Ammonius, Son of Hermias

(d. Alexandria, Egypt, ca. a.d. 517–526)

philosophy.

Ammonius, surnamed “son of Hermias” to distinguish him from namesakes, was head of the Platonic school in Alexandria from 485. He is one of the characters in Zacharias Scholasticus’ dialogue Ammonius (probably historical in essence), in which Zacharias refutes Ammonius’ assertion that the cosmos is coeternal with God and explains to him the doctrine of Trinity. A sober and scholarly interpreter of Plato and Aristotle, Ammonius “harmonized” them. His works and lecture courses were frequently edited and fully utilized by three generations of his students, including Johannes Philoponus, Simplicius, Olympiodorus, David, Elias, and perhaps Boethius. He and his school managed to come to terms with Christian authorities; he himself perhaps became a Christian, albeit in name only; the faculty and students of the school were partly pagan, partly Christian. The school survived until the Arab conquest of Alexandria (ca. 641/642), whereas Plato’s Academy was closed in 529. Its Platonism was in many respects pre–Plotinian, as has been shown especially by Praechter (pace Lloyd’s doubts).

Damascius praised Ammonius as an accomplished mathematician and astronomer. Having witnessed his astronomical observations, Simplicius (and probably Ammonius himself) deduced the existence of a starless sphere (the primum mobile) enveloping the sphere of fixed stars and imparting its own motion to that sphere. Ammonius agreed with Aristotle that mathematical objects do not subsist, although they can be abstracted from physical objects. He divided theoretical philosophy into theology, mathematics, and physics (and mathematics into arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy), thereby again combining Aristotelian and Platonic points of view, as did Boethius later.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. Ammonius’ works include In Porphyrii Isagogen in Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, 23 vols., Vol. IV, pt. 3 (Berlin, 1891); In Aristotelis De interpretatione, ibid., Vol. IV, pt 5 (1897) (the part defending both free will and providence in J. C. von Orelli, ed., Alexandri Aphrodisiensis, Ammonii Hermiae filii, Plotini, Bardesanis Syri, et Georgii Gemisti Plethonis de fato quae supersunt Graece [Zurich, 1824]); In Aristotelis Anal. pr. 1, I in Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, Vol. IV, pt. 6 (1890); and lectures on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, edited with additions by Asclepius, ibid., Vol. VI, pt. 2 (1888).

See also Damascius, Vita Isidori, C. Zintzen, ed. (Hildesheim, 1967); Simplicius, In De caelo, Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, Vol. VII (1894); and Zacharias Scholasticus, Ammonius, in J.P. Migne, ed., Patrologiae cursus copletus, Series graeca, 162 vols. (Paris, 1857–1866), Vol. LXXXV.

II Secondary Literature. Writings on Ammonius or his work are J. Freudenthal, “Ammonios 15,”, in Pauly Wissowa, Real–Encyclopädie; P. Duhem, Le systéme du monde, II (Paris, 1914); E. Zeller and R. Mondolfo, La filosofia dei Greci, Vol. VI, pt, 3, G. Martano, ed. (Florence, 1961); P. Courcelle, Les lettres grecques en Occident (Paris, 1948); P. Merlan, From Platonism to Neoplatonism, 2nd ed. (Berlin, 1960), pp. 75 f.; K. Kremer, Der Metaphysik-Begriff in den Kommentaren der Ammonius-Schule (Berlin, 1961); L. G. Westerink, Anonymous Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy (Amsterdam, 1962); A. H. Armstrong, ed., The Cambridge History of Late Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy (1967), the contributions by A. C. Lloyd, J. P. Sheldon-Williams, and H. Liebeschütz; and P. Merlan, “Ammonius Hermiae, Zacharias Scholasticus and Boethius,” in Greek-Roman-Byzantine Studies, 9 (1968).

For the character of the school of Alexandria in general, see K. Praechter, “Richtungen and Schulen im Neuplatonismus,” in Genethliakon für C. Robert (Berlin, 1910), pp. 147–156; “Christlich-neuplatonische beziehungen,” in Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 21 (1912), 1–27; and “Simplicius 10,” in Pauly–Wissowa, Real-Encyclopa-die, III (1927), I.

Philip Merlan