Most Byzantines accepted the Aristotelian view which defines man as a composite of body and soul. Thinkers mostly influenced by Aristotle accepted the definition of soul as the vital principle and energy that gives existence and form to body. The soul is the primary principle of nourishment, sensation, movement, and understanding. Aristotle’s definition of the soul as ‘‘the actuality of a natural body which potentially has life’’ presented a formidable challenge to Byzantine thinkers (Nikephoros Blemmydes, Gennadios Scholarios).
The soul is the vital life principle. Some early Byzantines perceived the soul in physical terms, as breath (Didymos the Blind) or blood (this notion was criticized by Nemesios), but later Gregory of Nyssa insisted on a purely intellectual definition of it as ousia noera (intelligent substance of the rational soul). The soul unceasingly kindles the body to life, and suitably endows it with life and is defined as everlasting, ever-living, immortal, and eternal. The soul was considered as a guide for the body, giving it life and movement and causing its growth. The soul is not harmony, temperament, or any other quality, but it is an incorporeal being that is immortal but usually united with the body (Nemesius of Emesa). The soul is divided into three parts, the rational (to noeron), the spirited (to thymikon), and the appetitive (to epithymetikon). This terminology proves the Neoplatonic influence. Despite the apparent affinities between the Christian and the Neoplatonic tradition, however, important differences were continuously stressed by Byzantine thinkers. In general, late Byzantine philosophers rejected Neoplatonic theories on the preexistence of the soul. Some systematic criticism of Proclus’ (Anonymous (eleventh century), Nicholas of Methone) or Plotinus’ concept of the soul appeared (Nikephoros Choumnos). The soul and the body are created simultaneously and their coexistence is definite from the embryo (Gregory of Nyssa, Arethas, Nikephoros Choumnos). The soul cannot exist before its body, nor does it in ecstasy depart from its own nature into the nature of God. The soul does not have the attributes of the sperm or of the father of the rational being but of God, because it is produced by God and entered in the creature (Arethas). After death the soul retains its identity and is linked to its former body, which it recovers at the future resurrection (John of Damascus, Nikephoros Blemmydes).
Although the soul is united with the body, it is itself immaterial and does not consist of any of the four material elements (earth, water, air, fire) or a combination of them. Unlike the soul, the body is construed as three-dimensional, visible, and corruptible (mortal). It consists of the four elements and has four humors (black bile, phlegm, blood, yellow bile). The Byzantines rejected the image of the body as the cage or prison of the soul (Plato, Stoics) or as the embodiment of evil (dualistic heresies, Manicheism).
The body, created by God himself, was conceived of as ethically neutral, an instrument through which the soul could sin. The soul is moved by free choice, it acts by means of the body, whereas the body is changeable by nature and it does not have its own motion. Byzantine thinkers were concerned to retain an important place for free will in their psychologies and to deny deterministic accounts of behavior (contra-astrology). But there were attempts at a reconciliation between the belief in astral influence over the natural world and the Christian doctrines of divine providence and human free will (Nikephoros Gregoras). However, some thinkers, being influenced by Neoplatonism, insisted that the astral bodies were vehicles to transfer false images, fantasies, and hallucinations, and to deceive man in which phantasia played an important role (Michael Psellos).
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