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Intertwining Aristotelian Ontology and Logic with Theology. The Early Armenian Non-Chalcedonian Perspective: The Book of Beings and the Questions Addressed to the Heretical Diophysites

    Benedetta Contin

Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 70, pp. 429-463, 2021/05/05

doi: 10.1553/joeb70s429


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doi:10.1553/joeb70s429



doi:10.1553/joeb70s429

Abstract

This article is an attempt to evaluate and define the modes of appropriation of Aristotelian logic, ontology and metaphysicsin two little-heralded Armenian texts, namely the Book of Beings and the Questions Addressed to the Heretical Diophysites,redacted between the seventh and eighth centuries. In its essence, the paper has three goals: first, to illustrate the understandingof some logical terms that came to be of crucial importance in the development of Eastern (and Western) theologicalreasoning, such as indivisible substances and indivisible non-substances, and essential and accidental properties. Second, toreconstruct the theoretical framework of the texts under examination by analysing several fundamental terms, such as ‘being’,‘existence’, ‘nature’, ‘person’ and ‘form’. The theoretical framework of these texts turned out to be a source for the Armeniantheologians from the eighth century onward, particularly in the confessional confrontation with the Chalcedonians. Third, toshow that a whole body of pseudepigraphic texts allegedly ascribed to David the Invincible by the Armenian tradition, is ofmajor importance for its contribution to the rethinking of Armenian conceptual history (Begriffsgeschichte) in the context of itscultural relations with Byzantium, and beyond.

Keywords: Being and Existence, Indivisible Substance and Indivisible non-Substances, Theory of Individuality, Personhood, Confessional Polemics in Seventh-Century Armenia, Byzantine-Armenian Intellectual Exchanges