LIFE AND WORK

There are no reasons to doubt that Philoponus bore the Christian name of John from birth, and that he was born in Alexandria. Simplicius informs us that John called himself ‘the Grammarian’ (Simpl. In Cael. 119.7). As regards the surname ‘Philoponus’ (literally ‘the lover of labour’), it is often considered to mean that John was at a certain moment a member of a group of philoponoi, i.e., a militant Christian brotherhood. Probably, however, it only refers to the author’s diligence as a writer. He was born c. 490 or a few years earlier, and first studied philology before engaging in philosophy. His master in philosophy was Ammonius. Somehow Philoponus succeeded in becoming the principal editor of Ammonius’ commentaries on Aristotle, and we may assume that this was his main philosophical activity before 529. In 529, the year of Justinian’s decree prohibiting the teaching of pagan philosophy, Philoponus published De aeternitate mundi contra Proclum, a violent attack against the Platonic (and his own earlier) doctrine of the eternity of the world. After 529 he probably taught philosophy for some time, without, however, being the head of the Alexandrian school himself. In this period he revised his earlier commentaries on the Posterior Analytics, the Physics and the Meteorology in the light of his new Christian philosophy. Philoponus’ Christian about-turn, however, did not involve the Alexandrian school in its entirety. Even before 529, the scholarch Ammonius had been succeeded by the mathematician Eutocius, and Eutocius himself was later succeeded by Olympiodorus, who made no secret of his paganism.