EUNAPIUS of SARDIS – Pagan rhetorician, born c. 346; as a young man he was entrusted to the philosopher Chrysanthius, who initiated him into the teachings of Iamblichus. He then studied in Athens under the rhetorician Prohaeresius and was also initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries. Upon returning to his homeland, he taught rhetoric there. He died after 414.
He wrote a historical work in fourteen books, of which only a few fragments remain; in it he displayed his wholehearted enthusiasm for Julian the Apostate and severely judged all the Christian emperors. By contrast, the Lives of the Philosophers and Sophists has come down to us complete; in this work are portrayed the principal representatives of the Neoplatonic school of the 4th century. It is a medieval work lacking in criticism, filled with gossip, superstitious credulity, and insipid rhetoric. In it Eunapius gave vent to his hatred of Christianity and especially of monks, whom he accused of dissolute living, fanatical rage against the monuments of paganism, superstition, and treason against the fatherland.