* Ammonius Saccas ( 3rd century AD )

Ammonius Saccas ( 3rd century AD ) () was a Greek philosopher from Alexandria who was often referred to as one of the founders of Neoplatonism.

Not much is known about the life of Ammonius Saccas.

The most famous pupil of Ammonius Saccas was Plotinus who studied under Ammonius for eleven years.

One way to explain much of the confusion concerning Ammonius is to assume that there were two people called Ammonius: Ammonius Saccas who taught Plotinus, and an Ammonius the Christian who wrote biblical texts.

It is quite possible that Ammonius Saccas taught both Origens.

* Stanford article on Ammonius Saccas.

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Plotinus is noted as the founder of Neoplatonism ( along with his teacher Ammonius Saccas ).

* Ammonius Saccas

" Ronald Hathaway provides a table listing most of the major identifications of Dionysius: e. g., Ammonius Saccas, Dionysius the Great, Peter the Fuller, Dionysius the Scholastic, Severus of Antioch, Sergius of Reshaina, unnamed Christian followers of everyone from Origen of Alexandria to Basil of Caesarea, Eutyches to Proclus.

* Ammonius Saccas, Greek philosopher ( possible date )

His teacher was Ammonius Saccas and he is of the Platonic tradition.

There he was dissatisfied with every teacher he encountered until an acquaintance suggested he listen to the ideas of Ammonius Saccas.

* Ammonius Saccas, Neoplatonic philosopher ( approximate date )

* Origen, disciple of Ammonius Saccas, founder of Neoplatonism, is exiled in Caesarea.

* Neoplatonism: Plotinus ( Egyptian ), Ammonius Saccas, Porphyry ( Syrian ), Zethos ( Arab ), Iamblichus ( Syrian ), Proclus

This collection, which includes the Pœmandres and some addresses of Hermes to disciples Tat, Ammon and Asclepius, was said to have originated in the school of Ammonius Saccas and to have passed through the keeping of Michael Psellus: it is preserved in fourteenth century manuscripts.

Ammonius Saccas in the 3rd century tried to reconcile differing religious philosophies.

Ammonius Hermiae (; c. 440-c. 520 ) was a Greek philosopher, and the son of the Neoplatonist philosophers Hermias and Aedesia.

According to Porphyry, the parents of Ammonius were Christians, but upon learning Greek philosophy, Ammonius rejected his parents ' religion for paganism.

In addition, we have to thank him for such copious quotations from the Greek commentaries from the time of Andronicus of Rhodes down to Ammonius and Damascius, that, for the Categories and the Physics, the outlines of a history of the interpretation and criticism of those books may be composed.

* Ammonius Grammaticus ( 4th century ), ancient Greek grammarian

* Ammonius Lithotomos ( 3rd century BC ), Greek lithotomist

" From that day he stayed continually with Ammonius and acquired so complete a training in philosophy that he became eager to make acquaintance with the Persian philosophical discipline and that prevailing among the Indians.

... Ammonius held the divine philosophy unshaken and unadulterated to the end of his life.

Porphyry seems to suggest that Ammonius was instrumental in helping Plotinus think about philosophy in new ways:

He then turned to philosophy and science, and studied under Hermias and his sons, Ammonius and Heliodorus.

In addition, there are some notes of Ammonius ' lectures written by various students which also survive:

* Ammonius: On Aristotle Categories, translated by S. M. Cohen and G. B. Matthews.

* Ammonius: On Aristotle's On Interpretation 1-8, translated by D. Blank.

* Ammonius: On Aristotle's On Interpretation 9, with Boethius: On Aristotle's On Interpretation 9, translated by D. Blank ( Ammonius ) and N. Kretzmann ( Boethius ).

This conversion is contested by the Christian writers Jerome and Eusebius, who state that Ammonius remained a Christian throughout his lifetime:

However we are told by Longinus that Ammonius wrote nothing, and if Ammonius was the principal influence on Plotinus, then it is unlikely that Ammonius would have been a Christian.

that the real author was Herennius Philo of Byblus, who was born during the reign of Nero and lived till the reign of Hadrian, and that the treatise in its present form is a revision prepared by a later Byzantine editor, whose name may have been Ammonius.

Besides Ammonius, Plotinus was also influenced by the works of Alexander of Aphrodisias, Numenius, and various Stoics.

The commentary on de Caelo was written before that on the Physica Auscultatio, and probably not in Alexandria, since he mentions in it an astronomical observation made during his stay in that city by Ammonius.

Commentaries on the Almagest were written by Theon of Alexandria ( extant ), Pappus of Alexandria ( only fragments survive ), and Ammonius Hermiae ( lost ).

Of the first two Longinus was a pupil for a long time, but Longinus did not embrace the Neoplatonism then being developed by Ammonius and Plotinus, rather he continued as a Platonist of the old type.

* On Synonyms, of which there is extant an epitome by Ammonius Grammaticus.

The text includes, in addition to the Gospels, the letter of Jerome to Pope Damasus ( known by its first two words Novum opus ), the prologue to Jerome's commentary on the Book of Matthew, the letter of Eusebius of Caesarea to Carpianus ( Ammonius quidam ) in which Eusebius explains the use of his Canon Tables, prologues to each of the Gospels, tables of capitula for each of the Gospels, tables for each of the Gospels indicating the festivals at which portions of that Gospel should be read, and the Eusebian Canon tables.

Philoponus ’ early writings are based on lectures given by Ammonius, but gradually he established his own independent thinking in his commentaries and critiques of Aristotle ’ s On the Soul and Physics.