To become familiar with Byzantine popular thought it is essential to remember that the East Roman Christian knew and believed his New Testament; he read it or heard it read in church; it became a part of his life. Thus for the modern student the most useful introduction to Byzantine thought is perhaps to re-read the New Testament.
"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
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Sunday, November 19, 2017
Introduction to Byzantine Thought
Norman H. Baynes, "St. Antony and the Demons," Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 40 (December, 1954) 7-10 (at 7):