II 1.7.2.3 Byzantine Institutions
A Missed Opportunity
Meanwhile in Constantinople, the Eastern Roman Empire, later known as Byzantium, maintained a remarkable degree of continuity with classical antiquity. In 357, the pagan orator and scholar Themistius (317–c. 388) celebrated the new capital city’s “mission to preserve the classical past and spread it all over the then known world,” and he applauded “the process of copying texts and setting up a library, which was under way in the new capital at the time” [[ii], [iii]].
Emperor Theodosius II (401–450) not only built the walls of Constantinople, but also issued a massive body of laws, the Codex Theodosius [[iv]]. He founded the Imperial University of Constantinople (the “Pandidakterion”) in 425 with a faculty of 28 scholars teaching Roman law, Greek rhetoric, classical philosophy, and Christian theology [[v], [vi]].
The pagan scholar, Proclus (411–485) was born in Constantinople, studied in Alexandria (after the 415 demise of Hypatia), and settled in Athens. “[O]ne of the chief links between ancient and medieval thought,” [[vii]] he was a champion of Neoplatonic thought and chronicled the accomplishments of earlier Greek philosophers and mathematicians [[viii], [ix]]. For fifty years, Proclus was master of the leading school in Athens, called the Academy and founded at the end of the fourth century AD [[x]], echoing the memory of the famed institution of Plato destroyed in the Roman sack of Athens in 86 BC [[xi]]. The Academy did not long survive the demise of Proclus in 485.
In 529, Emperor Justinian (482–565), reacting against astrologers, diviners, and other practitioners he regarded as threats to religious and civic order [[xii]], enforced laws [[xiii]] that brought an end to the remaining autonomous pagan philosophical school at Athens [[xiv]], and he barred pagans, heretics, and Jews from public teaching [[xv]]. While these measures curtailed pagan institutional independence within the Empire, they did not end classical learning. Philosophy, law, medicine, mathematics, and the study of Greek authors continued in Constantinople, Alexandria, and other centers, now under increasingly Christian and imperial supervision [[xvi]].
We’ve seen, for instance, how John Philoponus (c. 490–570) continued to build upon Aristotelian physics in Alexandria. One Athenian scholar, Simplicius of Cilicia (c. 490–c. 560) went into Persian exile in 529, became disillusioned, and returned in 532 at the end of the latest Byzantine-Persian war [[xvii]]. This detail is suspect; in any event, pagan philosophers continued writing: “several works by Damascius (462–538), the last head of the Athenian academy, and a large corpus by Simplicius, its leading light, survive to this day” [[xviii]]. And as late as 617, we saw Emperor Heraclius (c. 575–641) summon Stephanos of Alexandria (c. 580–640) to teach the quadrivium in Constantinople.
The details of Byzantine scholarly life become hard to discern. The couple of centuries following Justinian’s death in 565 began “the most difficult [period] in all of Byzantine history to understand and to assess” [[xix]]. The Pandidakterion does not appear to have survived the tumult of the Islamic conquests in the 640s [[xx]], although we have an obscure edict from 692 commanding that law students “ought not to follow pagan customs, frequent theatres, wear distinctive clothing, or turn sommersaults…” [[xxi]]. Were law students particularly rowdy, or had all other studies ended?
[W]hen the law code of the Emperors Leo III (c. 685–741) and Constantine V (718–775) (the Ecloga) was issued, probably in 726, its composition was the work of the quaestor sacri palati, two patricians and a number of State dignitaries to the exclusion of any professors; and the compilers frankly admitted that the meaning of previous legislation had become quite obscure, ‘indeed, entirely incomprehensible to some, especially those outside our God-guarded Imperial City’.
The chronicler Theophanes (c. 758–818), admittedly a biased witness, may not be too far from the truth when he records under the year 726 ‘the extinction of the schools’ [[xxii]].
Higher education persisted only in a limited form, if at all, as Arab raiders ravaged the countryside. In 717, they besieged Constantinople herself. Emperor Leo III (c. 685–741) employed “Greek Fire,” an incendiary weapon, to break the siege [[xxiii]].
These military disasters led many to believe they were being punished for some severe defect in their worship [[xxiv]]. Leo III condemned icons in 730, possibly thinking that the destructive eruption of Thera in 726 was a sign of divine anger at his subjects’ idolatry [[xxv], [xxvi]]. The monks in his dominion, over 100,000 of them, were exempt from military service, and their extensive holdings escaped taxation at a time when the Empire was sorely pressed. Leo’s hostility toward monasticism may have informed his iconoclastic (literally, “image-breaking”) agenda [[xxvii]].
Leo’s action did not appear to win the favor of God, for an earthquake toppled the walls of Constantinople in 740, plague struck in 747, and the weather was so harsh in the winter of 763-764 that that the Black Sea and Sea of Marmara froze [[xxviii]]. Nevertheless, Leo III and successor iconoclasts, like his son Constantine V (718–775) sought the suppression of the sacred images [[xxix]].
Defenders of icons, most famously John of Damascus (c. 675–749), argued that the Incarnation of Christ made sacred imagery theologically legitimate [[xxx]]. Writing from within the realm of the Saracens (and beyond Leo III’s jurisdiction) [[xxxi], [xxxii]], John declared, “I do not venerate the creation instead of the creator, but I venerate the Creator, created for my sake, who came down to his creation without being lowered or weakened, that he might glorify my nature and bring about communion with the divine nature” [[xxxiii]]. The wood and paint of icons were not objects of worship in themselves, but could nevertheless bear witness to divine truth.
For John, the same theological logic that sanctified matter in general and icons in particular also justified the careful use of reason and philosophy. Because the cosmos was created through the Logos and ordered by divine rationality, careful reflection upon creation could uncover genuine truths about reality. In the preface to his Fount of Knowledge, John declared that
“…I shall set forth the best contributions of the philosophers of the Greeks, because whatever there is of good has been given to men from above by God…. If, however, there is anything that is contrary to the truth, then it is a dark invention of the deceit of Satan and a fiction of the mind of an evil spirit…” [[xxxvi]].
Historian Edward Grant (1926–2020) characterized this as a “by-now-standard theme” [[xxxvii]].
The Byzantine Iconoclasm controversy (roughly 730–843) was “a ‘dark age’ whose obscurity is only randomly illuminated by the few remaining sources, and even those are difficult to interpret” [[xxxix]]. Finally, on the first Sunday of Lent, March 11, 843, the Church restored the icons. The event is remembered to this day in the liturgy of the Eastern Orthodox Church as the “Triumph of Orthodoxy” [[xl]].
Higher education in Byzantium languished until Bardas (c. 810–866), regent to Emperor Michael III (840–867), established the School of the Magnaura around 855 with Leo the Mathematician (c. 790–869) as the head of the school, although it did not long survive Leo’s death [[xli], [xlii], [xliii]].
Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos (905–959), who ruled 945–959, appointed four scholars to teach philosophy, rhetoric, geometry, and astronomy, and another attempt was made by Constantine IX Monomachos (c. 980/1000–1055), who ruled 1042–1055 and who set up a school of law and a parallel school of philosophy. Neither effort was long lasting, and higher education in Constantinpole was a matter of individual respected scholars teaching from their homes [[xliv]].
Political and religious tensions between the Greek East and Latin West steadily intensified during the Middle Ages, fueled by disputes over doctrine, papal authority, cultural differences, and competing political ambitions. Western chroniclers accused Emperor Alexios I Komnenos (c. AD 1056–1118) of treachery for failing to support the Crusaders during the siege of Antioch. Byzantines regarded many Crusader leaders as oath-breakers and opportunists for pillaging local communities, ignoring imperial authority, and carving out kingdoms instead of returning liberated domains like Antioch to the Byzantines [[xlv]]. Relations sharply deteriorated with the Massacre of the Latins in Constantinople in 1182, when thousands of Latin merchants and residents were killed or expelled, deepening mutual hostility [[xlvi]].
The breach became irreparable in 1204 when the Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople, crippling Byzantine power and accelerating the transfer of classical knowledge from East to West. “In 1205 Innocent III exhorted masters and scholars of Paris to go to Greece and revive the study of literature in the land of its birth, and Philip Augustus founded a college on the Seine for Greeks of Byzantium to learn Latin” [[xlvii]].
Although the Byzantines eventually regained the capital in 1261, the empire never recovered its former strength. Surrounded by rising rivals, weakened economically and militarily, reduced to a shadow of its former self, it entered a long decline that culminated in the Ottoman conquest. Last minute attempts at reconciliation with the West came to naught. “Better the turban of the Turk than the tiara of the Latin,” was the attitude of many Byzantines who preferred the Ottomans to be their material rulers rather than be dominated spiritually by Rome [[xlviii]].
“The fall of Constantinople in 1453 to an Islamic army caused consternation in western Europe,” declares historian James Hannam. “…[T]hey had only their own crusaders to blame” [[l]]. By then, the center of economic, political, and increasingly scientific and intellectual dynamism had shifted decisively to Western Europe.
While Muslims translated, synthesized, and expanded upon Greek learning through institutions such as the House of Wisdom, the Byzantines preserved the original language, manuscripts, and educational traditions from which that knowledge had sprung. In Byzantium, nature and theology were understood as expressions of the same divine rational order, inhibiting conflict between science and religion. Yet this very harmony tended to limit independent inquiry. Byzantine scholarship tended more toward preservation and commentary rather than the explorations of natural philosophy later associated with the Latin West.
Institutions centered around the imperial court, the patriarchate, and schools such as the Pandidakterion and the Magnaura preserved and transmitted the accumulated learning of antiquity. Individual institutions rose, declined, and were repeatedly reorganized, but the broader scholarly tradition endured across the centuries, and the cultural legacy itself proved remarkably resilient.
Byzantium was not an external Christian civilization that replaced Greece and Rome; it was the Roman Empire itself, preserving classical culture, Greek language, literature, philosophy, mathematics, medicine, and astronomy for nearly a thousand years after the closure of the pagan schools. Yet Byzantium also reveals that the classical habits of commentary, synthesis, reverence for authority, and disdain for hands-on experimentation characteristic of late antiquity could sustain learning for centuries without producing the institutional independence and experimental culture that later transformed natural philosophy in the Latin West.
Justinian’s 529 closing of the Academy in Athens was a local administrative act that did little to interrupt the ongoing transmission of classical learning in the East. “Learning continued in the Byzantine Empire, buffeted by the prevailing winds of politics, and eventually handed its legacy to the Medieval West” [[lii]]. The founding of Monte Cassino that same year, by contrast, helped establish the Benedictine tradition, an institution that would spread throughout Western Europe and provide a durable framework for both preservation and the eventual expansion of knowledge [[liii]].
That’s all for now. Remember always to keep calm, and make physics great again.
See you next week,
Hans
P.S. Pick up your copy of Fields & Energy Book I: Fundamentals and Origins of Electromagnetism, if you haven’t already:
Next time: II 1.7.2.4 Monasticism: Origins — Decentralized Guardians of Knowledge
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References
[[i]] Bigdaddy1204, “Restored section of the Theodosian walls at the Selymbria Gate. The outer wall and the wall of the moat are visible, with a tower of the inner wall in the background,” Photograph taken in June 2006 in Istanbul by Bigdaddy1204. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walls_of_Constantinople#/media/File:Walls_of_Constantinople.JPG
[[ii]] Markopoulos, Athanasios. “In Search for ‘Higher Education’ in Byzantium.” Zbornik Radova Vizantološkog Instituta 50 (2013): 29–44. DOI: 10.2298/ZRVI1350029M. “In his well-known speech of the year 357 — on the occasion of the celebrations for the emperor’s vicennalia in Rome, from which he was absent, oddly enough — Themistiοs says that the new role assigned to Constantinople is mainly intellectual rather than commercial, as one might expect because of its advantageous location; the city’s mission was to preserve the classical past through the Greek language and spread it all over the then known world. In the same speech Themistiοs applauds the process of copying texts and setting up a library, which was under way in the new capital at the time, again with the emperor’s consent.” See: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287593003_In_search_for_’Higher_education’_in_Byzantium
[[iii]] Gardner, Alice (1854 – 1927), Julian, philosopher and emperor: and the last struggle of paganism against Christianity, New York: G.P. Putnam, 1906, pp. 65-66. Themistios (also called Themistius in some accounts) was a pagan scholar, orator, and friend of Gregory of Nanzianus (c. 329–390), also called St. Gregory the Theologian, an important figure in church history. See: https://archive.org/details/JulianPhilosopherAndEmperor/page/n113/mode/2up?q=themistius
[[iv]] Shepard, Jonathan, ed., The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire, vol. 1, Switzerland: Castalia Library, 2024, p. 115.
[[v]] Previté-Orton, Charles William (1877-1947), Cambridge Medieval History, vol. 1, Switzerland: Castalia Library, 2024, p. 106.
[[vi]] Theodsius II, Codex Theodosianus, Book XIV 9.3, AD 425.
Let our audience therefore have, first of all, those whom the doctrine of Roman eloquence recommends, three orators indeed, and ten grammarians; and among those also who are known to be able to speak Greek, let there be five sophists and ten grammarians equally. And since we do not wish to educate a glorious youth only in these arts, we also associate with the aforementioned teachers authors of deeper knowledge and doctrine. Therefore, we wish to add one to the others, who will ponder the mysteries of philosophy, and two who will expound the formulas of law and laws, so that your sublimity may cause specially appointed places to be assigned to each, so that neither the students nor the teachers may clamor among themselves, nor may the confusion of languages or the voices turn the ears or minds of some away from the study of literature. See: https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/theodosius/theod14.shtml
[[vii]] Proclus, The Elements of Theology, 2nd ed., E.R. Dodds, trans. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1963, p. ix. See: https://archive.org/details/proclus-the-elements-of-theology_202109/page/n7/mode/2up
[[viii]] Boyer, Carl B., and Uta C. Merzbach, A History of Mathematics, 2nd ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1991, p. 193. Proclus pops up a half dozen times in Boyer and Merzbach‘s history as the principal source of what we know of earlier mathematicians. See: https://amzn.to/4n3Du8E
[[ix]] I ended up not using anything from this source, but much of what we know of Proclus in turn comes from PROCLUS OR CONCERNING HAPPINESS by Marinus of Samaria, his successor at the Academy in Athens. See https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/marinus_01_life_of_proclus.htm
[[x]] O’Neill, Tim, “The Closing of the Athenian Academy,” History for Atheists, August 29, 2023. See: https://historyforatheists.com/2023/08/the-closing-of-the-athenian-academy/
[[xi]] Siorvanes, Lucas, Proclus: Neo-Platonic Philosophy and Science, Edinburgh University Press, 1996, p. 21.
[[xii]] Watts, Edward, “Justinian, Malalas, and the End of Athenian Philosophical Teaching in A.D. 529,” The Journal of Roman Studies Volume 94, November 2004 , pp. 168 – 182. DOI: 10.2307/4135014. See: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-roman-studies/volume/13944934E92ECDB967730D5DA7A7AD00
[[xiii]] The Code of Justinian. See Book I
Title 5. Concerning heretics, Manicheans, and Samaritans.
Title 11. Concerning the pagans, their sacrifices, and their temples.
See: https://droitromain.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/Anglica/CJ1_Scott.htm
[[xiv]] Shepard, Jonathan, ed., The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire, vol. 1, Switzerland: Castalia Library, 2024, p. 115.
[[xv]] Markopoulos, Athanasios. “In Search for ‘Higher Education’ in Byzantium.” Zbornik Radova Vizantološkog Instituta 50 (2013): 29–44. DOI: 10.2298/ZRVI1350029M. See: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287593003_In_search_for_’Higher_education’_in_Byzantium
[[xvi]] O’Neill, Tim, “The Closing of the Athenian Academy,” History for Atheists, August 29, 2023. See: https://historyforatheists.com/2023/08/the-closing-of-the-athenian-academy/
[[xvii]] O’Neill, Tim, “The Closing of the Athenian Academy,” History for Atheists, August 29, 2023. See: https://historyforatheists.com/2023/08/the-closing-of-the-athenian-academy/ Only one later source mentions the pagan philosophers’ exile to Persia, so there is some doubt about this.
[[xviii]] Hannam, James, “Emperor Justinian’s Closure of the School of Athens,” Bede’s Library. See: http://www.bede.org.uk/justinian.htm
[[xix]] Lemerle, Paul, (1903-1989), Le premier humanisme byzantin : notes et remarques sur enseignement et culture à Byzance des origines au Xe siècle, Paris : Presses universitaires de France, 1971, p. 74. See: https://archive.org/details/lepremierhumanis0000leme/page/74/mode/2up?q=justinien
[[xx]] Markopoulos, Athanasios. “In Search for ‘Higher Education’ in Byzantium.” Zbornik Radova Vizantološkog Instituta 50 (2013): 29–44. DOI: 10.2298/ZRVI1350029M. See: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287593003_In_search_for_’Higher_education’_in_Byzantium.
[[xxi]] Mango, Cyril A., Byzantium : the empire of New Rome, London : Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1988, p. 136. It’s uncertain if “sommersaults” is indeed the correct translation of the enigmatic word “kylistra.” See: https://archive.org/details/byzantiumempireo0000mang/page/136/mode/2up
[[xxii]] Mango, Cyril A., Byzantium : the empire of New Rome, London : Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1988, p. 136. Theophanes (c. 758 – 818), often called “The Confessor,” was a chronicler for Byzantium a bit analogous to how the Venerable Bede (672/3–735) preserved English history. Emperor Leo V the Armenian (775–820) persecuted him for defending the veneration of icons. The Orthodox Church later canonized him as a saint and confessor. See: https://archive.org/details/byzantiumempireo0000mang/page/136/mode/2up
[[xxiii]] Partington, James Riddick (1885-1965), A HISTORY OF GREEK FIRE AND GUNPOWDER, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999, pp. 12-13. See: https://archive.org/details/a-history-of-greek-fire-and-gunpowder/page/12/mode/2up by.
[[xxiv]] Mango, Cyril A., Byzantium : the empire of New Rome, London : Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1988, pp. 98-99. See: https://archive.org/details/byzantiumempireo0000mang/page/98/mode/2up.
[[xxv]] Shepard, Jonathan, ed., The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire, vol. 1, Switzerland: Castalia Library, 2024, p. 280.
[[xxvi]] Previté-Orton, Charles William (1877-1947), Cambridge Medieval History, vol. 1, Switzerland: Castalia Library, 2024, pp. 247-251.
[[xxvii]] Hopko, Thomas, The Orthodox Faith Volume Three: Church History, Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1981, pp. 91-92. See: https://amzn.to/4nJmJQg
[[xxviii]] Shepard, Jonathan, ed., The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire, vol. 1, Switzerland: Castalia Library, 2024, p. 255.
[[xxix]] Shepard, Jonathan, ed., The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire, vol. 1, Switzerland: Castalia Library, 2024, p. 253.
[[xxx]] Shepard, Jonathan, ed., The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire, vol. 1, Switzerland: Castalia Library, 2024, p. 283.
[[xxxi]] SAINT JOHN OF DAMASCUS: WRITINGS, Frederic H. Chase, Jr., trans., Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1958, p. vii. See: https://archive.org/details/saint-john-of-damascus-writings_202303/page/n21/mode/2up.
[[xxxii]] Shepard, Jonathan, ed., The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire, vol. 1, Switzerland: Castalia Library, 2024, p. 398.
[[xxxiii]] St. John of Damascus; translated and introduced by Andrew Louth, Three Treatises on the Divine Images, Yonkers, NY, St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2003, p. 22. See: https://archive.org/details/isbn_2900881412450/page/22/mode/2up
[[xxxiv]] In Byzantine theology and iconography, Christ Pantocrator [Almighty] depicts Jesus Christ as the divine cosmic ruler and judge, emphasizing both His sovereignty and His role as Logos — the rational ordering principle of creation. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_Pantocrator#/media/File:Spas_vsederzhitel_sinay.jpg. See also: https://icons.pstgu.ru/icon/2036
[[xxxv]] Athonite Fresco Icon of Saint John of Damascus, 14th -15th Century. Source:
https://www.johnsanidopoulos.com
See also: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Athonite_Fresco_Icon_of_Saint_John_of_Damascus.jpg
[[xxxvi]] SAINT JOHN OF DAMASCUS: WRITINGS, Frederic H. Chase, Jr., trans., Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1958, p. 3. Echoing James 1.17: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights…” See: https://archive.org/details/saint-john-of-damascus-writings_202303/page/n21/mode/2up.
[[xxxvii]] Grant, Edward, God & Reason in the Middle Ages, Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 34-35. See: https://amzn.to/3Pc20rv.
[[xxxviii]] Late 14th-early 15th century icon illustrating the “Triumph of Orthodoxy” under the Byzantine empress Theodora over iconoclasm. Patriarch Methodios I of Constantinople is on the top right, close to the Virgin. See: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Triumph_orthodoxy.jpg See also: https://www.artbychimevi.com/post/892919589443/triumph-of-orthodoxy-icon
[[xxxix]] Shepard, Jonathan, ed., The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire, vol. 1, Switzerland: Castalia Library, 2024, p. 251.
[[xl]] Shepard, Jonathan, ed., The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire, vol. 1, Switzerland: Castalia Library, 2024, pp. 278-291.
[[xli]] Markopoulos, Athanasios. “In Search for ‘Higher Education’ in Byzantium.” Zbornik Radova Vizantološkog Instituta 50 (2013): 29–44. DOI: 10.2298/ZRVI1350029M. See: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287593003_In_search_for_’Higher_education’_in_Byzantium.
[[xlii]] Shepard, Jonathan, ed., The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire, vol. 1, Switzerland: Castalia Library, 2024, pp. 293-294.
[[xliii]] Previté-Orton, Charles William (1877-1947), Cambridge Medieval History, vol. 1, Switzerland: Castalia Library, 2024, p. 253. See: https://archive.org/details/shortercambridge0000prev/page/252/mode/2up
[[xliv]] Markopoulos, Athanasios. “In Search for ‘Higher Education’ in Byzantium.” Zbornik Radova Vizantološkog Instituta 50 (2013): 29–44. DOI: 10.2298/ZRVI1350029M. See: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287593003_In_search_for_’Higher_education’_in_Byzantium.
[[xlv]] Shepard, Jonathan, ed., The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire, vol. 2, Switzerland: Castalia Library, 2024, pp. 621-626.
[[xlvi]] Shepard, Jonathan, ed., The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire, vol. 2, Switzerland: Castalia Library, 2024, pp. 627-628.
[[xlvii]] Crombie, A.C., Augustine to Galileo, vol. I, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1961, p. 36.
[[xlviii]] Shepard, Jonathan, ed., The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire, vol. 1, Switzerland: Castalia Library, 2024, p. 863. “As late as 1798 Patriarch Anthimos of Jerusalem (1717–1808) explained that when the last Emperors of Constantinople sold out to papal thraldom in 1439, it was through the particular favor of heaven that the Ottoman empire had been raised to protect the Greeks against heresy, as a safeguard against the politics of the western nations, and as the champion of the Roman orthodox church.” See p. 865.
[[xlix]] Quadriga of St. Mark’s Basilica, Venice, Metropolitan City of Venice, region of Veneto, Italy. See: https://picryl.com/media/venezia-basilica-di-san-marco-innen-quadriga-2-c08466 and https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Venezia_Basilica_di_San_Marco_Innen_Quadriga_2.jpg
[[l]] Hannam, James, The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution, Washington: Regnery, 2011, p. 204.
[[li]] Panorama 1453 History Museum. See: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Panorama_1453_History_Museum_6.JPG
[[lii]] Hannam, James, “Emperor Justinian’s Closure of the School of Athens,” Bede’s Library. See: http://www.bede.org.uk/justinian.htm
[[liii]] Boyer, Carl B., and Uta C. Merzbach, A History of Mathematics, 2nd ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1991, pp. 193-194. See: https://amzn.to/4n3Du8E
Yes, make Physics great again!
This episode put me in touch with contemporary Lebanon.
I am enraged by the significant presence amongst Christians to imagine they have closer fraternity to Islam rather than their identity as a shoot from the stump of Jesse.
How any Christian can ignore the fact that sharia contains fundamental differences from the Decalogue - the killing of a Jew where you find him simply by existing (do murder) ; and the recommendation that expertise and variety of deception be practised (bear false witness)?
How can the cultural belittling of women, sex slavery and polygamy and the elimination of the chosen people recommend itself to anyone who is baptised?
yay! Bravo!