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Document Details : Title: Georgios Gennadios II-Scholarios' «Florilegium Thomisticum» Subtitle: His Early Abridgment of Various Chapters and Quaestiones of Thomas Aquinas' Summae and his Anti-Plethonism Author(s): DEMETRACOPOLOUS, John A. Journal: Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie Médiévales Volume: 69 Issue: 1 Date: 2002 Pages: 117-171 DOI: 10.2143/RTPM.69.1.966 Abstract : An autograph Florilegium Thomisticum by Georgios Gennadios II-Scholarios (ca. 1400 - post 1472) detected in Par. Gr. 1868 is edited and commented. Its 8 extracts (1st-4th and 13th-16th) from Summa contra Gentiles and 8 extracts (5th-12th) from Summa theologiae (which touch upon the immateriality of the human soul, the incorruptibility of intellect, the soul-body union in man with special reference to the superiority of Aristotle’s to the Platonic and Averroist views, God’s knowledge of evils, the ethical basis of virginity, the necessity of God’s grace for man’s salvation, the existence, essence and activity of fate as well as its inferiority to free will) were intended by the compiler to serve his purpose to compose a refutation of Georgios Gemistos-Plethon’s anti-Christian chef d’oeuvre, the Laws. Although this refutation was never produced (later on Gennadios preferred to burn Plethon’s work), parts of this Florilegium Thomisticum (probably ca. 1444) are detected in Gennadios’ Against Plethon’s objections to Aristotle and offer some indirect yet valuable information about the content of the once forever lost parts of the Laws. This evidence, in combination with Plethon’s extreme anti-Aristotelianism and implicit anti-Thomism, leads to the conclusion that Scholarios’ strong Aristotelianism was just an aspect of his being a convinced Thomist who regarded Aquinas’ Summae as an effective arsenal for combating Plethon’s anti-Christian Platonism, whereas Plethon’s anti-Aristotelianism was an implication of his repudiating Thomas’ synthesis of Christianity and Aristotle. More generally, the central role of Aquinas in Gennadios’ feud with Plethon implies that the bequeath of the famous Byzantine quarrel between Platonists and Aristotelianists to the Renaissance West is but an elaborated “calque” from the Latin Middle Ages. |
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