The two ingredients of Byzantine ethics are Greek patristic thought and Greek moral philosophy.
(a) Patristic Foundations: Byzantine ethics is indissolubly bound to the moral teaching of the Early Church that was based on Scripture, through its interpretation by the Greek Fathers (especially in cases where the allegorical method was used to extract its ‘‘moral meaning’’). The scriptural basis of Byzantine ethics is revealed in almost every text and is exemplified in the long tradition of exegetical treatises (e. g., on Job or on Paul’s Epistles). In the Greek East there was not a single figure whose thought influenced ethics, like Augustine in the West. Influential texts were Clement of Alexandria’s Paedagogus, Origen’s On Principles III, Cyril of Alexandria’s Catecheses, the speeches of John Chrysostom, and the Cappadocians’ ethical works. Basil of Caesarea wrote many ascetic and ethical works that influenced the development of Eastern monasticism and addressed many issues concerning the attainment of the perfect virtuous life.
The numerous and popular Lifes of ascetics were a reminder that spiritual perfection though an ideal can be attained in this life. Toward this ideal aimed hundreds of practical Chapters (e. g., Maximus the Confessor), a series of works On Virginity, numerous Sayings of Fathers, and ascetic manuals like that of Macarius, Evagrius Pontikos, Neilos, and Diadochus of Photike. This kind of literature and its theology of temperance reached its climax at the Collection of Philokalia (Love for What Is Beautiful/Good) that has remained popular for centuries among Orthodox people. The terms ‘‘ethics’’ and ‘‘ethical’’ occurred in Patristic literature mainly to denote Christian moral life, and Byzantine Fathers of the fourth and fifth century (e. g., John Chrysostom and Theodoret) insisted on the organic relation between ethics and dogma.
(b) Ancient Greek ethical tradition is the second ingredient of Byzantine ethics. In the formation of their moral teaching, the Fathers used ideas and concepts derived from Greek philosophy. They owe much to this tradition and this fact was recognized by pagans and by Christians. Origen and Gregory of Nyssa had already accepted the utility of certain aspects of pagan ethics and in many issues the Greek ethics was not to be reversed but integrated. The late antique amalgam of Platonism, Stoicism, and popular moral tradition was quite familiar to Fathers and the Byzantines learn it both indirectly and directly through florilegia and by studying the ancient texts.
Some major topics of Late Antiquity ethics found their way to other literary forms such as epistolography; for example, a considerable bulk of letters of consolation based on a long tradition, Christian and Pagan. The ideal of a wise man and the figure of the philosopher teacher as a paradigm, moral exhortation, the inner relation between virtue and knowledge (and vice to ignorance) passed to Christian morality. Greek ethical concepts as pleasure and happiness (eudaimonia) lost their importance; the assimilation to God was the ultimate goal, but even this echoed a Platonic dictum. Stoic ethics was present in the Christian adaptations of Epictetus’ Manual and can be traced later on in Barlaam’s Ethics According to the Stoics and mainly in Pletho’s On Virtues, greatly indebted to Epictetus. (Neo) Platonic ethical theory influenced Byzantine ethics in many issues, like its solution to the problem of evil. More importantly, the main structure of Byzantine moral theological thought (via the Cappadocian Fathers) owes much to later Platonic tradition: to overcome the passions and the corporeal existence; the purification of the soul by virtue in order to attain to the supreme good and contemplate (or unite with) God; or the ethical connotations of the ascend to the ontological hierarchy. The popularization of philosophical ethics and the therapeutic role of philosophy contributed so that the moral treatises of the Christian writers found an audience prepared and eager to use them as a practical guide to moral growth.
World History
