The principal part of this entry derives from two of the ancient commentators on Aristotle. In sequence: Alexander of Aphrodisias, On the Topica 348.24-32, 349.18-19; John Philoponus, On the de anima 34.6-19, 265.12-20.
[1] Copied to delta 508, where the present entry's ba/llein 'to throw" is correctly diaba/llein "to slander". Etymologically the Devil -- upper-case Diabolos -- is in Christian discourse "the Slanderer".
[2] An Aristotelian trinity: du/namis, e)ne/rgeia, e)ntele/xeia. See Metaphysics 1017a35-1017b8; Physics 255a33-255b12.
[3] Aristotle offers three definitions of soul in his De anima: (a) the form of a natural body that has life potentially; (b) the first actuality of a natural body that has life potentially (412a27-28); (c) the first actuality of a natural body that has organs (412b5-6). In sum the soul is understood as a form, i.e. the form of the body (414a14-19).
[4] These are the sorts of "movements" or changes distinguished by Aristotle: (a) according to substance (generation-destruction), (b) according to quality (alteration), (c) according to quantity (growth-diminution), and (d) according to the place (see Categories 15a13-15; Physics 200b33-34; see also kappa 1640).
[5] "Local movement", meaning their delimited, defined and predicable orbits. From antiquity through the Middle Ages and on to Galileo, everyone believed that the heavenly bodies could never vary. Comets and meteorites were regarded as atmospheric phenomena.
[6] cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics 1028a31-b7, with the illuminating commentary by Alexander of Aphrodisias on Aristotle’s logical priority: "but substance (ou)si/a) is not only prior in time but also in definition (lo/gw|), such as has been said before. For if things that are apprehended in the definition (o(rismo/s) of something are prior to what is defined with regard to its definition, and if nose is apprehended with the definition (lo/gos) of snub, and blood with the definition of rage, it is clear that the substance is also prior to its accidental determinations (sumbebhko/ta) in its definition. And this is so not only in the case of snub and blood, but, as [Aristotle] himself will say later, in defining both 'white' and the rest of [the accidental determinations], since we do not explain properly or accurately their definitions, we do not apprehend the substance [of these things] in their definitions. Since if one had accuracy, one might capture [the substance] in the definition of such things' (Commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics 461.11-19). See also Physics 184a16-18. The Aristotelian implicit distinction in the Suda passage is that of 'what is clearer and more knowable to us' (i.e. what is prior in time) and 'what is more knowable and clear by nature' (i.e. what is prior in definition or by nature, nature meaning 'form').
[7] George of Pisidia, Byzantine poet (fl.610-664), deacon of St. Sophia in Constantinople, chartophylax (i.e. imperial archivist), and historian of the wars of the emperor Heraclius. See Bréhier (below) 373; Nicol (below) 43 and 48-49; CMH 2.288 ad 298-99. Perhaps Archimedes' 'five geometric powers' are related to the five regular solid geometric figures, on which see theta 93.
[8] The passage, which with a transposition of two words becomes iambic verse, probably refers to the siegecraft of the Byzantine emperor Heraclius in his war against the Persian king Chosroes (628 CE). The text and the interpretation are both in doubt. See Bekker (below) col. 1742 note to ll. 74-76. For Heraclius see also web address 1 below.
[9] An anti-Semitic dig at the great first-century-CE Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria (phi 448).