Talk:Ammonius Saccas

Untitled

Eusebius (Church History, vi. 19), who is followed by Jerome?, asserts that he was born a Christian, remained faithful to Christianity throughout his life, and even produced two works called The Harmony of Moses and Jesus and the Diatessaron, or Harmony of the Four Gospels, which is said by some to exist in a Latin version by Victor, bishop of Capua.

Wasn't the Diatessaron written by Tatian? -- Simon J Kissane

• See Ammonian Sections for a start on this. I have now added to the lead re these. Johnbod 15:00, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Two or one

The 1911 says there were two different Ammonius, one Christian and one the founder of the neo-Platonic school. We have two articles on wikipedia, this one and Ammonius of Alexandria (Christian) (note the commentary at the bottom of that article). I would not be opposed to a merge, as long as we mention that some scholars think there is confusion, and that there may have been two different Ammonius'. But perhaps this position is archaic, and no one says that anymore? Are there any more recent sources on the idea of 2?-Andrew c 15:42, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm 'professionally' involved in Neoplatonic studies (soon to be published). While Ammonius is not my specialty, I have not heard anything from the world experts about two of the same name - quite the contrary. Another editor asked me recently about this issue. I'm pasting my response:

"Do you mean the bit about Ammonius the teacher of Plotinus being the same as Ammonius the Christian? This is neither new nor original research. The notion that there were two prominent Alexandrian "Ammonii" is probably an old one. That Ammonius is one and the same was taken up at least by 1957 by H. Langerbeck, The Philosophy of Ammonius Saccas: and the Connection of Aristotelian and Christian Elements Therein, Journal of Hellenic Studies, v 77:1, 1957, 67-74. I quote: "Ammonius was of Christian descent; for this, we must undoubtedly take Porphyry's word (Euseb. Hist. Eccl. IV, 19.7). Was he an apostate? This is by no means clearly deducible from Porphyry's words, but only that he devoted himself to a philosophical life." Langerbeck goes on to explain that being an Alexandrian Christian was sticky business at the time and he argues that Ammonius was a Christian not of any particular gnostic or anti-gnostic stripe, but with independent ideas of his own.

"The writing of this wiki article is very poor, and the long quote from Eusebius unnecessary. There is no mention of Hierocles! " Zeusnoos 18:31, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Rewrote the page

Right, I had a stab at rewriting this page on Ammonius Saccas, so that it might, at least, make some sort of sense now. Basically, I just googled up a few "History of Philosophy" textbooks, noted down what they had to say about him, and rewrote the page accordingly. It does, incidentally, still seem to be the consensus view that there may have been more than one Ammonius. Singinglemon (talk) 23:30, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes yes yes the most beloved John M. Dillon is one of those who ascribe to the idea of multiple Saccas'. PS You did a fine job. LoveMonkey (talk) 01:09, 20 January 2008 (UTC)