Editing Procopius of Gaza (section)

==Life and work==

The little that is known of him is to be found in his letters and the ''[[encomium]]'' by his pupil and successor [[Choricius of Gaza|Choricius]]. Like many other members of the [[Rhetorical School of Gaza|rhetorical school of Gaza]], he studied in [[Alexandria]] and then became a teacher for rhetorics in his home town of Gaza though other cities like [[Antioch]], [[Tyre, Lebanon|Tyre]] and [[Caesarea Maritima]] vied for his service.<ref name="Johnson">{{cite book |last1=Johnson |first1=Scott Fitzgerald |title=Languages and Cultures of Eastern Christianity: Greek |date=15 May 2017 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-351-92323-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kAskDwAAQBAJ |access-date=7 January 2024 |language=en}}</ref> 

He was the author of numerous rhetorical and theological works. Of the former, his [[panegyric]] on the emperor [[Roman Emperor Anastasius I|Anastasius]] alone is extant; the description of the [[Hagia Sophia]] and the [[monody]] on its partial destruction by an earthquake are spurious.

His letters (163 in number), addressed to persons of rank, friends, and literary opponents, throw valuable light upon the condition of the sophistical rhetoric of the period and about the academic circles in Alexandria and Gaza.<ref name="Johnson" />

Procopius' theological writings consist of commentaries on the ''[[Octateuch]]'', the books of [[books of Kings|Kings]] and [[books of Chronicles|Chronicles]], [[book of Isaiah|Isaiah]], the [[book of Proverbs|Proverbs]], the [[Song of Songs]] and [[Ecclesiastes]]. They are amongst the earliest examples of the "catenic" (''[[Catena (biblical commentary)|catena]]'', chain) form of commentary, consisting of a series of extracts from the fathers, arranged, with independent additions, to elucidate the portions of Scripture concerned. [[Photios I of Constantinople|Photius]] (cod. 206), while blaming the diffuseness of these commentaries, praises the writer's learning and style, which, however, he considers too ornate for the purpose. He also wrote a monody on the [[526 Antioch earthquake|earthquake of Antioch in 526 AD]] in and an [[ekphrasis]] of a clock in Gaza.<ref name="Johnson" />

Complete editions of the works of Procopius in [[Jacques Paul Migne|Migne]], ''[[Patrologia Graeca]]'', lxxxvii; the letters also in ''Epistolographi graeci'', ed. [[R. Hercher]] (1873); see also [[K. Seitz]], ''Die Schule von Gaza'' (1892); [[L. Eisenhofer]], ''Procopius von Gaza'' (1897); further bibliographical notices in [[Karl Krumbacher|K Krumbacher]], ''Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur'' (1897), and article by G. Kruger in ''Herzog-Hauck's Realencyclopädie für protestantische Theologie'' (1905).