I currently researching this topic for a paper. I was wondering are there specific instances where it can be seen that early chrisitianity pushed away (or accepted) greek philosophical ideals? It seems Christianity pushed away philosophy due to its extremely logical nature, but in this process of pushing away philosophy, did it effect christian doctrine? thanks…
The two most obvious ones mentioned regularly are
St. Augustine
plato.stanford.edu/entries/augustine/
and St. Aquinas
plato.stanford.edu/entries/aquinas/
When you start looking at who their main influences were, and in turn, who they influenced, I think it becomes obvious that there is a synthesis between Christianity and the most noted Greek Philosophers.
Of course there was!
Any fairytale needs some degree of truth in it.
The Saints were just too busy to plan out their stories, they’ve got no time for philosophy! So they suck and mix.
So did all the later Christian “philosophiers”.
Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Origen and Clement of Alexandria all use Pagan (Platonic) philosophy in their Christian theologies in the 2nd century.
There are a number of scholars who have written excellent books on this area:
look out for: Henry Chadwick, JND Kelly, WHC Frend, Robert Wilken, Timothy Barnes…
Good luck
In case anyone had been wondering, Christianity as a doctrinal corpus never ‘pushed away’ philosophy: on the contrary, Christian fathers appealed to pagan philosophy in the construction of doctrine.
I hope that clears this thread up nicely!
Just to add my view that there is nothing ‘pagan’ about philosophy. All of creation and all that is created is God’s, including, certainly, philosophy. And Paul himself quoted from ‘pagan’ peotry.
History is no accident, nor is it purposeless. I have a conjecture in me that philosophy has its roots in the Jews and not Greeks. And it started with the first diaspora - the dispersal by the Assyrians and Babylonians - which then led to Plato (how this is so needs more research), and then Alexander the Great, which then set up the modern world then, to be able to receive and understand the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Take a look at Plotinus. He took Plato’s Forms and deified them. Supposedly had influence on the early Christians.
Plotinus was writing in the 3rd century. Plato’s philosophy had already been adopted by CLement of Alexandria and Origen in the 2nd century- both Christians.
It is true however, that Plotinian philosophy had an effect on Christian theology, although this happened in the 4th century (eg. Gregory of Nazianzus).