John Philoponus c. 490 AD – c. 570 AD

John Philoponus was a Greek Alexandrian Christian philosopher, theologian, and Aristotelian commentator of late antiquity. A pupil of the Neoplatonist Ammonius Hermiae, he produced commentaries on much of Aristotle that broke decisively with pagan Aristotelian orthodoxy on key points. In his On the Eternity of the World against Proclus and against Aristotle he argued, from physical and conceptual principles, that the world had a beginning in time. He developed an early theory of impetus to replace Aristotle's account of projectile motion, anticipating later medieval and early modern dynamics, and his Christological writings shaped Miaphysite theology in Syria and Egypt.