The reception of Greek ethics in late antiquity and Byzantium

Authored by an interdisciplinary team of experts, including historians, classicists, philosophers and theologians, this original collection of essays offers the first authoritative analysis of the multifaceted reception of Greek ethics in late antiquity and Byzantium (ca. 3rd-14th c.), opening up a hitherto under-explored topic in the history of Greek philosophy. The essays discuss the sophisticated ways in which moral themes and controversies from antiquity were reinvigorated and transformed by later authors to align with their philosophical and religious outlook in each period. Topics examined range from ethics and politics in Neoplatonism and ethos in the context of rhetorical theory and performance to textual exegesis on Aristotelian ethics. The volume will appeal to scholars and students in philosophy, classics, patristic theology, and those working on the history of education and the development of Greek ethics.

"There are few areas in which the chasm separating pagan and Christian ethics is deeper than that of sexuality. Here I wish to examine this fundamental shift of thought from the standpoint of the ontology of sexual difference. Is the difference between male and female solely bodily, or does it also extend in some way to the soul - and if so, how should we understand this further (and presumably deeper) level of difference? Any answer to this question necessarily depends on one's understanding of the soul itself, a topic on which there was little agreement among the philosophical schools of antiquity. Nonetheless, as we shall see, there was a broad consensus that sexual difference is a more or less accidental feature of embodiment and does not affect the soul intrinsically. The Greek Fathers accepted this view, using it to shape their own reading of the creation account in Genesis"--