It is a commonplace of modern scholarship that the Fathers of the Church, Latin and Greek, were Platonist, with exceptions of Sts Leontios of Byzantium, John of Damascus and Gregory Palamas who were ostensibly Aristotelians. In the case of Platonism, it has a long tradition from ancient to modern times. There is more than one “Platonism.” The Platonism of Plato himself and Hellenic Platonism (before Alexander the Great), finally, there is Hellenistic Platonism (after Alexander’s conquest). The latter consists the schools of Plotinus (Neo-Platonism) or Antiochus of Ascalon (Middle Platonism) or some combination of the three above mentioned.
With special regard to the influence of Greek philosophy in general and Platonism in particular on Christianity, many academics tend to agree with the thesis of the liberal Protestant church historian, Adolph von Harnack (1851-1930), that beginning with the Fathers of the second century, the simple Gospel of Jesus Christ, was overwhelmed by Greek philosophy. He described this era in the life of the Church as “hellenization.” Not a few scholars believe that the Fathers were complicit with St Paul in the formation of a Christian metaphysic, or a Christian version of Greek philosophy. Roman Catholic theologians argue that in fact the Fathers, like the medieval Scholastics, created a synthesis of Plato or Aristotle and Christianity. Most Protestants like to think of these syntheses as a detriment to the Gospel and, therefore, justification for the Reformation and its adoption of the “original” ecclesiology.
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