Philoponus, John (c. ad 490-c. 570) Christian Neoplatonist and influential physicist. He held heretical ideas about the beginning of the world, about which he wrote tracts criticizing both Aristotle and Proclus. His anti-Aristotelian theory of impetus influenced subsequent science down to Galileo. He also held that the three parts of the Trinity are three separate Gods (tritheism).

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