Think I found the last Pagan Neo-Platonist Academy

google.com/url?sa=t&source= … B93GTgQhIQ

On page 7 of this except “Theophylact Simocatta and the Persians” I found this odd statement about the Persians sacking a “monastery”, but it’s description comes off as damn near heretical for this era, for the author to be mocking. It is believed Theophylact used John of Epiphania as his source, and I have reason to believe the text was originally in Syriac, from a source text of that community from perhaps the monophysite church, which in this era would of been thriving on the border far away from the persecutions.

Theophylact wrote later on, in a era when monastics were not to be degraded and dismissed. Last I saw this was in the work on a Platonic State by a Neoplatonist named “Thomas”, who had Senatorial rank but appears to me to be a rural senator, who inherited his title and didn’t actually serve in the Byzantine Senate (senators we’re transitioning in this era into various levels of medieval nobility, not all children of aristocrats would continue on holding hereditary seats in the Senate, most just did whatever with recognized degrees of nobility appended to them). The text is here for that, talking with who I suppose is a young student who later on became Patriarch Menos.

Three Political Voices From The Age of Justinian:
“Dialogue on Political Science”

books.google.com/books?id=X1Z7r … ft&f=false

He does mock the monks, and I’m thinking it would of been from a Rural Neoplatonist on the outskirts, before John of Ephesus started rooting everyone out. Given he wrote a damn book on Neo-Platonist religion mocking monks from a Christianized point if view, with a Christian name, my guess is it was fairly simple to nail him for John of Ephesus.

Both the Monophysites and Orthodox had monks, largely identical, so I very much doubt much later on, Theophylact was trying to explain exasperated what a monk was. He was rather, looking at a Syriac Text or Eye Witness who knew of the practices of those so called monks, and Theophanes wrote it down, trying at length to explain just what it was that they were doing. Julian the Apostate did try to reform paganism to resemble Christianity more, and many of the Neo-Platonic forerunners were deeply influenced by Christian thinkers. It wouldn’t be unnatural for Neo-Platonists to take up in the outskirts of the empire in later years, setting up a academy with monks, exploring Henosis and Theurogy, which would very much explain the confusion of the local non-greek speaking Christian/Zoroastrian and Pagan populations confused as to what in the hell these people were actually up to.

My instinct says to go yo Gregory Ber-Hebraeus, but that’s not happening, cause the very works I need are not translated, and Koine is a tough enough learning experience as is.

So… Where is this Neo-Platonic Academy of Martyropolis today?

According to Google, Martyropolis is Silvan, Diyarbakır, Turkey. I can usually find evidence of Turkey avidly advertising all it’s recent archaeological work, trying to get tourists. Turkey’s current regime is severely Anti-Kurd, Anti-Tourist, so it wouldn’t be the best time for a visit. I did find however this, which keeps popping up whenever I Google for Roman Monastery near Martyropolis:

jelleverheij.net/travel-snap … hasun.html

I found the original description this text talks about on the net, doesn’t go any more in depth.

If the place was razed, be that the location or not, it’s texts would of burnt. This isn’t bad, as we can now read charcoal scrolls. Likewise, it mentioned a Tel Meen nearby. Tel just beams artificial hill, means a settlement was there, grown over with dirt like a hill.

So… What does this mean?

Means if I am tight, a bunch of hippy Neo-Platonists in the late era of Paganism moved out to the borderlands between Persia and the Byzantine Empire, likely with the intention of jumping border whenever one side was too threatening to them. Martyropolis already had a large Persian christian population, as evidence the name, that comes from Persian relics. The locals likely couldn’t make any damn sense of what Henosis entailed, today we would just say Advaitian Non-Dualism, but back in the day would of been confusing as it could be to someone not in a intellectual center where such people usually lived.

I’m gonna publish this a few other places, did it here first.

Don’t everyone come rushing in at once for a response.

bede.org.uk/justinian.htm

I’m still a bit stumped here. The geography makes sense, and the tragic consequence of trying to hedge one’s bets and having it backfire as a consequence of the war is ironic. Did they come from a Persian school and follow the Byzantines, or doing vice versa?