Themistius - Works

Works

The orations of Themistius, extant in the time of Photius (9th century), were thirty-six in number. Of these, thirty-three have come down to us in Greek. Two of them, however, (Orations 23 and 33, and perhaps Oration 28) are not fully preserved, and one (Oration 25) is a brief statement, not a full oration. Modern editions of the Orations have thirty-four pieces, because a Latin address to Valens has been included as Oration 12. It is now believed though that this Latin address is a 16th century creation. The final oration (Oration 34) was discovered as recently as 1816 by Angelo Mai in the Ambrosian Library at Milan. There are, in addition, a few other fragments which may come from lost Orations, as well as an additional work which survives in Syriac and another preserved in Arabic.

The philosophical works of Themistius must have been very voluminous; for Photius tells us that he wrote commentaries on all the books of Aristotle, besides useful abstracts of the Posterior Analytics, the books On the Soul, and the Physics, and that there were works of his on Plato; "and, in a word, he is a lover and eager student of philosophy." The Suda mentions his epitome of the Physics of Aristotle, in eight books; of the Prior Analytics, in two books; of the Posterior Analytics, in two books; of the treatise On the Soul, in seven books; and of the Categories in one book.

The epitomes which survive are:

• On the Posterior Analytics
• On the Physics
• On On the Soul
• On On the Heavens, in a Hebrew translation only
• On the Metaphysics 12, in a Hebrew translation only

In addition to these works, two surviving anonymous paraphrases were mistakenly attributed to him in the Byzantine era, and are now assigned to a Pseudo-Themistius:

• On the Prior Analytics
• On the Parva naturalia

His paraphrases of Aristotle's Posterior Analytics, Physics and On the Soul are valuable; but the orations in which he panegyrizes successive emperors, comparing them to Plato's true philosopher, and even to the idea itself, are intended to flatter. Boëthius describes him as, disertissimus (or diligentissimus) scriptor ac lucidus, et omnia ad facilitatem intelligentiae revocans.

In philosophy Themistius was an eclectic. He held that Plato and Aristotle were in substantial agreement, that God has made men free to adopt the mode of worship they prefer, and that Christianity and Hellenism were merely two forms of the one universal religion.