszewski: The Missing Link. Greek Pagan Historiography in the Second Half of the Third Century and in the Fourth Century AD (= The Journal of Juristic Papyrology , Supplement 6), Warszawa 2006, pp. 395-403.
  2. ↑ Porphyrios, Vita Plotini 14.19-20.
  3. ↑ Eunapios, Vitae sophistarum 4,1,3. See Irmgard Männlein-Robert: Longin. Philologist and philosopher , Munich / Leipzig 2001, p. 241 f.
personal data
SURNAME Longinos
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kassios Longinos; Longinus; Cassius Longinus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Philosopher and philologist
DATE OF BIRTH at 212
DATE OF DEATH 272
Place of death Emesa