Abstract

This article deals with Averroes’s interpretation of Metaph. Ε 1, where Aristotle discusses the nature and object of metaphysics, as well as its place in the hierarchy of sciences. Among Averroes’s predecessors, al-Kindī seems to see a coincidence between metaphysics and theology, since God can be described as the “first cause of everything”. However, al-Fārābī and Avicenna discovered that “first philosophy” could be conceived as an ontology distinct from theology; moreover, they considered theology to be only a part of metaphysics, not even the most important one. In the Great Commentary on Metaphysics - where the Arabic translation of the work by the Jacobite monk Usṭāth is quoted, Averroes often just paraphrases the original passages. One may infer that theology in the strict sense is merely mentioned by way of example. In the Epitome of Metaphysics, the objects of metaphysics are “general” ones; metaphysics studies the “absolute being” and cannot be identified with theology as “pertaining to God”.