Zachary Keith: Identifying the Context for St John Damascene’s Institutio elementaris

Several theories have been posited about the relationship between John’s Institutio elementaris and the two recensions of his Dialectica. Even so, common consensus is that John delivered the Institutio early in his career and that it represents a simplistic understanding of philosophy, which he would later expand to form the Dialectica. As such, the Institutio demonstrates a crude understanding of philosophy, focused on presenting the necessary philosophical foundations for explaining certain theological concepts.
In this paper, I reexamine the narrative surrounding John’s Institutio elementaris. I begin by outlining the methodology we can use to establish the original setting for the work. I also explain how we can use the contents of the Institutio—its vocabulary, citations, and insights—to help make a crude timeline of John’s philosophical writings. I argue that the Institutio is not the work of a philosophical novice, but that John composed it later in his life, perhaps even after he wrote the first recension of the Dialectica.