## 1. Introduction



The 6th century witnesses at once the culmination and the demise of a
long tradition of philosophical commentaries on the works of Plato and
especially Aristotle. This tradition already began in the 1st century
BCE, but it becomes first tangible for us with the commentaries on
Aristotle of Aspasius in the 2nd century CE and especially with
Alexander of Aphrodisias in the early 3rd century. This exegetical
tradition reached its pinnacle in the first half of the 6th century
with the great works of Ammonius Hermeiou and his pupils Simplicius
and John Philoponus. The latter was a Christian who, after much
criticism and polemic, broke with (pagan) Neoplatonic school
philosophy and turned his energy to the exegesis of biblical texts as
well as the theological controversies of his day. However, because of
the survival of even later commentaries attributed to philosophers
with Christian names such as Elias and David, it is commonly supposed
that in the later 6th century pagan philosophy was indeed still being
taught in Alexandria, only by Christians. This would then be in marked
contrast to Athens, where pagan philosophy died out rapidly after the
Athenian academy was closed by Emperor Justinian in 529.


## 2. Extant Writings



Three works attributed to Elias have been published: a commentary on
Porphyry's *Isagoge*, a commentary on Aristotle's
*Categories* (both in *Commentaria in Aristotelem
Graeca* Vol 18) and a third, highly truncated work on
Aristotle's *Prior Analytics* (see Westerink 1961). The
author of these works may have been a pupil of Olympiodorus, and in
that case it is quite possible that the commentary on the
*Isagoge* was composed in the form of a transcript of
Olympiodorus' lectures.



In the tradition of Neoplatonic philosophical training,
Porphyry's *Isagoge* and Aristotle's
*Categories* were part of the standard curriculum for
beginners, a practice that was well established by the 5th and 6th
centuries. Like Ammonius Hermeiou before him, Elias prefaces the
lectures on the *Isagoge* with a very general
'Introduction' to philosophy, a text that belongs to the
genre of protreptic or exhortational philosophical literature.
Elias'exhortation to philosophy consists of 12 lectures designed
to serve a triple purpose: 1. to outline and define the scope of
philosophy, 2. to justify the various topics of the lectures the
students are about to hear, and 3. to motivate them in a general way
to pursue a course in philosophy.



To some extent, Elias' introduction to philosophy brings out the
individual character and temperament of the author. He comes across as
a very lively lecturer who dazzled his students with quotations and
allusions of many kinds. For example, in his 12 introductory lectures,
Plato is mentioned 22 times; there are 15 quotations from Homer as
well as numerous scattered references to Aristotle, Plotinus, Proclus,
Marinus, Hierocles, Pythagoras, Archilochus, Theognis, Herodotus,
Callimachus, Demosthenes, Sophocles, Euripides, Menander, Galen and an
unnamed Stoic. Moreover, Elias repeatedly emphasizes the
Platonic-Neoplatonic conviction that the purpose of philosophy is the
transformation or assimilation of a human being to the godhead, a
genuinely Platonic ideal explicitly stated in the *Theaetetus*,
176A-B. Given that by the late 6th century a professor in Alexandria,
or anywhere else in the Eastern empire, would address a predominantly,
if not exclusively, Christian audience, these remarks give one pause,
especially if one believes that they stem from an author who, if the
attribution to "Elias" can be trusted, himself subscribed
to Christianity. For a Christian, of course, drawing near the godhead
would not be the result of reading and embracing Platonic philosophy
but of divine grace that depended on faith.



In his preface to Aristotle's *Categories*, Elias gives a
concise and admirable summary of the qualities an ideal commentator
ought to have (*CAG* 18.1, pp. 122f. as quoted by Wilson 1983,
47):



> 
> The commentator should be both commentator and scholar at the same
> time. It is the task of the commentator to unravel obscurities in the
> text; it is the task of the scholar to judge what is true and what is
> false, or what is sterile and what is productive. He must not
> assimilate himself to the authors he expounds, like actors on the
> stage who put on different masks because they are imitating different
> characters. When expounding Aristotle he must not become an
> Aristotelian and say there has never been so great a philosopher; when
> expounding Plato he must not become a Platonist and say that there has
> never been a philosopher to match Plato. He must not force the text at
> all costs and say that the ancient author whom he is expounding is
> correct in every respect; instead he must repeat to himself at all
> times 'the author is a dear friend, but so also is truth, and
> when both stand before me truth is the better friend'. He must
> not sympathise with a philosophical school, as happened to Iamblichus,
> who out of sympathy for Plato is condescending in his attitude to
> Aristotle and will not contradict Plato in regard to the theory of
> ideas. He must not be hostile to a philosophical school like Alexander
> (of Aphrodisias). The latter, being hostile to the immortality of the
> intellectual part of the soul, attempts to twist in every way the
> remarks of Aristotle in his third book on the immortality of the soul
> which prove that it is immortal. The commentator must know the whole
> of Aristotle in order that, having first proved that Aristotle is
> consistent with himself, he may expound Aristotle's works by
> means of Aristotle's works. He must know the whole of Plato, in
> order to prove that Plato is consistent with himself and make the
> works of Aristotle an introduction to those of Plato.
> 


## 3. The Problem of Authorship



The title of a recently published manuscript, dated to the 13th or
14th century and containing a *Prior Analytics* commentary,
suggests that Elias, who is named as the author of the commentary,
once held the office of prefect in the Byzantine empire. In the
*Novellae* of Justinian, a prefect by the name of Elias is
indeed mentioned (*Novel.* CLIII, dated 12 December 541; cf.
Westerink 1961). Since the name Elias was rare in secular circles at
the time, Westerink proposes that unless evidence to the contrary
emerges our commentator and the prefect should be considered
identical. A (praetorian or urban) prefect in the late Roman Empire
was, as direct representative of the emperor, the highest civilian
administrator of a region or city (most importantly Rome or
Constantinople). If our commentator really held such an illustrious
office, presumably after he had established himself as professor of
philosophy (cf. the life of Themistius), he most likely also came from
a high-ranking family of nobles. Unfortunately, apart from the scant
evidence found in the late manuscripts of the extant commentaries
nothing further is known about a philosopher or prefect by the name of
Elias. A fairly comprehensive Byzantine list of commentators on
Porphyry and Aristotle does not know of any philosopher by that name,
nor do Photius (9th c. Byzantine scholar) and the author of the Suda,
a 10th c. encyclopedia. A closer look at the manuscript tradition
reveals that the texts now attributed to Elias circulated as anonymous
manuscripts for a considerable time, meaning that the attribution to
one "Elias" is a much later addition. Given that there is
nothing explicitly Christian about these works (there are no
references to the Bible, but the text abounds with references to pagan
philosophers and literary figures), and given that we find an explicit
avowal of doctrines that are quite obviously at variance with
Christianity (e.g. that a philosopher must strive to imitate the sun;
that the world is eternal), it is possible to adopt a more skeptical
position (cf. Wildberg 1990). That is to say, the suspicion arises
that the original author may not have been Christian at all, but a
latter-day pagan who, like Olympiodorus, taught Greek philosophy to a
Christian audience. In that case, the attribution of these
commentaries to some "Elias" may well have been motivated
by monastic scribes who sought to justify copying these pagan
philosophical texts by inventing a good Christian name for their
author. Alternatively, if the author was indeed the Christian prefect
Elias, as Westerink suggests, we are invited to modify our
preconceptions about the possibility of pagan philosophical discourse
within the Christian culture of the Byzantine empire. In either case,
the commentaries testify to the vitality and importance of pagan
philosophy and learning in the mid- or late 6th century CE.