17.11.2025 – Przemysław Marciniak

Auerbach Lecture | 17.11.2025 | 6 pm

Przemysław Marciniak (Byzantine Studies, Katowice): Regaining Lost Perspectives. Nature in Medieval Hexaemera

Programm

Abstract

How did medieval Christian communities conceptualize the natural world? What can multilingual commentaries on the Six Days of Creation – known as hexaemera – reveal about Christian thought on the environment? Earlier scholarship has often treated hexaemeral texts as largely imitative and lacking originality, claiming, for instance, that ‘imitation is commoner in this branch of literature than in almost any other.’ Such assessments have led to the assumption that these works are merely derivative.
While my larger project addresses hexaemera across multiple languages, this talk will concentrate on the Byzantine tradition. By surveying Greek/Byzantine hexaemeral works from Basil the Great to Neophytos of Cyprus, I aim to demonstrate that each author deliberately crafted his descriptions of the created world. By shifting the focus of reading, we can decipher the ideas of nature encoded in these portrayals.