Hellenistic Philosophy and Christianity

Hellenistic philosophy and Christianity refers to the complex interaction between Hellenistic philosophy and early Christianity during the first four centuries AD.

The conflict between the two modes of thought is recorded in Paul's encounters with Epicurean and Stoic philosophers in Acts 17:18, his diatribe against Greek philosophy in 1Corinthians 1:18-31 and his warning against philosophy in Colossians 2:8. However, as Christianity spread throughout the Hellenic world, an increasing number of church leaders were educated in Greek philosophy. The dominant philosophical traditions of the Greco-Roman world at the time were Stoicism, Platonism, and Epicureanism. Stoicism and particularly Platonism were readily incorporated into Christian ethics and Christian theology.

Christian assimilation of Hellenic philosophy was anticipated by Philo and other Greek-speaking Alexandrian Jews. Philo's blend of Judaism, Platonism, and Stoicism strongly influenced Christian Alexandrian writers like Origen and Clement of Alexandria, as well as, in the Latin world, Ambrose of Milan.

One early Christian writer of the 2nd and early 3rd century, Clement of Alexandria, demonstrated Greek thought in writing,

"Philosophy has been given to the Greeks as their own kind of Covenant, their foundation for the philosophy of Christ ... the philosophy of the Greeks ... contains the basic elements of that genuine and perfect knowledge which is higher than human ... even upon those spiritual objects." (Miscellanies 6. 8)

The Church historian Eusebius suggested, essentially, that Greek philosophy had been supplied providentially as a preparation for the Gospel. Augustine of Hippo, who ultimately systematized Christian philosophy, wrote in the 4th and early 5th century,

But when I read those books of the Platonists I was taught by them to seek incorporeal truth, so I saw your 'invisible things, understood by the things that are made' (Confessions 7. 20).