A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

(Συνέσιος), one of the most elegant of the ancient Christian writers, was a native of Cyrene, and traced his descent from the Spartan king Eurysthenes. He devoted himself to the study of all branches of Greek literature, first in his own city, and afterwards at Alexandria, where he heard Hypatia; and became celebrated for his skill in eloquence and poetry, as well as in philosophy, in which he was a follower of Plato. About A. D. 397, he was sent by his fellow-citizens of Cyrene on an embassy to Constantinople, to present the emperor Arcadius with a crown of gold; on which occasion he delivered an oration on the government of a kingdom (περὶ βασιλείας), which is still extant. Soon after this he embraced Christianity, and was baptized by Theophilus, the patriarch of Alexandria, who had such a sense of his merits that, in the year 410, he ordained him as bishop of Ptolemais, the chief city of the Libyan Pentapolis, although Synesius was very unwilling to accept the office. and enforced his nolo episcopari by declaring that he would not put away his wife, that he disbelieved the resurrection of the body, and that in other respects his studies and opinions and pursuits were of a nature not quite consistent with the notions of the strictly orthodox. Theophilus, however, overruled these objections : Synesius was permitted to retain his wife; and he very soon made a public profession of his belief in the resurrection of the body. He presided over his diocese with energy and success for about twenty years. Among his most remarkable acts were the conversion to Christianity of the philosopher Evagrius, and the humiliation of Andronicus, the tyrannical president of Libya, whom he brought, by the combined effect of the terrors of excommunication, and a complaint to the emperor, to supplicate the pardon of the church. The time of his death is not stated; but he cannot have lived beyond A. D. 430 or 431, since in the latter year his younger brother and successor Euoptius appeared at the council of Ephesus as bishop of Ptolemais.

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