Theophanes of Nicea: His Life and Works

The purpose of the thesis is to study in detail the theological treatises of Theophanes of Nicaea, a bishop of the 14th century, in order to ascertain the reason for which they were written and the sources which were used, so that his intellectual portrait may be sketched as clearly as possible. In his letter to the Latin archbishop Paul, Theophanes rebuts some ideas of Prochoros Kydones on the distinction between the essence and the energies of God. The refutation of Prochoros’s theories was also one of the main purposes of his treatise on the light of Thabor. Although Theophanes answers Prochoros’s objections from an orthodox point of view, he does not hesitate to adopt some of the basic positions of Western scholasticism. The same happens in his treatise on the eternity of beings as well as in his treatise against the Latins. Particular attention is paid to the sources used by Theophanes, which include the treatises on the procession of the Holy Spirit written by John Bekkos, Barlaam the Calabrian and Neilos Kabasilas. In an appendix some textual problems of the treatise on the light of Tabor are discussed.