ABSTRACT
John Philoponus was the foremost of the late antique commentators on Aristotle, pagan or Christian. This chapter will concentrate on his philosophical defence of the Christian doctrine of creation out of nothing and on his use of philosophical terms to explain and defend his own understanding of the incarnation. It will be argued that his method allows for no strict dichotomy between philosophical and theological reasoning, and that the application of labels such as Neoplatonic or Aristotelian tends to obscure the subtlety and independence of his thought on key doctrinal or philosophic questions.
