Medieval Serbian philosophy took shape mostly through the process of
translating Byzantine texts and revising the Slavic translations. Apart
from the Aristotelian terminological tradition, introduced via the
translation of Damascene?s Dialectic, there also was, under the influence of
the Corpus Areopagiticum and ascetic literature, notably of John Climacus?
Ladder, another strain of thought originating from Christian Platonism.
Damascene?s philosophical chapters, or Dialectic, translated into medieval
Serbian in the third quarter of the fourteenth century, not only shows the
high standards of translation technique developed in Serbian monastic
scriptoria, but testifies to a highly educated readership interested in such
a complex theologico-philosophical text with its nuanced terminology. A new
theological debate about the impossibility of knowing God led to Gregory
Palamas? complex text, The Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. Philosophical
texts were frequently copied and much worked on in medieval Serbia, but it
is difficult to infer about the actual scope of their influence on the
formation and articulation of the worldview of medieval society. As a result
of their demanding theoretical complexity, the study of philosophy was
restricted to quite narrow monastic, court and urban circles. However, the
strongest aspect of the influence of Byzantine thought on medieval society
was the liturgy as the central social event of the community. It was through
the liturgy that the wording of the translated texts influenced the life of
medieval Serbian society.