Jan Hendrik Waszink (17 October 1908, Renswoude – 5 October 1990, Lugano) was a Dutch Latin scholar, Professor of Latin at Leiden University. Best known as an expert on Tertullian, he also edited the translation and commentary by Calcidius on Plato's Timaeus . [1]
Waszink is counted following Franz Joseph Dölger and others as one of the founders of Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum and with Christine Mohrmann of Vigiliae Christianae.
Waszink was born in Renswoude, where his father was a doctor. He was educated at a local grammar school before studying classics at Leiden University, writing his PhD thesis (1933) on Tertullian. After being a grammar school teacher, he was appointed Professor of Latin at Leiden in 1946. Though best known for his interest in patristics - fired by Dölger's seminars - he also took an interest in Neo-Latin, writing on Petrarch and participating in the edition of Erasmus. [1] Waszink became member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1950. [2] He died on 5 October 1990, while holidaying with friends. [3]
Proclus Lycius, called Proclus the Successor, was a Greek Neoplatonist philosopher, one of the last major classical philosophers of late antiquity. He set forth one of the most elaborate and fully developed systems of Neoplatonism and, through later interpreters and translators, exerted an influence on Byzantine philosophy, Early Islamic philosophy, Scholastic philosophy, and German Idealism, especially G.W.F. Hegel, who called Proclus's Platonic Theology "the true turning point or transition from ancient to modern times, from ancient philosophy to Christianity."
Tertullian was a prolific early Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa. He was the first Christian author to produce an extensive corpus of Latin Christian literature. He was an early Christian apologist and a polemicist against heresy, including contemporary Christian Gnosticism. Tertullian has been called "the father of Latin Christianity", as well as "the founder of Western theology".
Renswoude is a municipality and a town in the central Netherlands, in the province of Utrecht.
Al-Maqrīzī, was a medieval Egyptian historian and biographer during the Mamluk era, known for his interest in the Fatimid era, and the earlier periods of Egyptian history. He is recognized as the most influential historian of premodern Egypt.
Jan Hendrik Oort was a Dutch astronomer who made significant contributions to the understanding of the Milky Way and who was a pioneer in the field of radio astronomy. The New York Times called him "one of the century's foremost explorers of the universe"; the European Space Agency website describes him as "one of the greatest astronomers of the 20th century" and states that he "revolutionised astronomy through his ground-breaking discoveries." In 1955, Oort's name appeared in Life magazine's list of the 100 most famous living people. He has been described as "putting the Netherlands in the forefront of postwar astronomy."
Timaeus is one of Plato's dialogues, mostly in the form of long monologues given by Critias and Timaeus, written c. 360 BC. The work puts forward reasoning on the possible nature of the physical world and human beings and is followed by the dialogue Critias.
Critias, one of Plato's late dialogues, recounts the story of the mighty island kingdom Atlantis and its attempt to conquer Athens, which failed due to the ordered society of the Athenians. Critias is the second of a projected trilogy of dialogues, preceded by Timaeus and followed by Hermocrates. The latter was possibly never written and the ending to Critias has been lost. Because of their resemblance, modern classicists occasionally combine both Timaeus and Critias as Timaeus-Critias.
Timaeus of Locri is a character in two of Plato's dialogues, Timaeus and Critias. In both, he appears as a philosopher of the Pythagorean school. If there ever existed a historical Timaeus of Locri, he would have lived in the fifth century BC, but his historicity is dubious since he only appears as a literary figure in Plato's works; all other ancient sources are either based on Plato or are fictional accounts.
Paul of Venice was a Catholic philosopher, theologian, logician and metaphysician of the Order of Saint Augustine.
Calcidius was a 4th-century philosopher who translated the first part of Plato's Timaeus from Greek into Latin around the year 321 and provided with it an extensive commentary. This was likely done for Bishop Hosius of Córdoba. Very little is otherwise known of him.
Atticus was an ancient Platonic philosopher who lived in the second century of the Christian era, under the emperor Marcus Aurelius. His lifetime fell into the epoch of Middle Platonism, of which he was one of the most notable representatives.
Cosmographia ("Cosmography"), also known as De mundi universitate, is a Latin philosophical allegory, dealing with the creation of the universe, by the twelfth-century author Bernardus Silvestris. In form, it is a prosimetrum, in which passages of prose alternate with verse passages in various classical meters. The philosophical basis of the work is the Platonism of contemporary philosophers associated with the cathedral school of Chartres—one of whom, Thierry of Chartres, is the dedicatee of the work. According to a marginal note in one early manuscript, the Cosmographia was recited before Pope Eugene III when he was traveling in France (1147–48).
The Acta Arvalia were the recorded protocols of the Arval Brothers (Arvales fratres), a priestly brotherhood (sodalitas) of ancient Roman religion.
David Neil Sedley FBA is a British philosopher and historian of philosophy. He was the seventh Laurence Professor of Ancient Philosophy at Cambridge University.
Hendrik Wagenvoort was a Dutch classical scholar. He was professor of Latin at the University of Groningen and Utrecht University and published extensively on subjects relating to the Latin language and Roman religion.
Tutilina was in Roman religion a tutelary goddess, apparently responsible for protecting crops brought in during harvest time.
Willem Jacob Verdenius was a Dutch classicist.
Olympicus or Olympiacus was a physician of Miletus of the 1st century AD.
Gretchen Reydams-Schils is Professor in the Program of Liberal Studies at the University of Notre Dame, and holds concurrent appointments in Classics, Philosophy, and Theology. She is a specialist in Plato and the traditions of Platonism and Stoicism.
Luc Brisson is a Canadian historian of philosophy and anthropologist of antiquity. He is emeritus director of research at the CNRS in France, and is considered by some of his colleagues and students to be the greatest contemporary scholar on Platonism.