  In 529, the year when emperor Justinian put an end to pagan philosophical teaching in Athens, Philoponus published a detailed reply entitled On the Eternity of the World against Proclus. The book amounts to an anti-commentary on the Proclean arguments: combing through Proclus’ text, Philoponus literally repudiates every single point made. Although his efforts are evidently to some extent motivated by his Christian faith, he keeps biblical theology out of his polemic, attempting to refute Proclus within the framework of Platonist philosophy. He reads the Timaeus as a genuine account of creation (Book VI), compatible with Christian doctrine. A new and ingenious analysis of the processes of generation and corruption renders even an idea viable which Greek philosophers of all schools roundly rejected: creation out of nothing (Books VIII and IX). And even if it is true, Philoponus retorts, that creation out of nothing never occurs in nature, God is surely more powerful a creator than nature and therefore quite possibly capable of creatio ex nihilo (IX 9).