2. In the 5th century
The Roman Empire faced foreign
invasion and theological disputes.
Augustine's death in Hippo, avenged
by the Visigoths, prevented him from
attending a Council in Ephesus,
which was called by Emperor
Theodosius II due to disagreements
between Constantinople and
Alexandria.
3. The Huns, led by Attila,
conquered vast areas from China
to the Rhine, but was defeated in
Gaul by a Roman general and
invaded Italy, aided by Pope Leo
the Great's eloquence and bribery.
4. The Council of Ephesus in 431
condemned Nestorius for teaching
that Mary, Jesus' mother, was not the
mother of God. The Council decided
to establish Christ as a single person
with two distinct divine and human
natures. However, some
Alexandrians believed in a single
nature, leading to a second council
promoting monophysitism.
5. Constantinople rejected
Alexandria, leading to the
council at Chalcedon in 451,
which rejected the dual nature
doctrine. The councils
established Christ as perfect
God and perfect man, sharing
divinity with his Father and
humanity with us. These
councils influenced philosophy
for centuries, with some
remaining in eastern parts.
6. After Attila's defeat, the western
Roman Empire survived for a
quarter of a century, with power
in Italy largely passed to
barbarian army commanders.
Odoacer, in 476, became ruler in
name and exiled the last
emperor, Romeulus Augustulus.
Italy became a Gothic province,
with kings following Arianism, a
form of Christianity condemned
by Constantine I.
7. Boethius with his father-in-
law Symmachus, from a ninth
century manuscript of his
treatise on arithmetic.
8. Manlius Severinus Boethius, a
prominent Roman senatorian,
served as a minister under
Theodoric. Born after the
Western Empire's end, he
became consul in 510 and later
became'master of offices' in
Ravenna.
9. He wrote handbooks on music and
mathematics, translated works of Plato
and Aristotle into Latin, and contributed to
theological tractates on the Trinity and
Incarnation. He was a model for combining
contemplative and active lives, and Gibbon
praised him for his fame, fortunes, and
cultivation of science and virtue.
Boethius, a young
philosopher,
10. Boethius, a devout Catholic, was imprisoned
for treasonous correspondence urging
Emperor Justin to invade Italy and end Arian
rule. He wrote On the Consolation of
Philosophy, a work praised for its literary
beauty and philosophical acumen. Despite
being translated into many languages, it
does not discuss the consolations offered by
pagan philosophy, unlike Christian religion.
11. Boethius describes being visited in
prison by the Lady Philosophy, an
elderly woman in a tattered garment
with a ladder representing the
Practical and Theoretical divisions of
philosophy. She ejects poems,
represented by Boethius' bedside
books, but also provides verses to
console the afflicted prisoner,
alternating prose and poetry.
12. Boethius defends himself against
charges of political involvement, citing
Plato's injunction. Lady Philosophy reminds
him he's not the first philosopher to suffer,
as Socrates and Seneca did. She
emphasizes the world's governance through
divine reason, and the book ends with a
Stoic poem urging rejection of passions.
Joy you must banish
Banish too fear
All grief must vanish
And hope bring no cheer.
13. The second book explores the Stoic
theme of wealth and power, emphasizing
that personal values are more valuable
than material possessions. Wealth may be
lost, and virtue belongs to one's servants,
not oneself. Political power is trivial and the
inhabited world is smaller than the celestial
sphere. Happiness is found in one's
possession, not wealth, power, or fame.
Bad fortune is better for men than good
fortune, as it brings self-knowledge and
teaches true friends.
14. The message that true happiness is not to be
found in external goods is
reinforced in the third book, developing material
from Plato and Aristotle:
happiness (beatitudo) is the good which, once achieved,
leaves nothing further to be desired. It is the highest of all
goods, containing all goods with itself; if any good was
lacking to it, it could not be the highest good since there
would be something left over to be desired. So happiness is
a state which is made perfect by the accumulation of all the
goods there are. (DCP 3. 2)
15. Wealth, honour, power, glory do not fulfil
these conditions, nor do the pleasures of
the body.
Some bodies are very beautiful, but if we
had X-ray eyes we would find them
disgusting.
16. Marriage and its pleasures may be
a fine thing, but children are little
tormentors.
We must cease to look to the
things of this world for happiness.
17. Lady Philosophy asserts that true
happiness is found only in God, as all
human values, including self-sufficiency,
power, respect, and pleasure, are united
in God's single goodness, which
emphasizes that humans can only
become happy if they become gods, as
God's divinity is shared by many.
18. In the fourth book Boethius asks Lady Philosophy to
answer the question ‘Why do the wicked prosper?’
The universe, governed by God, appears like a
house with worthless vessels being well-cared for,
while precious ones grow wealthy. Philosophy uses
Plato's Gorgias to show that wickedness is only
apparent, and evil is a misfortune, with good people
aspiring to divinity and bad people turning into beasts:
avarice makes you a wolf, quarrelsomeness makes you a dog,
cheating a fox, anger a lion, fear a deer, sloth an ass, and
lust a pig.
19. All things are ruled by God’s providence: does this
mean that everything happens by fate?
Lady Philosophy distinguishes
between Providence, the divine
reason that binds all things, and fate,
which organizes scattered motions.
The complexity of fate arises from
providence's simplicity, ensuring just
and right outcomes.
20. The 5fth book addresses the question ‘In a world
governed by divine providence, can there be any
such thing as luck or chance?’
There cannot be purely random chance, if philosophy is to be
believed; but human choice is something different from chance.
Freechoice, however, even if not random, is difficult to reconcile with
the existence of a God who foresees everything that is to happen. ‘If
God foresees all and cannot in any way be mistaken, then that must
necessarily happen which in his providence he foresees will be.’ The
reply offered is that God is outside time, and so it is a mistake to speak
of providence as involving foreknowledge at all. This subtle but
mysterious answer was to be much studied and developed in later
21. Boethius, a brutally tortured philosopher, was
venerated as a martyr by many Christians and
scholastics. He was referred to as the last of
the Romans and the first of the scholastics by
humanist Lorenzo Valla in the 15th century.
22. Boethius was not only the last philosopher of the old Latin
philosophical tradition: his Consolation can be read as an anthology of all
that he valued in classical Greek philosophy. It was perhaps as a
compliment to the pagan thinkers from whom he had learnt that he
eliminated from his philosophical testament any Christian element.
Even the treatment of the relation between divine foreknowledge
and human freedom, so influential during the Christian centuries, is
couched within the framework of the Stoic discussion of the relation
between providence and fate.
24. Proclus (412–485 CE) was a prominent
philosopher in the tradition of Neoplatonism during
Late Antiquity. He is considered one of the most
important figures in the development of Neoplatonic
thought. Proclus' works and ideas had a significant
influence on later philosophical and theological
traditions, including the Christian Middle Ages.
25. Proclus' system, based on Plotinus' trinity of One,
Mind, and Soul, involves a multiplication of triads and
a development process. Each triad has a new element
that differs from it, leading to a massive proliferation
of triads.
The henads form the world of Mind, divided into
Being, Life, and Thought, and the lower world of Soul.
26. Proclus argues that humans are
connected to the soul, mind, and One,
with the soul expressing itself in Eros,
focused on earthly beauty, and an
imperishable, light-made body seeking
truth and union with the One.
27. The theory of triads resembles the
Christian doctrine of the Trinity, but Proclus
was hostile to Christianity and wrote
eighteen refutations.
His ideas entered Christian thought
indirectly, with Boethius using his work,
Dionysius the Areopagite writing treatises
inspired by Proclus, and Aristotle's Liber de
Causis, which Thomas Aquinas respected
despite its authenticity.
28. In 5th-century Alexandria, pagan philosophy
was challenging to convert due to a Christian
patriarch. Hypatia, a Neoplatonist mathematician,
was destroyed by a Christian mob.
Ammonius, an influential philosopher, was
more effective as a teacher than a writer, known
for his distinction between his pupils. (Simplicius
and Philoponus)
29. Philosophers lived during Justinian's reign, a celebrated
Byzantine emperor known for conquering and legislating.
His generals united the former Western Empire, and his
jurists developed a single code for imperial edicts and
statutes, known as the Code of Civil Law.
30. Justinian's reign was less favorable to
philosophy than jurisprudence, as the Athens
school of philosophy continued the anti-Christian
Neoplatonic tradition of Proclus.
Simplicius, a scholar, contributed to the
school's decline by writing commentaries on
Aristotle and reconciling his teachings with
Plato's thought.
In 529, Justinian closed the school due to its
anti-Christian tendencies, causing grief and
indignation.
31. Philoponus, a Christian
philosopher from Alexandria,
suffered under Justinian's rule, as
he was a significant critic of
Aristotle, unlike other ancient
philosophers who ignored or
interpreted him irrationally.
32. Philoponus, a Christian, rejected the world's eternity and
Aristotle's arguments that the world had no beginning.
He criticized Aristotle's physics, rejecting natural motion
and place theories and denying the supernatural nature of the
sun, moon, and stars.
33. Philoponus, a prominent Alexandrian philosopher, wrote
treatises on Christian doctrine and Aristotle's ideas.
Despite being a monophysite, he accepted the Platonic
belief in human souls before conception. He was summoned to
Constantinople to defend his views on the Incarnation but
failed.
He was condemned after his death for heretical teachings,
making him the last significant philosopher of the ancient
world.
34. Between 600 and 800, the former Roman
Empire weakened, with intellectual talent focused
on theological disputation. The monophysite church,
including John Philoponus, was excluded from
communion by the orthodox.
In the seventh century, attempts to reconcile
Christian communions were made, but Maximus
resisted this concession, opposing monotheism.
35. Maximus, also known as 'the
Confessor', condemned the doctrines
of the single will and the single
actuality in Rome in 649 and later
endorsed in Constantinople in 681.
He investigated the concepts of will
and actuality, which can refer to
faculties, dispositions, acts, or objects.
Although he was not credited with inventing the concept of the
will tout court, his analysis was thorough.
37. The prophet Muhammad's life ended
in 633, and Islam spread through
conquests in Arabia, Persian Empire,
and Roman provinces. Muslims
captured Carthage, North Africa, and
Spain, but were defeated by Frankish
leader Charles Martel in 732.
38. Charlemagne, grandson of Charles Martel,
conquered the Franks and proclaimed his son king
of Italy. After Pope Leo III's revolution,
Charlemagne was restored to Rome and crowned
Roman emperor in 800. This established the Holy
Roman Empire, which included most Christian
inhabitants of western Europe.
39. Charlemagne aimed to enhance education and culture
in his dominions by forming a 'Palatine School' in Aachen.
Alcuin of York, a renowned logic teacher, wrote
Dialectica, a dialogue-based logic textbook.
Alcuin later ran a small school in St Martin of
Tours, where he shared Scripture, classical literature, and
grammar with privileged students.
40. Philosophy revived between the
ninth and eleventh centuries, not
within the old Roman Empire but in
the Frankish Empire and Abbasid
court of Baghdad.
Leading philosophers were John the Scot in the West and Ibn
Sina in the East.
John was born in Ireland in the early ninth century and gave the
surname Eriugena, meaning Son of Erin.
41. By 851, Eriugena, a Greek scholar,
migrated to Charles the Bald's court in
Compiegne, possibly renaming
Carlopolis.
Charles was fascinated by Greek
and wrote flattering poems in Greek.
Eriugena taught liberal arts but
later focused on philosophy, stating
"no one enters heaven except through
philosophy."
42. In 851, Eriugena, a philosopher, was invited by
Archbishop Hincmar to write a refutation of the pessimistic
monk Gottschalk's ideas on predestination. Gottschalk
believed that predestination affected sinners and saints,
and that the damned were predestined to hell before their
conception. Hincmar deemed this doctrine heretical and
viewed it as inimical to good monastic discipline.
Eriugena's arguments were weak and emasculated the predestination
of the blessed, arguing that God was simple and undivided, and that there
was no such thing as predestination. This argument did not provide the
desired incentive for sinners to repent.
43. The Frankish kingdom faced doctrinal strife,
leading to the condemnation of Gottschalk
and Eriugena by church councils. The
Council of Quierzy in 853 argued that God
predestined the blessed to heaven, not
others to sin. Eriugena was condemned at
Valence in 855 for claiming that the mercy
of God preceded merit, while damnation
preceded just judgment.
Despite his condemnation, Eriugena
remained in favor with Charles the Bald.
44. Eriugena identifies four major divisions of nature: nature
creating and uncreated (, nature created and creating, nature
created and uncreating, and nature is uncreating and
uncreated.
God is followed by the intellectual world of Platonic
ideas, material objects, and God.
Eriugena distinguishes between being and non-being,
stating that God is above being and doing something better
than existing.
45. Eriugena's fourfold scheme suggests that
humans belong to the third division, transcending
other animals. They share reason, mind, and
interior sense with celestial essences but have
their flesh with other animals.
Each person has a single, undivided soul,
which creates the body and acts as the agent of
God. Even after death, the soul continues to
govern the body.
46. Eriugena's concept of the soul as the creator of
the body is part of the creative division of nature,
encompassing primordial causes of things and the
Idea of Man.
The fallen Adam's fall deformed the image
of God, leading to the division of humans into
male and female, and the eventual world's end.
47. Eriugena's concept of the soul as the creator of the
body is part of the creative division of nature,
encompassing primordial causes of things and the
Platonic Ideas.
Man is created in God's image, but fallen humans
deform it. After resurrection, bodies will revert to
their original form, leading to salvation in
uncreated nature.
48. Eriugena was a unique Middle Ages thinker who
combined Greek ideas with his own unique system.
He was known for his love of paradox and his ability
to interpret contradictions.
Despite frequently quoting the Bible, his system was
closer to Neoplatonism than traditional Christian
thought.
On Nature was condemned by Pope Honorius III in
1225, but legends of him's contributions to
philosophy continue to inspire and honor him.
Editor's Notes
24..P2
(principally in the West)..(principally in the East).
disagreed violently about how to formulate the doctrine of the divine sonship of the man Jesus Christ.
Goths-a member of a Germanic people that invaded the Roman Empire from the east between the 3rd and 5th centuries
Rome was saved from occupation only by the efforts of Pope Leo the Great, using a mixture
of eloquence ( persuasive speaking or writing) and bribery (.the giving or offering of a bribe)
Page 36..pgph1
Page 36..pgph2
The decisions of Chalcedon and first Ephesus henceforth provided the test of orthodoxy for the great majority of Christians, though in eastern parts of the empire substantial communities of Nestorian and
monophysite Christians remained, some of which have survived to this day.
Pg36..prgrph3
Arianism took various forms, all of which denied that Jesus, the Son of God, shared the same essence or substance with God the Father. The most vigorous of the Gothic kings, Theodoric (reigned 493–526), established a tolerant regime in which Arians, Jews, and Orthodox Catholics lived together in tranquillity and in which art and culture thrived.
Arianism. / (ˈɛərɪəˌnɪzəm) / noun. the doctrine of Arius, pronounced heretical at the Council of Nicaea, which asserted that Christ was not of one substance with the Father, but a creature raised by the Father to the dignity of Son of God.
Pg.38 p1 he lost his father in childhood and was adopted into the family of the consul Symmachus, whose daughter he later married.
consul in 510 …and saw his two sons become consuls in 522.
‘master of offices’, a very senior administrative post which he held with integrity and distinction.
pg38..P2
pg38.P3 implicated
show (someone) to be involved in a crime.
He was imprisoned in a tower in Pavia and condemned to death by the senate in Rome. It was while he was in prison,under sentence of death, that he wrote the work for which he is most remembered, On the Consolation of Philosophy.
Justinian I, also known as Justinian the Great, was the Eastern Roman emperor from 527 to 565. His reign is marked by the ambitious but only partly realized renovatio imperii, or "restoration of the Empire". This ambition was expressed by the partial recovery of the territories of the defunct Western Roman Empire.
it has been
translated many times into many languages, notably by King Alfred and
by Chaucer. It contains a subtle discussion of the problems of relating
human freedom to divine foreknowledge; but it is not quite the kind
of work that might be expected from a devout Catholic facing possible
martyrdom. It dwells on the comfort offered by pagan philosophy,
but there is no reference to the consolations held out by the Christian
religion.
Pg.39..P
On her dress was woven a ladder, with the Greek letter P at its foot and the Greek letter TH at its head: these meant the Practical and
Theoretical divisions of Philosophy and the ladder represented the steps between the two.
Pg.39..P2 banish.. send (someone) away from a country or place as an official punishment.
vanish..disappear suddenly and completely
Pg.39 P3
The gifts of fortune that we enjoy do not really belong to us: riches
may be lost, and are most valuable when we are giving them away.
A splendid household is a blessing to me only if my servants are honest, and
their virtue belongs to them not me.
Political power may end in murder or
slavery; and even while it is possessed it is trivial.
The inhabited world is
only a quarter of our globe; our globe is minute in comparison with the celestial sphere; for a man to boast of his power is like a mouse crowing
over other mice.
The greatest of fame lasts only a few years that add up to
zero in comparison with never-ending eternity.
I cannot Wnd happiness in
wealth, power, or fame, but only in my most precious possession, myself.
Boethius has no real ground of complaint against fortune: she has given
him many good things and he must accept also the evil which she sends.
Indeed, ill fortune is better for men than good fortune. Good fortune is
deceitful, constant only in her inconstancy; bad fortune brings men self-
knowledge and teaches them who are their true friends, the most precious of all kinds of riches.
41..P 1..having no real value or use,
wickedness..e quality of being evil or morally wrong……apparent,,clearly visible or understood; obvious.
avarice..extreme greed for wealth or material gain.
quarrelsomeness,,,,tendency to quarrel, picking fights or finding fault.
sloth .. slow-moving..unwillingness or disinclination to do something.. ass,,an animal of the horse family, which is typically smaller than a horse and has longer ears and a braying call……INFORMAL•BRITISH
a foolish or stupid person.
41..p2
Lady Philosophy makes a distinction. Providence is the divine reason that binds all things together, while fate is what organizes the
motions of things scattered in place and time; the complicated arrangements of fate proceed from the simplicity of providence. We can see only
the apparent disorder of the operation of fate; if we could see the overall scheme as designed by providence, we would realize that whatever happens
happens justly, and whatever is, is right.
41..p3
Philosophy suggests that free choice is different from random chance, but reconciling it with the existence of a God who foresees everything is challenging. The answer is that God is outside time, and providence does not involve foreknowledge.
41..P4,42 p1 It is to be hoped that Boethius found consolation in his philosophical
writing, because he was brutally tortured, a cord being fastened round his
head and tightened until his eyes started from their sockets. He was finally
executed by being beaten with clubs.
42..p2 Boethius, the last philosopher of the old Latin tradition, incorporated classical Greek philosophy into his Consolation, eliminating any Christian elements. He framed the relationship between divine foreknowledge and human freedom within the Stoic discussion of providence and fate.
He knows all even before something happens,
42…the ancient past, especially the period before the Middle Ages.
Pagan Greek philosophy continued to thrive in Athens and Alexandria after Boethius' death, with Proclus, the head of the Athens school, producing four lectures and 700 lines of philosophical prose, including commentaries on Plato's dialogues.
Sa sumunod, mas mababang daigdig, ang daigdig ng Kaluluwa, nagbibigay si Proclus ng tahanan para sa mga tradisyonal na diyos ng mga panteong pampaganito. Ang makikita nating daigdig kung saan tayo nakatira ay gawa ng mga banal na kaluluwa na ito, na nagmamaniobra nang may pangangalaga."
Elements of Theology (Theologia Platonica): Proclus' "Elements of Theology" is one of his most important works. In this treatise, he systematically presents his Neoplatonic metaphysical system. He elaborates on the hierarchy of reality, which consists of the One (the ultimate source), the Divine Mind (Nous), the World Soul, and the material world. He discusses the nature of reality, the divine emanations, and the process of spiritual ascent.
44…P1,, Kapag isinasaalang-alang natin ang ating katawan ng hayop, ang kaluluwa ng tao ay nagpapahayag sa sarili nito sa pamamagitan ng Eros, na nakatuon sa kalikasang makikita sa mundo. Ngunit mayroon itong isang di-matutunaw, espiritwal na katawan na binubuo ng liwanag. Kaya't ito'y umaabot sa labas ng pagmamahal sa kagandahan, sa paghahanap ng Katotohanan, isang paglalakbay na nagdadala nito sa pag-uugma sa mga ideyal na katotohanan ng mundo ng Isip. Ngunit mayroon itong kakayahan na mas mataas kaysa sa kakayahan ng pag-iisip, at sa pamamagitan ng mistikong ekstasi, ito'y nagdadala sa pagkakaisa sa Isa."
"
44…p2 ".. Ang teorya ng mga triad ay may ilang pagkakahawig sa doktrina ng Trinidad ng Kristiyanismo, ngunit sa totoo lang, si Proclus, bagamat isang deboto ng maraming pamahiin, ay labis na kaaway ng Kristiyanismo. Siya nga ay kilala na nagtala ng labindalawang magkakaibang pagtutol sa doktrina ng Kristiyanismo ukol sa paglikha. Gayunpaman, maraming ideya niya ang pumasok sa pangunahing salaysay ng pagnanaisipang Kristiyano sa pamamagitan ng mga likas na paraan. Si Boethius mismo ay madalas na gumamit ng kanyang gawa, kahit pa hindi ito kinikilala. Isang kasalukuyang Kristiyanong Neoplatonista ang sumulat ng isang serye ng mga akda na na-inspire kay Proclus, at ito'y inilabas bilang mga gawa ni Dionysius ang Areopagita, na kaakibat ni San Pablo sa Atenas (Gawa 17). Isa pang paraan kung paano dumaloy ang mga ideya ni Proclus sa pilosopiya ng panahon ng kapanahunan ay ang aklat na kilala bilang Liber de Causis, na umikot sa ilalim ng pangalang Aristotle. Kahit na si Thomas Aquinas ay alam na hindi ito orihinal, ito'y tinitingnan niyang may mataas na respeto."
While Augustine was writing The City of God in Hippo, Hypatia was torn to pieces in Alexandria by a fanatical Christian mob..(si Hypatia ay nilapastangan sa Alexandria ng isang fanatikong Kristiyanong karamihan)
The most important philosopher of the school of Alexandria in its last days was Ammonius,
Ammonius, an elder contemporary of Boethius….ang kanyang kasikatan ay dulot ng kanyang dalawang pinakasikat na mga mag-aaral, sina Simplicius at Philoponus.
45..p1 Ang dalawang pilosopong ito ay nabuhay noong panahon ng pamumuno ng Emperador Justinian, ..
45..p2 Simplicius was one of the last group of scholars to adorn the school. (Simplicius student of Ammonius.).
45,,,p3 Philoponus..student of Ammonius.
45…p4,46 p1,,As a Christian, Philoponus rejected the doctrine of the eternity of the world, and demolished the arguments of Aristotle and Proclus to the effect that the world had no beginning…
It was congenial to his Christian piety to demolish the notion that the world of the sun and moon and stars was something supernatural, standing in a
relation to God different from that of the earth on which his human creatures live.
46,,47
47…p2
47..p3
49..
48..p1
48..p2
48..p3
49..p1&2Eriugena…real name is Jhon Duns Scutos ..na kilala or nag flourish sang 14 century ..
John was born in Ireland in the Wrst decades of the ninth century. He is not to be mistaken for the more famous John Duns Scotus, who Xourished in the fourteenth century. It is undoubtedly confusing that there are two medieval
philosophers with the name John the Scot. What makes it doubly confusing is that one of them was an Irishman, and the other was for all practical purposes an Englishman. The ninth-century philosopher, for the avoidance
of doubt, gave himself the surname Eriugena, which means Son of Erin.
49..p3Charles the Bald' apo ni Charlemagne
Charles was a lover of things Greek, and the astonishingly learned Eriugena, who had mastered Greek (no one knows where), won his favour and wrote him fattering poems in that language.
49..p4 50.p1Eriugena's arguments were weak..refer di..
50..p2..p3..The Frankish kingdom was torn by doctrinal strife, and both Gottschalk
and Eriugena found themselves condemned by Church councils. The
Council of Quierzy in 853—the third of a series—deWned, against
Gottschalk, that while God predestined the blessed to heaven, he did
not predestine others to sin: he merely left them in the human mass of
perdition and predestined only their punishment, not their guilt. The
condemnation of Eriugena, at Valence in 855, aYrmed that there was
indeed a predestination of the impious to death no less than a predestin-
ation of the elect to life. The diVerence was this: that in the election
of those to be saved the mercy of God preceded all merit, whereas in
the damnation of those who were to perish evil desert preceded just
judgement. The Council fathers were not above vulgar abuse, saying
that Eriugena had deWled the purity of the faith with nauseating Irish
porridge.
Despite his condemnation, Eriugena remained in favour with Charles the Bald and was commissioned by him in 858 to translate into Latin three treatises of Dionysius the Areopagite: the Divine Names, the Celestial Hierarchy, and the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy. He found the Neoplatonic ideas of Dionysius
congenial and went on to construct his own system on somewhat similar lines, in a work of Wve volumes called On Nature—or, to give it its Greek
title, Periphyseon.
50..p4 51,p1&2 The first such nature is God…The second is the intellectual world of Platonic ideas, which creates the third nature, the world of material objects.The fourth is God again, conceived not as creator but as the end to which things return.
