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NUMENIUS

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Originally appearing in Volume V19, Page 866 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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NUMENIUS , a See also:

Greek philosopher, of See also:Apamea in See also:Syria, Neo-See also:Pythagorean and forerunner of the Neo-Platonists, flourished during the latter See also:half of the end See also:century A.D. He seems to have taken See also:Pythagoras as his highest authority, while at the same See also:time he chiefly follows See also:Plato. He calls the latter an "Atticizing See also:Moses." His See also:chief divergence from Plato is the distinction between the " first See also:god " and the " See also:demiurge." This is probably due to the See also:influence of the Valentinian Gnostics and the Jewish-Alexandrian philosophers (especially See also:Philo and his theory of the See also:Logos). According to See also:Proclus (Comment. in Timaeum, 93) Numenius held that there was a See also:kind of trinity of gods, the members of which he designated as 1rarilp, 7roorris, aolruia (" See also:father," " maker," " that which is made," i.e. the See also:world), or 7razraos, EKyovos, 67r6yovos (which Proclus calls " exaggerated See also:language "). The first is the supreme deity or pure intelligence (vows), the second the creator of the world (677µtovpy6s), the third the world (KO(1µos). His See also:works were highly esteemed by the Neoplatonists, and Amelius is said to have composed nearly too books of commentaries upon them. Fragments of his See also:treatises on the points of divergence between the Academicians and Plato, on the See also:Good (in which according to See also:Origen, Contra Celsum, iv. 51, he makes allusion to Jesus See also:Christ), and on the mystical sayings in Plato, are preserved in the Praeparatio Evangelica of See also:Eusebius. The fragments are collected in F. G. Mullach, Frag. Phil.

See also:

Gram iii.; see also F. Thedinga, De Numenio philosopho Platonico (See also:Bonn, 1875); See also:Ritter and See also:Preller, Hist. Phil. Graecae (ed. E. Wellmann, 1898), § 624-7; T. Whittaker, The Neo-Platonists (1901).

End of Article: NUMENIUS

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NUMERAL (from Lat. numerus, a number)

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