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J. R. Melville Jones: Eustathios of Thessaloniki , The Capture of Thessaloniki, a Translation with Introduction and Commentary. (Byzantina Australiensia, 8.) Pp. xxiv+244. Canberra: Byzantina Australiensia, 1988. ISBN: 0-9593636-4-9.

As is now generally recognized, the writing of commentaries in late antiquity becomes one of the preferred modes of actually doing philosophy, so that these works cannot be regarded simply as efforts at faithful interpretation of Aristotle's doctrine (whatever the avowed intentions of the authors). In the case of those commentators who are actually Platonists rather than Aristotelians (such as Porphyry, Ammonius, or Simplicius), we find a concern to reconcile Aristotle with his master as far as possible, which produces various interesting results, but Philoponus was not only a Platonist, he was a Christian, and this produces further complications, sometimes resulting in interesting innovations. In this book it is Aristotle's concept of infinity that comes under fire. Aristotle held that time was infinite, though he denied infinity to place. Philoponus, as a Christian who was committed to a temporal beginning for the world, denies infinity to both, and he musters some effective arguments in this connexion (cf. pp. 428,13-430,10 and 467,15-468,4). He makes the nice point that the postulation of the temporal infinity of the universe in the past will result in an actualized infinity of men, which is an absurdity: 'For if all the single instances of mankind have come into being in actuality up to now, and we are, as it were, the limit of that unlimited number of men who came into being before us, it is obvious that the unlimited has become traversable in actuality'. And we will have the additional absurdity that there will be something greater than the unlimited, since we are adding to the number of men all the time. Philoponus is on the whole not concerned, as is Simplicius, with the recording of previous authorities (though he occasionally refers to Alexander of Aphrodisias and Themistius), so that he is most valuable for his own views and insights, and it is good to have these set out in this finely turned and accurate translation. Just one detail of criticism, though, as regards the lay-out: E. recognizes the insight of Etienne Evrard that Philoponus divides his commentary in sections of theoria (or protheoria, in Evrard's terms) and lexis, or detailed commentary—as do certain other later Platonists, such as Olympiodorus (and Proclus, in a less formal way)—together with division into praxeis, or 'sessions', comprising approximately an hour's lecture-time. However, he makes no effort to divide the commentary in accordance with this, though he mentions that in some cases there is an overlap between the lemma introducing the theoria and the first lemma of the lexis. In fact, the commentary on Book 3 can quite easily be divided into thirteen praxeis, and to have indicated these would have contributed to clarity. But this is a minor matter. Overall, the translation is warmly to be welcomed, as are the notes.