International Network for Byzantine Philosophy

With the kind permission of Associate Professor Alexis Torrance, here is an except from his article on the ambiguity of the book in John Climacus. For the full text and references, see Byzantinische Zeitschrift 111:3 (2018) 793–808. Early Byzantine monastic attitudes towards books, text, reading, and by extension  learning and   paideia , has long been recognized as an important facet of discussions regarding the broader reception, propagation, neglect, and/or transformation of classical culture in late antiquity and Byzantium. At one end of the chronological and ideological spectrum we have the ever-quotable Gibbon, for whom brutish monks, those “exiles from social life,” being “impelled by the dark and implacable genius of superstition,” had only disdain for any real culture or learning. Gibbon scoffs at the ancient claim that monastics pursued “divine philosophy,” wryly commenting that the monks “surpassed, without the aid  of science or reason, the laborious virtu...

On 6 March 2020, scholars will gather at Macquarie University for a promising Workshop: Historical Perspectives on Defining Byzantine Philosophy. The Workshop is convened by Dr Ken Parry and Dr Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides. Below are the abstracts of the presentations. 1. Vassilis Adrahtas, The relationship between theology and philosophy in the work of John Damascene and its bearing on the question of Byzantine philosophy One of the problems that still persist with regards to the definition of Byzantine philosophy refers to the distinction between theology and philosophy and whether such a distinction is possible in the case of the history of ideas of Byzantium. This problem, however, is articulated in a rather simplistic way, insofar as it poses – anachronistically, I would dare say – theology and philosophy as two totally different fields of reference. But Byzantine thinkers seem to have opted for quite an alternative perspective: a perspective of co-inherence.   If Byzantine ...

Visiting scholar from Notre Dame University (Indiana), Robert Edwards, will deliver a public lecture on John Chrysostom at Macquarie University (Sydney) in late April 2020. In anticipation of the lecture, Edwards offers a foretaste below.  Scholars have often claimed that John Chrysostom’s moral teaching is, if not Stoic, at least stoicizing. This claim especially applies to Chrysostom’s teaching on what is in our power ( to eph’ēmin ) vs. what is not—that is, the relationship that human choice and action have to externals. For Chrysostom as for the Stoics (so the argument goes) externals are indifferent ( ta adiaphora ), and only virtue can be spoken of, properly, as good ( to kalon, to agathon ). The evidence which is typically brought forward to support such a claim is Chrysostom’s use of something approximating a dictum of Chrysippus, the “second founder” of the Stoic school: “no one can be harmed unless he harms himself.” Chrysostom even has a whole treatise named after i...

Below, with the author’s permission, is an excerpt from Fr Dr Maximos Constas’ essay, “Beyond the Veil: Imagination and Spiritual Vision in Byzantium.” For the entire essay, including its detailed footnotes, visit the author’s academia page  here .   In the ritual setting of the Byzantine liturgy, walls, barriers, dividers, doors, curtains, and screens—in short, the vast array of screening paraphernalia—have the capacity to operate at structural and symbolic levels, generating a broad range of binary categories, such as here/there, earth/heaven, sensible/intelligible, etc. At the same time, the ability of screens and partitions to establish such binaries is matched by their facility to unite what stands on either side. If the veil “separates” it is also the very thing that enables contact, disclosing or revealing precisely to the same degree that it conceals. At other times this structure yields to more complex configurations, since these liminal sites also construe and...

With the kind permission of Fr Dr Maximos Constas, below is an excerpt from his chapter “The Reception of Paul and Pauline Theology in the Byzantine Period” in D. Krueger & R. S. Nelson (eds), The New Testament in Byzantium (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection), 147–76. The Paul of modern biblical studies, and to a significant extent of the modern Christian imagination, is a figure that has been largely constructed in the wake of the Reformation. Justification by faith, the mutual exclusivity of law and gospel, a radical doctrine of original sin and predestination, the repudiation of natural theology, and an opposition between faith and liturgical worship are among the predominant features of Paul as he appears in Wittenberg and Geneva. But there is another Paul, who, though relegated to the margins of modern biblical scholarship, stands at the very centre of the Byzantine exegetical and theological tradition. The Byzantine portrait of Paul places in ...

With the kind permission of Dr Anna Zhyrkova, here is an excerpt from her chapter, “John of Damascus’ Philosophy of the Individual and the Theology of Icons” in The Cambridge Intellectual History of Byzantium , ed. A. Kaldellis & N. Siniossoglou (Cambridge University Press, 2017), 431–46. During the seventh and eighth centuries, the Byzantine empire underwent dramatic political and socioeconomic changes. Previously the dominant political entity, it suffered a tremendous loss of territory and political power. While under threat from the caliphate and the Bulgar khanate, it failed to retain political and spiritual connections to Rome, and its economic and administrative systems experienced numerous transformations. Even as it faced the external menace of Islam, internally it was coping with the sociopolitical consequences of the Christological controversies. However, rather than treating this period as analogous to the western Dark Ages, we might consider it an age of redefinition—...

With the kind permission of Professor David Bradshaw, below is an excerpt from his chapter, “The Presence of Aristotle in Byzantine Theology” in The Cambridge Intellectual History of Byzantium , edited by Anthony Kaldellis & Niketas Siniossoglou (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017). Any attempt to survey the place of Aristotle within Byzantine theology must begin by recognizing that the category of “Byzantine theology” is itself a modern construction. The Byzantines did not think of themselves as Byzantines, but as Romans. This fact is not merely a matter of nomenclature, but a reminder of their strong sense of continuity with the classical and early Christian past. As regards theology, in particular, the Byzantines saw no sharp line dividing their own times from the foundational era of Christianity. Although they recognized the authority of the Church Fathers, they did not think in terms of a closed and completed “age of the Fathers.”[1] The holy and God-bearing Fathers...