Background
Ammonios birth is dated from 435 to 445, according to a more recent approach, between 437 and 450. Ammonius' father, Hermias, died when he was a child, and his mother, Aedesia, raised him and his brother, Heliodorus, in Alexandria.
Greek: Ἀμμώνιος ὁ Ἑρμείου
Ammonios birth is dated from 435 to 445, according to a more recent approach, between 437 and 450. Ammonius' father, Hermias, died when he was a child, and his mother, Aedesia, raised him and his brother, Heliodorus, in Alexandria.
Ammonius was a pupil of Proclus in Athens.
In Alexandria Ammonius was a head of the Neoplatonist school in Alexandria, lecturing on Plato and Aristotle for the rest of his life. According to Damascius, during the persecution of the pagans at Alexandria in the late 480's, Ammonius made concessions to the Christian authorities so that he could continue his lectures. Ammonius Hermiae`s school survived until the Arab conquest of Alexandria (ca. 641/642), whereas Plato’s Academy was closed in 529. Its Platonism was in many respects pre-Plotinian, as has been shown especially by Praechter (pace Lloyd’s doubts).
Damascius, who scolds Ammonius for the agreement that he made, does not say what the concessions were, but it may have involved limitations on the doctrines he could teach or promote. He was still teaching in 515; Olympiodorus heard him lecture on Plato's Gorgias in that year. He also taught Asclepius of Tralles, John Philoponus, Damascius and Simplicius.
Ammonius was also an accomplished astronomer; he lectured on Ptolemy and is known to have written a treatise on the astrolabe.
Of his reputedly numerous writings, only his commentary on Aristotle's De Interpretatione survives intact. A commentary on Porphyry's Isagoge may also be his, but it is somewhat corrupt and contains later interpolations.
Ammonius is one of the characters in Zacharias Scholasticus’ dialogue Ammonius (probably historical in essence), in which Zacharias refutes Ammonius’ assertion that the cosmos is coeternal with God and explains to him the doctrine of Trinity. A sober and scholarly interpreter of Plato and Aristotle, Ammonius “harmonized” them. His works and lecture courses were frequently edited and fully utilized by three generations of his students, including Johannes Philoponus, Simplicius, Olympiodorus, David, Elias, and perhaps Boethius.
Ammonius Hermiae and his school managed to come to terms with Christian authorities; he himself perhaps became a Christian, albeit in name only; the faculty and students of the school were partly pagan, partly Christian.
Ammonius agreed with Aristotle that mathematical objects do not subsist, although they can be abstracted from physical objects. He divided theoretical philosophy into theology, mathematics, and physics (and mathematics into arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy), thereby again combining Aristotelian and Platonic points of view, as did Boethius later.