Nemesius of Emesa on Human Nature

Nemesius of Emesa's On Human Nature (De Natura Hominis) is the first Christian anthropology. Written in Greek, circa 390 CE, it was read in half a dozenlanguages -- from Baghdad to Oxford -- well into the early modern period. Nemesius' text circulated in two Latin versions in the centuries that saw the rise of European universities, shaping scholastic theories of human nature. During the Renaissance there were numerous print editions helping to inspire a new discourse of human dignity. David Lloyd Dusenbury offers the first monograph in English on Nemesius' treatise. In the interpretation offered here, the Syrian bishop seeks to define the human qua human. His early Christian anthropology is cosmopolitan. He writes, 'Things that are natural are the same for all.' In his pages, a host of texts and discourses -- biblical and midical, legal and philosophical -- are made to converge upon a decisive tenet of Christian late antiquity: humans' natural freedom. For Nemesisus, reason and choice are a divine double-strand of powers. Since he believes that both are a natural human inheritance, he concludes that much in 'in our power'. Nemesius defines humans as the only living beings who are at once ruler (intellect) and ruled (body). Becaurse of this, the human is a 'little world', binding the rationality of angels to the flux of elements, the tranquillity of plants, and the impulsiveness of animals. This compelling study traces Nemesius' reasoning through the whole of On Human Nature, as he seeks to give a long-influential image of humanking both philosophical and anatomical proof.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Philosophy. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.