ARISTOTLE AS THE BASIS OF NEOPLATONIC INSTRUCTION IN THE ARMENIAN TRADITION

Abstract

This article examines the role of Aristotle in the formation and development of the Neoplatonic educational system within the Armenian intellectual tradition from late Antiquity to the modern era. While Neoplatonism remained the dominant philosophical paradigm in Armenia for more than a millennium, Aristotelian logic and natural philosophy provided its indispensable propaedeutic foundation. Particular importance is attributed to David the Invincible, whose commentaries established Aristotelian logic as the preparatory stage of philosophical education and shaped the Armenian cursus studiorum for centuries. The article traces the development of this curriculum through medieval monastic schools and universities, highlighting the interaction of Greek, Syriac, Arabic, and Latin traditions and the continuous renewal of Aristotelian scholarship through translations, commentaries, and manuscript transmission. Special attention is devoted to Armenian and European manuscript collections, which testify to the central place of Aristotelian texts in Armenian intellectual life. Against the view that Aristotelian studies declined after the Middle Ages, the article argues for their continuity into the seventeenth-nineteenth centuries through new translations and printed logic handbooks. It concludes that Aristotle was not merely received in Armenia but functioned as a fundamental component of Neoplatonic education, shaping Armenian philosophy, theology, and scientific thought.