VAR GORGE onO ESS a aORAREE ARISTOTLE’S THEOLOGY Philosophical Series A COMMENTARY ON BOOK A OF THE METAPHYSICS LEO ELDERS S.V.D. a ASSEN, 1972 YAN GORCUM & COMP. XV. = DR HJ. PRAKKE &, o, 6, PRAKKE(© 1972 by Koninklijke Van Gorcum & Comp. N.V., Assen, The Netherlands [No parts of this book may be reproduced in any form by print, photoprint, ‘microfilm or any other means without written permission from the publisher ISBN 90 232 0987 8 Printed in the Netherlands by Royal VanGorcwm Lid. ee ee TABLE OF CONTENTS 1, ‘The Theology of Metaphysica 11, NOYE. a VI. ‘The Date and Structure of Metaphysica \ VIZ, AS and the Problem of Aristotle's Monotheism Chapter one Chapter two Chapter three Chapter four Chapter five Chapter six ‘Chapter seven Chapter eight Chapter nine, Chapter ten a5 25 35 50 37PREFACE Book A of Aristotle's Metaphysics is a treatise which for many ages has exercised a profound influence upon philosophical speculation. It provided late classical, Arab and Medieval philosophy with a doctrine of great depth and with certain notions which proved extra-ordinarily fertile, Foremost among these are the notions of an unmoved Being which is pure actuality, “thought of thought” and leads the happiest of lives; the universe consists of the earth around which 56 spherical bodies ceaselessly revolve in perfect regularity, moved by a First Unmoved Principle and by 55 movers. These leading ideas of Melaph. A were well known to the Greek commentators: Alexander, Philoponus and Simplicius, in some of their commentaries, refer to the central texts of chapters seven, eight, nine and ten, Yet it is surprizing that a book of this importance is not more frequently quoted in the thousands of pages of the extant Greek commertaries, and that no elaborate explanation of it was bequeathed to us except the text of a mediocre compilor whom students of Aristotle have agreed to call pseudo-Alexander, ‘The most valuable philosophical commentaries on Afetaph, A date to the Middle Ages and were written by Averroes and Saint Thomas Aquinas. Since 1847 another type of commentary began to be published in which philological questions are discussed rather than philosophical problems in the strict sense of the term, Among the latter those of Schwegler, Bonitz and Ross deserve to be mentioned. Recently Reale wrote a commentary on the Metaphysics in which he also pays attention to certain philosophical doctrines of the text. The commentary to which the present author subjects the reader is a pro- ongation of these efforts, but contrary to the studies mentioned above, it deals exclusively with Metaphysics A The purpose of this commentary is to bring together observations of value scattered over hundreds of publications, to carry the inter-