page_title: History of theology
section_title: Christological controversy after Chalcedon
hierarchical_section_title: History of theology / Medieval Christian theology / Byzantine theology / Christological controversy after Chalcedon
caption_attribution_description: English: John de Damascus Español: San Juan de Damasco
context_page_description: Greek theologia was used with the meaning "discourse on god" around 380 BC by Plato in The Republic, Book ii, Ch. 18. Aristotle divided theoretical philosophy into mathematike, physike and theologike, with the last corresponding roughly to metaphysics, which, for Aristotle, included discourse on the nature of the divine.
  Drawing on Greek Stoic sources, the Latin writer Varro distinguished three forms of such discourse: mythical, rational and civil.
  Some Latin Christian authors, such as Tertullian and Augustine, followed Varro's threefold usage, though Augustine also used the term more simply to mean 'reasoning or discussion concerning the deity'
  In patristic Greek Christian sources, theologia could refer narrowly to devout and inspired knowledge of, and teaching about, the essential nature of God.
  The Latin author Boethius, writing in the early 6th century, used theologia to denote a subdivision of philosophy as a subject of academic study, dealing with the motionless, incorporeal reality. Boethius' definition influenced medieval Latin usage.
context_section_description: Severus of Antioch (c. 465–518)
  Leontius of Jerusalem (working 538–544)
  Maximus the Confessor (c. 580–682)
  Eastern Orthodox – Roman Catholic theological differences
  Eastern Orthodox – Roman Catholic ecclesiastical differences
caption: John of Damascus
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