The Light of Hellenism in Empire and Caliphate

This chapter argues that religious and political thought were radically transformed in the Mediterranean during the Central Middle Ages. A serious engagement from the eighth century onwards with pagan philosophical ideas, as filtered through Christian theological writings, reached its culmination among Muslims by the turn of the eleventh century. Missionaries working for the Fatimid da’wa placed Neoplatonism at the heart of Ismaʿili Shiʿi religious propaganda. Use of philosophical concepts added rigour to Ismaʿilism, and lent authority to assertions regarding the centrality of the person and decrees of the Imam-Caliph in a hierarchical state that sought to ensure the illumination and salvation of the faithful. Reacting to these developments, intellectuals such as Psellos reclaimed for Byzantium the cultural capital of Hellenism. Although Neoplatonism never succeeded in occupying within imperial political theology an official position equivalent to the one it held in the caliphate, its revival increased the prestige of the cathedral and diocese of Athens, whose bishops identified Dionysius the Areopagite as their see’s founder. Taking advantage of the fact that Islamic thought had drawn on the Neoplatonism not only of Plotinus and Proclus, but also of Pseudo-Dionysius, clerics including Michael Choniates emphasised the role of the Christian liturgy and sacraments.