A new history of ecclesiastical writers containing an account of the authors of the several books of the Old and New Testament, of the lives and writings of the primitive fathers, an abridgement and catalogue of their works ... also a compendious history of the councils, with chronological tables of the whole / written in French by Lewis Ellies du Pin.

JOHN PHILOPONUS.

JOHN, sirnam'd Philoponus, that is, Laborious, a Grammarian of Alexandria, of the Sect of the Tritheites, flourish'd in the beginning of the Seventh Century, and composed seve∣ral * 1.1 Books.

The first is a writing against Jamblichus the Philosopher's Treatise of Idols. That Philoso∣pher had undertaken in that Treatise, to shew, That Idols had something heavenly in them, and that the Deity dwelt there; which he prov'd both from the wonderful Fabrick of Images, and the incredible things ascribed to them. Philoponus had refuted the two Parts of that Work with a great deal of Elegancy and Strength. Photius speaks of that work in the 216th. Volume of his Bibliotheca.

He wrote, moreover a Treatise of the six Days Work against Theodorus Mopsuestenus, dedi∣cated to Sergius Patriarch of Constantinople; wherein he endeavours to demonstrate, That Moses hath related the History of the Creation of the World more plainly and conformably to the Phaenomena's of Nature than any thing Plato said of it. Photius mentions that Treatise in the 43d. Volume of his Bibliotheca, and there is an Extract of it found in the 240th. Volume. It is divided into four Books, publish'd by Corderius, and printed at Viema, in the Year 1630. in Quarto, together with a Tract of the same Author about Easter, whereof there is no men∣tion made in Photius, who speaks of three Works more of the same Author. The first is a Treatise of the Resurrection, wherein he rejected the Resurrection of the Body. The second is a Writing against the * 1.2 Fourth Council, divided into four Parts; in which he maintains, That the Bishops of that Assembly approv'd Nestorius's Doctrine. And another Treatise against the Catechetical Discourse of Joannes Scholasticus, Bishop of Constantinople, concerning the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity, preach'd under the Empire of Justin junior. He hath also written several other Philosophical Treatises † upon Aristotle's Books, printed in several Places, and a Treatise against Proclus's Opinion of the Eternity of the World.

This Author was as pure, pleasing and elegant in his Style, as impious in his Doctrine, and weak in his Reasonings. One may see by his Treatise of Easter, that in his Time the Greeks used Leaven'd Bread in the Eucharist.

Notes

• * 1.1

  John Phi∣loponus.
• * 1.2

  [The Coun∣cil of Chal∣cedon.] [†His Anal••∣tica, De ge∣nerati••ne & Corruptione, De anima, De genera∣tione ani∣mallum, De met••oris, Physicorum Acroamati∣ca, Printed at Venice in Gr. in 1535, 1551.]