The most influential figure of the 1st Millenium AD?

Uhh, that is a peculiar statement. If Jesus Christ wasn't around Paul couldn't teach Christianity. Therefore it is safe to assume that Jesus is more influential and important.

If Socrates weren't around, Plato couldn't teach philosophy. But it is not safe to assume that Socrates is more influential and important. History is full of people whose ideas were modified or brought to the world by their intellectual successors. Marx required Hegel, but was more important; Darwin required Malthus, but was more important; Abraham required Noah, but was more important. Without Paul, or someone like him, Jesus is an iconoclastic Jewish preacher in a backward province of the Imperium full of iconoclastic Jewish preachers.
 
I'm sorry, but that is utter rubbish. Byzantium did and would have continued to do perfectly well as a conservator of Classical learning. In fact, given the attitudes of even the best of the Muslim diadochs towards the plundered patrimony of Greece and Rome, crediting Islam as such as 'preserving the wisdom' - or crediting Islam as such for influencing, or indeed not hindering, further developments - or claiming that it was the 'indispensable link' (and no other would do) between Classical learning and the Renascence, is like crediting the magpie with having manufactured the shiny bits it pilfers to adorn its nest.

Yes, because we all know that the Byzantines were spreaders of learning.....:rolleyes:
 
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