Nemesius: On the Nature of Man

Philip Van Der Eijk is Professor of Greek at Newcastle University. R.W. Sharples is Professor of Classics at University College London.

"On the Nature of Man" is an invaluable text for historians of ancient thought, not only as a much contested source of evidence for earlier works now lost, but also as a vivid illustration of intellectual life in the late fourth century. Nemesius, its author, was a Christian bishop who was influenced by the medical works of Galen, as well as the philosophical writings of Plato, Aristotle, and Porphyry; the subject of the text is not only the nature of human beings and their place in the scheme of created things, but also an anthropological study of early Christian theology. A considerable influence on later Byzantine and medieval Latin philosophical theology, "On the Nature of Man "is an essential text for any scholar of the early history of medicine, theological history, and ancient studies.

Preface Abbreviations Introduction 1. The importance of Nemesius 2. Nemesius and the scope of his treatise 3. Nemesius' Christianity 4. Nemesius' views 5. Nemesius' sources Nemesius, On the Nature of Man 1. On the nature of man 2. On the soul 3. On the union of soul and body 4. On the body 5. On the elements 6. On imagination 7. On sight 8. On touch 9. On taste 10. On hearing 11. On smell 12. On thought 13. On memory 14. On immanent and expressed reason 15. Another division of the soul 16. On the non-rational part or kind of the soul, which is also called the affective and appetitive 17. On the desirous part 18. On pleasures 19. On distress 20. On anger 21. On fear 22. On the non-rational element that is not capable of obeying reason 23. On the nutritive faculty 24. On pulsation 25. On the generative or seminal faculty 26. Another division of the powers controlling living beings 27. On movement according to impulse or choice, which belongs to the appetitive part 28. On respiration 29. On the intentional and unintentional 30. On the unintentional 31. On the unintentional through ignorance 32. On the intentional 33. On choice 34. About what things do we deliberate? 35. On fate 36. On what is fated through the stars 37. On those who say that choice of actions is up to us 38. On Plato's account of fate 39. On what is up to us, or on autonomy 40. Concerning what things are up to us 41. For what reason were we born autonomous? 42. On providence 43. About what matters there is providence Bibliography Index of passages cited General index