PROCOPIO of GAZA. - A notable representative of the Christian school of Gaza, d. ca. 530; author of extensive biblical commentaries in the form of “chains” (v.). One hundred and sixty-three letters of P. have been preserved (in R. Hercher, Epistolographi graeci, Paris 1873, p. 533 ff.). There also exist under his name a panegyric on the emperor Anastasio (d. 518) and descriptions of works of art. He is probably also the author of certain speeches for the feast of roses and of ethopoeiae.
BIBL.: editions: PG 87, 1-2; C. Kempen, Procopii Gazaei in imperatorem Anastasium panegiricus, Diss., Bonn 1918; H. Diels, Über die von Prokop von Gaza beschriebene Kunstuhr von Gaza, in Abhandl. d. Berliner Akademie, 1917, Philos.-hist. Kl., no. 7; P. Friedländer, Spätantiker Gemäldezyklus in Gaza (Studi e testi), 80, Vatican City 1939, p. 94 (on the attribution to P. of other texts in the same Vatican manuscript). Studies: L. Eisenhofer, P. V. Gaza, Freiburg 1897; E. Lindl, Die Oktateuchhatene des P. V. G., Munich 1902; R. Devresse, in DBs, I, col. 1087 ff.; V. Valdemberg, Le idee politiche di P. di Gaza, etc., in Studi bizantini, II, Rome 1935, p. 65 ff. On the question of Nicola di Metone and P. di G., V. H. Beck, Vorhebung und Vorherbestimmung in der theologischen Literatur der Byzantiner (Orient. christ. Anal., 114), Rome 1937, p. 95, no. 24. Erik Peterson