Essays in Later Ancient Philosophy

Abstract A collection of seminal papers on an important period in philosophical history, from the second to the seventh century AD, notable especially for the rise of Platonism and of Christian philosophical thought. The papers cover a range of important but lesser-studied thinkers in these two traditions, including Celsus, Numenius, Longinus, Syrianus, Origen, Eusebius, Gregory of Nyssa, and John of Damascus. Frede shows how these figures are significant thinkers in their own right, and testimony to the vitality of philosophical thought of later antiquity. Questions in metaphysics and theology unite the papers, which also introduce new notions of the individual and of the will, and trace evolving ideas about the nature of philosophy itself.