Abstract
Yaḥyā al-Naḥwī, that is, John the Grammarian, is the Arabic name for John Philoponus (c. CE 490–575) in the medieval Arabic literature. His image in the Arabic sources, though embellished with legendary details, is not far from reality. He was a pupil of the Neoplatonist Ammonius in Alexandria of Egypt and a commentator of Aristotle and Galen. He wrote independent philosophical treatises against Proclus and Aristotle. Being a Christian, he also wrote theological treatises in which he expounded his views about the Trinity and his anti-Chalcedonian tenets in the disputes of his age. Above all, he became famous for his arguments against the eternity of the world, which formed the basis of argumentation not only in the Syro-Arabic Christian theology but also in Arabic-Islamic (al-Ġazālī) and Arabic-Jewish theology on the creation of the world (Maimonides).
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Giannakis, E. (2020). Philoponus, Arabic. In: Lagerlund, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1665-7_391
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