Procopius of Gaza (c. 465–528 AD) was a Christian sophist and rhetorician, one of the most important representatives of the famous school of his native place.
Of the former, his panegyric on the emperor Anastasius alone is extant; the description of the Hagia Sophia and the monody on its partial destruction by an earthquake are spurious.
His letters (163 in number), addressed to persons of rank, friends, and literary opponents, throw valuable light upon the condition of the sophistical rhetoric of the period and about the academic circles in Alexandria and Gaza.
They are amongst the earliest examples of the "catenic" (catena, chain) form of commentary, consisting of a series of extracts from the fathers, arranged, with independent additions, to elucidate the portions of Scripture concerned.
[4] Complete editions of the works of Procopius in Migne, Patrologia Graeca, lxxxvii; the letters also in Epistolographi graeci, ed.