Synesius of Cyrene
Greek philosopher and pupil of Hypatia who addressed On Kingship to Emperor Arcadius at Constantinople, then became bishop of Ptolemais. His hymns, essays and letters are among the best records of a cultivated Greek life at the end of the Roman world.
Biography
Synesius of Cyrene was a Greek philosopher, orator, poet and bishop who lived through the last decades of the fourth century and the first of the fifth. He was born around 370 AD at Cyrene, the ancient Greek city in what is now eastern Libya, into a wealthy landowning family that claimed descent from the Spartan kings. As a young man he went to Alexandria to study under Hypatia, the leading Neoplatonist teacher of the city, and he remained devoted to her for the rest of his life, writing to her as his mother, sister and teacher.
Around 398 AD Cyrene sent him to Constantinople as its envoy, bearing a golden crown for the emperor and a plea for relief from the taxes that were ruining the province. He spent about three years at the court of Arcadius, and there he delivered On Kingship, a speech that set aside flattery to tell the young emperor what a king should be and to warn against the Gothic soldiers and generals who had gained power in the army. His stay coincided with the political struggles over Gothic influence at court, which he later told in allegorical form in his work On Providence, also called the Egyptian Tale.
After returning home he married a Christian wife, whose wedding was blessed by Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria, and had three sons. He lived as a country gentleman and philosopher, writing hymns, essays such as Dion and On Dreams, a playful Praise of Baldness, and a large collection of letters that give one of the most vivid pictures of life in a late Roman province. When desert tribes raided Cyrenaica he organized the defense of his district himself.
Around 410 AD the people of Ptolemais chose him as their bishop. He accepted reluctantly, stating openly that he would not give up his wife and would not pretend to abandon certain philosophical convictions, and Theophilus consecrated him on those terms. As bishop he defended his people against the cruelty of the provincial governor Andronicus, whom he excommunicated. His last years were darkened by the deaths of all three of his sons, and he died around 413 AD.
Life & Career
Why Synesius Matters
Synesius stands at the meeting point of Greek philosophy and the Christian church. Trained by Hypatia in the Neoplatonism of Plato's later followers, he thought of God as the One, the source of all goodness, and of philosophy as the soul's way back to him. On Kingship draws directly on that thought: the king is called to imitate God's goodness, to rule his own soul by reason before he rules others, and to see his office as a share in the divine care for the world.
His consecration as bishop of Ptolemais is one of the most unusual in the history of the early church. Before accepting, he wrote openly that he would keep his wife and that he could not give up his philosophical views on the soul's existence before the body, the permanence of the world, and the meaning of the resurrection. Theophilus of Alexandria consecrated him anyway, and Synesius served faithfully, defending his flock against oppressive officials and invading tribes.
His hymns, written in classical meters, are among the earliest Christian poems in Greek to join Neoplatonist language about the One with praise of the Father and the Son. His letters show a bishop who was also a landowner, soldier, scholar and friend of pagans and Christians alike, which makes him a valuable witness to how the old learning passed into the Christian world.
