Nemesios of Emesa

Nemesios of Emesa ( ancient Greek Νεμέσιος Nemésios , Latinized Nemesius ) was a Greek philosopher and bishop of Emesa in Syria . He lived in the late 4th century.

life and work

Very little is known about Nemesios' life. Clues for the dating can only be found in his work On the Nature of Man ( Perí physeōs anthrōpou , Latin De natura hominis ), in which he mentions the theologians Eunomios and Apollinaris of Laodikeia , who died before 400 . From his comments on these authors and from the lack of a reference to the condemnations of Origen in the years 399 and 400, it is deduced that he probably wrote the work in the late 4th century, but it does not appear in the first years of the 5th century locked out. As early as the 16th century it was proposed to identify the philosopher and bishop Nemesios with a governor of the province of Cappadocia II of the same name , who exchanged letters with Gregory of Nazianz ; this hypothesis also found supporters in the 20th century, but is not based on strong evidence.

In his work, Nemesios proves to be an excellently educated scholar who is well versed in pre-Christian ancient philosophy and also has considerable medical knowledge. Apparently he received medical training.

The end of the work makes an abrupt impression, the text that has been preserved lacks any previously announced discussions; hence research suggests that Nemesios left it unfinished.

Teaching

“On the Nature of Man” is the first known Christian treatise on philosophical anthropology . The author tries to integrate the ancient philosophical tradition into his Christian view of the world and man. The writing is not theological but philosophical and is also aimed - perhaps primarily - at pagan readers whom Nemesios wants to win over to his Christian philosophy. His world of thought is shaped by Platonism , which in late antiquity in the form of Neoplatonism was the predominant philosophy of the educated. Among other things, his Platonism is expressed in the fact that he adopts the Platonic view of the pre-existence of the soul before the formation of the body, a position that borders on heresy from the point of view of his Christian contemporaries . Insofar as the teachings of Aristotelianism do not fit his Platonic-Christian image of man, he rejects them, but there is considerable Aristotelian influence in his work.

The main focus of Nemesius is the relationship between body and soul ; he discusses a variety of views of prominent philosophers on the subject. He describes in detail both the physical as well as the mental constitution of the human being. Among other things, he deals with questions of sensory perception, the power of imagination and the function of the intellect as well as with the irrational aspects of the soul. Specifically Christian ideas are present, but play a relatively minor role in his explanations. The immortality of the soul, which is a philosophical concept, not the theological doctrine of the physical resurrection, is in the foreground for Nemesius. Ideas like that of original sin , from which humanity is ransomed through the sacrifice of Christ, hardly occur with him. Therefore, his view of human nature is generally characterized by an optimistic view. He glorifies people and their central role in the cosmos. In his opinion, despite the fall of man, man is inherently good; it only becomes bad through an appropriate resolution. At the core of his philosophy is the idea of ​​man as a “microcosm” (“small world”), which was extremely well received in the Middle Ages. He thinks that this microcosm is an image of the (macro) cosmos (“big world”), of creation in its entirety.

For Nemesios, creation represents a unity; How their components are hierarchically ordered and linked with one another is a main topic of his investigation. In the cosmic hierarchy he assumes a system of sliding transitions. The establishment of such connections between the stages of the order of creation presupposes a kinship between them; the higher is already represented in the lower, primitively present or indicated. Thus there is no gap between different areas of nature, the genre boundaries are somewhat blurred, the unity in nature is emphasized. Nemesius thinks that the magnetic stone stands at the boundary between the organic and the inorganic, which differs from the other stones by a force through which it approaches the plant kingdom. He pulls the iron to himself and holds it tightly as if to make it his food; thus he has a share in the nutritional powers of the organisms. The pen shells and sea ​​anemones stand between plant and animal ; On the one hand they are rooted in the seabed according to the type of plant, on the other hand they have the sense of touch, a characteristic of the animal world. The sponge also has a sense of touch with which it reacts to influences from the outside world. Within the individual levels such as the animal world, a gradation from the more primitive to the more perfect is recognizable. The transition from the unreasonable animal to the human being, the rational living being, is not entirely abrupt for Nemesios; in his view, certain animal abilities prepare man's reason, although they are not yet reason. The animals are endowed with a certain cleverness, cunning and resourcefulness, and their vocalizations are a preparation for human speech. The role of the link between the sensually perceptible and the intelligible world falls to man, whom Nemesios places in the center of creation. Through his corporeality a person participates in the world of the senses, through his spirit in the supernatural world.

In the field of ethics , Nemesius deals with the problems of providence and free will ; he also goes into theodicy . The starting point is the ideas of the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle , with which he deals. He deals with the problem of free will and determination in 13 of the 43 chapters of his work (Chapters 29-41). He determines the prohairesis (decision, choice between different options) as a mixture of advice / consideration ( boulḗ ), judgment ( krísis ) and striving / desire ( órexis ). He not only assigns it to the realm of reason as a purely spiritual authority, but thinks that the Prohairesis is based on a cooperation of desire and reason; In addition, he also emphasizes a physical aspect, he sees the physical starting point of Prohairesis in the brain and spinal cord . However, for him, the human choice is particularly close to the rational faculty of the soul, and he strongly weights its cognitive component.

Against determinism, Nemesios argues that reflection would be superfluous without free will; but since it does exist and is even the most beautiful and most venerable in human beings, it must also have a meaningful function. He thinks Providence works according to possibility, not necessity.

Nemesius is of the opinion that life is inherently peculiar to the soul, whereas the body possesses life only through participation in the soul. The soul is not created at the same time as the body, but has a different origin and already exists before its body. He rejects the Aristotelian definition of the soul as the entelechy of the body. Since the soul is bodiless, its relationship to the body cannot be understood spatially; it is in the entire body, but not as in one place, but only “according to the relationship” that exists between soul and body; as something intelligible, the soul cannot be bound to a physical place. Thus, the body is not the home of the soul, rather the relationship is to be thought the other way round.

In the soul, Nemesios distinguishes between a reasonable and an unreasonable part (although “parts” can only be spoken of in an improper sense; what is meant are rather different aspects or forces, because Nemesios sees the soul as an indivisible unit). He divides the unreasonable part into an area that is obedient to reason and one that does not obey it. To the former he counts desire, lust, fear, sadness and anger, which he regards as unreasonable faculties of the soul obedient to reason. As functions of the unreasonable part of the soul that do not obey reason, he calls nutrition, pulse rate and procreation. Nemesius considers the rule of the leading part of the soul, reason, to be worth striving for over the lower soul faculties, which enables an orderly cooperation of the soul faculties.

reception

Before the 6th century, the treatise of Nemesius seems to have received little attention. Maximos the Confessor is the first to quote them (in his Ambigua , written between 628 and 634 ). The church writer Anastasios Sinaites included excerpts in his "Questions and Answers". Around 743, John of Damascus added extensive excerpts to his text De fide orthodoxa ("On the Orthodox Faith") without naming the author. Michael Psellos (11th century) was one of the Byzantine authors who used the work of Nemesius .

Around 717 an Armenian translation of the treatise “On the Nature of Man” was made in Constantinople . Several translations into Arabic were made in the 9th century . The script was also translated into Syriac in the early Middle Ages , but the Syrian version has only survived in fragments. The treatise was widespread among oriental Christians in the Middle Ages; both Nestorian and Melkite and Coptic theologians relied on it. The Muslim philosopher al-Kindī also consulted the scriptures of Nemesius. In the High Middle Ages , Johannes Petrizi translated the work into Georgian .

Even in antiquity, a number of manuscripts ascribed “On the Nature of Man” to the church father Gregory of Nyssa . This erroneous attribution was widespread in the Middle Ages in Syrian, Armenian and Arabic traditions and also in the Latin-speaking scholarly world of the West. Therefore, Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas , among others, thought Gregor was the author. The wrong attribution also appears in the Greek medieval tradition. The high reputation of the supposed author contributed to the popularity of the work, which is reflected in the number of manuscripts. Over a hundred Greek codices are known.

The archbishop of Salerno Nikolaus Alfanus made the first Latin translation in the 11th century. Alfanus, who wrote medical works, was only interested in anthropology from a medical point of view, so he only translated the parts that were relevant from his point of view. He gave his translation the Greek title Premnon physicon (Latin stipes naturalium , "trunk of natural things"). This version was intensively studied and used in the 12th century by scholars such as Adelard von Bath , Wilhelm von Conches and Wilhelm von Saint-Thierry , and in the 13th century by Albert the Great.

In 1165 Burgundio of Pisa translated the work again into Latin. He dedicated his translation to the Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa . Its users included Albert the Great, Petrus Lombardus and Thomas Aquinas.

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

In modern research, the judgments about the performance of the Nemesios have turned out differently. It is emphasized that he was an eclectic and that the views of the philosophers on whom he speaks were largely not known directly from their works, but only from commentaries and manuals. In older representations, the assessment dominated that he was a pure compiler , an "dependent copyist" who "wrote out completely slavishly". In recent research, the opposite position comes to the fore, according to which he was "according to patristic criteria a productive thinker" who provided "an excellent example of Christian philosophizing using the Greek heritage".

Edition

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

Translations

German

• Emil Orth: Nemesios of Emesa: Anthropology . Publishing house Maria-Martental, Kaisersesch 1925

English

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

Latin (medieval)

• Karl Burkhard (Ed.): Nemesii episcopi premnon physicon sive peri physeos anthropou liber a N. Alfano archiepiscopo Salerni in Latinum translatus . Teubner, Leipzig 1917 ( digitized version )
• Gérard Verbeke , José Rafael Moncho (eds.): Némésius d'Émèse: 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 detailed introduction)

literature

Overview representations

• Sabine Föllinger , Diego De Brasi: Nemesios from Emesa. In: Real Lexicon for Antiquity and Christianity . Vol. 25, Hiersemann, Stuttgart 2013, ISBN 978-3-7772-1318-7 , Sp. 822-838.
• Beatrice Motta: Nemesius of Emesa. In: Lloyd P. Gerson (Ed.): The Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late Antiquity. Volume 1, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2010, ISBN 978-0-521-76440-7 , pp. 509-519.
• Ana Palanciuc, Michael Chase: Némésius d'Émèse . In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques. Vol. 4, CNRS Éditions, Paris 2005, ISBN 2-271-06386-8 , pp. 625-654.
• Adolf Martin Ritter : Nemesios of Emesa. In: Christoph Riedweg et al. (Ed.): Philosophy of the Imperial Era and Late Antiquity (= Outline of the history of philosophy . The philosophy of antiquity. Volume 5/2). Schwabe, Basel 2018, ISBN 978-3-7965-3699-1 , pp. 1579–1585, 1794 f.
• Frances M. Young: Nemesius of Emesa. In: Theological Real Encyclopedia . Vol. 24, de Gruyter, Berlin 1994, pp. 256-259.

Overall presentations and investigations

• Anastasios Kallis : Man in the Cosmos. Nemesios' view of the world by Emesa. Aschendorff, Münster 1978, ISBN 3-402-03578-2 .
• Alberto Siclari: L'antropologia di Nemesio di Emesa. La Garangola, Padova 1974.
• Martin Streck: The most beautiful good. The human will in Nemesius von Emesa and Gregory of Nyssa. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-525-55196-7 ( digitized version ).

reception

• Khalil Samir: Les versions arabes de Némésius de Ḥomṣ. In: Massimiliano Pavan, Umberto Cozzoli (ed.): L'eredità classica nelle lingue orientali. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1986, pp. 99-151.

Web links

• Literature by and about Nemesios von Emesa in the catalog of the German National Library

Remarks

1. ^ Sabine Föllinger, Diego De Brasi: Nemesios von Emesa. In: Reallexikon für Antike und Christianentum , Vol. 25, Stuttgart 2013, Sp. 822–838, here: 823; Ana Palanciuc, Michael Chase: Némésius d'Émèse . In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques , Vol. 4, Paris 2005, pp. 625–654, here: 626 f .; Martin Streck: Das Schönste Gut , Göttingen 2005, pp. 18–21; Robert W. Sharples, Philip J. van der Eijk (translator): Nemesius: On the Nature of Man , Liverpool 2008, p. 2 and note 4.
2. ↑ Ana Palanciuc, Michael Chase: Némésius d'Émèse . In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques , Vol. 4, Paris 2005, pp. 625–654, here: 628.
3. ↑ On Nemesios' conception of the order of creation and its stages see Anastasios Kallis: The human being in the cosmos. The worldview of Nemesios' by Emesa , Münster 1978, pp. 48-60 and Sabine Föllinger: Free will and determination in Nemesios . In: Barbara Feichtinger et al. (Ed.): Body and soul. Aspects of late antique anthropology , Munich 2006, pp. 143–157, here: 144–146.
4. ^ Sabine Föllinger: Free will and determination in Nemesios . In: Barbara Feichtinger et al. (Ed.): Body and soul. Aspects of late antique anthropology , Munich 2006, pp. 143–157, here: 147–149; Martin Streck: Das Schönste Gut , Göttingen 2005, pp. 63–85.
5. ↑ See also Sabine Föllinger: Free will and determination in Nemesios . In: Barbara Feichtinger et al. (Ed.): Body and soul. Aspects of late antique anthropology , Munich 2006, pp. 143–157, here: 149–151.
6. ↑ Anastasios Kallis: Man in the cosmos. The worldview of Nemesios by Emesa , Münster 1978, pp. 163–170.
7. ↑ On Nemesios' doctrine of the soul, see Martin Streck: Das schönste Gut , Göttingen 2005, pp. 30–39.
8. ↑ See Khalil Samir: Les versions arabes de Némésius de Ḥomṣ . In: Massimiliano Pavan, Umberto Cozzoli (ed.): L'eredità classica nelle lingue orientali , Rome 1986, pp. 99–151, here: 142–144 (on al-Kindī) and 107–109 (on reception by Christian authors in the Islamic world).
9. ↑ Eiliv Skard: Nemesios. In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Supplementary volume VII, Stuttgart 1940, Col. 562-566, here: 563 f., 566.
10. ↑ Anastasios Kallis: Man in the cosmos. The worldview of Nemesios' by Emesa , Münster 1978, p. 6 (overview of the research opinions on the question of the independence of Nemesios p. 1-7). Sabine Föllinger judges similarly: Free will and determination in Nemesios . In: Barbara Feichtinger et al. (Ed.): Body and soul. Aspects of late antique anthropology , Munich 2006, pp. 143–157, here: 143.