Christianity and Pagan Culture: Confrontation & Integration

1. Christianity and Pagan Culture: Confrontation & Integration

2. Christianity and Pagan Culture: Confrontation & Integration • Christian Theology Confronts Pagan Culture

3. Christianity and Pagan Culture: Confrontation & Integration • Christian Theology Confronts Pagan Culture • A. Major Example: Origen of Alexandria

4. Origen of Alexandria (185 - c.254)

5. “…For this man [Origen], having been a student of Ammonius, who had attained the greatest proficiency in philosophy of any in our day, derived much benefit from his teacher in the knowledge of the sciences; but as to the correct choice of life, he pursued a course opposite to his. For Ammonius, being a Christian, and brought up by Christian parents, when he gave himself to study and to philosophy straightway conformed to the life required by the laws. But Origen, having been educated as a Greek in Greek literature, went over to the barbarian recklessness. And carrying over the learning which he had obtained, he hawked it about, in his life conducting himself as a Christian and contrary to the laws, but in his opinions of material things and of the Deity being like a Greek, and mingling Grecian teachings with foreign fables. For he was continually studying Plato, and he busied himself with the writings of Numenius and Cronius…and those famous among the Pythagoreans. And he used the books of Chaeremon the Stoic, and of Cornutus. Becoming acquainted through them with the figurative interpretation of the Grecian mysteries, he applied it to the Jewish Scriptures." -Porphyry, Against the Christians

6. Christianity and Pagan Culture: Confrontation & Integration • Christian Theology Confronts Pagan Culture • A. Major Example: Origen of Alexandria • II. Two Especially Important Pagan Philosophies

7. Christianity and Pagan Culture: Confrontation & Integration • Christian Theology Confronts Pagan Culture • A. Major Example: Origen of Alexandria • II. 2 Especially Important Pagan Philosophies • A. Stoicism

8. Christianity and Pagan Culture: Confrontation & Integration • Christian Theology Confronts Pagan Culture • A. Major Example: Origen of Alexandria • II. 2 Especially Important Pagan Philosophies • A. Stoicism • B. Neoplatonism

9. Christianity and Pagan Culture: Confrontation & Integration • Christian Theology Confronts Pagan Culture • A. Major Example: Origen of Alexandria • II. 2 Especially Important Pagan Philosophies • A. Stoicism • B. Neoplatonism • 1. Major Figures: Plotinus & Porphyry

10. Christianity and Pagan Culture: Confrontation & Integration • Christian Theology Confronts Pagan Culture • A. Major Example: Origen of Alexandria • II. 2 Especially Important Pagan Philosophies • A. Stoicism • B. Neoplatonism • 1. Major Figures: Plotinus & Porphyry • 2. Major Ideas

11. Christianity and Pagan Culture: Confrontation & Integration • Christian Theology Confronts Pagan Culture • A. Major Example: Origen of Alexandria • II. 2 Especially Important Pagan Philosophies • A. Stoicism • B. Neoplatonism • 1. Major Figures: Plotinus & Porphyry • 2. Major Ideas • III. Divergent Christian Responses to Pagan Philosophy & Culture

12. Christianity and Pagan Culture: Confrontation & Integration • Christian Theology Confronts Pagan Culture • A. Major Example: Origen of Alexandria • II. 2 Especially Important Pagan Philosophies • A. Stoicism • B. Neoplatonism • 1. Major Figures: Plotinus & Porphyry • 2. Major Ideas • III. Divergent Christian Responses to Pagan Philosophy & Culture • A. Tertullian

13. “What then has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What does the academy to do with the church? What have heretics to do with Christians? ...Away with those who produce a Stoic, Platonic, and dialectic Christianity. We have no need of speculation after [we have] Jesus Christ, nor of inquisitiveness after [we have] the gospel!” - Tertullian

14. Christianity and Pagan Culture: Confrontation & Integration • Christian Theology Confronts Pagan Culture • A. Major Example: Origen of Alexandria • II. 2 Especially Important Pagan Philosophies • A. Stoicism • B. Neoplatonism • 1. Major Figures: Plotinus & Porphyry • 2. Major Ideas • III. Divergent Christian Responses to Pagan Philosophy & Culture • A. Tertullian • B. Clement of Alexandria

15. “For not only for the Hebrews and those subject to the law...is it right to become a Jew, but also a Greek for the Greeks, that we may gain all [cf. 1 Cor. 9:20-21]... (He continues:) All of us who use our eyes consider what encounters them. But some look for one reason, others for another. For example, the cook and the shepherd do not consider the sheep alike. For the former scrutinizes whether it is fat; the latter looks into the quality of its breeding. If someone needs food, let him milk the sheep. Let him shear the wool if he needs clothing. In this way, let me benefit from the fruit of Greek erudition.” - Clement of Alexandria

16. “What then has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What does the academy to do with the church? What have heretics to do with Christians? ...Away with those who produce a Stoic, Platonic, and dialectic Christianity. We have no need of speculation after [we have] Jesus Christ, nor of inquisitiveness after [we have] the gospel!” - Tertullian “For not only for the Hebrews and those subject to the law...is it right to become a Jew, but also a Greek for the Greeks, that we may gain all [cf. 1 Cor. 9:20-21]... (He continues:) All of us who use our eyes consider what encounters them. But some look for one reason, others for another. For example, the cook and the shepherd do not consider the sheep alike. For the former scrutinizes whether it is fat; the latter looks into the quality of its breeding. If someone needs food, let him milk the sheep. Let him shear the wool if he needs clothing. In this way, let me benefit from the fruit of Greek erudition.” - Clement of Alexandria

17. Christianity and Pagan Culture: Confrontation & Integration • Christian Theology Confronts Pagan Culture • A. Major Example: Origen of Alexandria • II. 2 Especially Important Pagan Philosophies • A. Stoicism • B. Neoplatonism • 1. Major Figures: Plotinus & Porphyry • 2. Major Ideas • III. Divergent Christian Responses to Pagan Philosophy & Culture • A. Tertullian • B. Clement of Alexandria • IV. Pagan Beliefs Among the Masses

18. Christianity and Pagan Culture: Confrontation & Integration • Christian Theology Confronts Pagan Culture • A. Major Example: Origen of Alexandria • II. 2 Especially Important Pagan Philosophies • A. Stoicism • B. Neoplatonism • 1. Major Figures: Plotinus & Porphyry • 2. Major Ideas • III. Divergent Christian Responses to Pagan Philosophy & Culture • A. Tertullian • B. Clement of Alexandria • IV. Pagan Beliefs Among the Masses • A. Implications for Christianity