March 12, 2021

Basic bibliography:
Manual of the History of Medieval Philosophy. Pontifical University of Mexico.
Merino, José Antonio, History of Medieval Philosophy, Library of Christian Authors
Madrid, n.d.
PATRIARCHAL PERIOD:
From 100 to 750 from the death of the last of the apostles of Jesus Christ until the beginning
from the Middle Ages. During this time, the last sprouts of ancient philosophy existed as
the Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism. Here it begins
Patristics refers to the period of philosophy where Christian writers (church fathers)
Church) develop their thinking. There is a marked influence of Greek philosophy.
What characteristics should a Christian writer have to receive
the title father of the church?
Orthodoxy in Christian doctrine.
Holiness of life.
3. Recognition by the Church.
4. Antiquity: being a disciple of the disciples of the apostles.
Division of Patristic Time:
From the beginning of the 2nd century to the Council of Nicaea.
From Nicaea to the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the year 476.
From the beginning of the 6th century to the mid-8th century. This is the stage of the
transition to the Middle Ages.

THE MIDDLE AGES.

Design the period of almost VII centuries from the incursion of Islam in Europe until
principles of the 15th century with the Western schism.
The Middle Ages is the title given to it by Andrea de Bussi as Media Tempestas. There was no
negative connotations, but in modernity it began to be talked about as something dark.
Division of the Middle Ages:
1. Properly medieval period (768 - late 9th century): Renaissance
Carolingian. Main cultural centers: transhumant court, Reims, Mainz,
abbeys of Corbie, Fulda, and Tours.
 2. Second period (10th century - late 12th century): kingdom of France, empire
Germanic, Iberian Peninsula especially Toledo, Kingdom of the Lombards in England,
Italian Peninsula, Muslim Spain, and some Islamic territories.
3. Golden Age (13th century): coincides with the foundation of the first universities.
The philosophical centers are mainly located in Paris, Oxford, Toulouse, Cologne,
Naples, and the papal court. Here scholasticism was born.
4. Late Middle Ages (death of Duns Scotus in 1308 - end of the 15th century): Avignon,
Paris, Oxford, Prague, Netherlands, Rhineland, Kingdom of Bavaria.
5. Transition period that separates medieval philosophy and modernity.

March 26, 2021

April 16, 2021

The change of cultural paradigm.
The change of worldview. The shift from cosmocentrism to theocentrism.
Biblical ideas and philosophical foundation.
Christianity is a revealed religion. It offers human reflection not only a new
philosophical theme, but the same traditional philosophical problems are presented in
another perspective or they have a diverse ontic thickness.

Greco-Roman thought is not enough to encompass all Christian thought that

it is born from revelation, although you will find in Greek culture some metaphysical forms
to clarify thought.
Existence and essence of God.
"We cannot deny or say anything about God that is not in sacred scripture" a father of
the Church Fathers said it.

In Christianity, God is not a theorem or a postulate of reason, but a Presence.

that creates and manifests freely in revelation and in creation.
For Christianity, access to God is not a speculative process, since for man
Christian God is a logical assumption. God is not the eternity of the world, but the Eternal.
Infinite, the Personal Being who creates and providentially sustains the world.
To think and understand the reality of the Christian God, the Aristotelian category is no longer sufficient.
of the substance, but rather one must resort to the concept of relation and, more specifically,
from the existing relationship.
In Judeo-Christian thought, the concept of creation is strongly emphasized. According to
the Bible, God created all beings. And he created them through the word, that is, without matter
previous determinant. The universe is not the child of a lesser and cruel god, but rather a creature of God
love and Trino. For the Greeks, the world was eternal, for the Christian the only eternal and
God is the subsistent.
Between man and God there is participation that for the Greeks is meteksis. The concept of
the creation of nothing, creatio ex nihilo, synthesizes the peculiar biblical vision of the world and the
radical difference with Greek philosophy.
In this perspective, God is the Being by essence, and creation is a participation of it.
existence. God is the Being, things are not, but rather they have being. This ontology of being
infinite and contingent being will be one of the great questions not only of patristics, but
also from all over the world.

With Christianity, being and beings are differentiated. God is the Being par excellence.
With all this, the ontology of the infinite Being and the ontology of contingent being are developed,
especially in the Middle Ages, although its pondering begins from the patristic period.

The concept of logos.

The logos encompasses a very important and decisive idea of the mediation of exemplarity with
regarding the theme of creation, and it was one of the most fashionable topics when it arrived
Christianity. The idea of Logos was a cipher at that time. It was used by pagan philosophy and
it is collected in the New Testament. Philo consecrated it and circulated it in the environments
philosophical. And when the author of the fourth gospel applied it to the Son of God, it became
definitely consecrated. But the Logos can be considered in itself, in relation
with the world and man.
For Greek thought, man was just one more thing among things. For the
Christianity, man is a privileged creature. Man and the world, moreover, are
they were intimately linked and never opposed, because both man and
the world was endowed with life and soul.
In the biblical perspective, however, man is not simply another component.
of the universe, but a privileged creature. That is why a singular anthropology arises
and most dignified.

Christianity does not stop at the immortality of the soul, but goes further by proposing the
resurrection of the dead.
The moral conscience of man, although it is very similar to Platonic or Aristotelian ethics,
it will change since the rational soul, according to the Greeks, is the one that should govern human action,
that is to say, the guiding soul must be the sure guide of human actions. This is what
makes man wise.
Greek philosophy interpreted the moral law as the law of nature itself, of the
Physics imposes itself relentlessly and without exception on both men and on the very
God, since the law has not been given or imposed by God, and He Himself is subject to it. Without
embargo, the biblical god gives man the Decalogue in the form of order and commandment.
Holiness is not in tune with the cosmic logos, but in harmony with the divine will.
in this way Greek intellectualism is replaced by Christian voluntarism.
fulfilling the will of God consists of the moral law, and in wanting and doing the will of God
this is the virtue of man.
From the point of view of philosophical knowledge, the Greeks were completely distrustful of faith.
(pistis) or belief, because they interpreted that it was related to sensible things and
changing. Therefore, it was considered a form of opinion (doxa), unreliable for
the reason. It is true that Plato and Aristotle give faith a certain importance, but only

April 23, 2021

Unit 1
PATRISTIC PHILOSOPHY
The Church Fathers are those writers from the early centuries who, given their
doctrinal orthodoxy, as its holiness of life, the Church regarded as the pioneers of
the philosophical-theological reflection of Christian thought. Subsequently, to the writers
They were called "doctors of the church" and others were called "writers" of secure orthodoxy.
"ecclesiastical" (such as Eusebius of Caesarea and Origen, since they do not have a life of holiness),
very interesting but the church does not assume any responsibility regarding its doctrines,
It is evident that not all the writers who fall under the so-called patristic philosophy are
representatives of the official thought of the church.
Patristic philosophy is divided into three periods:
The first is approximately from 100 to 200 A.D. Second century of Christianity.
At this time begins the reason for his preaching, which was to fight against the
gnosticism and pagan groups.
It is framed between the year 200 and 450 A.D. which was characterized by the formation of the
Christian dogmas. At this time, the first councils are held, such as the Council of Nicea.
3. It concludes with the death of John of Damascus. (754) IG. and Bede the Venerable (735)
IL.
For the first Christians, it was necessary to persuade others about the faith in Jesus Christ.
We must understand that there were two very important movements: one in the west and
east, surpassing the philosophy of these places; however, they provided a foundation for everything
what was said about his philosophy.

The first Christian writers, before being scholars, were preachers, theologians,
apologists that serve as the origin of the systematization of their thought. In the 13th century, it was
When the great systematizations known as summaries were given.
Patristic philosophy is still germinal and inchoate, which will become clearer over time.
of European philosophical work.
We must also understand that the early church fathers were the fathers
apostolic, who continued the work of the apostles.
THE APOLOGETIC FATHERS.
They emerged in the second century of the Christian era against the most philosophical positions.
elaborations of the evangelical doctrine. In a few words, it is a defense of the
Christianity with the tools provided by Greek philosophy and law
Roman.
That is why, in the beginning, Christians had to learn and master the language of their
adversaries and recipients, although their philosophy was considered barbaric because they did not
it was supported by the Greeks and Romans. It is interesting to observe in nascent Christianity how
it was lived and practiced what is currently called inculturation. It was necessary to employ
their conceptions to carry the message of Christ. They had to adopt the Greek language.
to communicate what they wanted to teach about Jesus Christ.
Christianity does not have, unlike the various currents, an anthropocentric stance.
but focuses on God's action upon his creation. It is here that the
texts of the philosophers through the lens of the Christian experience and vice versa, as it was done,
for example, Tertullian: "What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem?" and it gathers the dialectic
of Pablo about the confrontation and antagonism between the wisdom of this world, the
wisdom of God and the foolishness of the Cross.
Indeed, faith occupies a privileged place because for them, those who think from faith, and
From faith, he is the best philosopher.

Saint Justino.
He was born in the first decade of the 2nd century in Palestine, to pagan parents. He frequented the
most prominent representatives of philosophical schools (Stoics, Pythagoreans, and
peripatetics), but expressed his preference for the Platonists. He converts to
Christianity, as an adult, and he defends it as the only true philosophy. He founds
in Rome a school; and in this same city he was martyred around 165.
Writings:
Two apologies: (1) addressed to Emperor Antoninus Pius and (2) to Antoninus Verus;

Dialogue with Trypho. In it, he traces his journey from Greek philosophy to Christianity.
This last cited work is perhaps the greatest reference of his intellectual experience and
spiritual in which it emphasizes the importance of philosophy to reach the truth, for as
It says in Dialogue II: only philosophy leads us to God. But what is the purpose of philosophy?
He says that the intrinsic value of philosophy is hidden from most men. Only
Intellectuals can be happy upon discovering the truth.
Christianity is the only useful and effective philosophy for the problems of experience.
human.
 April 30, 2021
PATRISTIC PHILOSOPHY
The apologists are those who attempt to defend the Christian faith with their writings against
the pagans and the gnostics.
Saint Justino.
Both Greek and Roman philosophy emphasized fundamental issues.
of the moment.
It takes up a notion from the Stoics called 'seminal reasons' to show that there exists
a continuity between Greek philosophy and Christianity, and emphasizes that the great
Greek philosophers were, in a way, the forerunners of Christian thought. Jesus
sows both in the Old Testament and in Greek philosophy. Christ can be both in Abraham.
like in Socrates.
Tertullian.
Son of a Roman centurion in Carthage around 160. Studied law and practiced as a lawyer.
in Rome. In 190 he converted to Christianity, which he defended with energy and passion. He dies
in 240.
His works: apologetic, the prescription of the heretics and about the soul. He developed a
intense activism in favor of Christianity, but halfway through his life he joined the sect
of the mountaineers and began to attack the Church with the same fury that had previously
attack against the heretics.

The relationship between philosophy and theology: Christianity imposes itself in its entirety on the
believers. Therefore, every Christian must accept their Christian faith without criticizing or judging it. The
metaphysical interpretations of the Christian religion are completely unacceptable. Faith is
an absolute criterion of certainty and cannot compromise with reason nor with the reasons
philosophical. Hence their radical opposition to philosophy. Philosophy and Christianity are two things
antithetical and irreconcilable. To live well, philosophy is not necessary. Its anti-philosophy.
pushed, in certain cases, into a kind of anti-rationalism. If man has been
created by God in His image and likeness, every person carries within them that divine seal of a
printed and natural mode. Therefore, the soul of any man is naturally Christian.
THE SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA
It is a city named after Alexander the Great, who founded it in 331 BC.
Clement of Alexandria.
Titus Flavius Clemens was probably born in Athens around 150, converting to
very early Christianity. During the persecution of Septimius Severus, he went to Caesarea
from Cappadocia, and there he died around 215.
His works: discourse of exhortation or Protreptic, which is an invitation to conversion; the
pedagogue, continuation of the previous one, where he presents the Logos as the reliable guide for
to properly orient the lives of the converts; and the Stromata (Varieties or
Tapestries). Philosophy is good and has been loved by God, although it is not the supreme degree.
of knowledge and of understanding, but rather an anticipation and preparation for the science of faith, a
preparation for wisdom and virtue. If philosophy has been cherished by God, it is because
so much, healthy and can lead to virtue. Above philosophical knowledge is
the knowledge that comes from faith, which implies living with coherence. Here lies the
authentic philosophy, Christian Gnosis, opposed to pagan Gnosis.
According to Clement, the history of truth resembles the journey of two currents that
lead to the Christian revelation, which is the only channel of authentic truth, "in the
that converge tributaries from all parts." At the bottom of this vision, the presence is perceived
acting of the logos both in pagan science and in Christian revelation. Therefore,
thanks to the Logos we find in the course of history that divine presence that is
manifests through rational light and, more eminently, through the light of faith and
the reason is expressions and human activities of the same capacity of man,
callaphronesis.

May 7, 2021
SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA
Saint Clement.
Justin had spoken of the presence of seeds of the Logos in Greek philosophy,
Clement goes further by comparing Greek philosophy with the Old Testament and arguing
that the philosophical thought of the Greeks had prepared humanity to receive the
Logos, embodied in Christ. 'Philosophy is a preparation that sets man on the path.
that perfection must be received through Christ.
Origins
He is not considered a Church Father. He is more of an ecclesiastical writer.
He was born in Alexandria around 184 - 186 to Christian parents. He was taught by his father and
he was surely a disciple of Clement. He lived a busy life, was ordained
priest and had no few conflicts with the local church. His radicality in ideas and his
deep passion for convictions was manifested in the surprising decision of
mutilating oneself to follow to the letter the evangelical advice of living in chastity. The production
literary origins were very vast, difficult to specify and enumerate. It is considered the
most important theologian of the Greek church.
His supreme apologetic work is Against Celsus, in 8 books, and he wrote it as
replica of the Neoplatonist Celsus, written against Christians around 178, dogmatic work
important not only for theology but also for philosophy, is De Principiis, which, to
except for some fragments, we have not received it in its original version in Greek.
His interpretation of the biblical texts aims to clarify the hidden meaning and justify the
revealed truth. It distinguishes a triple meaning of Scripture: the somatic, the psychic and the
spiritual, corresponding to the trichotomic division of man, according to Platonism, is
to say: the body, the soul, and the spirit. Faith is not irrational, but transforms into
knowledge and needs to provide reasons why they believe.
The great concern of origins was to demonstrate to the heretics the spirituality of
God. God is not a body nor has a body, because His nature is purely spiritual and
very simple. God is superior to the very substance itself, since He does not derive from it. From the Logos
one can affirm that it is the being of beings.

His theories about God and the Trinity

God is omnipotent, but finds a limit in his own perfection, that is, he can
do everything that is not contrary to its nature, such as committing a
injustice, for example. In the face of divine transcendence, the Logos finds itself in a
subordinate position. He is certainly coeternal with the Father, who would not be so if not
He generated the Son, but he is not eternal in the same sense, since the eternity of the Son
depends on the will of the Father.
Here is missing content from the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit was not created directly by God, but through the Logos. The
subordinationism was explained, being addressed, after his death, at the council of
Nicea (a. 325)
His theory of the world

The formation of the sensible world is the result of the fall of intellectual substances that
they were in the world of ideas.
The fall, then, is an act of one's own freedom and a free act of rebellion against God.
Origen strongly opposes Gnosticism, which denied that human capacity of
freedom. The result of the fall is that the intelligences became souls, destined
to be clothed in a body, dark, semi-dark, or light, according to the gravity of the guilt. The
the visible world is, therefore, the result of a moral degeneration and the fall of
intelligible world. The original world is essentially interpreted in the light of the
consequences of the sin of spirits. The world will not have eternal duration, but rather
it will conclude in a universal conflagration (apocatastasis), where everything will be destroyed,
but at the same time everything will be regenerated, even the very demons will be
liberated and redeemed, thanks to the universal salvific power of Christ.
Anthropology
The anthropology of Origins reflects its cosmological vision, since man is part
integrant of the world. Man was initially a rational substance, a
intelligence, but with the fall it transformed into soul, which is a mixture of intelligence and
of the body. Freedom is decisive in human destiny, for just as the fall was an act
of freedom, in the same way, salvation and return depend on it. The path of
the return is very long. If being in the world is not enough, it will be necessary to go through others.
successive stages until he has achieved the proper perfection (a kind of
transmigration of the soul.

THE SCHOOL OF CAPPADOCIA.

Saint Basil the Great.
For philosophy, his nine homilies on the Hexameron are important in which he
describe a cosmology following the narrative of Genesis, although its purpose is not
scientific, but moral. It presents man as part of the cosmos and through
their beings can be elevated to the creator.

Missing SAN GREGORIO NICENO, NACIANCENO, ETC.

NOTEBOOK.

September 24, 2021.

Saint Augustine of Hippo
He was born in Tagaste in 354. His father was a pagan patrician and his mother [Monica] a Christian.
what influenced his personal conversion.
He read Cicero's Hortensius which guided him towards philosophy as a path to
truth since it has an exhortation to philosophy.
In 374, he joined the sect of the Manichaeans who express in many ways the path to
the truth. at only 19 years old, of course. They spoke of the truth, although they were far from
They were convinced [the Manicheans] that Faustus had the answer to almost everything.
At that time, he read Aristotle's categories and other books on philosophy that he
they caused doubt about the doctrine of Manichaeism; doubts that increased over time
to find that even Fausto couldn't solve them.
At the age of twenty-nine, he went to Rome with the intention of teaching rhetoric, where he found
not a few difficulties, which led to him moving to Milan the following year in 384
to achieve its purpose, thanks to the intervention of the pagan prefect Symmachus. In this
The city met personally with Bishop Ambrose, who also fascinated and convinced him.
of the truth of Christianity, aligning with the group of catechumens. The reading of the
writings of the Platonists, especially some of the Enneads of Plotinus, which had been
translated by Mario Victorino, it is discovered that beyond this corporeal world exists
another ideal world. Thus he understood, against the thesis of the Manicheans, that God
it must be incorporeal. But if the books of the Neoplatonists proved to him the
incorporeality and the incorruptibility of God. I found nothing in them about the
incarnation of the Word and, therefore, the path of Christian humility. In 386 Augustine
he abandons teaching and retires to Milan where they acquire a kind of estate in
Cascio is for leading a monastic life where he organizes his ideas and feelings.
In 391 he was ordained a priest. In 395 he was ordained bishop of Hippo in which
he develops his thought as a good shepherd. He dies in 430.
Works:
The more philosophical ones:
Against academics
2. The truth, knowledge, and wisdom: soliloquies
3. On the blessed life: Eudaimonia: the human telos is the happiness that resides in God
On True Religion
5. The confessions: intellectual and Christian itinerary of his life.
On Free Will.
On the Trinity
On the City of God
9. Retractions:
Philosophy is the servant of theology. The Manichaeans believed in the struggle of good against evil.

October 15, 2021.

Boethius:
Genres and species: universal determinations
The properly real and anterior (nature prior)
Nature (natura prius) is the individual and singular thing. From this physical reality, the
thought abstracts the universal by excluding individuating notes until it captures
the common essence. To that essential and universal, drawn from individual things, Boethius gives
form, mental image and nature.

PSEUDO-DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE.

The corpusdionysiacum has had great importance in the philosophy and theology of the Middle Ages.
His unknown author presented himself to the reader under the pseudonym of Dionysius the Areopagite, of
who is spoken of in the Acts of the Apostles (17:34) perhaps to give greater authority to his
text. According to the research we currently have, the doctrinal set of
this work was written between the 5th and 6th centuries, in a Syrian environment, with strong inspiration
neoplatonic, especially from Proclus, and from Christian Platonism, mainly from Gregory
Nacianceno, The writings gathered in this work are: Of the Celestial Hierarchy, Of
ecclesiastical hierarchy, On Divine Names, On Mystical Theology, ten Epistles.
Both the language and the style of these writings are surprising and have produced
very contrasting reactions, ranging from admiration to irony, from the
enthusiasm for vilification. What cannot be denied is its strong influence in the entire Middle Ages
and even later in great authors who have influenced the course of
modern thought.
Who is God and the way to Him.
Dionysius imitates the attitude of Saint Paul in the Areopagus: to speak to the Athenians about God.
unknown in a serene, constructive tone and without polemizing. The best weapon of
conviction is the truth, as it says at the beginning of its VII Epistle: "I never initiated
controversy neither against the Greeks nor against anyone else... the greatest aspiration of men
It is good to... know and proclaim the truth as it is." But truth can only
to find oneself where one is, in God, source and origin of all truth. That is why all his dialectic,
in neoplatonic key, it fundamentally revolves around God, whom it refers to as super-
Goodness, super-One, super-Being, super-Perfect, super-existing, etc. after these
statements about God ask how man can come to know Him and, above all,
approach Him. For this, it points out some ways or paths of existential travel and
discovery of the divine, there are three main paths:
A. Positive path. Dionysius's intention is to not say or think anything, in which...
refers to God, who is not found in the revelation and is guaranteed by it. The
the same Bible limits itself to speaking of him in terms taken from the natural world. For
consequently, it is necessary to decipher the same creation according to the interpretation of the
Revealed word. That is why the first path of access and discovery is the
natural world, in which a great order and a great theological intentionality reign.
We now ask ourselves how we can know God, since he is not
perceived by the senses nor by intelligence nor is it anything of the things that exist.
We would say more properly that we do not know God by his nature because
this is not knowable and exceeds all reason and intelligence. But we know it by the
order of all things, as it is arranged by the same and what they contain is
if certain images resemble their divine specimens, by which
we ascend to the knowledge of that Supreme Good and the source of all goods
"a path suited to our strengths" but given that God, as One and super-
Being transcends being; nothing can contain it, nor any created thought.
One can understand it. It is necessary to enter into a deeper and higher path, the path
negative.
 B.Via negativa. The guiding idea of this journey is the incomprehensibility and
the inscrutability of God. If God "is nothing of what exists", he withdraws from
human thought, because it is also ineffable and a hidden deity. "no one
reasoning can reach that Unknowable One. There are no words with which
to be able to express that ineffable Good, the One, source of all unity, supra-essential being,
mind over all mind, word over all word. It transcends all reason, all
intuition every name. He is the being and no being is like him. cause of all that
exists. It is outside the categories of Being." The ascent to God is achieved
by the negation of all finite qualities not in terms of simple negation,
unless in terms of overcoming them. That is why the recognition of our
limited knowledge becomes learned ignorance. 'This does not mean that the
denial contradicts the statements, but rather by itself that Cause
it transcends and is supra-essential to all things, prior and superior to privations,
well it is beyond any affirmation or denial
C. Way of Silence. I prefer to call this path, the place of eminent deviation,
because it is an ascending and intensive continuation of the negative way. In this sentence,
the man closes the eyes of the soul, he immerses himself in silence and immersed in a light
superessential, without form or figure or sound or concept, penetrates into that 'luminous
"darkness" that is the luminous and essential origin of true vision and of the authentic
to know. "renounce the senses, intellectual operations, everything sensible
and to the intelligible. Strip yourself of all things that are and even of the things that are not yet.
Son. Put aside your understanding and strive to ascend as much as you can to join.
with the one who is beyond all being and all knowledge

November 5, 2021.
2. Boethius and God

For Boethius, God as absolute being is an unquestionable logical premise. It will be in

search for God, the search for his existence and for worldly beings. It will not ask if
it exists or not, because it is something that comes ipso facto.

For him, God exists unquestioningly. He will highlight the attributes of God.
The first thing it states is that God exists as an ABSOLUTE BEING. But this absolute being
it is a personal reality. It is a different conception from the Greeks as they did not consider
to God as a person, they only attributed human characteristics to Him.
For Boethius, God is:
Absolute
2. Personal
3. Trinitario
Assume what was said at the Council of Nicaea. God is the Being, the Being itself. It is Ipsum itself. But
it is also an absolute form since it informs all of creation, the one who gives being to beings.
Definition: "God is the divine substance, it is form without matter and, for this reason, it is One and it is the one who
It; the rest is not what it is" is an immaterial being.

God is the origin of the cosmos and is Good. God is good because belief demonstrates it.
common among most men.
"and, since there is nothing and nothing better can be thought of than Him, it is concluded that God is
Identifies with the Good. Man identifies with the good 'since nothing can be thought of'
Better than God, who could doubt that it is good that which does not exist
"nothing?" and like that which cannot be thought beyond any other thing.
God is also like that which is better than which nothing exists.
When we cannot imagine anything, then it is God.
God is the greatest thing we can think of: absolute.
God is the possibility of knowing the imperfect.
Existence is understood through the idea one has of God. God is being itself.
Things have existence through this being.
For Boethius, eternity is 'therefore, the simultaneous, complete, and perfect possession of life.'
unlimited." For him, the present is an instant, it is simultaneous possession.
God possesses an eternal timeless moment.

November 12, 2021

General characteristics of scholastic philosophy
Teaching method, but also of content.
It is divided into 4 periods:

I. Initial or formative: 9th-11th century

II. Of development or of promotion. 12th century
III. Golden Age. Period of peak or great systematizations. 13th century.
IV. Of decadence or crisis. 14th century and 15th century.

a) The concept of scholasticism: Scholasticism comes from the word scholasticus which
the scholastics in the early centuries of the Middle Ages who were dedicated to
teaching the seven liberal arts was the scholasticus. Later it was distinguished with
 the word scholastic to the professor of philosophy or theology whose title was magister. The
masters had their own privileges, they were so respected in that era.
It refers to the person who teaches.
The term scholasticism will then refer to the subject and method of teaching.
In such a way that there were many scholastics: Arabic, Jewish, Christian, Hebrew...
It then becomes an ambiguous term because one can speak of one or the other.
what.
b) Literary methods and forms: there were two methods for teaching. The lectio, which
was always in charge of the teacher. This one would take a recognized text and present it for
Comment on it. The students were only listening. From these, the emerged
comments on... (e.g., comment on the animated Aristotle). One of his greatest
Exponent was Peter Lombard, who commented on the works of Boethius. The emerged the
rough translations of the works of Aristotle. There is a second method called
the ladisputatio was a free examination, dialoguing between the teacher and the students.
It was a discussion that revolved around debatable texts, that is, the sacred
the writings could not enter here like those of Saint Augustine either. They were works more of
philosophical-scientific indoles. Arguments in favor always emerged, but also in
against.
The systematization was necessary. From the comments arose the sums and from the
disputations gave rise to the disputed questions. They arise in a monastic environment. In
the disputation had a clear distinction: ordinary disputations were held at
Every 14 days about philosophical issues and one or another theological.
The quodlibet questions were held twice a year at Christmas and Easter.
resurrection. These two were always a master level academic exhibition.

Third method: the pamphlets that eventually became like small monographic works.
from a small concept from which a treaty was derived.

c) Authority and reason. It was a theoretical problem in this era. Scholasticism is not of
some way like Greek and Latin philosophy. Classical philosophy, Greek and Latin, was
an autonomous, autonomous and free thought about reality. In contrast, in the
scholasticism cannot provide an autonomous or independent reflection from doctrine
catholic because (1) it is based on religious principles, of revelation (2) but
It is also based on the tradition that is a criterion or standard of search. In the
Scholasticism must have a clear understanding of religious principles and tradition.
The church, the parents, the saints... have the sound doctrine.
Christian philosophers, unlike Greco-Roman philosophy, do not have to wander
searching for or inventing the truth, because the truth is already contained in the
Tradition. The work that philosophers have to do is to get closer, to understand,
live the truth.
With this we can understand that tradition and religious principles are
they become the authority. This highlights the relationship between faith and
 reason. Thus philosophy becomes a slave to theology (handmaid)

There is doctrinal reception, but there is also rational speculation. Both one and
another must have a channel. When the river overflows, when it exits the channel,
The problem begins. In theology, one can fall into heresy. If it is by part of the
philosophy accommodates things like relativism, skepticism.
The one who teaches the 7 arts of the trivium and 4 of the quadrivium is called a scholastic.

d)

December 3, 2021
The exam is from San Basilio.

Carolingian Renaissance
Since the time of Charlemagne.
Three moments of the Carolingian Renaissance: correspond to 3 kings
Charlemagne
2. Luis the Pious
3. Bald Carlos.
John Scotus Eriugena and Alcuin of York.
The culture of this time was in decline. The intellectual hubs were the universities.
Previously, it had been the monasteries. Few had the opportunities to go to university and few
they had access to culture. Charlemagne believed that the more educated his citizens were, the more powerful
the empire. He found how the culture and spiritual formation of man achieved a better
moral and thus a better empire could be built. Charlemagne brought it to the center of the empire.
the most notable intellectuals and with them he created an Academy that he called: Palatine School.
The Palatine school aimed to study classical authors. He wrote a letter to
to recommend to the clergy to create schools. There existed cathedral schools (capitular) and the
sabadel school somanacales.
Alcuin of York.
The one who directed the Palatine Academy was Alcuin of York and he had in his hands the education of the
empire and with it began the intellectual reconstruction of Europe. He wanted to create a new Athens
in its empire, but the nuance that it could have given to this intellectual renaissance was that in that
Academia no longer taught the doctrine of Aristotle and/or Plato, but rather teaches the doctrine of
Grand Master, Christ, with what he did a masterful comparison. At the York school (Palatine)
the doctrine of Christ would be taught through the Holy Spirit.
Grammar, rhetoric, invention, dialectic: works of Alcuin of York. One, On the nature of the soul,
To Eulalia Virgin, the most important work of this scholastic author. The doctrine had been of
dialectical method.
Mauro Radish.
He is one of the most representative authors.

John Scotus Eriugena.

Eriugena comes from his birthplace in Ireland. He was born around 810. In 847 he was
call to the Palatine academy, but by Charles the Bald, no longer by Charlemagne. He was great
translator of pseudo Dionysius and of Maximus the Confessor. Translate De ominis opificio of Gregory the
great. It has references from Saint Augustine.

Among his works is, of divine predestination, the glosses to the theological opuscula of Boethius,
annotations in Marcianus Capella. He made several homilies and commentaries on the gospels. His work
the principal division of nature in Greek was called 'eperiphiseon' which speaks of God, the ideas
exemplars, the created things and the return of the world to God.

The stages of being.

It deals with the division of nature into different stages. It is particularly an influence.
Platonic. The division of beings is always described according to Platonic dialectics, but of a cut
Neoplatonic, that is to say, the dialectic proposed by Plato as a constitutive and structuring element.
of the same reality. It has an influence from Parmenides and the Sophist, Platonic dialogues, in the
that reality is composed of being and non-being. It always proposes an ontological scale.
Reality is divided into ontological steps and has the greatest possible extent in that
it understands and encompasses the finite and the infinite, being and non-being. That is why nature is always
generation, that is, it has the quality of expanding, of unfolding. A way of being always goes
giving way to another way of being, but what is unfolding is the being of God, that is why God is
infinite. In its expansion, God shares his being with all other things. Everything must have a
return to its origin, return to the being of God.

Eriugena has the doctrine of pseudo-Dionysius

Nature divides it into:
I. Nature creating the uncreated: THE NATURE THAT HAS NOT BEEN CREATED AND CREATES.
He is the uncreated God and creator of all things. He is the first nature that has no...
principle and is the originating and foundational cause of all that has been from Him and through Him.
created. God is the beginning from which all beings and all things derive, but
it is also the end of all that is created which tends towards Him. As an uncreated being, He cannot
to understand or define oneself adequately.
All the attributes of God can indeed be taken from reality, but through the path
negative. God is super... omni... mega...
He is the uncreated creator from whom everything emanates as its source. God is superior.
II. Created Nature creating: THE NATURE THAT HAS BEEN CREATED AND CREATES.
Spequio: mirror. Looking in the mirror is to reflect oneself. He who reflects is capable of looking at himself.
With this, this second stage of nature is understood. By looking at and contemplating oneself
God himself, ideas spring from him since all eternity in pure timelessness.
Ideas arise from divine reflection, contemplating oneself. Jesus arises from
God's love. Through ideas, God unfolds himself, in this way he creates the
fertile principles of becoming. The ideas that spring from God are paradigms or
 prototypes. In this second nature is the Logos, the wisdom of God. God is going to
create from the ideas that have been in it since eternity, that are present in the
verb, which are coessential. These paradigmatic ideas are efficient cause and cause
exemplary, that is why creation becomes a theophany that has been created by him
since the
III. Nature created but not creating:
IV. Created nature, do not create.