PHILOPONUS’ COSMOLOGY IN THE ARABIC

TRADITION

Michael CHASE

Abstract

The article surveys the influence of some of the cosmological theories of Johannes
Philoponus in the Islamic philosophical tradition. After a survey of the Arabic tradi-
tion of Philoponus life and works, I provide a study of some of the latter’s chief
arguments in favor of the world’s temporal creation. The central part of the paper
consists in a study of the text and translation (provided in an Appendix) of a selection
of Averroes’ quotations from and discussions of Philoponus’ key arguments. In the
case of the fragments of Philoponus’ lost work Against Arisotle, preserved mainly by
Simplicius, the context of Simplicius’ text must be taken into consideration, since it
often provides the requisite doctrinal background for understanding Philoponus, and
hence the Arabo-Islamic authors who adopted and adapted his arguments.

In the first half of the sixth century of our era, two Neoplatonists — the
pagan Simplicius and the Christian John Philoponus — confronted one
another on a number of issues in their exegesis of the works of Aristotle.
One of the main questions at stake between the two adversaries was that
of the eternity of the world. Had it always existed, as Aristotle believed,
following Aristotle in book 8 of the Physics and the De caelo, or had it
come into existence or been generated (Greek gígnesqai, gégonen), as
Philoponus maintained, following the doctrine of the Bible and a liter-
alist interpretation of Plato’s Timaeus?1
Philoponus’ arguments have already attracted considerable scholarly
attention,2 and it is to be hoped that new light will be shed on his

1 On the historical and philosophical background to these issues, cf. M. CHASE, “Dis-
cussions on the Eternity of the World in Late Antiquity,” in: SXOLJ. A Journal of the
Centre for Ancient Philosophy and the Classical Tradition 5.2 (2011), pp. 111-173.
2 See, for instance, H.A. WOLFSON, The Philosophy of the Kalam, Cambridge (Mass.) /
London 1976, pp. 377-382; 410-434; R. SORABJI, Time, Creation and the Continuum. Theories
in Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, London / Ithaca 1983, pp. 196-203; 214-224;

Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie médiévales 79(2), 271-306. doi: 10.2143/RTPM.79.2.2959637

© 2012 by Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie médiévales. All rights reserved.

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debate with Simplicius by the first complete English translation of

Book one of his Commentary on the Physics, which contains Simplicius’
arguments against Book six of Philoponus’ Against Aristotle on the Eter-
nity of the World.3 In any case, aspects of the debate between them, as
vehicled by Arabic translations of several of Philoponus’ key anti-Aris-
totelian and anti-Proclan works, were of tremendous importance for
the development of Islamic theology and philosophy. Philoponus’ views
were partially accepted by al-Kindi,4 through whom they were influen-
tial upon the so-called Plotiniana Arabica,5 and by al-Ghazali,6 and they
were refuted by Farabi.7 Echoes of the latter’s arguments, transmitted

H.A. DAVIDSON, “John Philoponus as a Source of Medieval Islamic and Jewish Proofs of Crea-
tion,” in: Journal of the American Oriental Society 89 (1969), pp. 357-391; ID., Proofs for Eternity,
Creation and the Existence of God in Medieval Islamic and Jewish Philosophy, Oxford 1987, ch.
IV-V; W.L. CRAIG, The Kalâm Cosmological Argument, London 1979, pp. 8-9; 22-23; 31; 39.
3 Philoponus’ arguments, but not Simplicius’ responses, have been translated by Chr.
WILDBERG, Philoponus. Against Aristotle, on the Eternity of the World, London 1987. Cf.
Simplicius, On Aristotle Physics 8.1-5. Translated by I. BODNÁR, M. CHASE and M. SHARE,
London, in press.
4 On Philoponus and al-Kindi, cf. R. WALZER, “New studies on al-Kindi,” in: Oriens
10 (1957), pp. 203-232, reprinted in ID., Greek into Arabic. Essays on Islamic Philosophy,
Harvard 1962, pp. 175-205; DAVIDSON, “John Philoponus,” pp. 370-373; ID., Proofs,
pp. 106-115; C. D’ANCONA, “Aristotele e Plotino nella dottrina di al-Kindî sul primo
principio,” in: Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale 3 (1992), pp. 363-
422; esp. 370-371; 391; 393-395; P. ADAMSON, “Al-Kindi and the Mu¨tazila: Divine
Attributes, Creation and Freedom,” in: Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 13 (2003),
pp. 45-79, esp. 57-66; ID., Al-Kindi, Oxford 2007, pp. 63-65; 74-105.
5 Cf. P. ADAMSON, The Arabic Plotinus. A Philosophical Study of the Theology of Aris-
totle, London 2002, pp. 181-182; 18-90; G. ENDRESS, “The Circle of al-Kindî. Early
Arabic Translations from the Greek and the Rise of Islamic Philosophy,” in: G. ENDRESS
– R. KRUK, (eds.), The ancient tradition in Christian and Islamic Hellenism: studies on the
transmission of Greek philosophy and sciences dedicated to H.-J. Drossaart Lulofs on his nine-
tieth birthday, Leiden 1997, pp. 43-76, esp. 56-57; ID. “Alexander Arabus on the First
Cause. Aristotle’s First Mover in an Arabic treatise attributed to Alexander of Aphro-
disias,” in: C. D’ANCONA – G. SERRA (eds.), Aristotele e Alessandro di Afrodisia nella
tradizione arabe. Atti del Colloquio «La ricezione araba ed ebraica della filosofia e della
scienza greche», Padova, 14-15 maggio 1999, Padova 2002, pp. 19-74, esp. 30;
C. D’ANCONA, “The Topic of the ‘Harmony between Plato and Aristotle’: Some Exam-
ples in Early Arabic Philosophy,” in: A. SPEER – L. WEGENER (eds.), Wissen Über Grenzen.
Arabisches Wissen und Lateinisches Mittelalter, Berlin / New York 2006, pp. 379-405.
6 Cf. SORABJI, Time, pp. 236-238; S. VAN DEN BERGH (trans.), Averroes’ Tahafut al-
Tahafut (The Incoherence of the Incoherence), 2 vol., London 1969, vol. I, pp. xvii-xx;
C. SCHOLTEN, Johannes Philoponos. De aeternitate mundi / Über die Ewigkeit der Welt,
übersetzt und eingeleitet von C.S., Erster Teilband, Turnhout 2009, pp. 223-224.
7 In at least four works, according to M. MAHDI, “Alfarabi against Philoponus,” in:
Journal of Near Eastern Studies 26, 1967, pp. 233-260. The most important of these is

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 PHILOPONUS’ COSMOLOGY IN THE ARABIC TRADITION 273

by Ibn Bajja,8 reached Maimonides9 and Averroes, whence they pro-

vided food for the reflection of Thomas Aquinas.
The present article is envisaged as a survey of some of the cosmological
doctrines of John Philoponus as they exerted an influence upon Islamic
thought. I begin with a brief survey of the Arabic tradition of Philoponus,
followed by an analysis of some of the latter’s chief arguments in favor of
the world’s temporal creation. The central part of the paper consists in a
study of the text and translation (provided in an Appendix) of a selection
of Averroes’ quotations from and discussions of Philoponus’ arguments,
in the course of which I argue for the importance of taking the context
of Simplicius’ text into consideration,10 since it often provides the requi-
site doctrinal background for understanding Philoponus, and hence the
Arabo-Islamic authors who adopted and adapted his arguments.

the Refutation of John the Grammarian (al-radd ‘ala YaÌya al-NaÌwi), Arabic text ed.
M. MAHDI, “The Arabic text of Alfarabi’s Against John the Grammarian,” in: S.A. HANNA
(ed.), Medieval and Middle Eastern Studies in Honor of Aziz Suryal Atiya, Leiden 1972,
pp. 268-284, and the lost work On Changing Beings (Fi-l-mawjudat al-mutagayyira), on
which see Ph. VALLAT, Farabi et l’École d’Alexandrie. Des prémisses de la connaissance à la
philosophie politique, Paris 2004, pp. 39 n. 5; 49 n.1; 174 n. 3; 352 n. 2; M. RASHED,
“Al-Farabi’s lost treatise On changing beings and the possibility of a demonstration of the
eternity of the world,” in: Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 18 (2008), pp. 19-58.
8 For references to Farabi’s On Changing Beings in Ibn Bajja’s commentary on Aristotle’s
Physics, cf. P. LETTINCK, Aristotle’s Physics and its reception in the Arabic World with an Edi-
tion of the Unpublished Parts of Ibn Bajja’s Commentary on the Physics, Leiden 1994, pp. 594-
605; J. PUIG MONTADA, “Zur Bewegungsdefinition im VIII Buch der Physik,” in:
G. ENDRESS – J.A. AERTSEN (eds.), Averroes and the Aristotelian Tradition. Sources, Constitu-
tion and Reception of the Philosophy of Ibn Rushd (1126-1198), Leiden 1999, pp. 145-159.
9 For Maimonides’ use of Farabi’s On Changing Beings, cf. T. LÉVY, “Le langage de
l’infini dans les débats médiévaux. L’infini temporel chez Maïmonide (1138-1204) et
Gersonides (1288-1344),” in: A. DE LIBERA – A. ELAMRANI-JAMAL – A. GALONNIER (eds.),
Langages et Philosophie. Hommage à Jean Jolivet, Paris 1997, pp. 49-62; SCHOLTEN,
Johannes Philoponos pp. 213; 224-225.
10 In several important papers, Cristina D’Ancona has drawn attention to the role of
Philoponus in general and the Contra Aristotelem in particular in forming the thought of
Al-Kindi, and hence the doctrines of the Plotiniana Arabica. Yet that D’Ancona failed to
take into account the fragments preserved by Simplicius in his commentary on the Phys-
ics is indicated by the fact she states that the fragments of Philoponus’ Contra Aristotelem
are “lost in Greek, but known to Simplicius who preserves a series of quotations in his
commentary on the ,De caelo‘” (D’ANCONA, “The Topic of the Harmony,” p. 400).
Earlier (C. D’ANCONA, “Pseudo-Theology of Aristotle, Chapter I: structure and composi-
tion,” in: Oriens 36 [2001], pp. 78-112, esp. 107), the same author had written that the
Contra Aristotelem is “only fragmentarily preserved, mostly by Simplicius in his
commentaries on the De caelo and the Phaedo.” Since, however, there is no record of any
commentary by Simplicius on the Phaedo, this may be a typo for “Physics.”

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 274 M. CHASE

1. The Arabic Tradition

Philoponus’ reputation in the Arabic tradition, where he was known,
among other sobriquets,11 as John the Grammarian (YaÌya al-naÌwi), was
a strange one. He was said to have been a Jacobite bishop of Alexandria,
deposed for having abandoned his faith in the Trinity, and to have lived
long enough to witness the Muslim conquest of Alexandria, under ¨Amr
b. al-¨AÒ, in 641 CE.12 Some, if not most of Philoponus’ works were
translated into Arabic.13 Three of these will interest us primarily here:
1. Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World14
2. Against Aristotle on the Eternity of the World.15
3. Book on the Proof of the Contingency of the World.16

11 Cf. E. GANNAGÉ, “Philopon (Jean-). Tradition arabe,” in: Dictionnaire des Philos-
ophes Antiques, publié sous la direction de Richard GOULET. t. V, De Paccius à Rutilius
Rufus. VA, De Paccius à Plotin, Paris 2011, pp. 503-563, esp. p. 503.
12 On Philoponus’ life and works in the Arabic tradition, see SCHOLTEN, Johannes
Philoponos, pp. 199-217; GANNAGÉ, “Philopon”. Philoponus was even, on some accounts,
indirectly responsible for the burning of the library of Alexandria (GANNAGÉ, “Philopon,”
p. 508, SCHOLTEN, Johannes Philoponos p. 208 n. 619). According to a plausible hypoth-
esis (GANNAGÉ, “Philopon,” pp. 505-506), the name of John the Grammarian may have
been confused in the sources with that of John of Nikiu, Jacobite bishop of Egypt in the
second half of the seventh century.
13 For a complete list of Philoponus’ works known to the Arabs, see GANNAGÉ,
“Philopon,” pp. 509-554, who enumerates 22 philosophical works. Cf. C. D’ANCONA,
“Introduction” to EADEM (ed.), Libraries of the Neoplatonists, Leiden 2007, pp. xxxi-xxxii;
SCHOLTEN, Johannes Philoponos, pp. 201-2.
14 No. 14 GANNAGÉ. The work is extant in Greek (ed. H. RABE, Leipzig 1899;
C. SCHOLTEN, 5 vols., Turnhout 2009-2011), except for Proclus’ opening argument, which
is missing in the extant Greek manuscript, but survives in at least two Arabic translations:
cf. SCHOLTEN, Johannes Philoponos, pp. 35-43; GANNAGÉ, “Philopon,” pp. 535-37. AL-
BIRUNI cites the work several times in his TaÌqiq ma li-l-Hind (p. 17; 111; 114 SACHAU);
cf. G. ENDRESS, PROCLUS ARABUS. Zwanzig Abschnitte aus der Institutio Theologica in
arabischer Übersetzung, Beirut 1973, 17-18; E. GIANNAKIS, “The Quotations from John
Philoponus’ De aeternitate mundi contra Proclum in al-Biruni’s India,” in: Zeitschrift für
Geschichte der arabisch-islamischen Wissenschaften 15 (2002-3), pp. 185-195.
15 No. 15 GANNAGÉ. Lost in Greek, but fragments have been preserved primarily by
Simplicius in his commentaries on the De caelo and Physics. See now M. CHASE, “Simplicius’
response to Philoponus’ attacks on Aristotle Physics I,” in: Simplicius, On Aristotle Physics
8.1-5, pp. 1-16. For the Arabic tradition of this work, see GANNAGÉ, “Philopon,” pp. 537-41.
16 No. 18 GANNAGÉ. An Arabic translation of a summary of three sections of this
work, entitled “summaries of three sections of the book ‘On the proof of the origination
of the world’, by John the Grammarian” (Ma‘ani †ala† maqalat min kitab fi al-dalala ‘ala
Ìada† al-‘alam, li-YaÌya al-NaÌwi), survives in at least two manuscripts: ms. 240 of the
Hunt Collection of the Bodleian Library, fol. 105v-109v, and Vatican ms. Arabo 103, fol.
30a-32b. It has been edited and translated by S. PINES, “An Arabic summary of a lost

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 PHILOPONUS’ COSMOLOGY IN THE ARABIC TRADITION 275

In addition, the Arabic biobibliographers mention a treatise entitled

Book on the Fact That Every Finite Body Has Finite Power.17 Should
this work have existed, it may have been a part of the On the Proof of
the Contingency of the World. It was probably this work that was com-
mented on by the Christian philosopher Ibn Suwar, disciple of YaÌya
ibn ‘Adi in 10th-century Baghdad.18 Some version of Philoponus’
arguments also seems to have been refuted by Avicenna in his treatise
“concerning that which has been established according to him with
regard to the proofs of those who affirm that the past has a temporal
beginning and to their being resolved into syllogisms.”19
Finally, in evaluating the influence of Philoponus’ thought on
Islamic thought, one must take account of his commentary on the
Physics,20 which seems to have been part of the curriculum at Baghdad
in the late 10th - early 11th centuries CE.

work of John Philoponus,” in: Israel Oriental Studies 2 (1972), 320-352; and by G. TROU-
PEAU, “Un épitomé arabe du De contingentia mundi de Jean Philopon,” in: Mémorial A.
J. Festugière (Cahiers d’Orientalisme 10), Geneva 1984, pp. 77-88. According to GAN-
NAGÉ, “Philopon,” pp. 550-52, this treatise represents a summary of a work, now lost in
Greek, whose title will have been something like “Book on the origination of the world”.
17 Kitab fi anna kull jism mutanahin fa quwwatuhu mutanatiya, no 16 GANNAGÉ. This
may have been the work Simplicius attempts to refute In Phys., pp. 1326, 38-1336, 34
Diels; cf. DAVIDSON, “John Philoponus”, pp. 358-362; IDEM, Proofs, p. 94.
18 “Treatise on the fact that the proof by John the Grammarian of the origination of
the world is more acceptable than that of the theologians,” Arabic text ed. A. BADAWI,
Neoplatonici apud Arabes, Cairo 1955, pp. 244-248; French translation by B. LEWIN, “La
notion de muÌda† dans le kalam et dans la philosophie. Un petit traité inédit du philos-
ophe chrétien Ibn Suwar,” in: Donum Natalicium H.S. Nyberg Oblatum, Uppsala 1954,
pp. 84-93. Cf. TROUPEAU, “Épitomé” p. 77; DAVIDSON, “John Philoponus”, pp. 361;
GANNAGÉ, “Philopon,” p. 541; SCHOLTEN, Johannes Philoponos, pp. 215-16.
19 Risala lahu al-ra’is [sic Pines!] Abi ‘Ali Ibn Sina fi ma taqarrara ‘indahu fi Ìujaj
al-mu†bitin li’-l-ma∂i mabda’an zamaniyyan wa-taÌliliha ila-l-qiyasat, preserved inter alia
in ms. British Museum Add. Or. 7473. Cf. PINES, “Arabic summary,” pp. 347 ff. Cf.
Y. MAHDAVI, Bibliographie d’Ibn Sina, Téhéran 1954, pp. 93f. (my thanks to an anony-
mous referee for this reference).
20 The first four books of Philoponus’ commentary In Aristotelis Physicorum libros (ed.
H. VITELLI, 2 vols., Berolini 1887-1888) were translated into Arabic by QuÒta b. Luqa
(ob. ca. 912 CE), and the last four by Ibn Na‘ima al-Îimsi (9th cent.), who also trans-
lated the pseudonymous Theology of Aristotle (GANNAGÉ, “Philopon,” p. 518; SCHOLTEN,
Johannes Philoponos, pp. 204-205). The Arabic text has come down to us in the form of
passages in the scholia to the so-called “Baghdad Physics”, i.e. the Arabic translation of
Aristotle’s Physics by IsÌaq b. Îunain, as preserved in the ms. Leiden Or. 583. For the
Arabic text, see ¨A. BADAWI (ed.), Aris†u†alis, Al-™abi‘a, 2 vol., Cairo 1964-1965; for a
study with paraphrase, P. LETTINCK, Aristotle’s Physics and its reception in the Arabic World
with an Edition of the Unpublished Parts of Ibn Bajja’s Commentary on the Physics, Leiden

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 276 M. CHASE

In any given case, it is hard to tell exactly which of Philoponus’

works a particular argument comes from.21 In his Contra Aristotelem
he often repeats, sometimes in abbreviated form, arguments he had
already set forth in the Contra Proclum — a procedure that frustrates
Simplicius, who had not read the latter work — and he is likely to
have done the same in the De contingentia mundi.

2. Philoponus’ Arguments
Herbert Davidson has given an elegant account of the structure of
Philoponus’ arguments against the perpetuity of the world, and in
favor of its having been created. He breaks them down into two main
headings. One was based on the impossibility of an actually infinite
number, while the other was based on the principle that a finite body
can contain only finite power.
Roughly speaking, the first argument boils down to the principle
that in order for an entity to exist, it cannot have an infinite number
of prerequisites.22 Thus, whether we are talking about the transforma-
tions of one element into another (as discussed by Aristotle in the De
generatione et corruptione), or the coming into being of an individual
like Socrates, the chain of events leading to the occurrence of a par-
ticular elemental change or to Socrates’ coming into being cannot be
infinite, since, as had been known since Zeno, a quantity that is
infinite in act can never be traversed. But if the world had existed
forever, such causal chains would have been infinite. Therefore,
Philoponus argued, the world has not existed forever, but its existence
had a beginning in time: that is, it was created.23 The standard answer

1994; and for a partial translation ID., Philoponus, On Aristotle’s Physics 5-8, with Sim-
plicius, On Aristotle on the void, London 1994. Studies: E. GIANNAKIS, Philoponus in the
Arabic Tradition of Aristotle’s Physics, PhD thesis, University of Oxford 1992; ID., “YaÌya
ibn ‘Adi against John Philoponus on place and void,” in: Zeitschrift für Geschichte der
arabisch-islamischen Wissenschaften 12, 1998, pp. 245-302; GANNAGÉ, “Philopon,”
pp. 518-531; SCHOLTEN, Johannes Philoponos, pp. 203-206.
21 Cf. SCHOLTEN, Johannes Philoponos, pp. 218-219.
22 Cf. H.A. WOLFSON, The Philosophy of the Kalam, Cambridge (Mass.)/London 1976,
pp. 410-433; H.T. GOLDSTEIN, Averroes’ Questions in Physics: from the unpublished Sêfer ha-
derûsîm ha-tib’îyîm, Dordrecht 1991, pp. xviii-xix; 68; DAVIDSON, Proofs, pp. 87-88; 130-
133; LETTINCK, Aristotle’s Physics, pp. 402-403; 415; 658-659; R. GLASNER, Averroes’ Physics.
A Turning Point in Medieval Natural Philosophy, Oxford 2009, pp. 73-74; 89-91.
23 Cf. MAIMONIDES, Guide, I, ch. 74.

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 PHILOPONUS’ COSMOLOGY IN THE ARABIC TRADITION 277

to this objection, pioneered by al-Farabi in his lost work On Changing

Beings and adopted by Avicenna, was that an infinite series is objec-
tionable only if its members exist simultaneously and are ordered. But
neither infinite past time nor an infinite number of past ancestors
meets these conditions, so that the objection fails.24
Philoponus’ second set of proofs as identified by Davidson, des-
tined for a long and influential career in medieval thought, was based
on the axiom that a finite body can contain only finite power.25 Aris-
totle had used this principle in Physics VIII, 10 to argue for the neces-
sity of an incorporeal Prime Mover: if the heavens are to move for an
infinite time, as Aristotle believes, they must be moved by an infinite
power. But no finite body can contain infinite power; therefore the
Prime Mover must be incorporeal.
Already in the fifth century CE, Proclus (412-485)26 had used this
principle to infer that the world requires an incorporeal cause not just
to ensure its perpetual motion, as Aristotle had argued, but also its
perpetual existence: in Aristotelian terms, God is not merely the final
cause of the motion of the heavenly bodies, but their efficient cause,
or cause of their existence as well.27 The world, Proclus concludes, is
both perpetual (âídiov) and generated (genjtóv): perpetual because it
had no temporal beginning and will have no end, but generated

24 DAVIDSON, Proofs, pp. 127-128.

25 DAVIDSON, Proofs, pp. 89-94, 264-265; 281-282; 409-411; GOLDSTEIN, Averroes’
Questions, pp. xix-xx.
26 PROCLUS, In Platonis Timaeum commentaria, vol. I, ed. E. DIEHL, Lipsiae 1903,
p. 268, 2-6. Cf. R. SORABJI, Matter, Space, & Motion. Theories in Antiquity and their
Sequel, London 1988, pp. 251-253; C. STEEL, “Omnis corporis potentia est finita,” in:
J.P. BECKMANN – L. HONNEFELDER – G. SCHRIMPF – G. WIELAND (eds.), Philosophie im
Mittelalter, Hamburg 1987, pp. 213-224; ID., “Proclus et Aristote sur la causalité effi-
ciente de l’intellect divin,” in: J. PÉPIN – H. D. SAFFREY (eds.), Proclus: Lecteur et inter-
prète des Anciens, Paris 1987, pp. 213-225; DAVIDSON, Proofs, 281-282; I.M. CROESE,
Simplicius on Continuous and Instantaneous Change: Neoplatonic Elements in Simplicius’
Interpretation of Aristotelian Physics, Leiden / Utrecht 1998, pp. 48-50. This notion of an
external force ensuring the world’s perpetuity may well go back to Alexander of Aphro-
disias, who seems to have postulated “the notion of a ‘divine power’ originating in the
heavenly bodies, which he held to bring about, and preserve, form and order in the
sublunar realm” (G. FREUDENTHAL, “The medieval astrologization of the Aristotelian cos-
mos: from Alexander of Aphrodisias to Averroes,” in: Mélanges de l’Université St.-Joseph
59 (2006), pp. 29-68, esp. 37).
27 Proclus’ student Ammonius (ca. 440-520) wrote a treatise to prove that God is
both the efficient and final cause of the world.

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 278 M. CHASE

because God continuously grants it being, in quantities small enough

for it to accept, throughout its perpetual existence. For the moment,
let us retain as the key element of Proclus’ argument that the world
derives the eternity both of its motion and of its being from else-
where: the world’s perpetuity, as Proclus puts it using a phrase from
Plato’s Statesman (270a4), is êpiskeuastßn, adventitious or acquired
after the fact.
The Arabic summary constituting the first section of the De contin-
gentia mundi opens with what may well be Philoponus’ ipsissima verba:
It is impossible that the world should be eternal a parte ante (azaliyyan) and
it is obligatory that it should be created in time (muÌda†an) and have come
into existence after not having existed.

To prove this affirmation, Philoponus28 took Proclus’ argument and

gave it a decisive twist, in order to construct the following proof29:
i. The body of the universe is finite (Aristotle, De caelo, I).
ii. Therefore, it cannot contain infinite power (Aristotle, Physics,
VIII 10, 266a24-25).30
iii. Therefore, the world was created in time and came into existence
after not having existed.31
Now,
iv. Someone might object (as Proclus did), that the world’s perpetual
existence might be bestowed upon it by the infinite power of
God. But
v. Such an extrinsic cause would not change the fact that the world
is perishable by nature32; that is, it bears within it the lógov of
destructibility and is therefore genjtóv.

28 De contingentia mundi ap. SIMPLICIUM, In Aristotelis Physicorum libros, ed.

H. DIELS, Berolini 1882-1895, pp. 1326, 38-1336, 34; De aeternitate mundi, VI, 29, ed.
H. RABE, Lipsiae 1899, pp. 233-242.
29 Cf. WOLFSON, Kalam, pp. 375-6.
30 Philoponus does not hesitate to attribute this principle to Plato as well; cf. De aet.
mundi, p. 235, 4.
31 See SORABJI, Matter, pp. 257, citing PHILOPONUS, Contra Aristotelem, fr. 80 Wild-
berg = SIMPLICIUS, In Aristotelis De caelo, ed. I.L. HEIBERG, Berolini 1894, p. 142, 22-25;
SIMPLICIUS, In Phys., pp. 1326, 38-1336, 24; 1358, 26-1359, 4.
32 Simplicius (In De caelo, p. 361, 10-15) denies this, arguing that the world has a
nature that is suitable for receiving its perpetuity from elsewhere.

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 PHILOPONUS’ COSMOLOGY IN THE ARABIC TRADITION 279

This much seems clear. There is, however, some controversy among
modern interpreters over whether Philoponus’ proof that the world
is susceptible of generation and destruction suffices to prove that the
world actually was generated and actually will be destroyed. Davidson
has argued that Philoponus needs two additional premises to make
this step:
1. In the course of infinite time, every possibility must eventually be
realized,33 and
2. If something is destructible, it must be generated.34
Whatever its precise structure and persuasive force may be, Philopo-
nus’ version of the argument from infinite power was destined for a
long and influential future in medieval Arabic and Latin thought.

3. Philoponus and Averroes

Averroes confronts the views of Ioannes or YaÌya al-naÌwi on numer-
ous occasions.35
In our Text 1, from the epitome of the Physics, Averroes attributes
the view that there is a first motion to “Plato and the other members
of the Kalam.” He goes on to say that Farabi, Avicenna and Ibn Bajja
thought that at Physics, VIII, 1, 251a6ff. Aristotle cites his definition
of motion in order to demonstrate that there is another motion prior
to whatever motion one may choose.36 This, Averroes concludes, was

33 A principle that seems to have been conceded by Simplicius. Cf. In Phys., p. 1170,
31, where he infers from the fact that something is perishable (fqartóv) that it will perish
later (d±lon Üv Àsteron fqarßsetai). But Aristotle (De caelo, 282a22-25; 283a24-29)
already notes that anything destructible must eventually be destroyed, and cf. Alexander
of Aphrodisias, who, in a fragment from his lost Commentary on the Physics (preserved by
Simplicius, In Phys., p. 1170, 5ff.) argues that “if they [sc. what causes motion and what
is movable] are imperishable, if one is motive and the other movable for infinite time,
again, one of then will cause motion, and the other will be moved; for this is what it is
to be capable (dunatón): that which would occur if what is said to be capable (dúnasqai)
did not perish first.”
34 Simplicius holds (In Phys., p. 1171, 15) that Aristotle proves the reciprocal entail-
ments (i) x is generable iff x is perishable, and (ii) x is ungenerated iff x is imperishable
in Book I of the De caelo; cf. 282b5-283a4.
35 A selection of the fragments in which Averroes mentions Philoponus is given (with
no claim to exhaustiveness) in the Appendix.
36 This is what GLASNER has called the “succession argument”; cf. Averroes’ Physics,
§6.2.1, pp. 69-71.

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also the view of Philoponus, who attempted to refute Aristotle on

precisely this point. Averroes himself initially accepted this interpreta-
tion, but after thinking the matter over long and hard37 he came to
believe Aristotle’s goal was not to prove that motion is eternal as a
genus, but to show that the motion of the first sphere is prior to all
individual motions.38
As has been shown by recent scholars,39 this passage reflections a
paradigmatic state of affairs in Averroes’ intellectual development.
Averroes initially40 accepts a position – in this case, the straightfor-
ward interpretation, defended among others by Simplicius,41 that
Aristotle’s goal in Physics, VIII, 1 is to show that motion is eternal
because every motion one may wish to choose is preceded and fol-
lowed by another motion – which, as we shall see, he seems to have
derived ultimately from Philoponus, by way of Farabi’s On Changing
Beings, probably as quoted by Ibn Bajja. Later on,42 Averroes rejects
this position, which he attributes to Plato, Philoponus, Farabi, Avi-
cenna, Ibn Bajja and the mutakallimun, substituting for it his own
view, according to which Aristotle is talking not about motion per se,
but investigating whether the first motion of the first mobile (i.e., the
heaven), is caused by the Prime Mover, is eternal or generated in
time. Averroes’ final view, as expressed in the Tahafut (pp. 188-189
Bouyges), is that infinite motions in the world are infinite in genus

37 AVERROES, In Libros Physicorum Aristotelis, Venetiis 1562, f. 345I: “ […] quod

apparuit mihi post longam perscrutationem.”
38 Thomas Aquinas (In octo libros Physicorum, VIII, 2, ed. P.M. MAGGIOLO, Torino
/ Roma 1965, §986) maintains that Aristotle means to speak about all motion, not just
the motion of the heavens. This was already the view of Simplicius (In Phys., p. 1131, 9);
cf. J. PUIG MONTADA, “Averroes and Aquinas on Physics VIII 1. A Search for the Roots
of Dissent,” in: Knowledge and the Sciences in Medieval Philosophy. Proceeding of the Eighth
International Congress of Medieval Philosophy (S.I.E.P.M.), Helsinki 24-29 1987, Vol. 2,
pp. 307-313, esp. 307; ID., “Averroes y el problema de la eternidad del movimiento,” in:
Ciudad de dios 212 (1999), pp. 231-44, esp. 232.
39 Cf. PUIG MONTADA, “Averroes y el problema,” pp. 232; 237-240; 243-244; GLAS-
NER, Averroes’ Physics, pp. 4; 59; 105; 114.
40 In the first version of the Epitome on Physics, dating from 1159 (PUIG MONTADA,
“Averroes and Aquinas,” p. 310), and some sections of the Long Commentary.
41 PUIG MONTADA, “Zur Bewegungsdefinition,” p. 156.
42 In the second version of the Epitome, other parts of the Long Commentary, perhaps
edited first in 1186 and the Physical Questions, dating from about 1195; cf. PUIG MON-
TADA, “Averroes and Aquinas,” p. 310-11; ID., “Les stades de la philosophie naturelle
d’Averroès,’’ in: Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 7 (1997), pp. 115-137, esp. 117-118.

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only because of the one single continuous eternal movement of the

body of the heavens.43
Our Text 2, from Averroes’ Long Commentary on Metaphysics
Lambda, makes an interesting distinction among those who believe
that there is both an efficient cause and that processes of coming-into-
being actually occur (Table 1). First there are those who affirm the
latent (ahl al-kumun) — that is, that all things pre-exist in all things,
and that coming-into-being is merely the emergence of what already
exists in a state of latency. On this view, the only function of the
agent, who is merely an efficient cause of motion, is that of initiating
this process of emergence. This school of thought, which holds that
coming-into-being is substantial change, and that nothing comes
from nothing, includes, with variations, the views of Avicenna,
Themistius, Farabi, and, according to Averroes, Aristotle himself.
In contrast, those who maintain creation and emergence (ahl al-ibda‘
wa-l-iÌtira‘) hold that the agent creates the entire world without any
need for preexistent matter. This, says Averroes, is the view of both
Christian and Muslim mutakallimun, the first of whom, it is implied,
was Philoponus. Our passage ends with the report from Farabi’s
On Changing Beings that Philoponus claimed “there is no possibility
except in the agent”: I assume that “possibility” (Arabic imkan) here
renders the Greek tò dunatón or ™ dúnamiv,44 and so is more or less
equivalent to matter, so that the claim that “there is no possibility
except in the agent” amounts to the claim that God created matter.45
Text 3, also from the Long Commentary on Metaphysics Lambda,
contains a statement of Philoponus’ objection from finite power.
If every body has finite power, and the heaven is a body, then the
heaven has finite power. But what is finite is corruptible, and therefore,
one presumes, will be corrupted or destroyed at some point in time.
Averroes then reports Philoponus’ response to the objection by
Proclus noted shortly above: even if a finite body, because it is finite,
must have limited power and therefore be destructible, said Proclus,
why could not it acquire power sufficient to allow it to last forever

43 Cf. GLASNER, Averroes’ Physics, pp. 75-78.

44 Cf. A.M. GOICHON, Lexique de la langue philosophique d’Ibn Sînâ, Paris 1938, no.
670, 1, pp. 382.
45 Cf. DAVIDSON, “John Philoponus,” p. 360, who compares AL-GHAZALI, Tahafut
al-falasifa, 1, 85; MAIMONIDES, Guide, II, 14, 4.

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from some external, infinite and eternal source? This of course, is not
only Proclus’ view, but apparently that of Plato himself at Timaeus
41 a-d, when the Demiurge informs the lesser gods (i.e., the planets)
that although they are not inherently immortal, they will in fact never
be destroyed because the will of the Demiurge will always maintain
them in existence.46 A similar view was, as we have seen, also attrib-
uted to Alexander of Aphrodisias. At any rate, Philoponus apparently
argued that this view, which amounts to maintaining that something
generated (Greek genjtón) can nevertheless be ãfqarton or imperish-
able, is excluded by Aristotle in the last chapters of Book I of the
De caelo. Indeed, even Simplicius agrees that here, Aristotle argues
that something is generated iff it is perishable, and imperishable iff it
is ungenerated.47
Another version of these arguments appears in our Text 3a, from
the Middle Commentary on the De caelo: all that is eternal and cor-
ruptible contains a potential for destruction. The heaven, as a body,
is finite and therefore has finite power. It will therefore be corruptible
per se, but incorruptible owing to the infinite power it receives from
its motive cause. Here we encounter the attribution of this view to
Alexander and to Avicenna, as well as Philoponus, which we’ll see
again shortly below (Text 5).
Our Text 4, from the Long Commentary on the De caelo, presents
the same variation on the argument from finite power: if the heaven
is of finite extent and therefore power, it will be corruptible with
regard to its finite power but incorruptible with regard to its infinite
power, and this, presumably, is absurd.48 Text 4a, from the De sub-
stantia orbis, provides another testimony to this argument.
Our Text 5 is taken from Averroes’ Long commentary on Physics,
VIII, 10, 266a27ff. Since it has been discussed at length by several
recent scholars49 we can go over it here fairly quickly.

46 PLATO, Timaeus 41b: di’ ° kaì êpeíper gegénjsqe, âqánatoi mèn oûk êstè oûd’ ãlutoi
tò pámpan, oΔti mèn d® luqßsesqé ge oûdè teúzesqe qanátou moírav, t±v êm±v boulßsewv
meíhonov ∂ti desmoÕ kaì kuriwtérou laxóntev êkeínwn ofiv ºt’ êgígnesqe sunede⁄sqe.
47 Cf. SIMPLICIUS, In Phys., p. 1171, 15-20.
48 Cf. ARISTOTLE, De caelo, I, 12, 281b18-25; 282a21-25: if that which is susceptible
of corruption were to exist forever, it will both exist and fail to exist, but this is absurd.
49 Cf. WOLFSON, Kalam, pp. 379; STEEL, “Omnis corporis”; SORABJI, Matter,
pp. 264-266; DAVIDSON, Proofs, pp. 262 n. 137; 319-322.

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Given that every body has finite power, Averroes asks, does this
apply to the celestial body — that is, the outermost sphere — or not?
If it does, then the celestial body is corruptible. Now Aristotle has
proved that the presence of infinite power in a body would entail the
absurd consequence of instantaneous motion;50 but this would not
hold true of infinite power in an incorporeal agent.
Averroes goes on to state that Alexander, “in some of his treatises,”
claims that the celestial body obtains its eternity from its immaterial
mover.51 Yet this implies that there will be something corruptible that
is never actually corrupted: such, as we have seen, was Plato’s opin-
ion, but Aristotle showed at the end of book I of the De caelo that
nothing with the potential of corruptibility can be eternal.52
It was John the Grammarian, Averroes continues, who raised the
most difficult puzzle of all against the Peripatetics, opining that the
world is generable and corruptible. Aristotle had shown in book II of
the De caelo that the heaven has finite power, and it was on this basis,
along with the views of Alexander, that Avicenna came up with his
idea of two kinds of necessity: necessary per se, like the celestial mov-
ers, and contingent per se but necessary ex alio, like the heaven itself.53
Averroes, who seems to understand ‘necessary’ here as tantamount
to ‘eternal’, will have none of this. According to him, nothing

50 Cf. A. MAIER, Studien zur Naturphilosophie der Spätscholastik. 4, Metaphysische

Hintergründe der spätscholastischen Naturphilosophie, Roma 1955, p. 259.
51 DAVIDSON, Proofs, p. 321 n. 66, suggests one of Alexander’s works referred to by
Averroes may be On the Motions of the Spheres, but some passages from On the Principles
of the Whole can also be interpreted in a similar sense. This supposition seems more likely
than Sorabji’s assumption that Averroes has simply confused Alexander with Proclus, but
leaves open the question of whether the “Alexandrian” texts that influenced Averroes were
all genuine, all apocryphal, or a mixture of both.
52 ARISTOTLE, De caelo, 283a24ff. Cf. AVERROES, In libros De caelo, II, comm. 71;
Thomas Aquinas, In libros De caelo et mundo, II, 9, ed. R.M. SPIAZZI, Torino / Roma
1952, p. 74.
53 On this division, and Averroes’ (mis-)understanding of it, see DAVIDSON, Proofs,
pp. 318-335. Cf. Abranavel, Mif‘alot Elohim 2, 3, pp. 126, translated in H.A WOLFSON,
Crescas’ Critique of Aristotle. Problems of Aristotle’s Physics in Jewish and Arabic Philosophy,
Cambridge (Mass.) 1929, pp. 597; 682: “Plato says that the heavens were generated from
that eternal matter which had been in a state of disorderly motion for an infinite time,
but at the time of creation was invested with order. Consequently by their own nature
the heavens are corruptible just as they were generated, and it is God who implants in
them eternity, as is written in the Timaeus. It is from this view that Avicenna has inferred
that the celestial sphere is composed of matter and form and is corruptible and possible
by its own nature, but necessary and eternal by virtue of its cause.”

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contingent per se can acquire necessity from something else, for this
would entail a contradiction. Instead, he argues that the heavens’
passive power, that is, their power to receive motion, is finite. An
enmattered form has neither infinite passion nor infinite action, since
it is divisible as a result of its presence in the body. For Averroes, the
celestial body is not made up of form and matter, but is simple. It is
moved by its form, and it contains no material form at all.
Text 6, from the Long Commentary on the De caelo, is based once
again on a report from Farabi, although this time the title of the Fara-
bian work is not specified. According to Farabi, Philoponus sought to
deny the one-to-one correspondence between elementary motions and
elementary bodies, as asserted by Aristotle (cf. De caelo, I, 2, 269a8ff.).
Philoponus produced the counter-argument that one kind of motion,
viz., motion upwards, is to be found in elementary bodies as different
as air and fire, while another kind of motion, motion downwards, is to
be found in the different elementary bodies earth and water. Averroes
rejects this argument, alleging that since motions are defined by their
points of arrival, if two motions had the same points of arrival they
would be the same motion, so that fire’s motion, for example, would
be indistinguishable from the motion of air.
The Farabian work from which this text is excerpted is likely to
have been the Refutation of John the Grammarian.
Our Text 7 is a rather difficult text from the Long Commentary
on the Physics. It reflects Philoponus’ arguments against Aristotle’s
doctrine in Physics, VIII, 1, once again probably following Farabi in
his On Changing Beings. As we have seen in the context of our Text
1, Aristotle, according to the standard interpretation adopted by Sim-
plicius, Farabi, Ibn Bajja, and, at least initially, Averroes himself, had
cited his definition of motion from Physics, III (“the actuality of what
exists potentially, in so far as it exists potentially”)54 in order to prove
that there cannot be motion without the previous existence of things
that are capable of such motion, an argument that formed one of the
pillars of Aristotle’s proof of the eternity of the world. Philoponus
denied this, citing as a counter-example the fact that some things,
such as the four sublunary elements, possess their natural motion as
soon as they come into existence.

54 Physics, 3, 1, 201a9: ™ toÕ dunámei ∫ntov ênteléxeia, ¯Ç toioÕton, kínjsív êstin.

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 PHILOPONUS’ COSMOLOGY IN THE ARABIC TRADITION 285

In our passage, Averroes, following Farabi, envisages two ways in

which the object in motion (Latin motum = Greek kinjtón) is prior
to motion (Latin motus = Greek kínjsiv) (see Table 2). In the first
scenario, which I have called Mode One, characteristic of two of the
four traditional kinds of motion (generation/corruption and transla-
tion), the motum that is still potential is of a different kind from the
motum in which the motion is (in quo est ipse motus). In other words,
the motum containing potentiality might be, for instance, wood,
where the wood is potentially fire (which is its actuality), but has not
reached it yet, and in that sense still retains its potentiality. The
motum in quo est motus, by contrast, might correspond to fire, which
is already exercising in act its potential for upward motion.
In the second mode by which the motum is prior to motus, the
motum in potency is numerically identical with the motum in act.
Here, the motum might be fire, which remains self-identical when
exercising its dúnamiv of motion upward.
The distinction alluded to so obliquely here is, I believe,55 based
on the doctrine, developed by the Peripatetic and Neoplatonic com-
mentators of Aristotle, of the double entelechy (Table 3). Here, the
second kind of entelechy (entelechy2) refers to what has achieved its
completed or perfected form, having cast off all potentiality: in Greek,
it corresponds to the perfective aspect kekínjtai, “it has moved (and
completed its motion)”. Entelechy1, in contrast, corresponds to the
present tense (kine⁄tai, “it is in the process of moving”). Here, the
object has begun its motion and is progressing toward its goal, which
is its form, but has not yet reached it and therefore retains its poten-
tiality.
In the case of the motion whose goal is generation or destruction,
Averroes continues, the subiectum (= Greek üpokeímenon) is that out

55 The initial merit of this discovery belongs to PUIG MONTADA, who has discussed
Simplicius’ distinction between two types of mobile and/or potentiality in several impor-
tant publications. Cf. PUIG MONTADA, “Averroes and Aquinas,” p. 307-8; ID., “Averroes
y el problema,” p. 232-34; ID., “Bewegungsdefinition,” p. 147-50; 156. On the doctrine
of the double entelechy in Alexander of Aphrodisias, Philoponus, the Baghdad Physics and
Avicenna, see the important articles by A. HASNAWI, “Alexandre d’Aphrodise vs. Jean
Philopon: notes sur quelques traités d’Alexandre ‘perdus’ en grec, conservés en arabe,” in:
Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 4, 1994, pp. 53-109; ID., “La définition du mouvement
dans la Physique du Sifa’ d’Avicenne,” in: Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 11, 2001,
pp. 103-123.

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of which the generation/destruction takes place. Averroes gives no

illustration. In the case of the translational motion of the elements,
which is characterized by a potentiality (potentia = Greek dúnamiv)
temporally preceding that motion, the subiectum is also the body out
of which the generation takes place, and here Averroes adduces the
case of the element fire as an example. When fire is generated as a
whole, it immediately possesses an ubi, that is, a place or direction of
its motion, which is upward secundum totum. Likewise, when an indi-
vidual part or instantiation of fire is generated, it immediately pos-
sesses a part of that ubi.56 However, the potentiality for that motion
— which, according to Aristotle, must exist prior to that motion —
does not inhere in the fire in act, but in the subject out of which the
fire is generated, such as oil.
This, Averroes continues, was the point of which Philoponus was
ignorant, and this explains how he could maintain, deceiving himself
and others,57 that there is a potentiality (Greek dúnamiv) existing
simultaneously with that of which it is the potentiality, claiming, for
instance, that the potentiality for upward motion is immediately
united with the form of fire in act.
Some additional light can be shed on this passage by our Text 8,
from the Long Commentary on the De caelo. Here we see once again
that Philoponus’ point, probably in the same argument we have just
examined (Text 7), was to maintain, contrary to Aristotle, that some
motions occur without the preliminary existence of any capacity or
potential for motion. A preceding capacity for motion is present in
the object in motion (motum) only in a forced or counter-natural way
(violente). Perhaps what Philoponus has in mind here is a case in
which fire is impeded from moving upward by some obstacle: only
then does a potential for upward motion that is prior to its actual
upward motion actually reside within fire. If we omit such cases of
forced or counter-natural motion, this capacity or potentiality inheres

56 When an individual fire comes into being, it immediately occupies a portion of

the highest region of the sublunar sphere.
57 On Philoponus as “deceiving himself (gali†a) and others (gala†a)” in the context of
the argument from finite power, cf. YaÌya b. ‘Adi, Maqalat al-falsafiyya, p. 322 Îalifat,
cited by J.L. KRAEMER, “A Lost Passage from Philoponus’ Contra Aristotelem in Arabic
Translation,” in: Journal of the American Oriental Society 85.3 (1965), pp. 318-327, esp.
p. 320.

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not in the movable object itself, but in that out of which the thing
in motion comes to be. Fire’s potential for motion, for instance, does
not inhere in fire,58 but in the oil or fire out of which the fire comes
into being.
In order to improve our understanding of these two obscure frag-
ments, I believe we must have recourse to the remains of Philoponus’
Contra Aristotelem, as preserved in Simplicius’ commentary on Physics,
VIII, 1.59
In fr. 109 Wildberg, Philoponus sets forth his argument that some
things acquire their natural motion as soon as they come into being.
Such things are movable (kinjtá) and capable of being moved (duná-
mena kine⁄sqai),60 but in their case, motion is not preceded by realities
that have a merely potential existence (oû proÓpárxei t±v kinßsewv tà
prágmata dunámei mónon ∫nta). If fire comes into existence in some
low-lying place, argues Philoponus, it instantly receives the property
of upward locomotion (t®n êpì tò ãnw forán), and when water is
formed in clouds it instantly tends to move downward (i.e., in the
form of rain), unless it is impeded (eî mß ti kwlúsei).
Next, Simplicius tells us, Philoponus seems to be answering the
objection (¿sper ∂nstasin lúwn) that wood, which is potentially fire,
pre-exists fire’s upward motion, so that Aristotle’s doctrine that what
is movable must preexist motion would be saved. Philoponus has a
couple of ripostes against this view. First, Aristotle’s definition (“the
entelechy of the movable qua movable”) concerns motion, but the
change from wood to fire is generation, not (local) motion: wood
does not possess upward motion until it perishes and is transformed
into fire. It is true that generation does not take place without motion,
but upward motion is nevertheless not the actualization of wood’s
potentiality.
Increasingly exasperated with Philoponus’ stupidity, Simplicius
goes on to report additional arguments set forth by the man he con-
temptuously calls “the Grammarian,” who thinks he has proved that
what is capable of being moved (tò dunámenon kine⁄sqai) is not what

58 In loco non est ed. I conjecture in igne non est.

59 SIMPLICIUS, In Phys., pp. 1133, 20-1138, 11.
60 Cf. ARISTOTLE, Physics, 8, 1, 251a9-10: ânagka⁄on ãra üpárxein tà prágmata tà
dunámena kine⁄sqai kaq’ ëkástjn.

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 288 M. CHASE

preexists, such as wood, but fire itself. Philoponus now proceeds by

reductio, arguing that if upward motion were the entelechy of wood,
then fire and wood, which are contraries, would have the same entel-
echy. Wood, moreover, would wind up with two contrary entelechies:
downward motion qua wood, and upward motion qua fire. Summing
up his reasons for denying that the potential for fire’s upward motion
pre-exists in wood, Philoponus lays down a set of rules. For an object
A to be described as potentially movable (kinjtón) by motion m, in
the sense that what is capable of walking (badistikón) is man, not the
elements of which he is made up, the following conditions must hold:
1. A must be proximately movable by motion m;
2. it must be exclusively through A’s nature that A is movable by
motion m; and
3. A must not perish as a result of motion m.
If m = motion upward, then these conditions do not hold when A =
wood, but they do when A = fire.
Motion is thus the entelechy of the proximate capacity. It follows
that what is potentially movable upwards (tò dunámei kinjtón) is not
wood but fire. But fire moves upward as soon as it comes into exist-
ence. Therefore, it is false that what is potentially movable temporally
pre-exists motion in act.
When he sets about refuting these arguments, Simplicius pounces
on the point that Philoponus admits that things like fire and water
are preceded by their generation, so that in this sense every motion is
indeed preceded by another motion, although Simplicius denies that
this is a crucial element in Aristotle’s proof of the eternity of the
world. But his main response (In Phys., p. 1136, 1ff.) is to invoke the
concept of the twofold nature of what is capable of being moved (tò
dunámenon kine⁄sqai). On the one hand, there is that which has the
perfect capacity — let us call it dunamis2 — that projects activity (tò
t®n teleían ∂xon dúnamin t®n probljtik®n t±v ênergeíav): for instance,
the capacity, always accompanied by actuality, that fire has for mov-
ing upward. The other variety of what is capable of motion — we
will call it dunamis1 — is what tends toward but does not yet possess
such perfect capacity. If we compare with our Table 3, we can see at
a glance that the doctrine of the twofold dunamis is, as it were, the
counterpart of the theory of the twofold entelechy.

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Thus, according to Simplicius, when Aristotle says that what is capa-

ble of being moved preexists motion, he is referring to dunamis1, viz.
that which tends to actualize its potentiality but has not yet fully done
so. Ignorant of this distinction, Philoponus thinks he can refute Aris-
totle by showing that in the case of fire and water, motion co-exists
with what is capable of being moved according to dunamis2. In other
words, whereas Aristotle’s point was to argue that dunamis1 must pre-
exist motion, Philoponus stupidly tries to refute him by proving that
dunamis2 does not pre-exist motion, but is simultaneous therewith.
He fails to understand that fire has the capacity for upward motion in
the sense of dunamis2, whereas wood has it in the sense of dunamis1,
and that wood has upward motion potentially (dunámei), insofar as it
tends to become fire, while fire has it in act (kat’ ênérgeian).
I believe this argumentation sheds at least some light on Averroes’
text, and hence on Thomas Aquinas’ adaptations of it.
Our Text 9, again from the long commentary on the Physics, occurs
in the context of the discussion of whether the celestial body or the
outermost sphere is or is not in place. Aristotle61 had declared that
what has nothing outside of it cannot be in a place. But the eighth
and outermost celestial sphere is not contained, i.e., it has nothing
outside it. It therefore ought not to be in place, and therefore ought
not to move. Yet it clearly does move, carrying out one revolution
every 24 hours. What is more, to deny that the outermost sphere is
in place seems to contradict the De caelo (I, 2), where Aristotle affirms
that all the celestial spheres move in place.62
We are thus, according to Averroes, faced with two alternatives:
either we affirm that there is a motion that does not occur in a place,
or we accept the existence of the void, and that space is an interval.
Philoponus, we are told, opted for the latter alternative, yet he held
that the void was inseparable from bodies.63 Aristotle, for his part,

61 Physics, IV, 5, 212a231-32.

62 M. RASHED, “Alexandre d’Aphrodise et la Magna Quaestio. Rôle et indépendance
des scholies dans la tradition byzantine du corpus aristotélicien,” in: Les Études classiques
63 (1995), 295-351, reprinted in IDEM, L’Héritage aristotélicien. Textes inédits de l’Anti-
quité, Paris 2007, pp. 85-141, esp. p. 95.
63 This citation, corresponding to Philoponus’ In Phys. (Corollarium de loco, CAG 17,
568-569), suggests that Averroes had at least partial access to the Arabic translation of
Philoponus’ commentary on the Physics. For additional instances, see GLASNER, Averroes’
Physics, p. 23 n. 12.

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 290 M. CHASE

said the heaven is in place by accident, which caused embarrassment

to his commentators.
Themistius attempted to solve the difficulty by claiming that the
heaven is in place by virtue of its parts, not as a whole, where by
“parts” he understood the celestial spheres contained by the outer-
most sphere. Each of these spheres moves around the convex or exter-
nal surface of the sphere it surrounds, and this latter, inner sphere can
therefore be said to “contain” the sphere that surrounds it, albeit from
within. The outer sphere is also in place if one considers what it
contains. It is therefore better to say that the entire celestial body is
in place by virtue of the parts in its concavity, and/or because all of
its parts except the last one (the outermost sphere) are in place.
Themistius’ solution, says Averroes, was not without its difficulties.
It is not clear how something can be at rest if all its parts are in motion.
In addition, Aristotle himself states in Physics VI that the sphere
moves as a whole (in which case its change of place is only according
to form) and by its parts (in which case its change of place is accord-
ing to form and substrate). Themistius’ explanation that the sphere
is not in place in a simple or absolute sense, because the sphere does
not move as a whole, but only by parts, will therefore not withstand
careful scrutiny.
Following Themistius, Averroes goes on to report the ancient
debate over whether the heaven is in a place accidentally or by virtue
of its parts. He quotes the view of Ibn Bajja: Although bodies that
move in a straight line are in a place only if they are contained exter-
nally by another body, this is not the case for spherical bodies. The
latter have as their place the surface of the body they revolve around.
The place of a rectilinear body, which is terminated by a round body,
is thus external, while the place of a spherical body, which terminates
in itself and is perfect in that it admits of no increase or diminution,
is internal. All bodies are therefore in place simply and essentially,
rather than accidentally or by virtue of its parts. This view of Ibn
Bajja, Averroes concludes, is in fact the view of Farabi, who adopted
the stance of contradicting the aporiai of John Philoponus.
This lengthy and difficult text calls for a few remarks. First, like
several other of the texts we’ve examined (cf. Texts 1, 2, 6, 7) we note
the mention of the name of Farabi. Half of these texts specify that
the Farabian work in question was the On Changing Beings, a work

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 PHILOPONUS’ COSMOLOGY IN THE ARABIC TRADITION 291

which, as Marwan Rashed has shown, seems to have been devoted to

refuting the arguments against the eternity of the world set forth by
Philoponus is his Contra Aristotelem. Although Steinschneider64 clas-
sified our text as a possible testimony to a commentary by Farabi on
the Physics, it seems more likely that Averroes read this testimony,
too, in Farabi’s On Changing Beings, one of the works in which the
Second Master posuit se contradicentem quaestionibus Ioannis.
Second, the research of Marwan Rashed has carefully traced the
history of the solution according to which the sphere of fixed stars is
“in” the sphere of Saturn, therefore “contained” by it, with the result
that the convex or external surface of the sphere of Saturn is the
“place” of the sphere of fixed stars. First suggested by Galen, this view
was combated by Alexander of Aphrodisias, and later picked up by
Themistius, who in turn was followed by Ibn Bajja and Farabi. For
Simplicius, heaven is in place in the sense that it surrounds the center
of the universe, which is essentially in place. This, as Rashed remarks,
is remarkably similar to Averroes’ solution. Rashed65 briefly considers
the hypothesis that this convergence may be explained by common
recourse to the commentary on the Physics by Porphyry, but rules out
this possibility on the grounds that Averroes never cites such a com-
mentary. In any case, this is, I think, a good example of the way the
study of the Greek commentary tradition of Late Antiquity can help
to shed light on the study of the commentaries Averroes, and hence
on the thought of Aquinas, who so often follows the great Cordoban.

Conclusion
The goal of this survey, incomplete as it is, has been to emphasize
once again the importance of the thought of John Philoponus for the
understanding of the physical and cosmological doctrines of Averroes.

64 M. STEINSCHNEIDER, “Al-Farabi (Alpharabius) des arabischen Philosophen Leben

und Schriften, mit besonderer Rücksicht auf die Geschichte der griechischen Wissenschaft
unter den Arabern,” in: Mémoires de l’académie impériale des sciences de St. Pétersbourg,
VIIe série, XIII 4, Saint Pétersbourg 1869 (reprint. Amsterdam 1966), p. 136.
65 M. RASHED, “Alexandre d’Aphrodise et la Magna Quaestio,” p. 130 n. 131.
Rashed’s own view is that the Simplicius-Averroes explanation is in fact correct, and “dans
cette sorte de stemmatique philosophique, seules les «erreurs» sont signifiantes.” One may
feel that this amounts to sidestepping the question.

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 292 M. CHASE

Averroes’ main source for Philoponus’ works seems to have been

Farabi’s lost work On Changing Beings, although it is hard to say
whether Averroes knew this work first-hand, or only through the
intermediary of Ibn Bajja.
As has been pointed out by previous scholars, the overall tendency
of Averroes’ attitude toward what he knows of Philoponus’ doctrines
is negative. Following Farabi and Ibn Bajja, he regards Philoponus as
the originator of mistaken views on the finitude and created nature
of the cosmos. This is perhaps not terribly surprising: one would not
expect Averroes, an unconditional admirer of Aristotle, to have much
patience with a man who set out to refute the Stagirite. For Averroes,
Philoponus is the distant ancestor of the philosophy of the Kalam,66
a view in which he may not have been too far off the mark, if one
may judge, for instance, by the way Ghazali adopted many of Philo-
ponus’ anti-Aristotelian arguments in his Tahafut al-Falasifah.67
Despite the considerable progress made over the last generation or
so by such scholars as Puig, Glasner and Rashed (to name but a few),
it remains true, as Van den Bergh wrote in 1954, that “on the whole
the importance of the commentators of Aristotle for Arabic and medi-
eval philosophy in general has not yet been sufficiently acknowledged.”68
Much work is still to be done, and a careful scrutiny of the late Peri-
patetic Neoplatonic commentaries of the Physics may well still a good
deal more light on the physical doctrines of Averroes, Albertus Mag-
nus, and Thomas Aquinas.69 We may well have to re-elaborate certain
communes opiniones, such as the one that holds that Simplicius’ Com-
mentary on the Physics was unknown to the Arab world. Despite the
silence of the Arabic bio-bibliographical tradition, the numerous quasi-
literal parallels between Simplicius’ commentary on Physics, VIII,
1 and certain fragments of Farabi’s On Changing Beings render this

66 Cf. AVERROES, Questions in Physics, Question Seven, p. 28 GOLDSTEIN, who speaks

of “[…] objections which the Mutakallimûn of our religion took over from Plato and
those speculative thinkers who followed his doctrine, such as John Philoponus and oth-
ers.”
67 See above, n. 6.
68 VAN DEN BERGH, Averroes’ Tahafut al-Tahafut, pp. xviii.
69 I am not convinced, for instance, that Puig’s influential analyses of Simplicius’
distinctions between two forms of potentiality, and his introduction of a third, intermedi-
ary stage (In Phys., p. 1128, 30ff.) are entirely accurate. I hope to return to this point
elsewhere.

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 PHILOPONUS’ COSMOLOGY IN THE ARABIC TRADITION 293

assumption increasingly implausible. It was H. Gätje’s fundamental

article70 that transformed this view into a virtually unquestioned
axiom. Yet although Puig remarks71 that Farabi often seems to be fol-
lowing Simplicius’ arguments very closely, Glasner,72 who subscribes
to Gätje’s axiom, is forced to assume that Averroes “thought up this
solution (that the potentiality of fire resides in the wood) in order to
brush off Philoponus’ criticism.” Yet since a virtually identical solution
was given by Simplicius in his commentary on Physics, VIII, 1
(cf. p. 1136, 20ff.), surely the much more economical and plausible
hypothesis is that Averroes was indeed aware of Simplicius’ arguments
against Philoponus, albeit indirectly, whether by way of Farabi and/or
Ibn Bajja, or by other channels that have yet to be identified.

70 H. GÄTJE, “Simplikios in der arabischen Überlieferung,” in: Der Islam 59 (1982),

pp. 6-31. Yet even Gätje concedes (p. 14) that the parallels between the works of Averroes
and Simplicius’ commentaries on the Physics and the De caelo are numerous. Cf.
M. CHASE, “The Medieval Posterity of Simplicius’ Commentary on the Categories:
Thomas Aquinas and al-Fârâbî,” in: L.A. NEWTON (ed.), Medieval Commentaries on Aris-
totle’s Categories, Leiden 2008, pp. 9-29.
71 PUIG MONTADA, “Bewegungsdefinition,” p. 158.
72 GLASNER, Averroes’ Physics, p. 91.

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Philoponus in the Arabo-Latin Tradition

Tables

Table 1

Table 2

Modes in which origin of goal of relation type of motion

motum is prior to motion motion between
motus two mota
Mode One motum1 motum2 different generation /
(e.g., wood) (e.g., fire) corruption;
→ translation
Mode Two motum1 motum2 same actualization of
(e.g., fire) → (e.g., fire) a potentiality

Table 3: The doctrine of the double entelechy

Type of entelechy characteristics grammatical

equivalent
Entelechy2 has achieved completed/perfect stative-perfective
form; cast off all potentiality (kekínjtai)
Entelechy1 has begun but not completed its present
motion; maintains its potentiality (kine⁄tai)

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 PHILOPONUS’ COSMOLOGY IN THE ARABIC TRADITION 295

Table 4: The doctrine of the twofold dúnamiv

Type of dúnamiv/ characteristics example

potentia
Dunamis2 projects activity/actuality fire’s dúnamiv for upward
(perfect) (ênérgeia) motion
(always exercized)
Dunamis1 tends toward but does not wood’s dúnamiv for
(imperfect) yet possess perfect capacity becoming fire
(not yet actualized)

Philoponus in the Arabo-Latin Tradition: Appendix: Texts

Pinax

Text 1 = Averroes, Epit. Phys., VIII, 251b28-252 a6, p. 234 ff. Puig
Text 2 = Averroes, Long in Metaph., XII, comm. 18, vol. III p. 1497, 7 ff.
Bouyges = p. 108-109 Genequand
Text 3 = Averroes, Long in Metaph., XII, comm. 41 ad Metaph., XII, 7,
1073a3-13, vol. III, p. 1628 10 ff. Bouyges = p. 248 Martin = p. 163
ff. Genequand
Text 3a = Averroes, Middle in De caelo, I, quaestio, Vol. V, 293v, G ff.
Text 4 = Averroes, Long in De caelo, II, comm. 71 p. 408, 29 ff. Carmody
Text 4a = Averroes, De substantia orbis, ch. 5, f. 11a.
Text 5 = Averroes, Long in Phys., VIII, 4, comm. 79, 426va-427ra (ad Phys.,
VIII, 10, 266a27 ff.).
Text 6 = Averroes, Long in De caelo, I, comm. 8, p. 19, 54-68 Carmody
Text 7 = Averroes, Long in Phys., VIII, 1, comm. 4, 340 I ff.
Text 8 = Averroes, Long in De caelo, IV, comm. 24, p. 705, 156-161 Carmody
Text 9 = Averroes, Long in Phys., IV, comm. 43, 141 F ff.

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 296 M. CHASE

Text 1: Averroes, Epit. Phys., VIII, 251b28-252a6, pp. 234-235 Puig

Platón y todos los que le siguen, pertenecientes al Kalam, tanto de nuestra
religión como de la cristiana, así como todo el que afirma la producción contin-
gente del mundo, se imaginaron lo que es por accidente como por esencia. Por
esta razón afirmaron la existencia de un movimiento primero en el tiempo, pero
no pudieron eludir el hecho que antes del mismo hubiera otro movimiento y
aunque intentaron encontrar una solución a esta aporía, no lo consiguieron. La
mayoría remitió este problema a Aristóteles, diciendo que su intención en este
lugar era demostrar que antes de cada movimiento hay otro, y que solamente
con este fin introdujo la definición del movimiento, tal como se imaginan Abû
NaÒr en su libro «Sobre los entes cambiantes» y los demás que le siguieron, tales
como Ibn Sina y Abu Bakr ibn aÒ-∑a’ig. Antes de todos ellos Juan el Gramático ya
se lo imaginó, pues empezó a refutar a Aristóteles, por cuanto éste suponía que antes
de cada movimiento hay otro, por esencia.

Text 2: Averroes, Long in Metaph., XII, comm. 18, f. 413b15 = vol. IV, p. 1497,
7ff. Bouyges = p. 108-109 Genequand:
This question is extremely difficult and obscure and we shall explain it to the
best of our abilities and according to the premises and principles which have
been established in our science by the doctrine of the man whose doctrine, in
the words of Alexander, is the least subject to doubts, the most adequate to
being, the most adapted and suited to it and the most free of contradictions. We
say: all people who posit an efficient cause and generation are in general divided,
as we have found, into two schools diametrically opposed and between which
there are intermediate schools. The two diametrically opposed schools are that
of those who maintain the latent (ahl al-kumun) and that of those who maintain
creation and invention (ahl al-ibda‘ wa-l-iÌtira‘). The supporters of the latent
say that everything is in everything and that becoming is merely the emergence
of things one from another and that the agent is merely the emergence of things one
from another73 and that the agent is only needed in becoming in order to cause
things to emerge one from another and to separate them one from another. It
is evident that for them the agent is nothing more than a /1498/ mover. The
supporters of invention and creation say that the agent produces the whole world
and creates it completely and that the existence of a matter on which to act is
not a condition of his action, but he creates everything. This is the view well-
known among the theologians (mutakallimun) of our religion and of the religion
of the Christians, so that the Christian John the Grammarian believes that there is

73 As far as I can tell, there is nothing in the Arabic corresponding to the phrase in
italics. A. MARTIN (Averroès Grand Commentaire de la Métaphysique, Livre Lam-Lambda,
Paris 1994, pp. 133) gives what appears to be the correct translation, leaving out the phrase
in question: “Les partisans de la «création latente» disent que tout est dans tout, que la
génération n’est que la sortie des choses les unes des autres et que l’agent n’intervient dans la
génération que pour faire sortir <les êtres> les uns des autres et pour les distinguer entre eux.”

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 PHILOPONUS’ COSMOLOGY IN THE ARABIC TRADITION 297

no possibility except in the agent,74 according to what Abu NaÒr says <in> On
Changing Beings.

Text 3: Averroes, Long in Metaph., XII, comm. 41 ad Metaph., XII, 7, 1073a3-

13, t. III, p. 1628 10ff. Bouyges = p. 248 Martin = p. 163ff. Genequand
Translation Genequand
John the Grammarian raised strong objections against the Peripatetics concern-
ing this problem. He says: “If every body has a finite power and the heaven is a
body, then it will have a finite power; but everything finite is necessarily cor-
ruptible, so that the heaven is corruptible. If it is said that it acquires incorrupt-
ibility from the eternal separate power, there will be something destructible but
eternal. But this has been shown to be impossible at the end of the first book of
De caelo et mundo.”

Text 3a: Averroes, Middle in De caelo, I, quaestio, Vol. V, f. 293G ff.

293G
Sed ardua hic superest quaestio, eo
quod ostensum est non dari aeter-
num corruptibile, cui ne aliqua cor-
ruptionis potentia insit: ostensum
quoque est cuiusque corporis poten-
tiam esse finitam, sive rectum fuerit
corpus, sive rotundum, eo quod idip-
sum finitum est magnitudine. Quod
cum ita fuerit, coeleste corpus utique,
quia magnitudine finitum est, ideo ut
potentia id finitum esse necesse est.
&, quia potentia finitum, ideo possi-
bile est ut corrumpatur ex se, incor-
ruptibile vero propter infinitam poten-
tiam, quae abstracta a materia eius
H H
demque motrix virtus existit. Et hoc
plane in quibusdam suis sermonibus
censuit Alexander, & eius in hoc
comes fuit Avicen. dicens ipsum
necesse esse duplicem habere modum,
unum, quo per seipsum necessarium
est, alterum, quo per se quidem pos-
sibile est, necessarium vero ab alio.
Yet here a difficult question remains,
since it has been shown that there is
nothing eternal and corruptible in
which no capacity for corruption
inheres. It has also been shown that
the power of every body is finite,
whether the body be rectilinear or
round,75 since it is of finite size. This
being so, it is necessary that the celes-
tial body as a whole, since it is finite
in size, be finite in power. And since
it is finite in power, it is possible that
it may be corrupted from itself, but
incorruptible owing to the infinite
power which, separate from its matter,
is its motive force. This is what Alexan-
der clearly thought in some of his
works, and Avicenna went along with
him in this, saying that being-necessary
itself has two modes of existence, one
that is necessary by itself, and another
through which it is possible in itself,
but necessary from something else.

74 …annahu laysa hahuna imkan illa fi al-fa’il faqa†.

75 That is, whether it is a body moving in a straight line (the elements) or in a circle
(the spheres and the fifth element, ether).

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 298 M. CHASE

Text 4: Averroes, Long in De caelo, II, comm. 71:

Johannes autem dedit hanc quaestio-
nem Peripateticis tali modo quod non
possunt evadere ea, secundum quod
concedunt quod in isto corpore celesti
est potentia finita, quoniam si illic
sint due potentie, finita scilicet et
infinita, continget ut secundum fini-
tam sit corruptibile et secundum
infinitam incorruptibile.
Averrois Commentaria Magna in Aris-
totelem De celo et mundo 2 vols., ed.
F.J. Carmody – R. Arnzen, Leuven
2003, p. 408, 29ff.
John, however, transmitted this ques-
tion to the Peripatetics in such a way
that they cannot avoid these issues
insofar as they concede that there is
finite potentiality in this celestial
body. For if there are two potentialities
there, viz. finite and infinite, the result
will be that it will be corruptible
according to the finite one, and incor-
ruptible according to the infinite one.

Text 4a: Averroes, De substantia orbis, ch. 5, f. 11A76:

Joannes autem dedit quaestionem, de
qua plures consyderantes non
potuerunt evadere, dixit enim si mun-
dus est finitus, debet habere poten-
tiam finitam, igitur est generabilis et
corruptibilis etc. et scias quod haec
quaestio est valde bona.
A. Hyman (ed.), Averroes’ De substan-
tia orbis. Critical edition of the
Hebrew text with English translaton
and commentary, Cambridge / Jeru-
salem 1986, p. 121-122:
And John has raised a question con-
cerning the eternity of the world, and
many of those who speculated on
these matters found it difficult to
evade this question. It is: if the world
is eternal it must necessarily possess
an infinite potentiality. On the other
hand, Aristotle showed that the world
is finite [in extension], and since it is
finite, it has a finite power. Whence it
follows that the world must be gener-
ated and corruptible.

Text 5: Averroes, Long in Phys., VIII, 4, comm. 79, 426 I ff.

Averrois in eos [i.e. Aristotelis de Physico
auditu libros octo] Prooemium, antea

76 Cf. also M. ALONSO, “Comentario al “De substantia orbis” de Averroes (Aristo-

telismo y Averroismo) por Alvaro de Toledo,” reprinted in: Two Texts by Ibn Rushd in
Their Medieval Latin Translation: De substantia orbis (Fi l-jawhar al-falak?) and Epistula
ad amicum (Δamima), Frankfurt a.M. 2007, p. 268.

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 PHILOPONUS’ COSMOLOGY IN THE ARABIC TRADITION 299

quidem difficillimum, nunc autem ad

426 I
In propositione autem assumpta hic,
qua dicitur quod omnis corporis est
potentia finita, dubitari potest, utrum
contineat corpus coeleste, aut non. Si
enim continet
J J
corpus coeleste, tunc corporis coelestis
erit potentia finita: cuius autem est
potentia finita, est corruptibile. Simi-
liter dubitatur de propositione, qua
utitur in declaratione huius, quod
omnis corporis est potentia finita, quia
scilicet dicitur quod, si esset potentia
infinita, contingeret quod motus esset
in instanti.77 Dicet nam aliquis, ut qui-
dem78 Ari. dicit consequens esse, si
potentia corporea habet actionem
infinitam, ipsam agere non in tem-
pore: & non esse79 sequens, si actio
infinita sit potentiae non corporeae,
quod agat non in tempore. Prima qui
K K
dem questio valde difficilis est, &
multum scrupulosa. Et Alex. in qui-
busdam suis tractatibus respondens
di<cit> corpus coeleste adeptum fuisse
aeternitatem a suo motore, qui non est
maximam redactum facilitatem, tum ex
Iacob Mantini nova translatione, tum ex
antiqua castigatissima. Commentaria in
eosdem magna […] (Aristotelis Opera
cum Averrois Commentariis, Venetiis
1562 [reprinted Frankfurt a.M. 1962],
Vol. IV, ff. 1r-5r and 5v-433v).
In the proposition assumed here,
however, in which it is said that the
power of every body is finite, it may
be doubted whether this includes the
celestial body or not. For if it includes
the celestial body, then the celestial body
will have finite power: but that whose
power is finite is corruptible. Doubts are
likewise raised about the proposition
used in this declaration, that the power
of every body is finite, because, that is, it
is said that if its power were infinite, the
result would be motion in an instant.
For someone might say, as Aristotle
actually says, that it follows that if a cor-
poreal power has infinite action, it does
not take place in time. But it does not
follow that if infinite action belongs to
an incorporeal power, it must act out-
side of time. Now, the former
question is difficult indeed and most
subtle. Alexander, responding in some
of his treatises, says that the celestial
body has acquired immortality from
its motor, which is not in matter;

77 Cf. Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, 1, 20, 12; Summa theol., I, 105, 2, arg. 3:
“Praeterea philosophus probat in VIII Physic. quod potentia infinita movet in instanti.
Sed impossibile est aliquod corpus in instanti moveri, quia, cum omnis motus sit inter
opposita, sequeretur quod duo opposita simul inessent eidem; quod est impossibile. Ergo
corpus non potest immediate moveri a potentia infinita. Potentia autem Dei est infinita,
ut supra habitum est. Ergo Deus non potest immediate movere aliquod corpus.”
78 quidem: quid ed. I am grateful to Guy Guldentops for this conjecture.
79 esse Guldentops: est se ed.

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 300 M. CHASE
in materia: secundum hoc ergo erit
aliquid, quod potest corrumpi, &
tamen nunquam corrumpetur. &
haec Platonis est opinio, scilicet aliq-
uid aeternum esse, quod potest cor-
rumpi. Arist. autem in fine primi li.
de Coe. & mundo probavit impossi-
bile esse aeternum, cui insit potentia
ad corruptionem80.
Ioannes autem Grammaticus hanc
sibi retinuit quaestionem contra Peri-
pateticos in eo, quod opinatur quod
mundus sit corruptibilis, et genera-
L L
bilis. Et haec dubitatio est fortior
omnibus dubitationibus quae possunt
accidere his: maxime cum Arist.
expresse dicit in secundo de Coelo, &
mundo quod Coeli est potentia finita:
ubi reddit causam quare non insunt
Coelo stellae maiores his quae insunt
illi. si enim (dicit) hoc esset, fatigaret.
Text 6: Averroes, Long in De caelo, I, comm. 8:
Averrois Commentaria Magna in Aris-
totelem De celo et mundo, 2 vols., ed.
F.J. Carmody – R. Arnzen, Leuven
2003, p. 19, 54-68
Et laboravit Iohannes Grammaticus
secundum quod narravit Alfarabius in
contradicendo propositioni dicenti
quod omnis motus simplex idem
secundum speciem est corporis sim-
plicis eiusdem secundum speciem ex
hoc quod cum in corporibus diversis
secundum speciem invenitur unus
motus specie, verbi gratia quia in aere
et igne invenitur unus motus in spe-
cie, similiter fingit de terra et aqua;
quapropter non sequitur ut omnis
80 Aristotle, De caelo, 283a24ff., with the commentary of Thomas Aquinas, De caelo
et Mundo, Lectio 29.
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thus, there will be something that can
be corrupted, and yet never will be
corrupted. This is Plato’s opinion:
that there is something eternal that
can be corrupted. Aristotle, however,
at the end of book I of the On the
Heavens, proved it is impossible for
something that has the potential to be
corrupted to be eternal. John the
Grammarian, however, recalled this
question against the Peripatetics,
insofar as he believes that the world is
corruptible and gener-
ated. This doubt is stronger than any
doubt that can occur to them, espe-
cially because Aristotle expressly
stated in book II of the On the Heav-
ens that the heaven’s power is finite,
where he gives the cause why there are
no more stars in the heaven than it
actually has; for if it did [have more],
he says, it would grow tired.
According to what Farabi recounts,
John the Grammarian strove to con-
tradict the proposition that every sim-
ple motion that is identical in kind
belongs to a simple body that is identi-
cal in kind, on the grounds that
motion that is one in kind is found in
bodies that differ in kind. For instance,
since motion that is one in kind is
found in air and fire, he imagines the
same thing holds true of earth and
water. Therefore, it does not follow
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 PHILOPONUS’ COSMOLOGY IN THE ARABIC TRADITION 301

unus motus specie habeat unum cor-
pus in specie proprium. Et hoc qui-
dem quod dixit non est ita: motus
enim ignis esset idem cum motu aeris
si moverentur ad eundem locum spe-
cie, quia iam dictum est quod motus
unus specie est qui ad unum locum
specie est: locum autem ignis neces-
sario differt a loco aeris; et ideo si aer
poneretur in loco ignis, descenderet
ad inferius, similiter de motu aque et
terre, scilicet quod specie differunt in
se propter diversitatem suorum loco-
rum.
that every motion that is one in kind
has one body proper to it in kind.
But what he says is not so, for <in that
case> the motion of fire would be
identical to the motion of air, if they
moved to a place that was the same in
kind, for it has already been said that
motion that is one in kind is that
which is toward a place that is one in
kind. But the place of fire necessarily
differs from the place of air, and there-
fore if air were placed in the place of
fire, it would go downward. The same
holds true of the motion of water and
earth, viz. that they differ from each
other owing to the diversity of their
places.

Text 7: Averroes, Long in Phys., VIII, 1, comm. 4, 340 I ff. (commenting on

Phys., VIII, 251a9 ff. (in marg.: Expositio Alfarabij)
Et intelligendum est ex hoc quod
motum est prius tempore motu duo-
bus modis. Quorum unus est motum,
in quo est potentia, sit alterius speciei
à specie moti, in quo est ipse motus.
Secundus est, ut illud mobile, in quo
est potentia ad motum, sit motum in
ac-
340M
tu, scilicet quod motum in potentia
est idem in numero cum moto in
actu. Primus autem modus invenitur
in duobus, scilicet in motu genera-
tionis, & corruptionis, & in motibus
translationis, quae est corporum sim-
plicium. motus enim, cuius generatio
est finis, & complementum, suum
subiectum est illud, ex quo est gen-
It is to be understood from this that
the moved thing is prior to motion in
two ways: One of these is that the
object in motion containing potenti-
ality is of another kind than the kind
of object in motion in which the
motion itself is present.81 The second
is that that movable thing containing
the potential for motion is moved in
340M
act; that is, what is potentially moved
is numerically identical with what is
moved in act.82 The first mode is found
in two <kinds of motion>: in the
motion of generation and corruption,
and in the motions of the translation of
simple bodies. For the motion that has
generation as its end and fulfillment
has as its subject that out of which

81 For instance, wood, containing the potential for motion upward is distinct from
fire, which is actually in motion upwards.
82 In the case of burning fire, potential and actuality are constantly linked. Simplicius
(In Phys., p. 1136, 1ff.) refers to this variety of mobile as “that which has the perfect capac-
ity that projects actuality” (tò t®n teleían ∂xon dúnamin t®n probljtik®n t±v ênergeíav).

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 302 M. CHASE

eratio: & similiter est de corruptione.
subiectum vero motus translationis
elementorum, in quo est potentia
praecedens hunc motum in tempore,
341A
est corpus, ex quo est generatio ele-
menti. v. g. quia, quando ignis gen-
eratur secundum totum, statim habet
ubi, quod est superius secundum
totum: & dum generatur pars singula
illius, statim habet singulam partem
illius ubi. Potentia igitur istius motus
non est in subiecto, quod est ignis in
actu, sed in subiecto, ex quo generatur
ignis, v.g. igne combusto, aut oleo
inflammato. Et hoc ignoravit Joannes
Grammaticus. & existimavit, quod
quaedam potentiarum invenitur cum
illo ad quod est potentia.
comes generation, and the same holds
true for corruption. But the subject of
the translational local motion of the
elements, in which there is a potential-
ity temporally preceding this motion,
341A
is the body out of which the genera-
tion of the element takes place.83 For
instance, when fire is generated as
whole, it immediately has a place,84
which is above as a whole, and when
an individual part of it is generated, it
mmediately has a singular part of that
place. The potentiality for this motion
therefore does not reside in the subject
constituted by the fire in act, but in
the subject out of which the fire is gen-
erated, such as burning fire or flaming
oil. John the Grammarian was igno-
rant of this, and considered that some
potentiality is found together with that
for which it is the potentiality.85

Text 8: Averroes, Long in De caelo, IV, comm. 24, p. 705, 156-161 Carmody
– Arnzen:
Averr. long in De celo IV, comm. 24
p. 705, 156-161, ed. F.J. Carmody –
R. Arnzen
Et ideo erravit Iohannes, et dixit quod
inventi sunt motus in substantiis sine
potentia antecedenti secundum tem-
pus existente illis substantiis; et dic-
tum fuit ei quod potentia precedens
hoc motum non est in moto nisi vio-
lente, sed est in ea re ex qua fit mota
res, verbi gratia quod potentia ad
John was therefore in error when he
said that motions have been found in
substances without the existence in
them of any temporally antecedent
potential. He said this because the
potential preceding that object in
motion does not exist in the object in
motion except by force, but it is in

83 In other words, in the case of fire, the potential preceding it is situated in the wood
or oil from which it comes into being.
84 Latin ubi, literally “a where”. I follow the translation of PUIG MONTADA, “Bewe-
gungsdefinition,” p. 157: “ein Platz”.
85 In other words, Philoponus argued that as soon as some elemental bodies, such as
fire, come into existence, they immediately possess the power, force, faculty or capacity
(Latin potentia, Greek dúnamiv, Arabic quwwa or imkan) of motion upwards.

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 PHILOPONUS’ COSMOLOGY IN THE ARABIC TRADITION 303

motum ignis in loco non est sed in
illo ex quo ignis fit, ut oleo aut ligno.
the thing out of which the thing in
motion comes to be. For instance, the
potential for moving fire is not in a
place, but in that out of which the fire
comes to be, as in oil or wood.

Text 9: Averroes, Long in Phys., IV, comm. 43, 141F ff.86

141E
…accidit in eo magna quaestio, quo-
niam manifestum est ipsum moveri:
&, cum omne motum sit in loco,
necesse est ut totus orbis sit in loco.
ergo sumus inter duo, aut ponere
quod aliquod motum non est in loco,
aut ponere quod
141F
locus est inane, & dimensio. Ioannes
vero propter hoc obedit huic, s. locum
esse, & dimensionem, & vacuum,
non finem continentem, ut dicit
Arist. licet apud ipsum non possit
inane separari a corpore.87 quoniam
dicentes vacuum esse, sunt bipartiti.
alii namque dicunt ipsum separari a
corporibus, & alii non, quorum est
Ioannes grammaticus. Et Arist. dicit,
cum hoc post, quod coelum, et anima
sunt in loco per accidens. & in hoc
dubitaverunt omnes expositores.
Themistius vero dicit respondendo
quod corpus coeleste non est in loco
secundum totum, sed secundum partes,
sive secundum
An important question arises with regard
to it [the external celestial sphere]: since
it obviously moves, and since all that is
moved is in place, the entire orb must be
in a place. We are therefore faced by
with two alternatives: either we postulate
that there is some moved object that is
not in place, or we postulate that
F
place is a void and an interval. That is
why John believed this, viz. that place
is a dimension and a vacuum, not a
containing limit, as Aristotle says,
although for him the void cannot be
separated from bodies. Indeed, those
who say there is a vacuum are divided
into two camps: some say it can be
separated from bodies, and others that
it cannot, and John the Grammarian is
one of the latter88. And Aristotle says
later that the heaven and the soul are
in place by accident. All the interpret-
ers have raised doubts about this.
Themistius says in response that the
celestial body is not in place as a
whole, but by parts, or according to

86 This section of Averroes’ commentary is closely followed by Thomas Aquinas in

his De natura loci (Opuscule 51), vol. 5, Paris 1858, pp. 368ff. Cf. AQUINAS, In Phys.,
IV, 7, §10-15. On this topic, see C. TRIFOGLI, “Il luogo dell’ultima sfera nei commenti
tardo-antichi e medievali a Physica IV.5,” in: Giornale critico della filosofia italiana 68
(1989), pp. 144-152; EAD., Oxford Physics in the Thirteenth Century (ca. 1250-1270).
Motion, Infinity, Place and Time, Leiden 2000, pp. 192-202.
87 Cf. PHILOPONUS, In Phys. (Corollarium de loco), CAG 17, pp. 568-569.
88 For Philoponus’ views on the void as transmitted to the Arabic tradition, cf. GIAN-
NAKIS, “YaÌya ibn {Adi against John Philoponus”; J. MCGINNIS, “A penetrating question
in the history of ideas: space, dimensionality, and interpenetration in the thought of
Avicenna,” in: Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 16 (2006), pp. 46-69, esp. 53-55.

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 304 M. CHASE

G G
orbes, quos continet maximus orbis,
sicut est dispositio in toto mundo. Fin-
git namque quod causa in hoc est,
quoniam corpus coeleste non est
mobile secundum totum, sed secun-
dum partes, & apud ipsum partes coeli
sunt in loco, quia continent suas
partes, sed quia corpus altissimum, v.g.
orbis stellarum fixarum non continetur
ab aliquo, concessit quod hoc corpus
est in loco propter suas partes intrinse-
cas tantum, s. quae sunt in concavo
eius. istae namque partes moventur
circa convexum, s. convexum corporis,
circa quod revolvuntur, quasi circundet
ipsas, licet sit intra. Et hoc idem con-
tingit toti orbi, quoniam movetur mo-
141H
tu diurno, s. quod est in loco secun-
dum partes quae sunt in concavo
eius: si dixerimus quod motus stellati
est alius a motu orbis. ergo melius est
dicere quod totum corpus coeleste est
in loco, sicut dicimus in corpore
ultimo, s. secundum partes, quae sunt
in concavo. aut dicamus ipsum esse in
loco utroque modo, s. quia partes eius
sunt in loco praeter ultimum, & quia
partes concavi sunt in loco, si posu-
erimus quod motus diurnus est totius
orbis essentialiter, & non stellati. &
hoc est necesse secundum scientiam
naturalem. Et in hoc, quod dixit The-
the orbs89 contained by the greatest
orb, as is the disposition in the entire
world. Indeed, he imagines that the
reason for this is that the celestial
body is not mobile as a whole, but
according to parts, and according to
Themistius the parts of the heaven are
in a place because they contain their
parts, but because the highest body,
viz. the orb of fixed stars, is not con-
tained by anything, he conceded that
this body is in a place only because of
its internal parts, those that are in its
concavity. For these parts move
around the convex, or
around the convex <surface> of the body
around which they revolve, as though it
surrounded them, although it is internal.
And the same thing happens to the
entire orb, since it moves with
141H
a diurnal motion, that it is in place
according to the parts that are in its
concavity, if we say that the motion
of the starry sphere is different from
the motion of the orb.90 It is therefore
better to say that the entire celestial
body is in place, as we say in the case
of the ultimate body, viz. according
to the parts that are in the concavity,
or that we say that it is in place in
both ways, or that its parts are in
place except the last one, and that the
parts of the concavity are in place, if
we postulated that the diurnal motion
pertains essentially to the entire orb,
and not to the starry one. And this is
necessary according to natural sci-
ence. In what Themistius

89 THEMISTIUS, In Aristotelis physica paraphrasis, ed. H. SCHENKL, Berolini 1900,

p. 119, 23-24: ömoíwv dè kaì tò p¢n kaì tò ºlon aûtò mèn oûk ên tópwç, tà mória dé…
90 As RASHED has shown (“Alexandre d’Aphrodise et la Magna Quaestio”), this cor-
responds to the position of Alexander of Aphrodisias.

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 PHILOPONUS’ COSMOLOGY IN THE ARABIC TRADITION 305

I I
mistius, sunt quaestiones non modi-
cae.
… …
omnes igitur homines, ut apparet de
eis, non potuerant intelligere verba
Arist. recte. Avempace vero respondit
in hoc loco sic. quoniam sphaera,
secundum quod est sphaera, non est
in loco, quia aliquid extrinsecum con-
tinet illam, & quod hoc proprium est
corpori recto, non corpori
142A
rotundo, & locus sphaerae qui fingitur
ab isto, secundum quod est sphaera,
est convexum centri, circa quod
revolvitur. quasi igitur locus eius est
superficies convexi, quod continet
sphaera, & est quodam modo conti-
nens sphaeram. Et nititur dicere quod
definitio, quam induxit Arist. in loco,
quoniam est continens divisum a re88,
debet intelligi in corporibus rectis ab
extrinseco, & in rotundis ex intrin-
seco. Et dicit quod causa in hoc est.
quoniam corpus rotundum finitur per
se, & corpus rectarum dimensionum
finitur per aliud, & ideo corpora
recta, s. elementa indigent in hoc,
has said there are questions of no little
importance.
It appears from this that not all men
have been able correctly to under-
stand Aristotle’s words. Avempace,
however, responds to this passage as
follows: a sphere, qua sphere, is not in
a place because something external
contains it, and this is proper to a rec-
tilinear body, not a round
142A
body,91 and the place of the sphere
imagined by him, qua sphere, is the
convex of the hinge93 around which it
revolves. Thus, the surface of the con-
vex <body> that the sphere contains is,
as it were, its place, and in some way
it contains the sphere. And he strives
to say that the definition Aristotle
adduced of place, viz. that it is what
contains, divided from the thing, must
be understood with regard to rectilinear
bodies from outside, and in round ones
from within.94 And he says that the
reason for this is that the round body is
delimited by itself, and the body of rec-
tilinear dimensions is delimited by
something else. Rectilinear bodies or
elements are lacking in that

91 That is, bodies characterized by rectilinear motion (the four traditional elements),
or by motion in a circle (the fifth element, ether).
92 Cf. ARISTOTLE, Physics, 209b30ff., 211b1f.
93 Cf. AVERROES, Long commentary on the De caelo, comm. 27, ed. CARMODY –
ARNZEN, p. 317, 93. This reading does not seem to make much sense: assuming that the
centrum is the celestial pole, how could it have a convex element? The view which Philo-
ponus (In Aristotelis Physicorum libros, ed. H. VITELLI, Berolini 1887-1888, p. 594, 14ff.)
attributes to “commentators” is that the place of the sphere of fixed stars, as far as its parts
are concerned, is the convex surface of the inner sphere (™ kurt® êpifáneia t±v êntòv
sfaírav, that is, the external surface of the sphere of Saturn), which the parts of the fixed
sphere touch successively.
94 In other words, the place of bodies characterized by rectilinear motion is their
external limit, while the place of bodies that move in a circle, such as the sphere of fixed
stars, is its internal limit.

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 306
B B
quod finiantur corpore rotundo:
rotundum vero non indiget corpore
extrinseco, & causa in hoc est quo-
niam linea rotunda est perfecta, et
non potest recipere additionem, aut
diminutionem: linea vero recta est
diminuta. Et secundum hoc sphaera
erit in loco simpliciter, & essentia-
liter, sicut erunt corpora recta, &
omnis sphaera sphaerarum coeles-
tium, quoniam continet alia sphaera,
habebit hoc per accidens, & secun-
dum hoc omne corpus simpliciter erit
in loco essentialiter. Et videtur mihi
quod hoc, quod narravit Avempace,
est opinio Alfarabii. Alfarabius enim
est, qui posuit se contradicentem
quaestionibus Ioannis. & una illarum
quaestionum est ista, quae invenitur
in libris nostris, sicut invenitur ex
verbis Avempace, & non incidit in
manus nostras.
95 In other words, the motions of the elemental bodies are limited by the boundaries
of their respective sphere.
95934-RTPM_2012/2_01_Chase.indd 306
M. CHASE
they are delimited by a round body,95
but a round body does not lack an
external body. The reason for this is
that a curve is perfect, and cannot
receive addition or diminution: a
straight line, in contrast, is deficient.
In this sense, the sphere will be in
place simply and essentially, as will
rectilinear bodies, and each of the
celestial spheres, in that another
sphere contains <them>, will have this
characteristic accidentally, and in this
sense every body will be in place sim-
ply and essentially. And it seems to
me that this, recounted by Avempace,
is the view of Farabi, for it was Farabi
who positioned himself as contradict-
ing the questions of John, and one of
these questions is this one, found in
our manuscripts, as can be discovered
from the words of Avempace, and it
has not come down to us.
Michael CHASE
CNRS UPR 76 / Centre Jean Pépin
7, rue Guy Mocquet
Villejuif 94801, France
goya@vjf.cnrs.fr
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