Eurasian Studies

Balkans, Anatolia, Iran, Caucasus and Central Asia Studies Notebooks

Tradition and Innovation in the Cosmology of Anania Širakac‘i

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Abstract

Anania Širakac‘i was a 7th century AD Armenian mathematician trained in the Byzantine Empire whose works embrace treatises in various fields of science. Of the almost 30 texts attributed to him, most await investigation. His Cosmology is the focus of our research, and we highlight its elements of similarity with Greek tradition, in particular with St Basil’s Hexameron, and in the Armenian tradition, to which Anania brings novelty especially in his deeper understanding of astronomical phenomena. We suggest that this work, like Isidore’s De Natura Rerum, represents a new genre of Christian literature, and attempts to understand it through the meaning of Cosmos found in Aristotle’s De Mundo.


Open access

Submitted: May 21, 2018 | Accepted: June 15, 2018 | Published Nov. 15, 2018 | Language: en

Keywords Cosmology • Anania Širakac‘i • Tradition and innovation • 7th century AD • Armenia

Copyright © 2018 Stephanie Pambakian. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-279-6/001


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