The Use of Aristotle’s Biology in Nemesius’ On Human Nature

Towards the end of the fourth century CE Nemesius, bishop of Emesa in Syria, composed his treatise On Human Nature (Περὶ φύσεως ἀνθρώπου). The nature of the soul and its relation to the body are central to Nemesius’ treatment. In developing his argument, he draws not only on Christian authors but on a variety of pagan philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and the great physician-cum-philosopher Galen of Pergamum. This paper examines Nemesius’ references to Aristotle’s biology in particular, focusing on a few passages in the light of Aristotle’s Generation of Animals and History of Animals as well as the doxographic tradition. The themes in question are: the status of the intellect, the scale of nature and the respective roles of the male and female in reproduction. Central questions are: Exactly which impact did Aristotle make on his thinking? Was it mediated or direct? Why does Nemesius cite Aristotle and how? Long used as a source for earlier works now lost, Nemesius’ work may provide intriguing glimpses of the intellectual culture of his time. This paper is designed to contribute to this new approach to his work.


Introduction
In early Christian literature the author of On Human Nature (or On the Nature of Man, Περὶ φύσεως ἀνθρώπου) is something of a mystery guest. The majority of our principal MSS identify the author as the otherwise unknown Nemesius, bishop of Emesa (present-day Homs in Syria). The untenable ascription to Gregory of Nyssa, which was in vogue for some time in the Middle Ages, clearly answered a felt need to provide with a better-known and authoritative author a work that impressed many through its learning, scope and execution and was translated into Latin, Georgian, Armenian, Syriac and Arabic. As it is, we have to extract our information about its author and context in so far as possible from the work itself. Nemesius' references to ecclesiastics indicate that he must have written his work at the end of the fourth or perhaps the beginning of the fifth Even if an idea like this must remain speculative, it is inspired by real features of the work as it has come down to us. Its title places it in a long tradition starting from Hippocrates' work of the same title and continued by a long line of philosophers writing on human nature from a psychological and biological perspective in particular. 7 In both contexts we find him using Aristotelian doctrines and works. His use of Aristotle's De anima has already attracted some attention, not least because of its relevance to the author's ideas on the human soul in relation to the body, which the author uses as a model for the incarnation of Christ. In what follows, this paper will focus on other passages where we find more strictly biological (or zoological), including embryological and spermatological, ideas. In terms of the Aristotelian corpus this means that the paper will be addressed in particular to Generation of Animals and History of Animals and, to a lesser extent given its small role, Part of Animals 8 , the presence of which need not be doubted, although Nemesius gives us no titles, only Aristotle's name, and often not even his name but just an allusion or echo. The 1987 Teubner edition by Moreno Morani includes an apparatus of parallels with Aristotle (and other sources) that provides a good (though by no means the sole) basis for further study of Nemesius' engagement with Aristotle. The paper will not take it for granted that Nemesius' use of Aristotle is always unmediated or excludes other influences and sources. 9 We have to reckon with author is identical with the pagan governor named Nemesius who governed Cappadocia for a short while between 383 and 389 CE. This governor is on record as having engaged in philosophical discussions with Gregory of Nazianzus; see Gallay, ed., Saint Grégoire de Nazianze. Lettres, vol. 2 (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1967), 198-201;cf. also the poem dedicated to this Nemesius in the second book of his poetry, viz. nr. 1071 (= nr. VII of the poems to others) in PG vol. 37, pp. 1551-1554. It then becomes tempting to speculate that this Nemesius was converted and reworked an anthropological treatise he had written during his pagan period into a Christian work but did not succeed in turning it into a thoroughly Christian work. Nemesius' identity with the Roman governor of the same name must remain uncertain, however: see Telfer,Cyril of Jerusalem and Nemesius of Emesa,[208][209][210] cf. also Sharples and Van der Eijk, Nemesius on the Nature of Man,2. intermediate accounts and in particular the presence of doxographic literature. Since the 19 th century it is an established fact that Nemesius reflects the so-called Placita tradition as reconstructed by Hermann Diels (1879) and, more recently, Mansfeld and Runia (1997), (2009), (2020. This is further borne out by the impressive number of parallels that have been found and presented by Nemesius' most recent editor, Morani. Given our focus on Aristotle's biological works, it is worth pointing out that I do not intend to discuss Nemesius' rejection of Aristotle's hylomorphist theory of the soul as the form of the body (De an. 2.2), which, in line with later Peripatetic accounts, he interprets in terms of its quality (Aristotle had originally intended 'form' in the sense of substance). Given his Christian outlook Nemesius opted for a position close to the Platonist one, viz. that of the soul as a separate, incorporeal substance. At the same time, Nemesius explained the body-soul relationship by the Aristotelian and Galenic idea of the soul using the body as its instrument. In the case of Aristotle we shall see Nemesius making creative use of Aristotelian ideas from the biological works as well. 10

The Intellect: Inside or Out
Our first case comes from the very beginning of the treatise ( § 1, pp.1.3-2.1 Morani). Having said that many eminent men have taken the view that man is constructed of an intellective soul and a body, Nemesius raises the issue of the relationship between the intellect and the soul: did the intellect make the soul intellective coming from outside, as one thing to another, or does the soul possess intellect of itself and from its own nature? He then introduces a doxographic schema with Aristotle as one of the authorities who address the issue: Some, Plotinus among them, have held the doctrine that the soul is one thing and the intellect another and maintain that man is composed of three things, body, soul and intellect. Apollinaris, who became bishop of Laodicea, 11 followed them. […] But some did not set the intellect apart from the soul but believe that the intellect is the ruling part of its being. 12 Aristotle is of the opinion that while the potential intellect is part of the composition of man, intellect that is in actuality comes to us from outside, not as something that contributes to man's being and existence, but as contributing to the advancement of knowledge of natural things and of contemplation. Thus he affirms that few men and at any rate those who have philosophized possess intellect that is in actuality at all (1, pp.1.9-2.1 Morani; translation Sharples and Van der Eijk,modified). 13 Nemesius goes on to note that Plato falls out of this classification because he appeared not to have considered the human being a composite of soul and body but rather a soul using the body as an instrument and turning away from it for the sake of cultivating its true self and the life of virtue (1,. But all of them take the soul to be superior to the body (1, p.2.9-10). This broad consensus leads Nemesius to his view that we are intermediate creatures, sitting on the boundary between the perceptible and intelligible realms. This place within the order of things is one of autonomy and responsibility and so involves a moral appeal (p.2.15-p.3.3 Morani). 14 Among those who focus on the relation between the soul and the intellect, Aristotle represents a compromise position between those who separate the two (a group including Plotinus and Apollinaris) and those who see the intellect as a function of the 11 Apollinaris (315-392 CE), bishop of Laodicea in Syria, held that the intellect or spirit is divine and was condemned accordingly: see further Sharples and Van der Eijk, Nemesius on the Nature of Man, 35 n.185. 12 As Sharples and Van der Eijk, Nemesius on the Nature of Man, 36 n.186 submit, the Stoics may be meant, in view of the recorded doctrine and the term 'ruling part ': cf. ps.Plut. Plac. 4.21.1 (SVF 2.836). Yet there is a more precise parallel at Stob. Ecl. I 49 [41] 7 Wachsmuth, saying that Parmenides, Empedocles and Democritus take the soul and the intellect to be the same (italics mine); see further infra, n. 21 with text thereto. 13 ὧν ἐστι καὶ Πλωτῖνος, ἄλλην εἶναι τὴν ψυχὴν καὶ ἄλλον τὸν νοῦν δογματίσαντες, ἐκ τριῶν τὸν ἄνθρωπον συνεστάναι βούλονται, σώματος καὶ ψυχῆς καὶ νοῦ. οἷς ἠκολούθησε καὶ Ἀπολινάριος ὁ τῆς Λαοδικείας γενόμενος ἐπίσκοπος· […] τινὲς δὲ οὐ διέστειλαν ἀπὸ τῆς ψυχῆς τὸν νοῦν, ἀλλὰ τῆς οὐσίας αὐτῆς ἡγεμονικὸν εἶναι τὸ νοερὸνἡγοῦνται. Ἀριστοτέλης δὲ τὸν μὲν δυνάμει νοῦν συγκατεσκευάσθαι τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ, τὸν δὲ ἐνεργείᾳ θύραθεν ἡμῖν ἐπεισιέναι δοξάζει, οὐκ εἰς τὸ εἶναι καὶ τὴν ὕπαρξιν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου συντελοῦντα, ἀλλ' εἰς προκοπὴν τῆς τῶν φυσικῶν γνώσεως καὶ θεωρίας συμβαλλόμενον· κομιδῇ γοῦν ὀλίγους τῶν ἀνθρώπων καὶ μόνους τοὺς φιλοσοφήσαντας τὸν ἐνεργείᾳ νοῦν ἔχειν διαβεβαιοῦται. soul itself. 15 Aristotle differentiates between a potential and internal intellect on the one hand and an active and external intellect on the other, reconciling the two opposing camps in a sense. Further, Nemesius combines here statements from various works into one Aristotelian position. The phrase about the intellect entering from outside echoes Generation of Animals 2.3: 736b 24. 16 But the distinction between the active and the potential intellect comes from On the Soul 3.5: 430a10-25, i.e. the seminal but notoriously controversial passage on the active intellect. For our purposes it is not necessary to enter into the long-standing problem of its interpretation (which goes back to Aristotle's pupil Theophrastus). It suffices to note that Nemesius uses this distinction to make a point about how to lead our lives: the active intellect is not necessary for human existence as such. It may have been Nemesius himself who synthesized Aristotle's ideas on the intellect in this particular way. This is also suggested by the presence in this passage of relatively recent authorities such as Plotinus and Apollinaris. But it is worth noting that the issue as such appears to have been traditional. 18 One doxographic source associates the intellect entering from outside with no less than five authorities but, strikingly, not is clearly concerned with the relation between the soul and the intellect, saying that Parmenides, Empedocles and Democritus consider them to be the same. 21 In sum, Nemesius uses traditional issues and positions but enriches this doxographic material with additions, tweaks and updates of his own. In this particular case we can also see how and why he does so, namely with a view to driving home a few

The Scale of Nature
In the introduction ( § 1) Nemesius is concerned to determine the place of human beings in the greater whole of the cosmos. Here he introduces his view of humans as intermediate beings: we have things in common with non-rational animals and even with inanimate things but at the same time we participate in the thinking of rational beings (pp. 2.13-15, 24-3.3 Morani). This, he explains, is but an instantiation of a wider principle, viz. the Creator links together the different natures through small differences, so that the creation displays unity and coherence (p.3.3-5, 25 Morani). Here he echoes Aristotle's conviction that Nature does not make jumps, in particular as expounded at History of Animals 8.1: 588b4-22 (cf. ibid. 5.15: 548a5). 23 Nemesius, then, enriches his account by transferring an Aristotelian idea about how nature works to the Creator. 24 He fleshes this out by presenting a scale of nature, moving from stones to magnetic stones, which display the power of attracting iron as if they wish to make it their food (p.3.17-22 Morani). 25 23 Nature proceeds little by little from things lifeless to animal life in such a way that it is impossible to determine the exact line of demarcation, nor on which side thereof an intermediate form should lie. Thus, next after lifeless things comes the plant, and of plants one will differ from another as to its amount of apparent vitality; and, in a word, the whole genus of plants, whilst it is devoid of life as compared with an animal, is endowed with life as compared with other corporeal entities. Indeed […] there is observed in plants a continuous scale of ascent towards the animal. So in the sea there are certain objects concerning which one would be at a loss to determine whether they be animal or vegetable. For instance, certain of these objects are fairly rooted, and in several cases perish if detached; thus the pinna is rooted to a particular spot, and the razor-shell cannot survive withdrawal from its burrow. Indeed, broadly speaking, the entire genus of testaceans have a resemblance to vegetables, if they be contrasted with such animals as are capable of progression. In regard to sensibility, some animals give no indication whatsoever of it, whilst other indicate it but indistinctly. Further the substance of some of these intermediate creatures is flesh-like, as in the case of the so-called ascidians and the sea-anemones; but the sponge is in every respect like a vegetable. And so throughout the entire animal scale there is a graduated differentiation in amount of vitality and in capacity for motion (transl. d'Arcy Thompson). 24 The appellation used by Nemesius, literally 'craftsman' (δημιουργός, p.3, 3, 5 et passim) goes back, of course, to Plato's Timaeus. Its creation story was often interpreted literally, i.e. as an actual one-time event rather than in the sense of a creatio continua, in line with the Christian account from Genesis 1. Aristotle, by contrast, took the cosmos to be eternal and so without a beginning: see e.g. Cael. I.3:270a12-270b31; cf. ps. Plut. Plac. 2.4.4, 2.5.1. 25 Here Nemesius may be inspired by Galenic passages on the power of the magnetic stone such as Loc. Aff. VIII. 66 K. Ther. Pis. XIV. 225, SMT XI. 612 K. Yet Galen merely illustrates the attractive power of organs in living beings by reference to that of the magnetic stone. But cf. Alexander of Aphrodisias, Quaestio 2.23, who says that it is the iron which desires for something in the magnet, thus reversing the viewpoint taken by Nemesius.
Since the nutritive power is that characterizing plants, Nemesius starts discussing the difference between them and animals: Then again, subsequently, the Creator, as He moved on from plants to animals, did not at once proceed to a nature that changes its place and is sensitive but took care to proceed gradually and carefully in this direction. He constructed the bivalves and the corals like sensitive trees, for He rooted them in the sea like plants and put shells around them like wood and made them stationary like plants; but He endowed them with the sense of touch, the sense common to all animals, so that they are associated with plants by having roots and being stationary. The sponge at any rate, as Aristotle tells us, although growing on rocks, both contracts and defends itself when it senses something approaching. For such reasons the wise men of old were accustomed to call all such things zoophytes. 26 Again he linked to bivalves and the like the generation of animals that change their place but are incapable of going far, but move to and from the same place. Most of the animals with shells and worms (lit. earth's guts) 27 are like this (1, pp. 3.23-4.9 Morani; transl. Sharples and Van der Eijk). 28 In this passage Nemesius uses the biological expertise of Aristotle to drive home his point about the structure of Creation. Apparently, he considers it perfectly legitimate to cite Aristotle as a scientific authority within a Christian framework. This is also a matter of rhetorical strategy, for it will only lend more force to his message in the eyes of the non-Christians to whom he also addresses himself: they are not persuaded by biblical authority but, as he notes, need to be approached with arguments. 29 The created world displays a layered structure without big gaps between the species of living beings. Thus, sponges are plantlike in that they lack the faculty of locomotion, being attached to rocks, but are like other animals in being sentient and resistant to threats. This point reflects a specific passage on sponges (and similarly non-mobile creatures) from the Aristotelian History of Animals, 5,16: 548a21-549a12 and especially 548b10-15 (cf. also ch. 15 on testaceans). 26 This is inaccurate. As Sharples and Van der Eijk, Nemesius on the Nature of Man, 39 n.202 following Telfer, Cyril of Jerusalem and Nemesius of Emesa, 233 n.5 point out, the term 'zoophyte' is not found before the second century CE. 27 Cf. Arist. HA 6.16: 570a15; cf. GA 3.11:762b26. 28 εἶτα πάλιν ἑξῆς ἀπὸ τῶν φυτῶν ἐπὶ τὰ ζῷα μετιών, οὐκ ἀθρόως ἐπὶ τὴν μεταβατικὴνκαὶ αἰσθητικὴν ὥρμησε φύσιν. ἀλλ' ἐκ τοῦ κατ' ὀλίγον ἐπὶ ταύτην ἐμμελῶς προῆλθεν· τὰς γὰρ πίννας καὶ τὰς ἀκαλήφας ὥσπερ αἰσθητικὰ δένδρα κατεσκεύασεν· ἐρρίζωσε μὲν γὰρ αὐτὰς ἐν τῇ θαλάσσῃ δίκην φυτῶν καὶ ὥσπερ ξύλα τὰ ὄστρακα περιέθηκε καὶ ἔστησεν ὡς φυτά, αἴσθησιν δὲ αὐταῖς ἐνέδωκε τὴν ἁπτικήν, τὴν κοινὴν πάντων ζῴων αἴσθησιν, ὡς κοινωνεῖν τοῖς μὲν φυτοῖς κατὰ τὸ ἐρριζῶσθαι καὶ ἑστάναι, τοῖς δὲ ζῴοις κατὰ τὴν ἁφήν· τὸν γοῦν σπόγγον, καίτοι προσπεφυκότα ταῖς πέτραις, καὶ συστέλλεσθαι καὶ ἀμύνεσθαι, ὅταν προσιόντος αἴσθηταί τινος, Ἀριστοτέλης ἱστόρησεν. διὸ τὰ τοιαῦτα πάντα ζῳόφυτα καλεῖν ἔθος ἔχουσιν οἱ παλαιοὶ τῶν σοφῶν. πάλιν δὲ ταῖς πίνναις καὶ τοῖς τοιούτοις συνῆψε τὴν τῶν μεταβατικῶν μὲν ζῴων γένεσιν, μακρὰν δὲ προελθεῖν μὴ δυναμένων, ἀλλ' αὐτόθεν αὐτοῦ που κινουμένων· τοιαῦτα δέ ἐστι τὰ πλεῖστα τῶν ὀστρακοδέρμων καὶ τὰ καλούμενα γῆς ἔντερα. 29 See 2, 38.7-9, 42, 120.21-23 Morani. Here Aristotle argues that sponges are sensitive, being aware of and resisting attempts to pluck them, or clinging more strongly to their rocks when the weather turns windy and boisterous (cf. ibid. 549a8: sponges are agreed to be sentient). Here he does not say that they are plantlike, but he does so at 8.1: 588b20 (sponges, being  concerned. When he turns to the soul in § 2 (pp.36.13-37.20 Morani) he returns to the theme of graduality, pointing out that animals display a 'natural' (so not strictly rational) intelligence and skills and arts analogous to ours, echoing the same first chapter of book 8 of Aristotle's work that lies behind the passage from § 1 we have just quoted (in particular Aristotle's observations at HA 8.1: 588a22-588b1).

Women, Semen and Blood
In Nemesius' account of the generative and seminal faculty or power ( § 25) we find the following passage: Women have all the same parts as men, but inside not outside. Aristotle and Democritus maintain that female sperm contributes nothing to the generation of offspring. For they maintain that what is emitted by women is sweat of the relevant part rather than seed. But Galen finding fault with Aristotle says women have seed and the mixture of both seeds produces the embryo; that is indeed why intercourse is called mixture. Yet they do not have perfect seed like a man's but it is still uncooked and rather watery. Being like this the woman's seed becomes nourishment of that of the man. From it a portion of the fetal membrane round the horns 33 of the womb is solidified and also the so-called sausage-like membrane which is a receptacle for the residues from the embryo (transl. Sharples and Van der Eijk, slightly modified) (25, pp. 86.19-87.7 Morani). 34 This is largely based on Galen, On Semen and the relevant part of On the Functionality of Parts (book 14, chs. 9-14). Here however we do not just get a summary or conflation of Galenic passages but a little doxography which invites comparison with the Placita tradition and in particular what is found in one of its extant witnesses, ps.Plutarch, Plac.
by Democritus alongside Pythagoras and Epicurus, and the second Aristotles' view 35 , denying semen to women. The third and last lemma gives the view of the Presocratic thinker Hippon, which constitutes a compromise between the first and the second-a schema fairly common in the Placita: women do have semen but it contributes nothing to procreation. 36 When we compare this chapter in the Placita with the corresponding passage in Nemesius, we find that Nemesius aligns Democritus with Aristotle as denying that there is female semen, which is the view opposite to the one given to Democritus in the  38 Diels, Doxographi Graeci, 49-50 even took Nemesius to have drawn directly on the lost source Aëtius, a source, then, fuller than extant specimens such as ps.Plutarch's Placita. 39 (1) Πυθαγόρας Ἐπίκουρος Δημόκριτος καὶ τὸ θῆλυ προΐεσθαι σπέρμα· ἔχει γὰρ παραστάτας ἀπεστραμμένους· διὰ τοῦτο καὶ ὄρεξιν ἔχει περὶ τὰς χρήσεις. (2) Ἀριστοτέλης καὶ Ζήνων ὕλην μὲν ὑγρὰν προΐεσθαι οἱονεὶ ἀπὸ τῆς συγγυμνασίας ἱδρῶτας, οὐ μὴν σπέρμα πεπτικόν. (3) Ἵππων προΐεσθαι μὲν σπέρμα τὰς θηλείας οὐχ ἥκιστα τῶν ἀρρένων, μὴ μέντοι εἰς ζῳογονίαν τοῦτο συμβάλλεσθαι διὰ τὸ ἐκτὸς πίπτειν τῆς ὑστέρας· ὅθεν ἐνίας προΐε-σθαι πολλάκις δίχα τῶν ἀνδρῶν σπέρμα, καὶ μάλιστα τὰς χηρευούσας. καὶ εἶναι τὰ μὲν ὀστᾶ παρὰ τοῦ ἄρρενος τὰς δὲ σάρκας παρὰ τῆς θηλείας. those who deny that women have semen may be due to a simple confusion of the namelabels belonging with the options. 40 The passage in Nemesius, then, shows him using, in an independent and creative way, a relevant chapter from the Placita tradition: the position labelled here with the name of the rather obscure old-timer Hippo he replaces with that of a more recent authority, Galen, who had corrected Aristotle, thus vindicating the general thesis, with which Nemesius opens this section. 41 Why he addresses this subject in the first place is not difficult to see. The question of the female contribution to conception had become a standard issue after Aristotle had rejected earlier Hippocratic accounts according to which both parents contribute to their offspring on an equal basis. Aristotle had devoted a separate chapter of Generation of Animals to showing that the female contributes no semen during coition (1.20; cf. also the previous chapter and GA 1.19.727a28-29, echoed by Nemesius). 42 Thus it became one of the issues included in the physiological part of the Placita. The mistake with Democritus' name may suggest that Nemesius is working on the basis of his memory. But his use of the Placita section does not exclude his using the relevant statement from Aristotle's original exposition also. He plays off Aristotle against Galen, another authority, whose work he knows well and whose position he presents not only as correct but well-argued.
Here it becomes clear that Galen indicated the superiority of the male semen over the female one so that he really represents a kind of compromise position: women do contribute seed of their own but it plays a subordinate role. Seen in this light, Galen's view functions in a way similar to the position ascribed to Hippon. Further, Nemesius does not produce any scriptural or at any rate Christian support for the thesis of the 40  (internal) anatomical correspondence between the two sexes. In fact, the female emission of semen is mentioned in Hebrews 11:11, which itself appears to reflect an insight from Greek embryology. 43 It may be noted that the first half of Methodius of Olympus' dialogue Symposium (usually dated to c. 290 CE) shows the female interlocutors attributing an active, formative role to the mother (it is not the father but God who in a later stage provides the soul to the embryo), anchoring their disquisitions in medical theorems on the substance and origin of semen-issues also familiar from the Placita tradition (see ps. Plut. Plac. 5.3, 4). 44 Nemesius pays on the whole little attention to the difference between man and woman. His view that they have corresponding anatomies should not be taken to imply that he sees them as in principle equal. His point about the superiority of male seed, which he takes over from Galen, immediately suppresses such a reading. To explain the relation of the soul to its bodily instruments he uses the example of the sexual act, giving the woman the part of the 'matter', i.e. the passive recipient of the action in question, in a way that recalls Aristotelian passages (5, p.55.5-6 Morani; cf. Arist. GA 1.2: 716a6-8, 1.19: 727b31-33, 1.20: 729a11 and elsewhere). 45 Likewise women appear in an example in his discussion of moral responsibility (40,. Here Nemesius quotes Matthew 5:28, Jesus' statement that desiring another man's wife amounts to committing adultery "in one's heart." This is meant to illustrate the idea that moral choice preceding action (in this case intercourse) is already liable to moral judgement. But once again the female part is an entirely passive one and the perspective is male.
It may be instructive to compare another passage concerned with the body and semen from § 4, the section dedicated to the body: Aristotle holds that the bodies of animals come to be directly from the blood alone; for he thinks it is directly from this that all the parts of the animal are nourished and grow, and sperm has its origin in blood (4,. 46 At the beginning of this section Nemesius had already introduced the four humors (blood, phlegm, black and yellow bile) as the constituents of the bodies of animals that have blood (there is only one more fundamental level, viz. that of the physical elements). This was the Hippocratic view, especially as influentially promoted by Galen on the basis of the Hippocratic On Human Nature, chs. 1-15, i.e. the part attributed by Galen to Hippocrates himself ). Having given Aristotle's position in the above quotation Nemesius argues that it is difficult to explain body parts so different in structure as flesh and bone 47 on the assumption of one humor only. The Hippocratic view, then, is to be preferred, or so it is implied. But somewhat surprisingly he goes on to point out that the four humors are often found in the blood 48 , concluding that "the gentlemen appear somehow to be in agreement with one another" . We have seen other examples of Nemesius striking a compromise where Aristotle was involved. Here too then he is not dismissed but reconciled to the strictly speaking preferable position.

Conclusion
Aristotelian ideas play a prominent part in Nemesius' work. The present inquiry has focused on the biological works but (as a glance at Morani's Index locorum makes clear) the selection could easily be extended to cover treatises such as On the Soul and the Nicomachean Ethics, both of which were of immediate relevance to Nemesius' purpose in writing his own treatise. But we also come across reflections of works such as the Meteorology and some of the so-called Parva Naturalia. When we limit ourselves to the biological works in the stricter sense, i.e. the works taken to contain Aristotle's biology, it has become clear that he uses them in connection with various themes. As we have seen, he combines Aristotle's reference to the external intellect from Generation of Animals 2.3: 736b24 with that in On the Soul 3.5 and the characterization of the theoretical intellect as the crowning human faculty (EN 10.7-9) to make the point that we need to cultivate a philosophical life of virtue, limiting, in an un-Aristotelian way, the active intellect to philosophical activity. He uses History of Animals 8.1: 588b4-22 to argue the unity and coherence of Creation: there are no gaps but gradual differences 55 See e.g. Porphyr. Isag. 20. 56 For the two different divisions in the two different contexts (ethical, physical) cf. Porphyry fr. 253 Smith (= Stob. Ecl. I 49.25a,. For a discussion of this and other witnesses to the doxographic tradition concerned with the structure (or division) of the soul see T. Tieleman, Chrysippus On Affections. Reconstruction and Interpretation (Leiden: Brill 2003) 61-88. between living beings. In the hierarchy of beings humans occupy an intermediate position between rational and non-rational (including inanimate), between immortal and mortal, nature. But he also uses Aristotle (Generation of Animals 1.20; cf. 19) for his discussion of human reproduction and in particular the respective roles of male and female, a traditional issue, not just in ancient medicine but also natural philosophy.
The attitude taken by Nemesius to Aristotle is similar to that of Clement and Origen in that he not only criticizes Aristotelian doctrines, but also appropriates some of them, in part or with a twist. In fact, as we have seen in section 3, even where he corrects Aristotle, with the help Galen, he seems to be concerned to keep Aristotle as much as possible on board. His classifications of different and indeed opposing doctrines often serve the purpose not of eliminating some of them but of forging a broad coalition in favour of some of his main points (see especially section 1). It was moreover possible for him to use Aristotle's biology to teach his readers about the structure of Creation (section 2). Among the few things we know about the context in which his work was composed is that Nemesius envisaged a mixed audience of unconverted as well as Christian readers.
To persuade the former category it made sense to address the familiar repertory of philosophical issues and show how a Christian answer could be developed, one that included the work of prominent philosophers and scientists such as Aristotle.