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Updated: May 5, 2025
Though the pagan philosophy had been much discouraged at Alexandria by the destruction of the temples and the cessation of the sacrifices, yet the philosophers were still allowed to teach in the schools. Syrianus was at the head of the Platonists, and he wrote largely on the Orphic, Pythagorean, and Platonic doctrines.
To this request Syrianus at last yielded, and gave his word to the friends of Athanasius that he would take no further steps till the return of the messengers which he then sent to Constantinople.
Syrianus afterwards removed to Athens, to take charge of the Platonic school in that city, and Athens became the chief seat of Alexandrian Platonism. Olympiodorus was at the same time undertaking the task of forming a Peripatetic school in Alexandria, in opposition to the new Platonism, and he has left some of the fruits of his labour in his Commentaries on Aristotle.
Syrianus with five thousand men had surrounded the building, determined to take the Patriarch, alive or dead. In the dim light of the sanctuary Athanasius sat on the Bishop's throne, calm and unmoved in the midst of the tumult. "Read the 135th Psalm," he said to one of the deacons, "and when it is finished, all will leave the church."
The friends of the bishop drew up and signed a public declaration describing the outrage, and Syrianus sent to Constantinople a counter-protest declaring that there had been no disturbance in the city.
The presbytery of the church and the corporation of the city went up to Syrianus in solemn procession to beg him either to show a written authority for the banishment of their bishop, or to write to Constantinople to learn the emperor's pleasure.
So when Syrianus, the general in Egypt, brought up his troops, it was agreed to refer the whole question to Constantius. Syrianus broke the agreement. The whole congregation was caught as in a net. The doors were broken open, and the troops pressed up the church. Athanasius fainted in the tumult; yet before they reached the bishop's throne its occupant had somehow been safely conveyed away.
He therefore only waited for an opportunity of carrying them into effect; and at midnight, on the ninth of February, A.D. 356, twenty-three days after the promise had been given, Syrianus, at the head of his troops, armed for the assault, surrounded the church where Athanasius and a crowded assembly were at prayers.
If the reader conjoins what is said concerning ideas in the notes on that work, with the introduction and notes to the Parmenides in this, he will be in possession of nearly all that is to be found in the writings of the ancients on this subject. It appears from this passage of Syrianus that Longinus was the original inventor of the theory of abstract ideas; and that Mr.
Syrianus , in his commentary on the 13th book of Aristotle's Metaphysics, shows in defense of Socrates, Plato, the Parmenideans, and Pythagoreans, that ideas were not introduced by these divine men according to the usual meaning of names, as was the opinion of Chrysippus, Archedemus, and many of the junior Stoics; for ideas are distinguished by many differences from things which are denominated from custom.
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