The Discovery of the Individual
Post-Chalcedonian Christological Debates and the Dawn of Scholasticism in Early-Byzantine Thought
by Anna Zhyrkova and Marcin Podbielski
The works of John the Grammarian, Leontius of Byzantium, Leontius of Jerusalem, Maximus the Confessor and John of Damascus show a philosophical innovation that foreshadows Scholasticism.
In the central chapters of this book, Marcin Podbielski and Anna Zhyrkova examine the work of John the Grammarian, Leontius of Byzantium, and Leontius of Jerusalem, showing how, in their writings, a philosophical innovation only associated significantly later with Medieval Latin discourse was brought into existence and clearly formulated: the discovery of the individual, and of the problem of individuation. This discovery, expressed in terms of a radically existential conceptualization of the hypostasis of Christ, as well as of hypostases of created beings, is discussed in counterpoint to the proposals of John Philoponus and Boethius, and also as synthesized, codified and preserved by Maximus the Confessor and John Damascene. Such a diverse group of five early-Byzantine authors, animated by a shared concern to preserve and clarify the Christological doctrine of Chalcedon, resorted to speculative philosophy to create a conceptual vehicle for the Christian doctrine of there being one Christ both truly divine and truly human. Their notion of ‘hypostasis’ came to designate the subject of natures, existent in its own right and exhibiting all the hallmarks of individuality, found in later Medieval investigations. An inquiry into the philosophical and theological background of this discovery, including a comprehensive historical reconstruction of the concept of hypostasis, makes it possible to show the philosophical and theological novelty of the authors studied, which consists also in their creating a properly Christian approach to philosophical speculation that foreshadows Scholasticism and can be considered a kind of Proto-Scholasticism. The book concludes with an exploration of the philosophical import of the discovery and the model of Christian philosophy it furnishes.
- By (author) Marcin Podbielski
- By (author) Anna Zhyrkova
Other Titles in this Series
Analogical Identities
The Creation of the Christian Self: Volume 2: Self-catholicization, Meta-narcissism, and Christian Theology
Volume 57
Seeking the Face of God
The Reception of Augustine in the Mystical Thought of Bernard of Clairvaux and William of St Thierry
Volume 11
The ‘Universal Prayer’ in the Ancient Latin Liturgies. Patristic Evidence and Liturgical Texts
Volume 56
Friendship as Ecclesial Binding
A Reading of St. Augustine's Theology of Friendship from his In Iohannis Euangelium Tractatus
Volume 48
Inventio meditativa
The Rhetoric and Hermeneutics of Meditation in Hugh of Saint-Victor, Guigo II, and Bonaventure of Bagnoregio
Volume 58
Analogical Identities
The Creation of the Christian Self: Beyond Spirituality and Mysticism in the Patristic Era
Volume 28
‘The Letter Killeth’
Redeeming Time in Augustine's Understanding of the Authority of Scripture
Volume 51
The Christian Topography of Early Islamic Jerusalem
The Evidence of Willibald of Eichstatt (700-787 CE)
Volume 2
Through the Bone and Marrow
Re-examining Theological Encounters with Dance in Medieval Europe
Volume 45
Removing Masculine Layers to Reveal a Holy Womanhood
The Female Transvestite Monks of Late Antique Eastern Christianity
Volume 13
Saints and Sinners in Early Christian Ireland
Moral Theology in the Lives of Saints Brigit and Columba
Volume 3
The Spirit, the World and the Trinity
Origen's and Augustine's Understanding of the Gospel of John
Volume 40
‘The loss of a minute is just so much loss of life’
Edward Robinson and Eli Smith in the Holy Land
Volume 39
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