THE BYZANTINE

PLATONISTS,
284–1453

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 TP T TheandriTes Studies on Byzantine
CO A
∆
N Philosophy and Christian Platonism

s e r i e s e d i To rs : Frederick Lauritzen (historian, Scuola

Grande di San Marco, Venice) and Sarah Klitenic Wear (pro-
fessor of classics, Franciscan University of Steubenville, Steu-
benville, Ohio)

This book series focuses on philosophy in Byzantium and

Christian Platonism (284–1453). This series encourages one
to trace Platonic ideas and terminology as they move through-
out the Eastern Roman Empire and the Byzantine Orthodox
world. This tradition is an essential part of the history of ideas
because the Greek texts studied in the Syriac and Arabic
worlds originated in the Greek-speaking world during this
time frame. Syriac Christians and Arabic Muslims translated
texts offered to them by Byzantine scholars and philosophers
from the fourth century onward. The same is true during the
Renaissance in Italy (fifteenth century), when for the first time
since the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476, the Latin-
speaking world was given proper access to Greek philosophy in
the original language by Byzantine thinkers such as Bessarion
(1403–72) and George Gemistos Plethon (ca. 1355–1452/54).

LisT of board members: John Finamore (University of

Iowa), Christian Förstel (Bibliotheque Nationale de France),
Vasileios Koukousas (Hellenic Institute of Byzantine and
Post-Byzantine Studies), Delphine Lauritzen (University of
Paris-Sorbonne), Carl O‘Brien (University of Heidelberg),
Mario Po’ (Polo Museale della Scuola Grande di San Marco),
Ilaria Ramelli (University of Milan), Denis Robichaud (Notre
Dame University), Dionysios Skliris (National and Kapodistrian
University of Athens), Marilena Vlad (Institute of Philosophy
Alexandru Dragomir), and Denis Walter (University of Bonn).

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 THE BYZANTINE
PLATONISTS,
284–1453
Edited by Frederick Lauritzen
and Sarah Klitenic Wear

franciscan UniversiTy Press

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 Copyright © 2021 by Franciscan University Press
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or means, electronic or mechanical, including photography, recording, or
any other information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publisher. Requests for permission to make copies of any
part of the work should be directed to:

Franciscan University Press

1235 University Boulevard
Steubenville, OH 43952
740-283-3771

Distributed by:
The Catholic University of America Press
c/o HFS
P.O. Box 50370
Baltimore, MD 21211
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

available from the Library of Congress

ISBN 978-1-7366561-0-5

Cover & text design: Kachergis Book Design

Cover Image: Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, Par. Gr. 1242
(Theological works of John VI Kantakuzenos) f. 92 v, Transfiguration,
1370–1375.
Printed in the United States of America.

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 Contents

Contents

Contents

Foreword, by Mario Po’ vii

Preface and Acknowledgments xi

1. The Personhood of the One 1

LLoyd P. Gerson

2. The Platonism behind Basil’s Trinitarian Theology 14

carL o’brien

3. Platonism and Gregory of Nyssa 32

mark edwards

4. Language of Interaction in Cyril’s Trinitarian Theology

and Proclus’s Theory of the Henads 48
sarah kLiTenic wear

5. Proclus and the Tripartite Soul in Plato’s Republic 63

John f. finamore

6. Damascius: New Insights in the Platonic Tradition 75

mariLena vLad

7. “Pagan” and Christian Platonism in Dionysius:

The Double-Reference Scheme and Its Meaning 92
iLaria rameLLi

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 vi conTenTs

8. Body and Soul in Dionysius the Areopagite 113

fiLiP ivanović

9. “Chalcedonian Participation”: St. Maximus the Confessor’s

Christian Neoplatonism 124
dionysios skLiris

10. Plato’s Parmenides in Seventh-Century Constantinople:

George of Pisidia’s Hexameron, 1639–93 143
frederick LaUriTzen

11. The Cardinal Virtues in the Works of Nicetas Stethatos 155

GeorGe diamanToP oULos

12. John Italos on Authypostaton and Authyparkton in Quaestio 7

and His Processing of Psellos’s Phil. min. I, Op. 7 192
denis waLTer

13. Nikephoros Choumnos and Platonism 207

chrisTian försTeL

14. “It Will Overcome Its Own Nature”: The Topic of Self-Reversion
of the Intellect in Logos on Saint Peter of Athos by St. Gregory
Palamas and in Ennead V.3 218
TimUr shchUkin

15. Cardinal Bessarion and the Corpus Dionysiacum:

Platonic Love between East and West 231
denis J.-J. robichaUd

16. Marsilio Ficino’s Debt to George Gemistos Pletho:

Recollection and Appropriation 254
sTePhen Gersh

Bibliography 281
List of Contributors 313
Index 319

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