The Subject of Aristotle’s De Anima

Abstract

Although Gregorios, the author of the work in your hands, was a bishop, the work has the feel of having been written by a philosopher. Considering that the treatise focuses on Aristotle’s De Anima or On the Soul, we can more readily acknowledge this. The Roman Catholic Church has based its entire system not only on Aristotle’s metaphysics but also on his physics and has sought to legitimize itself through Aristotle. The effort to imbue Gregory’s treatise on the soul with an Aristotelian identity can be seen as an indication of this. For early Christians believed that the soul possessed an entirely spiritual nature and was therefore immortal. Although Gregory, in this treatise, expressed views consistent with Aristotle regarding the soul’s nature as a simple substance and its capacity to contain both good and evil, he advanced Platonic views on the soul’s immortality and the spiritual nature of its structure.