ABSTRACT

A good deal of uncertainty surrounds both the identity and the date of Probus/Proba, the author of some surviving commentaries dealing with parts of Aristotle's Organon. Probus' Commentary on the Eisagoge can with considerable confidence be situated chronologically somewhere between the date of the Anonymous translation and 645, the date specified for that of Athanasius. Baumstark confidently placed Probus' literary activity approximately between 430 and 460, though at the same time, on the basis of the statement that Probus was an archiatros of Antioch, he denied that he had any connection with Edessa. Probus is said to have stayed on in Alexandria until he was driven out by Damian, Patriarch of Alexandria, after which he 'sowed the seeds of the sophist's teachings in the Orient', as a result of which he was excommunicated. In his Aristoteles bei den Syrern Baumstark published what turns out to be only a small part of Probus' Commentary on the Eisagoge, using Berlin, Sachau 226.