Filip Ivanovic

One of the most important exponents of the School of Alexandria, Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150. – ca. 215.) is the author of a famous trilogy, consisting of Protrepticus, Paedagogus, and Stromata, which correspond to the three ways of acting of the Logos, namely to convert the pagans to the true faith, to cure the soul from passions, and to uplift the soul to the methodic and intellectual life of spiritual perfection. Logos thus acts through exhortation, training, and teaching. Clement considers himself to be the guardian of the Apostolic tradition and takes the task of conserving this tradition, which consists of cosmological and theological truths. With that goal in mind, the Alexandrian talks about the relation between pagan philosophy and Christianity, allegorical interpretation of the Scripture, the need of revealing and concealing the knowledge, which, in order to be correctly understood, has to be interpreted in accordance with the tradition. The intention of this short article is to point out these concepts and their connections in the way Clement sees them.

This book contributes to the study of the notions of symbol and icon by examining two phenomena that greatly contributed to their development: the thought of Dionysius the Areopagite and the iconoclastic controversy. Different historical and philosophical-theological contexts are examined within the framework of the influence that Dionysius exerted on main protagonists in the controversy and the theology of icon. The reader will find a discussion of the main points of Dionysius' doctrine, the features of the iconoclastic controversy, and an elaboration of the Areopagite's aesthetic and symbolic theory with special reference to the theology of icon. Throughout the work Ivanovic seeks to offer broad insight relevant to many different disciplines, such as theology, philosophy, history, and art. Dionysian theory of symbols and apophatic theology, his concepts of light, icon, and visible things as "images of the invisible things" were the basis of the further development of the Orthodox theology of the icon, which constitutes one of the fundamental values of Christian theology. The analysis offered in this book incites further study of the doctrinal dimension of Christian iconology, as well as of Christian and Neoplatonic mysticism, Byzantine aesthetics, and of theological and cultural studies.

The contribution considers three themes, Hesiod as the precursor of scientific philosophy and ethics, Plato’s political thought and its importance in our days, and the continuity of Greek thought in Byzantine philosophy. It deals with Hesiod’s works Theogony and Works and Days, Plato’s Republic, and it examines the formation of main formulations of Byzantine-Christian doctrines (God’s essence and nature, iconoclastic debate, etc.), through the use of methods and terms of ancient Greek philosophy.

This paper challenges the widespread Enlightenment view of Byzantium as a monster of human spirit showing that much of this bias is due to the generalizations drawn from unfounded analogies between the religious anti-intellectualism in the Latin West and its supposed counterpart in the Byzantine orthodoxy. It points to the first university that was founded in Constantinople and others that soon followed in other cities of Byzantium. Paideia represented the main thread of continuity with ancient antiquity, and it played a central role in the shaping character and it contributed to understandings across a diversity of peoples; its cultivation in open schools and research centers (providing a channel for upward mobility) was unequalled until modern times.