St. Pachomius Library

Æneas of Gaza

V/VI Centuries
A major apologist who attempted to reconcile Neoplatonism with Christianity, Æneas of Gaza was a contemporary and friend of Procopius of Gaza, as appears from his letters. His dialogue Theophrastus, while attempting to retain as much of Platonic/Neoplatonic thought as possible, rejects the eternity of matter and pre-existence of the soul, but defends the doctrine of the resurrection.
Norman Hugh Redington

ABOUT:
- Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz: Aeneas von Gaza. From Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon, 1990. --- Bautz
- Georg Schalkhausser: Aeneas von Gaza als Philosoph, (1898). Erlangen: F. Junge, 1898.
- Manfred Wacht: Aeneas von Gaza als Apologet, (1969). Bonn: Peter Hanstein, 1969.
WORKS:
- Theophrastus. PG 85:871. A dialogue in the manner of Plato; Æneas' surviving major theological work. The most famous passage concerns the miraculous ability of the confessors of Africa, after the Arian Vandal Hunneric had their tongues cut out, to continue speaking.
  - John Henry Cardinal Newman: The Miracles of Early Ecclesiastical History, (1843). Paragraph 224 contains a long quotation from the Theophrastus on the African confessors. --- Newman Reader
- Epistles. Twenty-five are said to survive.

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