MYSTICISM AND RATIONAL SPIRITUALITY WHEN THEOLOGY MEETS PHILOSOPHY IN BYZANTIUM

During the Byzantine era philosophy never connected with theology as ancilla theologiae. Inside the Greek philosophy of the Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages there were two tensions: the mystical and the rational. These two philosophical tensions were expressions of that epoch and passed inside the theology, which was partly in the sphere of Neoplatonic influence. However theology in Byzantium never was systematized as in the case in the West. As the Platonism and as the Aristotelianism were continued in the Middle Ages also the Byzantine philosophy followed an autonomous course and with theology developed an empirical point of view.