a famous Platonic philosopher of the third century, author of an esteemed commentary on the Timaeus of Plato, which Meursius caused to be printed at Leyden in 1617, 4to, and which John Albert Fabricius has inserted at the end of the second volume of the works of St Hypolitus, Hamburg, 1718, fol. The critics are divided in opinion respecting this ancient author. Fabricius pretends that he was a Christian; and Giraldi makes him even deacon of Carthage. But the Abbé Goujet, in his dissertation inserted in the first volume of the Mémoires de Littérature, maintains the contrary opinion, on the grounds that Chalcidius adopts the opinions of Plato, doubts the inspiration of the book of Moses, and speaks of the dogmas of Christianity with indifference, or at least without indicating whether he believed them or not.

Mosheim and Brucker, however, class him among the syncretist or eclectic philosophers, who amalgamated the philosophy of Plato with the doctrines of Christianity, and maintained that the truths taught by Jesus Christ were known long before his time, though concealed by the priests under the veil of ceremonies, fables, and allegories. Mosheim thinks Chalcidius never professed Christianity; Brucker is of a contrary opinion, inasmuch as he shared the errors of Platonism in common with many whose Christianity was never questioned.