 Hi, I'm Peter Adamson and you're listening to the History of Philosophy podcast, brought to you with the support of the Philosophy Department of King's College London and the LMU in Munich. Online at historyoffilosophy.net. Today's episode? Istanbul, not Constantinople. The later Orthodox tradition. Say what you will about Byzantine philosophy, but at least it has a nice clear end point. So often we've struggled with the problem of how to demarcate chronological periods. In the Latin West, the line between medieval and renaissance philosophy is as fuzzy as a kitten emerging from a tumble dryer. And we've seen how late ancient philosophy merges fairly seamlessly into medieval philosophy in different languages, with the texts and preoccupations of pagan and Christian thinkers alike being passed onto the Latin, Islamic, and Greek Byzantine spheres. As a result, you'll see figures like John Philophonus or the Cappadocian Fathers being classified as late ancient thinkers or as Byzantine thinkers, depending which scholar is doing the classifying. At the tail end, though, we can even name a specific day when the curtain fell on Byzantine philosophy, May 29, 1453, when the Ottomans reached the walls of Constantinople and finally ended the Roman Empire. And yet. The Ottomans had no interest in exterminating Greek Orthodox Christianity, and their arrival did not make it wholly impossible for Greek speakers to engage in scholarship. If we think in terms of philosophy in Eastern Christian cultures, rather than restricting our attention only to Byzantium, we can actually see the fall of the capital as a beginning rather than an end. A new phase of Greek scholarship begins, in which Orthodox theologians and philosophers live under Islamic rule, much as their counterparts in the Syrian church had been doing for centuries. Think not of Plithon, who died just about the time that Byzantium ended, but of his enemy, Scolarius. Once Constantinople got the works, he carried on his business with the Turks. It wasn't business as usual, of course. Instead of a Christian emperor, there was now an Ottoman sultan, Mehmet II, the Conqueror, who personally installed Scolarius as the first patriarch after the fall in 1454. The two apparently had a cordial relationship, being on good enough terms to engage in respectful debate over the differences between their two faiths. Continuing the tradition of apologetic writing we've explored in previous episodes, Scolarius even wrote a summary of the Orthodox faith for Mehmet, which was translated into Turkish. A member of Scolarius' circle, the historian Kytopulus of Imbros, comments that the sultan valued his patriarch's wisdom and virtue. Kytopulus' historical chronicle also shows that the former Byzantines were quick to adapt to the new political situation. While still identifying strongly with the Greeks, he portrays Mehmet as a new Alexander the Great, taking inspiration from the ancient historians Thucydides and Arrian, as he describes the taking of the city and the first years of Ottoman rule. Another member of Scolarius' circle, by the name of Ameroutes, nicknamed the Philosopher, translated the works of Ptolemy into Arabic, a version still extant today in a manuscript that is held in Istanbul. So the end of Byzantium wasn't the end of the world. This would have come as a surprise to many, including Scolarius himself, who thought the apocalypse was nigh as the Ottomans were closing in. Christians had been making this sort of prediction for a long, long time. Already early Latin church fathers had linked the prospective fall of Rome to the end times, for instance, Lactantius who wrote that, If the capital of the world does fall, then without doubt the end of mankind and of the whole world will come. After the rise of the new Rome and Islam, Christians kept confidently predicting that history would end, with either the fall of Constantinople and arrival of the Antichrist, or, as predicted in an influential apocalyptic text written in Syriac in the 7th century by Pseudo-Mithodius, the final defeat of Islam at the hands of a Christian emperor. Escatological expectations were especially high around the year 1000, a millennium after the birth and then crucifixion of Christ. When the world failed to end with either a bang or a whimper, the prophecies didn't go away, they just got more vague about the dating. History did stubbornly continue after 1453, and along with it the Christians' perception of their own situation, which was surprisingly similar before and after Ottoman conquest. Others had been complaining for some time about the parlous state of the Orthodox, with Dimitrios Koudounes writing in 1387 that the Empire was only a faded image of itself, and as we saw in episode 324, he lamented that the Latin scholastics had become the intellectual superiors of the Greeks. Unsurprisingly, this sort of bleak self-assessment continued under the Ottomans. A letter written in 1575 remarked that since losing the Empire, the Orthodox had lost wisdom too, and that having been forced to associate with the barbarian Turks, the Greeks had themselves become barbaric. I take this quote from a remarkable book written by the German historian Gerhard Potskalski called Grichische Theologie in der Zeit der Türkengherrshaft. It is packed with information about dozens of scholars who worked between the time of Scolarias and the early 19th century, which is when Greece achieved independence from the Ottoman Empire. Though Potskalski's focus is on theology and not philosophy, he makes clear that philosophical texts were still being read across the Orthodox world throughout the centuries of Ottoman rule. Schools and monasteries provided centres of learning in many places, most prominently Constantinople and Mount Athos. Many scholars also trained in the Latin West, especially in Italy, where there was an especially large Greek-speaking community in Venice. Because of this constant interaction with the West, an abiding concern of Orthodox theologians remained the question of Church unity. What had been a two-way debate between the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches now became a three-way affair as the Protestants now joined the fray. So alongside the familiar disputes aired at events like the Council of Florence not long before the fall, we now have controversies over such topics as the Protestant idea of interpreting Scripture through itself, that is understanding biblical passages with nothing but the resources offered by other passages in the Bible. This was one of the issues at stake in an exchange of letters between theologians in Tübingen and the Orthodox patriarch Jeremiah II from 1573 until 1581. Perhaps the most surprising development along these lines was the work of another patriarch, Kydalos Lucares. He was favourably impressed by Protestant ideas and adopted a view on free will and predestination that was clearly inspired by Calvinism. The reward for his broad-mindedness was arrest and death in 1638. This patriarch was not the only man seduced by the siren song of the West. One might also name Leon Alatios, a humanist from Chios who travelled to Italy and received a doctorate in philosophy and theology at Rome in 1610. He was a unionist who argued that the differences between the two churches were merely apparent. Greeks travelled beyond Italy too. A particularly remarkable case, also in the early 17th century, is offered by Metzophanes Kurtopoulos, who went as far as Oxford and Cambridge and visited many cities in Germany and Switzerland before finally becoming Patriarch of Alexandria. In the same century, we have George Koresios, a nobleman from Constantinople who studied and taught medicine and philosophy in Padua before going to practice medicine in Chios. His writings make reference to a stunning range of medieval scholastic authors, showing his command of the Latin theological tradition. And as Western philosophy developed, its leading lights were reflected in Greek literature, as with Metodios Antrakites from Epirus who lived well into the 18th century. He too went to Italy and was exposed to ideas of the Enlightenment. His interest in figures like Malebranche, whose works he translated into Greek, led him to being accused of innovation. If orthodox scholars must take an interest in philosophy, his critics felt, they should stick to good old Aristotle. Speaking of Aristotle, as we so often are, in our coverage of the Italian Renaissance, we'll see how wrong it would be to suppose that his works fell wholly out of fashion in the 15th century or so. Instead, he continued to be a vital source for philosophical reflection well into early modernity. It turns out that the same is true for the Greek-speaking world. Any number of the figures mentioned by Potsgoski wrote textbooks or commentaries on Aristotle, especially his logic, which remained an important preparation for the study of theology. Particularly notable for their engagement with the Hellenic philosophical legacy are Theophilus Caudedelius and Athanasius Rhetor, who died in 1646 and 1663 respectively. Taking an attitude like that of the arts masters at the University of Paris, Caudedelius sought to make room for the study of Aristotle by observing a strict separation of philosophy and theology. His commentaries on Aristotle would become the standard works for philosophical education down to the end of the 18th century. His contemporary Athanasius had broader and more Platonist tastes. While he too commented on Aristotle, he also produced an introductory work for Plato's Sophist and a commentary on Plato's Parmenides, which draws extensively on Proclus. Here we glimpse the possible afterlife of the Platonist enthusiasms of men like Psalos, Petritsi, and Platon. Athanasius went so far as to name a flagrantly pagan Neoplatonist, the Great Eamblichus, as his greatest inspiration. My mention of the Georgian philosopher Petritsi may lead you to wonder what was going on in other Eastern Christian communities during this period. Plenty as it turns out. In fact, if you want to get from Byzantium to the concerns of modern-day Orthodox Christianity, you have to go through Russia and Eastern Europe. At the center of this story is Hezekasm, the often mystical movement of monastic prayerfulness that found its greatest exponent in Gregory Palamas. Russian Hezekasm goes back at least to the turn of the 16th century and to a monk named Neel Sorski. Originally from Moscow, he studied at Palamas's home monastery at Mount Athos. His emphasis was less on the metaphysical issues for which Palamas is best known and more on questions of practice. Thus, his major writing is a treatise on how to resist the temptation of distracting thoughts and worldly pleasures. Neel Sorski was also important for his embrace of monastic poverty, a bone of contention in Orthodox religious life just as it had been in the Latin medieval West. Around the same time, Hezekasm was central to the thought of Nego Basarab, a ruler of Wallachia in modern-day Romania, who wrote a work of political advice for his son. He combined the deep piety of this aspect of the Orthodox tradition with an impressively wide selection of cultural inspirations. In the work, he mentions figures ranging from Aristotle to the Buddha. One reason the Russian sphere would be important for later Orthodox thought is that it has often been the context for the preservation and dissemination of Greek literature. Among the figures who took a hand in the transfer of knowledge into Russian culture were, in the 16th century, Michael Trivolis, also known as Maxim Grek. He's yet another man who went to study in Italy, where he even assisted at the workshop of the great humanist Aldus Manutius, a pioneer in the printing of philosophical works. Maxim wasn't necessarily impressed by what he found in the West, though. He wrote against the Latins and railed against the way that scholasticism had diverged from the true path of faith. In 1518, he went to Russia, where he helped transmit texts into the Slavic language. Another name worth mentioning would be that of the Croatian scholar Jory Hrygenić, active in the middle of the 17th century. He compiled information on Latin theology, the better to refute it, and translated from Greek directly into Russian. One advantage of Russia, compared to Constantinople, was the opportunity to print texts. Printing in the former capital was shut down by the Ottomans in 1628, whereas around the same time, printing houses were churning out books in Moscow and Kiev. Moving closer to the present day, Russians really took centre stage in the story of Orthodox thought around the 19th century. An early milestone was the 1782 publication of a book called the Philokalia, meaning anthology. The Greek version was printed in Venice in that year. Still no printing was allowed in the Ottoman Empire. But the Philokalia became especially influential once it was translated into Slavonic. A compilation of Hezekast literature, the Philokalia promises to help the reader purify the mind through spiritual practices. Starting from this, the 19th century saw an explosion of philological work on and translation of Greek patristic literature in Russia. This laid the groundwork for re-engagement, reinterpretation, and reappropriation of aspects of the Byzantine legacy, especially the Greek Fathers and the Hezekasts, over the last century or so. Several of the key contributors to this process were Russian or Eastern Europeans, and as pious Orthodox Christians had difficulties with the communist governments of the Soviet Union and its allies. One tragic case is that of Pavel Florensky, who was from Azerbaijan and studied in Tbilisi in Georgia. He was arrested in 1933 and executed in 1937 at the time of Stalin's purges. Like many recent Orthodox philosophers, Florensky borrows from Western philosophy even as he grounds his ideas in Greek-Christian thought. For instance, he borrows Immanuel Kant's idea of an antinomy of reason, a case where rational argument seems to point in opposite directions, and applies it to the case of the Trinity. It seems a paradox or even a contradiction to say with the Orthodox tradition that God is one substance but three persons. Actually though, this just shows that God outstrips the capacity of human reason to understand Him. And good thing too, because if reason always pointed unequivocally towards a single conclusion, then we would, in a sense, be constrained to follow it. The fact that rational argument does not always have the last word opens a space for human freedom. Florensky quotes of all people Augustine, so often blamed by the Orthodox for the failings of the Western Church, to make his point, "...no one believes except voluntarily." In another case, Florensky takes inspiration from the Byzantine veneration of icons to develop an original aesthetic theory. He criticizes what he sees as an ineffective tradition of Western European art since the Renaissance, on the grounds that linear perspective simply tries to render literally the appearance of whatever the artist depicts. For Florensky, icons are preferable because of their symbolic nature. An icon is successful precisely because the painting is not made from life, but is a visual means of the saint in heaven showing himself or herself in the earthly realm. Several other scholars avoided Florensky's fate by emigrating, especially to Paris, which became the scene for a concentration of Orthodox thinkers after the Russian Revolution. These included scholars who were inspired in part by Western medieval texts like Mira Lou Borodin, who was an expert on medieval French romances, and Vladimir Loesky, who published on Meister Eckhart. Loesky's Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, published in 1944, is a classic of 20th century Orthodox philosophy. It takes as its central theme the apophatic current that comes down to Loesky from the Pseudo-Dionysius and other Greek fathers, the conviction that God is ineffable and ungraspable for the human mind. Not unlike Florensky, arguing that the antinomies of reason open a space for freedom in human belief, Loesky wrote that, He also connected apophaticism to existentialism. By escaping from an abstract and intellectual approach to God, the apophatic attitude allows the believer to be open to a direct intuition of God as a person rather than an idea. That critique of intellectualism in philosophical theology is not atypical of modern Orthodox philosophy. Another Russian émigré who found refuge in Paris, George Florovsky, not to be confused with the aforementioned Pavel Florensky, was critical of the way that Orthodox thought since the fall of Constantinople had so often been influenced by Western ideas. Following this a pseudo-morphosis and a Babylonian captivity, Florovsky too emphasized the importance of approaching God as a person rather than through the sort of arid concepts devised in Latin scholasticism. He was obviously not undertaking a merely philological or antiquarian engagement with the Byzantine tradition. As Florovsky himself put it, Which brings us to our final stop on this whirlwind tour of the later Orthodox tradition, Christos Yannaras, who was born in 1935 and has been a prominent public intellectual over the recent decades in Greece. Though Yannaras too is critical of the Western tradition, he is not entirely averse to engagement with its texts. In fact, one of the main touchdowns for his own philosophy has been Martin Heidegger, a 20th century German philosopher whose ideas I am not going to try to summarize in brief just now, but I will mention that Heidegger was critical of a tradition of what he called ontotheology in European thought, which makes God one being among others rather than the source of all being. Picking up on this idea, Yannaras agrees that if we think of God as just a particularly outstanding, maximal, or perfect being, we approach him in the wrong way. Instead, as Loeschke had suggested, we should adopt an apophatic theology in recognition of the limits of our own reasoning. This is part of what it means to approach God as a person. Trying to grasp God with philosophical concepts is fruitless, so that, as Yannaras observed, within a Western context Nietzsche had been right to claim that God was dead. But if we think of God as a person, he remains alive for us. For persons, in their irreducible particularity, cannot be captured by abstract notions. Here we come back to hesychasm and the ideas of Palamas, especially his pivotal distinction between essence and activity. Just as we know God only through his outward activities, so we can know any person only through his or her activities, not in his or her essence. This means that our relationships with other people are inevitably just that, relational. As Yannaras put it, the person is known as existential otherness through the rational otherness of the relations it constitutes. Yannaras thus takes love, or eros, as the model of interaction between human and human, or human and God, rather than taking something like intellectual understanding as his model. For him, this has far-reaching consequences in ethics and politics. He thinks that the West is trapped within a political framework built around the idea of individuals, which are just iterations of a type, namely human nature. You and I are just two examples of humans, and our political status, for instance our claim to certain rights, is based on nothing more than being members of that class. Yannaras finds in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, and especially its idea of the Trinitarian persons, resources for an alternative grounding of political life. By thinking of one another as persons rather than individuals, we see each other not as iterations but as inevitably other and unknowable, yet approachable through freely performed activities. Through these activities, we should forge relations with one another, relations that constitute a community. With Yannaras, we have brought this story to the present day, admittedly a story told with many gaps for a change. He represents at least one aspect of Greek philosophy as it is today, and it's remarkable that unlike many European philosophers, he takes his inspiration from texts written in the medieval period. I see a parallel here, one I already suggested at the end of the last episode. I said that I wanted to spend at least one installment considering what happened in Greek Orthodox culture after the Ottomans took Constantinople, in order to avoid doing to the Greek Christians what historians of philosophy so often do to thinkers of the Islamic world. It's all too typical to ignore everything that happened in that culture after 1200 or so, the time when Arabic philosophy was translated into Latin, as if the value of philosophy written in other cultures can only ever be a matter of its contribution to Western European thought. Similarly, here, Byzantine philosophy leads so naturally into the Italian Renaissance that it would have been easy, even natural, to end our consideration of Greek Orthodoxy with figures like Plithon who had an impact on the Renaissance. But as we've just seen, many generations of scholars in what had been the Byzantine Empire continued to do what Byzantine intellectuals had done. Read and comment on Aristotle and Neoplatonism had developed philosophical ideas within a theological context. This is not necessarily to say that the level of learning after Byzantium matched the high points of Byzantine learning. Besides, as we've also just seen, the Orthodox thinkers have often lived in what had been Latin Christendom, or taken ideas from Western contemporaries, whether this was Patriarch Cyrillus Lucaris taking a few leaves from Calvinism, or Yanaras with his use of Heidegger. So this story is even harder to disentangle from that of the rest of European thought than the earlier story of Byzantium was. Still, like later Islamic thought, this is clearly a sorely underestimated and under-researched part of the history of philosophy. Taking myself as an example, I'm supposedly an expert on Greek philosophy, but in all honesty, before I did the reading to write this episode, I had never heard of Theophilus Coda de Leos, even though his works were standard reading for centuries among Greek speakers who still took an interest in Aristotle. And I see one more parallel to Islamic philosophy. In that case, attention was first drawn to post-classical texts by modern readers who were inspired by a single thinker who came late in the tradition. With Islam, this was the philosopher Mullah Sadr, who lived in 17th century Iran. In the Orthodox tradition, it was Palamas, who becomes a key for Yanaras and others to unlock the true meaning of Eastern Christian thought. In both cases, we might celebrate the impulse to pay attention to previously underappreciated texts and ideas, while also seeing that it is reductive to see a whole tradition through the lens of one figure, valuing what came earlier primarily insofar as it led up to the thought of the one chosen thinker. In reality, the story of Byzantine philosophy is not just the story of how we got to Palamas, or the story of a philosophy whose value lies in its difference from the West. Nor for that matter is it just the story of how Aristotle and the Neoplatonists were received in a Christian culture. It is a complex and multifaceted tradition whose most fascinating philosophical ideas are often found in unexpected places, such as the debate over icons or historical texts. It is, in short, a story that more than merits inclusion in any general history of philosophy, with or without any gaps. Having gotten all that off my chest, it's time to risk a bit of chronological whiplash, as we leave such 20th and even 21st century thinkers in order to return to the late Middle Ages. Next time, we'll be warming up for the Italian Renaissance by having another look at the interaction between Greek and Latin cultures, with the help of a leading expert on that topic who just happens to be something of an Italian Renaissance man, Michele Trizzio. That's next time here on the History of Philosophy, without any gaps.