Best of us all the best

he be leic,

go go, 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 at King's College London and the

LMU in Munich online at history of philosophy.net. Today's episode, Behind Enemy Lines, John of Damascus.

The first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word Byzantine is probably exaggerated

and unnecessary complexity in honor of the Eastern Empire's formidable and intricate bureaucracy.

The second thing to come to mind though might be the concept of Orthodoxy, in honor of the

Empire's equally formidable and intricate theological tradition.

The term comes from the Greek words, Otos and Doxa, meaning correct belief, and of course

it features in the title of the Greek Orthodox Church.

The doctrines of that church emerge from late antiquity and the early Byzantine period, a time of

fierce debate as to which religious beliefs are, in fact, correct.

To be an Orthodox Christian was obviously to reject paganism and the two other

Abrahamic faiths, Judaism, which was seen as superseded by the incarnation in the Gospels,

and Islam, which was seen more unfavorably still as an outright heresy.

Orthodoxy also meant rejecting certain teachings that had been adopted by other Eastern Christian communities during centuries of controversy

over the Trinity and the nature, or indeed natures, of Christ.

No one text, church council, or theologian was solely responsible for establishing the theology

of the Orthodox Church, but a few key figures were particularly important in that process,

among whom we must count John of Damascus.

He would eventually be honored as a theological authority alongside the late ancient church

...