Psychological theories derive from anthropology. The classical Byzantine definition of man springs from the Greek philosophical tradition and is common to theologians, philosophers, and even elementary school textbooks. In general, man is a rational, mortal being, or corporeal essence, endowed with speech and thought, capable of reason and knowledge (Michael Psellos, Nikephoros Blemmydes). Man, a being that unites two natures in one person, was already the favorite model for hypostatic union from the sixth century. In this context the soul or spirit of man is contrasted to the body in negative terms (in-corporeal, im-mortal, in-corruptible), and man is perceived as a simultaneous synthesis ofoppo-sites: as a being of different essences united ineffably and simultaneously (Anastasios of Sinai), or as a mixture of opposites (Maximus the Confessor). Man is not his soul, but a substantial composite, a hypostatic unity of two independent substances - the soul and the body. The nature of the soul is a self-moving incorporeal substance, therefore immortal and incorruptible (Leontius of Byzance). The human being is a perfect creature between the corporeal and incorporeal worlds, a microcosm (mikros kosmos, ‘‘little universe’’) - man possesses in himself all the elements of the macrocosm (Nemesios of Emesa). He is conceived as the essence ‘‘lying on the borders’’ (methorion) between the spiritual and the material, and serves as the mediator of a natural synthesis (Maximos the Confessor Gregory of Nyssa), as ‘‘the bond (syndesmos) of the entire creation’’ (Kosmas Indikopleustes). Created by God, man is like the world, ‘‘a miniature world within the larger one’’ (John of Damascus); he is composed of two natures (divine and bestial) and occupies an intermediate place (Gemistos Plethon).
The ideas and notions of man (a single animal, mortal, and immortal, visible and invisible) as a king (basileus) of the created world are adopted from the Church Fathers (Gregory of Nazianzus, Makarios of Egypt). The concept of man as animal derives from ancient Greek philosophy and early Patristic thought, where a rational animal (zoon logikon) is a standard definition of man (Athanasios, Nemesios of Emesa). While some Christian writers seem to have conceived of the human person as a simple dichotomy of body and soul, threefold definition of man is characteristic of Byzantine patristic, monastic, and philosophical literature. This arrangement is found in ancient Platonism and Neoplatonism, as well as in the Biblical notions of man, which refer to body, soul, and spirit (Epistles of Saint Paul).
The Byzantine thinkers were concerned with psychological phenomena such as dreams, passions, emotions, humoral imbalances, mental disorders as melancholy, mania, and epilepsy. The Byzantine physicians followed the Hippocratic tradition and, in particular, Galen in attributing mental disorder to humoral imbalance. The humoral account was often supplemented by another tradition in which different disorders were often linked to different areas of the brain. The mental disorders were often associated with disturbances of function in one or more of the cerebral ventricles. The central issue of Byzantine psychology is characterized by the attempt to ascribe a certain set of mental powers or ‘‘faculties’’ to defined localizations within the brain and particularly its ventricles. Brain functions were carried out in the cerebral ventricles by the psychic pneuma, or animal spirit endowed with the power to perform sensitive and mental activities. Although opinions differed as to which specific function belonged to each of the ventricles, the idea of ventricular localization was accepted until the end of Byzantium. The internal senses were assumed to be located in the ventricles of the brain. These ventricles were supposed to be sense organs performing functions such as remembering or imagining. The theory was created by assigning the various perceptual and cognitive faculties identified by Aristotle in his De anima to the spirit-filled cerebral ventricles described by Galen in his discussion of the anatomy of the brain. The description of processes of the inner sense (especially, phantasia) was important for the explanation of the various psychological phenomena connected with dreams, visions, or demonology.
World History
