Иоанн Филопон

John Philoponus (hardworking), also known as John the Grammar, learned bishop of Alexandria. Photius (Bibl cod. 240) says that Philoponus's work on the creation of the world was dedicated to Sergius, patriarch of Constantinople. (610 - 639), at whose request another work Διατητής was written; therefore, the time of his life was previously attributed to the 7th century, but Ritter in his “History of Philosophy” (VI, 500) proved that Philoponus lived at the end of the 5th century and in the 6th. All that is known about his life is that he was a native of Alexandria and studied with the interpreter Aristotle Ammonius and the grammarian Romanus. In his writings, Philoponus reveals enormous erudition and skillful dialectics, but the desire to philosophically explain, supplement and correct dogma often leads him to disagreement with Orthodoxy. In his philosophical views, he was a follower of Aristotle, to whose works he composed many good commentaries (published in Venice in 1527, 1534–1536, 1551 and in Ferrara in 1583). Philoponus develops his dogmatic views mainly in two works: Διαιτητὴς ἠ῎ περι ἑνώσεως and Περὶ ἀ᾿ναστάσεως. In the first work, preserved only in excerpts from other writers (Leontius viz., De sectis act. 5 in Gallandi [see "Enz". IV, 92] XII, 641; John of Damascus, De haeres. I, pp. 101 - 107, ed. Le-Quin; Nikephoros Callistus XVIII, sar. 47-49, cf. Mansi, Concil. XI, p. 301) and consisting of ten books, he expounds and substantiates his tritheistic and monophysite views. Based on the position that nature and hypostasis are one and the same, Philoponus deduces from this that if there is one hypostasis in Christ, then there must be one nature, and in the Trinity he attributes a special nature to each hypostasis. There are only individuals who, when homogeneous, are subsumed under one concept, when the nature or essence common to them is abstracted from them and thought separately. And the three persons of the Holy Trinity are separate individuals and only insofar as the common nature-divinity is abstracted from them, can they be thought of in unity - just as the three individuals Peter, Paul, John form unity only in the concept of “man”. Philoponus is thus the forerunner of the nominalists. His view was the result of applying Aristotle's doctrine of the relation of the general to the particular to the dogma of the Trinity. However, Leontius unfairly considers Philoponus the founder of tritheism, for which he was only one of the main defenders, although around him, like (according to Bar-Ebreus in Assem., Bibl. or. II, 328) and around John Askusnag in the time of Justin and Justinian, other like-minded people grouped around him (Conon, Eugene, Severus; see Gallandi XII, p. 641; Nikifor Call. 1. p., sar. 46). The work “On the Resurrection” is known only from the notes of Photius (cod. 21 – 23), Nicephorus (1. p., cap. 47) and Timothy (De recert. paeret. in Coteler. Monum. III, p. 414 ff.). Here Philoponus proves the idea that the bodies of the resurrected will be created again by God, will be eternal and incorruptible, and the world will also be created again. The adherents of this doctrine were called “Philoponians”. In the essay “On the Eternity of the World against Proclus”, in 18 books (the only edition. Venice 1535), Philoponus seeks to prove the truth of the Christian teaching about the origin of the world in a purely rational way without reference to Revelation and refutes the teaching of the Neoplatonist Proclus about the eternity of the world, for only ideas are eternal, understood as the creative thoughts of God, coinciding with providence, but implementation their time adds nothing to divine perfection. In his ἐ῎ξις God has always been a creator, and ἐ᾿νέργεια does not give anything new to Him. The world cannot be eternal, since in this case the cause would be equal to the effect if God produced another eternal being equal to Him. In the essay “On the Creation of the World,” in 7 books (ed. Corderius, Viennae 1630, Gallandi in Bibl. XII, p. 473 and Reicharut in 1897), Philipon gives a detailed commentary on the Mosaic history of creation, adjacent to Basil’s “Six Days”. century, but distinguished by an extraordinary wealth of natural scientific and philosophical data. In Gallandi's I. p. “Disputatio de paschate” proves that “Christ, on the thirteenth day of the month, the day before the legal Passover, celebrated a mystical supper with his disciples, but did not then eat the Paschal lamb.” The belonging of this work to Philoponus is proven by a clear reference to Chapter 22 of Book II of his work on the creation of the world. In addition, according to Photius (codd. 55.75) and Nicephorus (Sarah 46), Philoponus corresponded with John Scholasticus (Scythopolis: see above column 1) about the Trinity and wrote in defense of the Monophysite Severus and against the fourth ecumenical council.