Αναστάσιος Παπαβασιλόπουλος (c. 1670 - c. 1750): βιογραφία - εργογραφία

Abstract

Anastasios Papavasilopoulos, a scholar from Epirus, appears during a historical period (end of 17th - beginning of 18th century) in which the Philosophy of Aristotle and all who supported him (mainly Theophilos Korydaleus) seem to be in doubt. A restless spirit, he grew up in Ioannina at a time when the connections of the city to the West were evident. He was not long in heading for places in which education and knowledge were on offer (Constantinople and Venice). Indeed, his family roots - son of a cleric and nephew of Meletios Metros, bishop of Athens, the so-called Geographer - were crucial in the formation of his character and interests. He received the necessary covering of the Orthodox Theological education in the conservative atmosphere of Constantinople, and then the classical education in the capital of the Serene Republic of Venice. Here education was plentifully on offer thanks to the movement of people, schools of thought, ideas and books, since Venice was the crossroads and centre of various streams of knowledge and information. He tried to accept and subdue material from the fields of rhetoric, philosophy, logic and mathematics. Having himself deep knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages, he drew from there as many subjects as he thought necessary for his teaching and writing work, which aimed at the enlightening of the Greeks. His return to the area of Greece was accompanied by his taking the cloth and assuming his work as a teacher, mainly in Ioannina, Serres, Tyrnavon and Trikala. Apart from his lessons which he taught in an original way, he made his presence felt in many ways, especially in his hometown. All his activities caused a reaction in his home environment, which later reached a peak in the shape of the other great child of Epirus, Methodios Anthrakites. The lessons he taught circulated in manuscript form. In this way four works of Papavasilopoulos have been saved: 1) Leucheimonousa Rhetorike 2) A General Summary of the Habit of Logic 3) A Manual of the Resurrected Natural Philosophy 4) An Introduction to Mathematics. The work "Leucheimonousa Rhetorike" seems to have caused a sensation, if we judge by the surviving copies, scattered in monasteries and private, municipal and public libraries in Greece, Cyprus, Asia Minor and the Danube principalities (Rumania - Moldavia). On studying his works it becomes obvious that most of the content is not original but translations or adaptations into Greek of works of foreign writers originally in Latin. This habit was quite widespread if we judge from the works of other scholars of the era who, crossing the Ionian Sea, settled down temporarily or permanently in the West. He does not hide it, since we read that his works come ".. from collected works of Latin converted into the Geek language", or that he borrowed "the warp from the Latin language." Apart from the above mentioned works and others lost, he also wrote laudatory epigrams to clerics and laymen, long letters to friends and colleagues, annotated chapters of the New Testament, made eulogies and obituaries for officials of his age among others. The points in which he appears to be original are two: 1) With his work "Logic" he introduces the principle of rationalism, thus conveying to Greece doubt and rationalism in human thought for the seeking of truth, the main introducer in the West being Carthuse. 2) He dared to shake the throne of Aristotle and his followers in his book "Natural Philosophy" something later undertaken directly by Nikolaos Mavrokordatos. The thesis is in two parts. In the first the biography of the teacher and writer is examined, and the content of his work in relation to the dominant social and philosophical ideas of his era is analysed and commented on. In the second all his known works are published for the first time, as up to now they existed only in manuscript form.