The established narrative of the transmission of Greek philosophy and science in late antiquity leaves a significant gap between the end of the Alexandrian school in the 6^th century and its “rediscovery” in 9th-century Baghdad. This so-called ‘Dark Age’ can be illumined by looking at the Graeco-Syriac translation movement that preceded the Arabic one. The influence of the former on the latter usually goes unrecognised in histories of Western philosophy. In addition, we have the example of John of Damascus, whose philosophical work has not been sufficiently studied in its original 8th-century context. We will take a closer look at both the Syriac Christian contribution to the transmission as well as the Greek contribution made by the Damascene.

Speaker:
Dr Ken Parry is Emeritus Senior Research Fellow, History and Archaeology, Macquarie University, and Visiting Research Fellow, Centre for Classical Studies, ANU. He researches in the fields of Late Antiquity, Byzantine Studies, and Eastern Christianity. He was President of the Australasian Association for Byzantine Studies (2014–2019) and is founding editor of the Brill series Texts and Studies in Eastern Christianity (45 vols to date). Among his recent publications he has contributed to The Cambridge Intellectual History of Byzantium (2017), Brill’s Companion to Byzantine Iconoclasm (2021), Harmony of the Spheres: Ancient and Recent Perspectives (2026), and Brill’s Companion to Byzantine Philosophy (forthcoming). He is currently editing Brill’s Companion to John of Damascus and a volume on cultural heritage destruction in the Middle East.