The 24th International Congress of Byzantine Studies

Textual Exchanges in Late Antiquity East and South of Byzantium Seen Through an Eastern Christian Lens

crossmark logo

Abstract

Scientific and philosophical texts circulated as is expected between the Roman and Sasanian empires as well as more east and west towards Europe and towards India and China. Arabia, though still often absent from the mental map of Late Antiquity, was also involved in exchanges of written texts, mainly letters. It is more surprising to see that religious texts were also discussed in the courts. Byzantium engaged in geopolitical and religious dialogue with its eastern and southern neighbours through clerics who played also a role as ambassadors of knowledge and cultural delegates. Syriac texts written in the eastern Roman empire or east of Byzantium offer a slightly decentred picture of these relations viewed from and beyond the borders of empires.


Open access

Submitted: June 1, 2022 | Accepted: June 28, 2022 | Published Aug. 22, 2022 | Language: en

Keywords Sasanian empire • History of religions • Eastern Christianity • Syriac studies • History of sciences • Byzantium • Cultural history • Global history • Late antiquity

Copyright © 2022 Muriel Debié. 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/10.30687/978-88-6969-590-2/015


read this chapter