Abstract

Often described by byzantinists as primarily Aristotelian, the cosmological worldview of the Byzantines was in fact more varied. This is attested, in the 11th and 12th centuries, by the survival of the box-like universe, suggested by Antiochene Fathers in the 5th and 6th centuries. This system survived in the catenae to Genesis, particularly in passages related to the creation of the firmament and the stars. An echo of the use of these specific Antiochene passages in Byzantine monasteries also appears in a letter of Michael Glykas