Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

854 28. philosophy and philosophical schools
Greek Neoplatonism does appear wider and deeper than Shiel’s hypothesis
suggests. He was not working in isolation from his Greek contemporaries;
yet there is no evidence that he ever set foot in either Athens or
Alexandria. It may well be that his knowledge of Greek thought came from
reading works of Porphyry, Proclus and others which were available in
Italy. 43
Like Elias, Boethius maintains some Neoplatonic doctrines which one
might have supposed incompatible with Christianity, the soul’s existence
prior to life in the body and the everlastingness of the world. His Consolation
of Philosophy, written in prison, combines classical literary and philosophical
tradition with a Christian outlook and beliefs. Boethius played a major
role in the transmission of Greek philosophy in the western European tradition.
Latin commentaries on the Consolation of Philosophy were written
from the ninth century onwards, and the work was translated into medieval
English, French and German. His works on logic, arithmetic and music
were used in the medieval schools. 44
By around 600 Greek philosophy was also passing into other linguistic and
cultural traditions. Neoplatonic works, particularly from the Alexandrian
school, were translated into Syriac and later into Arabic. The works of David
were translated into Armenian at the end of the sixth century or the beginning
of the seventh. In the seventh century, the Armenian writer Anania of
Shirak records in his autobiography that his own, Greek, teacher of philosophy,
Tychikos of Trebizond, studied in Constantinople with a teacher from
Athens, ‘city of philosophers’. This may have been Stephanus, if Stephanus
of Alexandria and Stephanus of Athens are indeed the same person. 45 In any
case it is striking that in seventh-century Armenia Athens still had the reputation
of being the city of philosophers. This was of course its reputation in
the classical period, but the persistence of that reputation in late antiquity is
due to the Neoplatonists.
43 Courcelle (1948) 257–312. Shiel (1990). Chadwick, Boethius. 44 Gibson (ed.), Boethius.
45 Mahé (1990). Wolska-Conus (1989) 20–4.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008