Antoninus was a Neoplatonist philosopher

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

 who lived in the 4th century. He was a son of Eustathius

Eustathius of Cappadocia

Eustathius of Cappadocia, was a Neoplatonist and Sophist, and a pupil of Iamblichus and Aedesius, who lived at the beginning of the 4th century. When Aedesius was obliged to quit Cappadocia, Eustathius was left behind in his place...

 and Sosipatra

Sosipatra

Sosipatra of Ephesus was a Neoplatonist philosopher and mystic who lived in the first half of the 4th century. The story of her life is told in Eunapius' Lives of the Sophists.-Life and education:...

, and had a school at Canopus, Egypt

Canopus, Egypt

Canopus was an Ancient Egyptian coastal town, located in the Nile Delta. Its site is in the eastern outskirts of modern-day Alexandria, around 25 kilometres from the centre of that city....

. He was an older contemporary of Hypatia

Hypatia of Alexandria

Hypatia was an Egyptian Neoplatonist philosopher who was the first notable woman in mathematics. As head of the Platonist school at Alexandria, she also taught philosophy and astronomy...

 who lived and worked nearby in Alexandria

Alexandria

Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...

. He devoted himself wholly to his pupils, but he never expressed any opinion upon divine matters, and although Eunapius

Eunapius

Eunapius was a Greek sophist and historian of the 4th century. His principal surviving work is the Lives of the Sophists, a collection of the biographies of twenty-three philosophers and sophists.-Life:He was born at Sardis, AD 347...

 attributes this to Antoninus' piety, he also points out that Antoninus refrained from theurgic

Theurgy

Theurgy describes the practice of rituals, sometimes seen as magical in nature, performed with the intention of invoking the action or evoking the presence of one or more gods, especially with the goal of uniting with the divine, achieving henosis, and perfecting oneself.- Definitions :*Proclus...

 rites "perhaps because he kept a wary eye on the imperial views and policy which were opposed to these practices." His moral conduct is described as exemplary. He and his disciples were strongly attached to paganism; but he is said to have been able to see that its end was near at hand, and he predicted that after his death all the splendid temples of the gods would be changed into tombs:

He foretold to all his followers that after his death the temple would cease to be, and even the great and holy temples of Serapis

Serapis

Serapis or Sarapis is a Graeco-Egyptian name of God. Serapis was devised during the 3rd century BC on the orders of Ptolemy I of Egypt as a means to unify the Greeks and Egyptians in his realm. The god was depicted as Greek in appearance, but with Egyptian trappings, and combined iconography...

would pass into formless darkness and be transformed, and that a fabulous and unseemly gloom would hold sway over the fairest things on earth. To all these prophecies time bore witness, and in the end his prediction gained the force of an oracle.