Within the conference of the International Society for Neoplatonic Studies Neoplatonism in the East - ex oriente lux, to be held in Haifa, 22-24 March 2011, we invite abstract submissions for the panel session Platonism and Christianity in Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages :

The relationship between Platonism and Christianity, and philosophy and theology, in late antique and medieval thinkers has been a subject of a wide range of studies in modern scholarship. However, the positions on this issue are not as uniform as one might think. While one party argues that what happened was just a conventional use of Platonic features by Christian thinkers, the others seem to embrace a true interaction between Christian theology and platonic philosophy.
What did actually happen – was the Platonic element just a mere convenience as to the language and philosophical tools, or was there a genuine unification between Platonism and Christianity? Was the “collaboration” between the two limited to simple borrowings of linguistic and logical tools, or can there be traced an essential influence of one on another? These are the questions on which the papers included in this panel should try to elaborate.
Papers should be concentrated on, but not limited to, some of the following themes: relationship between philosophy and theology; specific authors (such as Augustine, Dionysius Areopagite, Maximus the Confessor, Johannes Scotus Eriugena, etc.) and their use of (neo)platonic doctrines; the use of the same language by Platonists and Christians – similarities and differences; new shapes and meanings of Platonic doctrines in the Christian context…
Abstracts of no more than a single page should be sent to:
Filip Ivanovic
Norwegian University of Science and Technology – Trondheim