Hierocles of Alexandria

Hierocles of Alexandria was a Greek Neoplatonic philosopher who was active around AD 430.

Life He studied under Plutarch (the Neoplatonist) at Athens in the early 5th century, and taught for some years in his native city. He seems to have been banished from Alexandria and to have taken up his abode in Constantinople, where he gave an offence in the court. Damascius relates as follows:"he went to Byzantium and there knocked against those in power. Taken to court, he was beaten by the blows of men. Covered in blood, he soaked the palm of his hand and sprinkled the judge, saying: Cyclops, come, drink some wine since you have eaten human flesh. "By quoting the Odyssey (9.347), Herocles was mocking the Christian eucharist. His disciple Aeneas, a member of the Rhetorical School of Gaza, later combined neoplatonic thought with his Christian beliefs.

Works The only complete work of his which has been preserved is the commentary on the Chrysa Epe (Golden Verses) of Pythagoras. For the same reason, he opposed theurgic and magic practices as they were attempts to supersede the divine providential order.

The collection of some 260 witticisms attributed to Hierocles and Philagrius, the Philogelos, has no connection with Hierocles of Alexandria, but is probably a compilation of later date, founded on two older collections. It is now agreed that the fragments of the Elements of Ethics preserved in Stobaeus are from a work by a Stoic named Hierocles, contemporary of Epictetus, who has been identified with the "Hierocles Stoicus vir sanctus et gravis" in Aulus Gellius (ix. 5. 8). This theory is confirmed by the discovery of a papyrus (ed. H. von Arnim in Berliner Klassikertexte, Iv. 1906.)