Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/787

Rh across the upper s of the where it flows from south to north, which henceforth continued to be their western boundary (Num. xxi. 24; Deut. ii. 37, iii. 16). The other limits of the Ammonitis, or of the Ammonites (Ἀμμανῖτις χῶρα, 2Mac. iv. 26), there are no means of exactly defining. On the south it probably adjoined the of  (but cf. Ewald, Gesch. Israels, ii. 266); on the north it may have met that of the  of  (2Sam. xiii. 37); and on the east it probably melted away into the  peopled by  and other  s.

1em  AMMONIUS, surnamed, or the son of Hermias, studied at Alexandria, along with his brother Heliodorus, under the neo-Platonist Proclus during the He was afterwards the head of a school for philosophy; and among his scholars were Asclepias, John Philoponus, Damascius, and Simplicius. Although a neo-Platonist, Ammonius appears to have devoted most of his attention to the works of Aristotle. Commentaries on some of these are all that remains of his reputedly numerous writings. Of the commentaries we have—1.One on the Isagoge of Porphyry, published at Venice,, fol.; 2.One on the Categories, Venice, , fol., the authenticity of which is doubted by Brandis; 3.One on the De Interpretatione, Venice, , fol. Of each of the commentaries there are several Latin translations, and the three have been published in a collected form, with a Latin translation, Venice,, 3 vols. 8vo. They are also printed in Brandis’ Scholia to Aristotle, forming the fourth volume of the Berlin Aristotle. The special section on fate has been published separately by Orelli, Alex. Aphrod. Ammonii et all. de Fato quæ supersunt, Zurich, 1824. A life of Aristotle, generally ascribed to Ammonius, but with more accuracy to John Philoponus, is often prefixed to editions of Aristotle. It has been printed separately, with Latin translation and Scholia, at Leyden, 1621, and again at Helmstadt, 1666. Other commentaries on the Topics and the first six books of the Metaphysics still exist in manuscript. Of the value of the logical writings of Ammonius there are various opinions. Prantl, perhaps the highest recent authority, speaks of them with great but hardly merited contempt (Geschichte der Logik, i. 642). (For list of his works, see Fabricius, Bibliotheca Græca, v. 704–707; and also Brandis, Memoirs of the Berlin Academy, 1833.)  AMMONIUS, surnamed, or “The Sack Carrier,” from the fact of his having been obliged in the early part of his life to gain his livelihood by acting as a porter in the market, lived at Alexandria during the , and died there Very little is known of the events of his life. He is said by Porphyry to have been born of Christian parents, and to have belonged originally to their faith, from which he afterwards apostatised. Eusebius (Church History, vi. 19) denies this apostasy, and affirms that Ammonius continued a Christian to the end of his life. It is clear, however, that Eusebius is referring to another Ammonius, a Christian who lived at Alexandria during the Ammonius, after long study and meditation, opened a school for philosophy in Alexandria. Among his pupils were Herennius, the two Origens, Longinus, and, most distinguished of all, Plotinus, who in his search for true wisdom found himself irresistibly attracted by Ammonius, remained his close companion for eleven years, and in all his later philosophy professed to be the mere exponent of his great master. Ammonius himself designedly wrote nothing, and the doctrines taught in his school were, at least during his life, kept secret, after the fashion of the old Pythagorean society. Thus, while all the later developments of neo-Platonism are in a general way referred to him as their originator, little is known of his special tenets. From the notices of Hierocles, a scholar of Plutarch, in the, preserved in Photius, we learn that his fundamental doctrine was an eclecticism, or union of Plato and Aristotle. He attempted to show that a system of philosophy, common tq both and higher than their special views, was contained in their writings. He thus, according to his admirers, put an end to the interminable disputes of the rival schools. What other elements Ammonius included in his eclectic system, and in particular how he stood related to the Jewish and Christian theosophies, are points on which no information can be procured. Few direct references to him exist, and even 