Nemesius

Nemesio of Emesa (Greek Νεμέσιος Nemesio Nemesius Latinized ) was a Greek philosopher and bishop of Emesa in Syria. He lived in the late 4th and early 5th century.

Life and work

Very little is known about Nemesio ' lives. Partly clues for dating only arise from his essay " On the Nature of Man" (peri Physeos anthrōpou, latin De natura hominis ). This work, written in the Greek language has been preserved; if he has not written more writings, is unknown. " On the Nature of Man", was created earlier in the last decade of the fourth century at the latest during the first years of the 5th century. Already in the 16th century it was proposed to identify the philosopher and bishop Nemesio with a same governor of the province Cappadocia Secunda, who with Gregory of Nazianzus led an exchange of letters to 386/387; this hypothesis has been found in the 20th century proponents, but is not based on strong evidence.

Nemesio proves in his work as excellent educated scholar, well versed in pre-Christian ancient philosophy and also has considerable medical knowledge. Apparently he received a medical education.

The end of the book makes an abrupt impression in the resulting text missing announced discussions; therefore is suspected in research that Nemesio it left unfinished.

Teaching

" On the Nature of Man" is the first known Christian treatise on philosophical anthropology. The author strives to integrate the ancient philosophical tradition in his Christian world and of man. The writing is not theological, but philosophically aligned and applies also - perhaps even primarily - to pagan readers who want to win the Nemesio for his Christian philosophy. His mental world is dominated by Platonism, which in the form of Neo-Platonism was the prevailing philosophy of the educated in Late Antiquity. Among other things, his Platonism expressed by the fact that he takes the Platonic conception of the pre-existence of the soul before the emergence of the body, a position that borders from the perspective of his Christian contemporaries of heresy. As far as the doctrines of Aristotelianism not fit his Platonic- Christian image of humanity, he rejects her, but is significant Aristotelian influence in his work recognizable.

The main focus of Nemesio in the relationship of body and soul; he discusses a variety of views of prominent philosophers on this subject. Incoming he describes both the physical and the spiritual nature of man. He deals with, among other things, issues of sensation, imagination, and the function of the intellect and the irrational aspects of the soul. Specific Christian ideology is present but plays a relatively minor role in his remarks. The immortality of the soul, which is a philosophical concept, not the theological doctrine of the bodily resurrection is Nemesio in the foreground. Notions such as that of original sin, from which humanity is redeemed by the sacrifice of Christ, come at him hard. Therefore, his view of human nature in its entirety is marked by an optimistic point of view. He glorifies the man and his central role in the cosmos. In his opinion, the man is good in spite of the fall of nature; bad it is only by a corresponding intent. The core of his philosophy is one of the exceptionally strong rezipierte medieval conception of man as a " microcosm " ( "Small World "). He thinks this microcosm is a reflection of the (macro ) cosmos ( " big world " ), the creation in its entirety.

The creation is a unit for him; as their components are hierarchically organized and linked, is a major theme of his investigation. In the cosmic hierarchy, he adopts a system of sliding transitions. The existence of such links between the levels of the order of creation presupposes a relationship link between them; the higher is already prefigured in the lower, primitive present or implied. Thus, there is no gap between different natural areas that genre boundaries are somewhat blurred, the unity of nature is highlighted. Nemesio says, on the border between organic and inorganic stand the lodestone, which is different from the other stones by a power by which he was approaching the plant kingdom. He preferred the iron itself and hold it firmly, as if to make it to his food; thus he had to share the nutritional powers of the organisms. Between plant and animal stood the pen shells and sea anemones; they are said to be rooted in the sea floor on the species, on the other hand, they possess the sense of touch, a feature of the animal world. The sponge also Concerning operative on a sense of touch, with whom he react to influences of the external world. Within the individual stages as the animal world, in turn, is a gradation from the more primitive to the more perfect recognizable. The transition from the unreasoning animal to man, the rational beings, is not quite abruptly for Nemesio; in his view, prepare certain animal skills before the reason of man, even though they have no reason. The animals were equipped with a certain cleverness, cunning and resourcefulness, and their vocalizations were a preparation of the human language faculty. The role of the link between the sensible and the intelligible world come to the people, the Nemesio situated in the center of creation. Through his corporeality of man to the world of the senses have some. By his Spirit in the physical world over

In the field of ethics Nemesio deals with the problem of providence and free will; he also deals with theodicy. The starting point is the ideas of the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, with whom he deals with. The problem of free will and determination he treated in 13 of the 43 chapters of his work (chapters 29-41 ). The prohairesis (decision, choice between different possibilities ), he determined as a mixture of advice / consideration ( Boule), judgment ( crisis ) and aspiration / desire ( orexis ). He has to not only the purview of collective reason as purely spiritual entity, but thinks the prohairesis go from a combination of desire and reason; Moreover, he also emphasizes a physical aspect, the physical starting point of prohairesis he sees in the brain and spinal cord. However, it is the human choice decision to the rational faculty of the soul especially close to their cognitive component he weighted heavily.

Against determinism brings Nemesio before the argument that the reflectivity would be redundant without free will; but since it exists, and even the most beautiful and most venerable in humans is that it must also have a useful function. He thinks the providence WOULD according to the possibility of not according to necessity.

Nemesio believes the soul is the life of nature inherent in the body, however, possessed only by sharing in the life of the soul. The soul was not created at the same time with the body, but have a different origin and existed even before her body. The Aristotelian definition of the soul as entelechy of the body he refuses. Since the soul is incorporeal, is not spatially to understand their body ratio; they had in the entire body, but not as in a place, but only " according to the relationship " exists between the soul and body; as something intelligible soul could not be tied to a physical location. Thus, not the body of the soul apartment, but the ratio was thinking the other way around.

In the soul Nemesio's the difference between a reasonable and an unreasonable part ( which, however, can only be spoken in a figurative sense of " parts " and should read rather different aspects or forces, as Nemesio summarizes the soul as an indivisible unit ). The irrational part he divided obedient in a reason and you are not obedient one area. For the former, he is one of desire, lust, fear, sadness and anger, which he considered to be the reason obedient unreasonable mental faculties. When the reason is not obeying functions of the irrational soul part he calls the diet, the pulse rate and procreation. For desirable Nemesio holds the rule of the leading soul part of reason, on the lower faculties of the soul, whereby an ordered interaction of the faculties of the soul will allow.

Reception

Before the 6th century the treatise of Nemesio seems to have little attention. Maximos the Confessor is the first one she quotes (in his written 628-634 Ambigua ). The ecclesiastical writers Anastasios Sinaites took excerpts in his "Questions and Answers " on. To added 743 John of Damascus extensive excerpts in his treatise De fide Orthodoxa ( " About the Orthodox faith " ) a, without naming the author. The Byzantine authors who used the work of Nemesio is, in particular Michael Psellos (11th century).

717 was in Constantinople Opel an Armenian translation of the treatise " On the Nature of Man" made ​​. In the 9th century, several translations emerged into Arabic. Also, the booklet was translated into Syriac in the early Middle Ages, but the Syrian version is only fragmentary. Among Eastern Christians, the treatise was common in the Middle Ages; both Nestorian and Melkite and Coptic theologians relied on it. Also, the Muslim philosopher al -Kindi consulted the font of Nemesio. In the High Middle Ages, John Petritsi translated the work into Georgian.

Already in ancient times the church father Gregory of Nyssa was " On the Nature of Man" in a number of manuscripts attributed. This erroneous attribution was common in the Middle Ages in the Syrian, Armenian and Arabic tradition and in the Latin -speaking scholarly world of the West. Therefore, inter alia, held Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas Gregor for the author. Also in Greek medieval tradition emerged in the wrong attribution. The high reputation of the alleged author contributed to the popularity of the work, which is reflected in the number of manuscripts. There are over a hundred known Greek manuscripts.

The first Latin translation made ​​by the Archbishop of Salerno Nicholas Alfanus in the 11th century. Alfanus who wrote medical works, interested only under medical point of view for anthropology, so he translated only the relevant parts from his perspective. He gave his translation of the Greek title Premnon physicon (Latin stipes naturalium, " tribe of the nature of things "). This version has been studied in the 12th century by scholars such as Adelard of Bath, William of Conches and William of Saint -Thierry intensive and utilized in the 13th century by Albert the Great.

1165 translated Burgundio of Pisa again the work into Latin. He dedicated his translation of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. Its users included not only Albert the Great Peter Lombard and Thomas Aquinas.

Three new Latin translations, which originated in the Renaissance, testify to the interest of the humanists at the anthropology of Nemesio. The first concerned Giorgio Valla in the 15th century; it was printed in 1538 in Lyon. Another translation made ​​John Cono ( Konow ) at the suggestion of Rhenanus; she appeared in Strasbourg in 1512 and 1562 as part of an edition of the works of Gregory of Nyssa in Basel. The third translation is by Nicasius Ellebodius; it was published in 1565 in Antwerp, together with the first edition of the Greek text.

In modern research, the judgments about the performance of the Nemesio has been different. It is stressed that he was eclectic and that he, for the most part knew the views of the philosophers, to whom he expressed not directly from their works, but only from comments and manuals. In earlier representations dominated the assessment that he was a mere compiler, a " Paid copyists " who "completely slavishly wrote out ". In more recent research, the opposite position comes into its own, that it will make " a prolific thinker by patristic criteria " was who had " an excellent example of Christian philosophizing using the Greek heritage," delivered.

Edition

• Moreno Morani (ed.): Nemesii Emeseni de natura hominis. Teubner, Leipzig, 1987, ISBN 3-322-00358-2 ( critical edition )

Translations

• Emil Orth: Nemesio of Emesa: anthropology. Publisher Mary Martental, Kaisersesch 1925

• Robert W. Sharples, Philip J. van der Eijk: Nemesius: On the Nature of Man (Translated Texts for Historians ). Liverpool University Press, Liverpool 2008, ISBN 978-1-84631-132-1

• Karl Burkhard (ed.): Nemesii episcopi premnon physicon immersive peri Physeos anthropou a liber N. Alfano archiepiscopo Salerni Translatus in Latin. Teubner, Leipzig 1917 ( digitized at archive.org. )
• Gérard Verbeke, José Rafael Moncho (ed.): Nemesius d' Emese: De natura hominis. Traduction de Burgundio de Pise ( = Corpus Latinum commentariorum in Aristotelem Graecorum Suppl. 1). Brill, Leiden, 1975, ISBN 9004-04310-1 ( critical edition with extensive introduction)