The Demiurge in Ioane Petritsi’s Commentary on Proclus’ Elements of Theology

Abstract

Ioane Petritsi, the twelfth century Georgian Christian Neoplatonist, wrote a commentary on Proclus’ Elements of Theology. In his work Petritsi goes far beyond the material contained in Proclus’ Elements, discussing the issues which are the subject of other treatises of ancient Greek philosophers. The aim of this paper is to analyze Petritsi’s point of view on the creator of the visible world, i.e. the demiurge of Plato’s Timaeus. In Petritsi’s commentary, on the one hand, the features of the supreme One and the demiurge as producers of the universe are in certain cases quasi identical, although on the other hand, the demiurge represents a lower level of intellect than the true being and in some cases is absent in places where a reader, following the context of Petritsi’s commentary, expects his presence.