Explaining the Cosmos

Michael W. Champion is Lecturer in Classics at the University of Western Australia.

• Preface ; Abbreviations ; 1 Introduction ; 1.1 Culture and Ideas, Conflict and Identity ; 1.2 Introducing Aeneas, Zacharias and Procopius ; Part One: Creating Gazan Cultures ; 2 Late-Antique Gaza: Teachers, Monks and Philosophers ; 2.1 Social and Material Contours of Late-Antique Gaza ; 2.2 Gazan Rhetorical Schools within Late-Antique Education ; 2.3 Gazan Monasteries and the Schools ; 2.4 Conclusions ; 3 Gazan Culture Performed and Transformed by Aeneas, Zacharias and Procopius ; 3.1 Gaza through Aeneas' Letters ; 3.2 Creating Cultures through the Creation Debates ; 3.3 Reconfiguring Neoplatonic Claims to Power through Narrative and Genre ; 3.4 Conflict and Complexity ; Part Two: Explaining Creation ; 4 Christian and Neoplatonic Creations ; 4.1 Christian Creations ; 4.2 Gazans and Contemporary Neoplatonism ; 4.3 Neoplatonic Creations ; 4.4 Building on Different Traditions ; 5 Procopius on Creation and Eternity ; 5.1 Problems of a Commentator ; 5.2 God and Matter ; 5.3 Matter, Freedom and Determinism ; 5.4 Time and Cause ; 5.5 Theodicy ; 5.6 Problems and Solutions ; 6 Aeneas and Zacharias on Creation and Eternity ; 6.1 Matter, Cause and Time ; 6.2 Creation and Eschatology ; 6.3 Creation and Ethics ; 6.4 Creation and Triunity ; 6.5 Creation and the Soul ; 6.6 Monastic Problems: Aeneas and Origenism ; 6.7 Problems and Solutions ; 7 Conclusions: Creation Creating Cultures ; 7.1 Creatio Continua ; 7.2 Creation of Ideas and Local Cultures ; Bibliography ; Index Locorum ; General Index

Champion has written an orderly and readable book about a major subject and an interesting 'location' which nowadays attracts the specialists of Late Antiquity for its complex cultural visage. He undoubtedly displays a good ability for synthesis, especially in the second part of his work, by summarizing and positively exploiting previous research.