Basil Lourié. Identity of the Human Individual according to John Philoponus: the Physical Body in Space and the Human Body in Resurrection. Vol. 1. No. 2. 2016

Publication Details

Abstract

The difficulty of reconstructing Philoponus’ thought concerning the bodily Resurrection resulted from our total dependency on the Cononite sources (the monophysite Tritheist party of the opponents of Philoponus): even Timothy of Constantinople (a Chalcedonian) was depending on the Cononite information, too. However, the Cononites were not able to understand the subtleties of Philoponian philosophy. One of such subtleties was related to a key term of his doctrine on Resurrection, eidos.

The Cononites understood Philoponus’ notion of εἶδος as synonymous to σχῆμα (“appearance”), whereas its real meaning was different (the soul as a separable ἐντελέχεια of the body etc.). Thus, the famous knot from the Cononite anti-Philoponian florilegium, the following Philoponian quotation (about the resurrected bodies) must be cut with an emendation: instead of “And not only by number will they be different from the present ones, but they will be not identical to them according to the eidos” this key text must be restored to “And by number will they be different from the present ones, but they will be identical to them according to the eidos” (“not only” and “not” should be deleted).

Keywords

John Philoponus, Monophysitism, Origenism, space, anthropology, Resurrection, person.

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© Basil Lourié, 2016