7 ms·
Actually, Byzantine monks regularly travelled to Italy for centuries, bringing scrolls with them to teach Ancient Greek. This movement accelerated during the cr
by mkempe 9y ago
Actually, Byzantine monks regularly travelled to Italy for centuries, bringing scrolls with them to teach Ancient Greek. This movement accelerated during the crusades, and got its final major impetus at the final fall of Constantinople.
The myth that somehow the West owes access to the texts of Ancient Greece to the anti-reason Moslem world is very misleading. One would have to believe that there was zero contact for one thousand years between Western Europe and Byzantium -- an utterly, bizarrely wrong notion.
- AnimalMuppet 9y agoThe Moslem world wasn't anti-reason for much of that era of history.
- mkempe 9y agoScholars argue that Averroes was the last of the significant pro-reason philosophers in the Moslem world, and he lost that battle.
- Nomentatus 9y agoIndeed. I have read that we wouldn't know of Averroes had his works not been preserved in the West, since all traces of him were expunged from the Islamic world.
- boomboomsubban 9y agoByzantine monks had the same neoplatonic ideas that were common in Western Europe, having been established around Constantine's reign. Aristotelian ideas lived on in the Arab world, and it is contact with their philosophical works that led to Aristotelian ideas in Christianity. I can own a book my entire life, it doesn't make me an expert on it and people I interact with won't gain an interest in it.
- mkempe 9y agoThomas Aquinas read Latin translations of Aristotle's works by Iacobus Veneticus Graecus (James of Venice) -- who studied in Constantinople and translated Greek works held in Constantinople. The fact that Byzantine scholars were inclined to Platonism does not mean that they destroyed or completely ignored Aristotle's works. The fact that scholars in Europe thought by the 12th century that maybe they should pay more attention to Aristotle does not mean that they had entirely forgotten who he was. The fact that Pépin the Short (8th century) received a copy of Aristotle's works in Greek from pope Paul I does not mean that the West had completely lost --nor lost interest in-- the Aristotelian body of work.
- boomboomsubban 9y agoIt's not like James of Venice just tripped over a scroll and decided to translate that. Arabic translations had existed for a while, but multiple translations can change the text. Plus, a link to Islamic scholars would add resistance to the ideas spreading. He was largely ignored throughout the Christian world, but not completely. I haven't heard this Pepin story, quick research could only find it originating from the thirteenth century. Seems like standard Catholic propaganda, the great Pope sent books to ensure Charles Martel would have the knowledge necessary to stop the Muslim armies.
- iorrus 9y agoThere were Byzantium commentators on Aristotle see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commentaries_on_Aristotle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commentaries_on_Aristotle In fact most of Byzantium natural philosophy was based on Aristotle: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/byzantine-philosophy/#Top https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/byzantine-philosophy/#Top
- boomboomsubban 9y agoAfter six long centuries dormant they also were influenced by their Arab neighbors. Their philosophy would all be from around the same time, until 1054 they were a part of Christian philosophy.