 Several passages in Simplicius’ commentaries also testify to the crucial role that Iamblichus’ philosophy and exegesis played for him (see  §1  and  §5 in the supplement on “The Commentaries of Simplicius”).  Simplicius’ controversy with the Christian commentator Philoponus, who taught in Alexandria, regarding whether the world was created in time (see  §3 in the supplement on “The Commentaries of Simplicius”) is well known. However, it seems that they never met personally (“[I] feel no hostility against this man whom, to my knowledge, I have never seen”; In Cael. 26.18–19, translated by C. Wildberg).