Thought

Metochites’ parallel careers as an imperial official and a writer conspired to make him extraordinarily sensitive to the traditional dilemma of whether a contemplative or an active life should be preferred. Many of his essays linger on this theme. In fact, he does view the active life in a more favorable light than probably any Byzantine thinker before him; but in the end he comes down clearly on the side of contemplation, provided that it is chosen for the right reasons. The interest he shows in the choice-and-motive aspects of moral action is unusual in Byzantium and may suggest familiarity with Aristotelian ethics.

In Metochites’ opinion, contemplation is the appropriate response to the fact that the realm of human affairs is so fundamentally unstable that we can never be certain of any set of circumstances in our lives, no matter how well we are doing. But through contemplation we can raise ourselves so high above the vicissitudes of our lives as to be able to deal with this uncertainty; recognizing the bright and the dark sides of every situation will teach us to bear adversity with cheerfulness and success without elation.

These are familiar sentiments, harking back to popular philosophy of all periods. It has often been claimed that the doctrinal influence of such sources as the four above-mentioned Platonic philosophers on Metochites is so massive that it threatens to compromise his Christian orthodoxy. Especially, two leading twentieth-century Byzantinists, Hans-Georg Beck (1952:108-110) and Herbert Hunger (1978:52), both regarded his preoccupation with the arbitrary rule of Tyche (or Fortune) in the realm of human affairs as the sign of a fatalism that could only with difficulty be squared with the Christian belief. But this inference seems to be mistaken. It is true that Metochites denies the existence of any apparent justice in the way that prosperity is distributed in the world. Fortune, he says, is absolutely inscrutable to the human mind. But this means, according to him, that it has to be taken on faith, ‘‘from the Fathers as well as the Philosophers,” that Fortune is ultimately the expression of Providence. Those who base their belief in Providence on their own limited and biased understanding of what is good and just will run the risk of losing it when Fortune turns against them (Sem. 28; 53; 66).

The real power behind Metochites’ Fortune is therefore not Heimarmene (or Fate), as Beck thought, but Providence. Throughout his work, Metochites takes a consistently fideist attitude toward theology, which allows him to preserve his faith in goodness, justice, and order in the face of apparent evil, injustice, and chaos. In fact, he inveighs strongly against determinism in the realm of human affairs (since such affairs involve chance and free choice) in his Stoicheiosis astronomike (1.5). On the other hand, he equally strongly affirms the causal influence of the motions and aspects of the heavenly bodies on natural processes - taking care, however, to underline the subordination ofthese motions and aspects to Providence. In Semeioseis gnomikai 58, he confronts head-on the question of whether it is better to exist or not to exist. He finds much to be said in favor of the latter alternative; still, hope and faith persuade us that it is better to exist. Faith, because the goodness of existence is dependent on the goodness of the Creator and Upholder’s will; hope, because the pain and trouble of this life can be balanced only by the prospect of eternal bliss in the next life.

By the same token, it can only be, in Metochites’ view, on account of our own nature as partly irrational creatures that it is impossible for us to have scientific knowledge of the divine realm, for this realm must be assumed to be free from plurality and change. However, Metochites also holds that scientific knowledge is impossible ofthe natural realm; and this, he thinks, is due mainly to the fact that natural objects are intrinsically unstable, just like human affairs. He refers to Heraclitus for the doctrine that everything in the sensible world is in flux, and to the ancient Skeptics for the ‘‘not unreasonable” inference that there will always be cogent arguments against any view about anything in this world. He was the first Greek author in hundreds of years to see more than perversity in Skepticism: he emphasized its kinship with Socratic elenchus.

Metochites’ epistemological pessimism as regards the natural realm contributed to lessening his admiration for Aristotle, who was considered first and foremost an authority on logic and natural philosophy. He criticizes the Stagirite for having promised scientific knowledge in fields where it is not to be had, out of intellectual vanity. His criticism is interesting for its focus on human vice; it provides a link in the history of Byzantine anti-Aristote-lianism, from Michael Psellos to George Gemistos Plethon, and points forward to Renaissance anti-Aristotelians like Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola.

Sandwiched between the epistemologically deficient realms of human affairs and natural objects and the excessive realm of the divine, the mathematical realm provides the only proper objects for scientific knowledge. According to Metochites, mathematical objects (including, preeminently, astronomical ones) are simple and stable; accordingly, our conceptions of them are definitive, which is proved by the unanimous agreement among mathematicians (as opposed to natural philosophers). In his Poem 10 (On Mathematics), he describes mathematical objects as being only apparently the products of abstraction from sensibles, and actually unconsciously preexisting in reason (or ‘‘mind’’), in a way that suggests that he aligned himself with the ‘‘projectionism’’ of lamblichus and Proclus. If so, he seems to have shared the rationalist epistemology of his contemporaries Choumnos and Barlaam, if only with regard to mathematics.

See also: > Aristotelianism in the Greek, Latin, Syriac, Arabic, and Hebrew Traditions > Epistemology, Byzantine > Metaphysics, Byzantine > Nikephoros Blemmydes > Nikephoros Gregoras > Philosophical Psychology, Byzantine > Philosophy, Byzantine > Skepticism