Olympiodorus the Younger of Alexandria

Life and Historical Context

Olympiodorus the Younger (fl. c. 525–565 CE) was a late Neoplatonist philosopher and teacher in Alexandria, active during the reigns of the Byzantine emperors Justin I and Justinian I. Virtually nothing is known of his personal life beyond what can be inferred from his extant works. He is called “the Younger” to distinguish him from an earlier historian, Olympiodorus of Thebes, also from late antiquity.

Olympiodorus studied and then taught within the Alexandrian philosophical school, which by his time had become predominantly oriented toward commentary on Plato and Aristotle. Unlike the Athenian school associated with Proclus and Damascius, the Alexandrian environment was more tightly integrated into a Christian urban and institutional setting. This setting strongly shaped Olympiodorus’s style and strategy: his lectures show an awareness that many of his students were Christian, and he sometimes marks a distinction between “we Greeks” (i.e., pagans) and Christian hearers.

His career unfolded during a period of religious and intellectual transition. The formal closing of the Athenian Academy by Justinian in 529 CE symbolized the end of traditional pagan schools in many parts of the empire. Alexandria, however, retained a measure of autonomy. Olympiodorus appears to have been among the last clearly identifiable pagan Neoplatonic teachers to operate openly there. His work reflects both continuity with the Proclean Neoplatonic system and accommodation to a society in which Christian theology and institutions were dominant.

Dating his life precisely is difficult; estimates typically place his birth around 495 CE and his death sometime after 565 CE, based largely on internal evidence in his lectures and references to contemporary events. No ancient biography survives, and later sources offer only scattered notices, so his image is largely reconstructed from his commentaries as lecture transcripts.

Works and Commentarial Method

Olympiodorus’s main extant works are commentaries based on lecture courses he delivered to students. These texts generally preserve the format and vocabulary of live teaching, complete with references to previous sessions and to the questions of pupils. The surviving corpus includes:

• Commentary on Plato’s Gorgias
• Commentary on Plato’s Phaedo
• Commentary on Plato’s Alcibiades I (transmitted under his name, though some details of authorship are debated)
• Commentary on Aristotle’s Categories
• Commentary on Aristotle’s Meteorology (Books 1–3, with Book 4 of disputed status)
• A short introduction to Aristotle’s philosophy (the Prolegomena tradition, partly connected with his school)
• A commentary on alchemical texts, preserved in Greek and showing his engagement with technical and symbolic material

These commentaries continue the late antique tradition of philosophical exegesis, in which Plato and Aristotle were treated as complementary rather than rival authorities. Olympiodorus follows the curricular hierarchy typical of Neoplatonic schools: beginners study logical and ethical works (such as the Categories and Alcibiades I), moving gradually toward more complex metaphysical texts.

His method is both systematic and pedagogical. He typically begins with:

1. Prolegomena – on the purpose of the work, its place in the curriculum, and its broader philosophical use.
2. Outline of the dialogue or treatise – summarizing its structure and main arguments.
3. Sequential exposition – commenting on the text line by line or section by section, raising and resolving aporiai (puzzles).

Olympiodorus often quotes earlier authorities, especially Plotinus, Iamblichus, Proclus, and Alexandrian predecessors such as Hierocles and Ammonius. Yet his commentaries are not mere compilations. They simplify, systematize, and sometimes soften more radical Neoplatonic positions, especially where they might conflict with Christian sensitivities. For instance, he occasionally rephrases or veils overtly polytheistic or ritualistic themes, while preserving a Neoplatonic metaphysical framework.

His commentary on alchemy is particularly notable because it offers a rare example of a philosopher engaging with a proto-scientific technical tradition. Olympiodorus interprets alchemical operations through a philosophical and symbolic lens, integrating them into Aristotelian natural philosophy and Neoplatonic metaphysics.

Philosophical Themes and Doctrines

Olympiodorus is generally regarded as a conservative transmitter rather than an original innovator. Nonetheless, his works reveal characteristic emphases, especially on pedagogy, ethics, and religious adaptation.

Neoplatonic Metaphysics

In line with late Neoplatonism, Olympiodorus endorses a hierarchical ontology:

• At the summit is the One (the Good), transcending being and knowledge.
• Below this, Intellect (Nous) contains the intelligible forms.
• Then Soul, which mediates between the intelligible and the sensible realms.
• Finally, nature and the material world, ordered but subject to change and mixture.

He tends to condense Proclean metaphysics, reducing some of its elaborate tiers of intermediate entities while retaining the central principles of emanation and return. For pedagogical reasons, he presents these doctrines gradually, tying them to ethical and psychological concerns rather than as purely speculative metaphysics.

Ethics and the Purification of the Soul

A major focus of Olympiodorus, especially in the Plato commentaries, is ethical formation. Reading Plato’s Gorgias, he emphasizes the distinction between true and false arts, aligning rhetoric and flattery with the soul’s disorder, and philosophical practice with its health. For him, philosophy is fundamentally a therapeutic and purificatory discipline, leading the soul away from attachment to bodily pleasures and toward contemplation of intelligible realities.

In the commentary on the Phaedo, Olympiodorus develops a detailed account of death as the separation of soul and body and of philosophy as a preparation for death. Yet he stresses that this separation should not be understood as a simple contempt for the body; rather, it involves a proper ordering in which the soul governs the body and orients it to the Good. He discusses reincarnation, judgment of souls, and the afterlife, following earlier Neoplatonists while adjusting his examples to an audience familiar with Christian eschatology.

Plato and Aristotle as Harmonized Authorities

Like other late Neoplatonists, Olympiodorus seeks to harmonize the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle. Aristotle is treated as a preparatory teacher who provides conceptual and logical tools, while Plato offers the culminating metaphysical and theological vision. In his commentary on the Categories, he adapts the work to a Neoplatonic metaphysics by distinguishing:

• Absolute substances and accidents in the intelligible realm, and
• Their sensible counterparts in the world of becoming.

He also comments on logical and linguistic issues—for example, the nature of universals and predication—always with an eye to their role in elevating the soul toward intelligible understanding.

Religion, Theology, and “We Greeks”

Olympiodorus’s texts frequently address questions of religious language and practice. He remains pagan in orientation, referring to the gods, daimones, and ritual in traditional terms, and he draws freely on mythological material. At the same time, he shows awareness that many of his students are Christian. He sometimes prefaces remarks with formulations such as “we Greeks say…”, marking a boundary between his own religious-philosophical standpoint and that of Christian hearers without polemical attack.

Scholars have debated whether these references indicate a strategy of accommodation, a defensive posture, or simply sociological description. In any case, Olympiodorus is one of the clearer witnesses to how pagan philosophy was taught in a Christianizing environment, where overt conflict had to be minimized.

Reception and Legacy

Olympiodorus stands near the end of the ancient pagan philosophical tradition, and his works served as an important bridge to medieval thought. Their pedagogical clarity and relatively compact presentation made them especially suitable for later readers.

In the Greek East, elements of his commentaries were incorporated into the Byzantine scholia and educational manuals, shaping how both Plato and Aristotle were studied in later centuries. His Aristotelian commentaries contributed to the standard expository tradition used in schools.

In the Islamic world, the direct influence of Olympiodorus is harder to trace, since translations of his works into Arabic are poorly documented. However, some scholars suggest that indirect transmission through Alexandrian and Syriac intermediaries helped to shape the late antique Aristotelian curriculum, which in turn informed early Islamic philosophy.

In the Latin West, knowledge of Olympiodorus remained limited until the Renaissance and modern scholarship, when Greek manuscripts were edited and translated. Modern historians of philosophy value his works for at least three reasons:

1. As sources for lost Neoplatonic material, especially from the Alexandrian school.
2. As evidence about the curriculum and classroom practices in late antique philosophy.
3. As a case study in cultural and religious negotiation, showing how a pagan philosopher taught in a Christian society.

Contemporary researchers continue to examine Olympiodorus’s treatments of ethics, psychology, and alchemy, as well as his role in the codification of late Neoplatonic doctrine. While he is not usually ranked alongside Plotinus or Proclus as an original thinker, he is widely regarded as a key transmitter and interpreter whose work illuminates the final phase of ancient philosophy and its transformation into the medieval intellectual world.