Die Konzepte „Seele“ und „Energie“ in der Vita des Konstantin-Kyrill
The Concepts of “Soul” and “Energy” in the Life of Constantine Cyril

Summary/Abstract: Philosophical-theological views of St. Constantine-Cyrill have always attracted scholarly interest. Most authors pointed to Constantine-Cyrill’s veneration of St. Gregory of Nazianzus and concluded from the works of his teachers at Constantinople’s Magnaura on the presumable foundations of Constantine-Cyrill’s thinking. In this article the author aims to take another route by examining the argumentative status of two central theological terms in the Vita of Constantine-Cyrill. The Vita consists mainly of reports regarding Constatine-Cyrill’s debates with different interlocutors. The article focuses on the centrality of the Orthodox key term “energeia” in Constantine-Cyrill’s definition of philosophical thinking, identifies a hitherto overlooked quotation from Plotin, and outlines the complex “energeia – soul – body” as the (neo-platonistic) context for Constantine-Cyrill’s reasoning about human perceptive organs.

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