Eusebius of Myndus

Eusebius of Myndos was a late ancient philosopher ( Neoplatonist ). He lived around the middle of the 4th century.

Life

Eusebius is known only from the writing biographies of philosophers and sophists, wrote the Eunapius of Sardis. Eunapius was a student of Chrysanthios of Sardis, a fellow student of Eusebius.

Eusebius was born in the city of Myndos in Caria, on the southwest coast of Asia Minor; today one can see the village of Gumusluk. About his family and childhood nothing is known. He studied in Pergamon at the prestigious Neoplatonic philosophers Aidesios. Aidesios, a student of the famous Neoplatonist Iamblichus, had opened his own school after his death. For Eusebius ' fellow students at Pergamum were next Chrysanthios the philosopher Maximus of Ephesus and Priscus.

In the year 351 the later Emperor Julian came to Pergamon, to receive instruction in Aidesios. After some time the already elderly Aidesios entrusted the task to instruct Julian, his students because of his advanced age. Since Maximos was staying in Ephesus and Priscus in Greece, Eusebius and Chrysanthios were the teachers of the prominent philosophy student. Eusebius impressed Julian with his exceptional teaching skills.

In contrast to most former Neoplatonists Eusebius rejected the religious practices of theurgy, with whom you obtain divine assistance magically and ritually cleanse the soul and tried to connect with the world of the gods. He said the effects of magic and theurgy were not of divine origin, but hallucinations produced by material forces; while if it were an aberration that contributes nothing to the purification of the soul, but leads to madness. Like Plotinus, the founder of the Neo-Platonic direction, and unlike Iamblichus Eusebius was convinced that the ascent of the soul and their return to the spiritual world is not to be accomplished by external actions in the context of cult practices, but only by a purely spiritual cleansing which will performed by means of reason to achieve. He said thus not having to rely on divine intervention, but relied on an ability of the soul to self-redemption through philosophical knowledge. Therefore Eusebius Julian warned of his former classmates Maximus of Ephesus, who put the theurgy the center of his endeavors. However, for Eusebius achieved the opposite of Aimed; Julian broke his education in Pergamon and went to Ephesus to Maximos, whose direction he joined.

Over the subsequent fate of Eusebius is not known. Nor is it known whether he wrote pamphlets.

Source output

• Giuseppe Giangrande (ed.): Eunapii vitae sophistarum, Istituto Poligrafico dello Stato, Rome, 1956 ( Chapter 7, pp. 40-56 )