his works. Anania was also knowledgeable about native Armenian and Iranian cultural traditions; several of his works provide important information on late Sassanian Iran. James R. Russell describes him an alchemist and a Pythagorean who "does not usually rely on mythology to explain natural phenomena. Anania accepted the importance of experience, observation, rational practice and theory, and was influenced by the ideas of the 5th-century Neoplatonist philosopher Davit Anhaght (the Invincible), and Greek philosophers Thales of Miletus, Hippocrates, Democritus, Plato, Aristotle, Zeno of Citium, Epicurus, Ptolemy, Pappus of Alexandria, and Cosmas Indicopleustes. Aristotle's On the Heavens had a significant influence on Anania's thought. According to Gevorg Khrlopian, Anania was heavily influenced by Yeghishe's An Interpretation of Creation, the anonymous Interpretation of the Categories of Aristotle, and the works of Davit Anhaght, who had established Neoplatonism in Armenian thought. Anania was also the first Armenian scholar to quote Philo of Alexandria. Anania was the last known lay scholar in Christian Armenia until Grigor Magistros Pahlavuni in the 11th century. He advocated rationalism in studying nature and attacked superstitious beliefs and astrology as the "babblings of the foolish." He adopted the classical theory of four elements, which considered all matter to be composed of four elements: fire, air, water, and earth. He believed that while God directly created these elements, He did not interfere with the "natural course of the development of things." He asserted that the creation, existence, and decay of natural bodies and phenomena occurred through the union of these elements—without the interference of God. Both living and non-living matter came into existence from a synthesis of the four elements. Anania accepted that the Earth is round, describing it as "like an egg with a spherical yolk (the globe) surrounded by a layer of white (the atmosphere) and covered with a hard shell (the sky)." He accurately explained solar and lunar eclipses, the phases of the Moon, and the structure of the Milky Way, describing the latter as a "mass of dense but faintly luminous stars." Anania also correctly attributed tides to the influence of the Moon. He described the topmost sphere as the aether (arp'i), the source of light and heat (through the Sun). Works Anania was a polymath and natural philosopher. About 40 works in various disciplines have been attributed to Anania, but only half are extant. They include studies and translations in mathematics, astronomy, cosmology, geography, chronology,