Calcidius was a 4th century Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

 who translated the first part (to 53c) of Plato

Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...

's Timaeus

Timaeus (dialogue)

Timaeus is one of Plato's dialogues, mostly in the form of a long monologue given by the title character, written circa 360 BC. The work puts forward speculation on the nature of the physical world and human beings. It is followed by the dialogue Critias.Speakers of the dialogue are Socrates,...

from Greek into Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 around the year 321 and provided with it an extensive commentary. This was done for Bishop Hosius of Córdoba

Hosius of Córdoba

Hosius of Corduba , also known as Osius or Ossius, was a bishop of Cordova and one of the prominent advocates of what became Catholic Christianity in the Arian controversy which divided the IV century early Christian Church...

. Very little is otherwise known of him.

His translation of the Timaeus was the only extensive text of Plato known to scholars in the Latin West for approximately 800 years. His commentary also contained useful accounts of Greek astronomical

Greek astronomy

Greek astronomy is astronomy written in the Greek language in classical antiquity. Greek astronomy is understood to include the ancient Greek, Hellenistic, Greco-Roman, and Late Antiquity eras. It is not limited geographically to Greece or to ethnic Greeks, as the Greek language had become the...

 knowledge. In the 12th century commentaries on this work were written by Christian scholars including Hisdosus

Hisdosus

Hisdosus , also known as Hisdosus Scholasticus, was a writer and scholar. Nothing is known about his life. A Latin commentary by him on Calcidius' translation of Plato's Timaeus survives in manuscript. The commentary is probably most famous for containing a paraphrase of Heraclitus' comparison of...

 and philosophers of the Chartres School, such as Thierry of Chartres

Thierry of Chartres

Thierry of Chartres or Theodoric the Breton was a twelfth-century philosopher working at Chartres and Paris, France....

 and William of Conches

William of Conches

William of Conches was a French scholastic philosopher who sought to expand the bounds of Christian humanism by studying secular works of the classics and fostering empirical science. He was a prominent member of the School of Chartres...

. Interpreting it in the light of the Christian faith, the academics in the School of Chartres understood the dialogue to refer to creation ex nihilo

Ex nihilo

Ex nihilo is a Latin phrase meaning "out of nothing". It often appears in conjunction with the concept of creation, as in creatio ex nihilo, meaning "creation out of nothing"—chiefly in philosophical or theological contexts, but also occurs in other fields.In theology, the common phrase creatio ex...

.

External links

• Part 1, Plato's Timaeus 12th century manuscript of Calcidius Latin translation found at Osney Abbey
  Osney Abbey
  Osney Abbey or Oseney Abbey, later Osney Cathedral, was a house of Augustinian canons at Osney in Oxfordshire. The site is south of the modern Botley Road, down Mill Street by Osney Cemetery, next to the railway line just south of Oxford station. It was founded as a priory in 1129, becoming an...
  
  ; page images at Oxford Digital Library from Oxford University's Bodleian Library
  Bodleian Library
  The Bodleian Library , the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library...
  
  
• Blitz Latin Translation of Calcidius