As was discussed in last week’s post, not only was Christianity probably the most significant counter-cultural movement in history in terms of practical, day to day morality, Christianity also gave rise to a philosophical paradigm, based on the historical realities of Christ’s resurrection and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, that both challenged and brought down classical pagan philosophy, and provided a blueprint for a truly enlightened philosophical, theological, and ethical worldview.
Getting Past the Enlightenment Con Regarding Christianity
The impact of Christian philosophy in the pagan world is something that has simply been ignored in most history books. It is something completely glossed over by modern academics and philosophers who, damn the actual history, are intent on pushing their particular narrative of western culture. The narrative in question stems from the time of the Enlightenment, when writers like Voltaire and Rousseau (among others) made the concentrated effort to essentially slander the entire history of the Church.
Thus, they and those who followed in their footsteps, proceeded to weave a narrative that looks something like this: Classical Greece and Rome was a golden age of reason, tolerance, and creativity. But then Constantine forced Christianity on the serene pagan world by means of the sword, and western culture was plunged into over 1,000 years of intellectual and creative darkness. The fanatical Christian church was in charge during the “Dark Ages,” and superstition, intolerance and torture for anyone who questioned Church authority. It wasn’t until “enlightened” thinkers, philosophers, and artists during the Renaissance, and the later “Enlightenment,” finally broke the chains of Christian intolerance and superstition, and freed western culture to reclaim the glorious days of classical Greece and Rome. Just look to The Da Vinci Code if you don’t think such a narrative is still alive and well today.
It must be clearly stated, though: that modern narrative of western culture is completely wrong at virtually every turn. Unfortunately, modern western culture has willingly imbibed this self-imposed ignorance of history for the past two hundred years. Such a narrative has as much sense as if someone writing about the Italian Renaissance pointed to Michelangelo, accused him of being the biggest threat to Renaissance art because his sculptures known as “The Captives” were incomplete and ugly. Furthermore, if it wasn’t for Michelangelo, the Italian Renaissance would have probably happened 1,000 years earlier in Denmark! So let’s blame Michelangelo for holding the Renaissance back for over 1,000 years!
It is time for us to come to a firm understanding of Christianity’s true impact on western philosophy, ethics, art, literature, science, and technology.
Now, the attempt to disparage Christianity certainly didn’t begin during the Enlightenment. The 2nd century pagan philosopher Celsus wrote an entire book ridiculing Christianity. In response, Origen of Alexandria wrote an entire book refuting Celsus—the book was aptly named, Against Celsus. In any case, one of the things Celsus ridiculed Christianity for was that it was a religion only for women, slaves, and children. Well, the fact it, it wasn’t just women, slaves, and children who became Christians.
Hosts of wealthy Romans flocked to Christianity, and the premier Christian apologists for the first 300 years of the Church were the leading philosophers of their day. They were steeped in classical philosophy, and interacted with it on a truly impressive scale. We must get it out of our heads the notion that Christianity was, from the beginning, just a group of wild-eyed, apocalyptic fanatics. Nothing could be further from the truth. Not only did the early Christians take definitive, counter-cultural stances in regards to helping the poor, sick, and needy, but Christian philosophers engaged in vigorous philosophical debate with the leading pagan philosophies of their day, and decisively won the intellectual argument.
In light of how the pagan world sought to ridicule early Christianity, various Christian apologists responded to the charges made against Christianity by arguing that it was, in fact, a better philosophy and more coherent worldview than that of the classical world. Christianity needed to be defended on an intellectual and philosophical level. Defend it, the apologists did. In these next two posts, I will attempt to give an overview of some of the more significant Christian philosophers of the early Church, and then offer some concluding remarks concerning early Christian philosophy in general.
Justin Martyr (100-150 AD)
One of the earliest Christian philosopher-apologists was Justin Martyr. As his name suggests, he was eventually martyred in Rome during the reign of Marcus Aurelius. Having grown up a pagan, and after becoming a philosopher and investigating various philosophical schools like Stoicism, Epicureanism, Justin eventually was convinced that not only was Jesus truly resurrected from the dead, and that not only was he the fulfillment of the Jewish Scriptures, but that Christianity itself offered a more noble and truth philosophy than that of the classical world. Therefore, after becoming a Christian, Justin did not renounce his profession as a philosopher, but rather he moved to Rome and set up his own Christian philosophical school, where he interacted and debated with both classical philosophers and Jewish rabbis alike.
Justin is most famous for his work, Dialogue with Trypho, in which he engages in a lengthy debate with a Jewish rabbi named Trypho (possibly Rabbi Tarphon, who is mentioned in the Mishna) regarding the Messiah and the Jewish Scriptures. He is also known for his two works, First Apology, and Second Apology, both of which were addressed to both the Roman Emperor and to the Roman Senate respectively, and both of which attempted to clarify Christian belief and practice. In Justin’s writings we learn more about the way the early Church worked to provide care for the poor and needy. He wrote, “What is collected is deposited with the president [of the congregation], and he takes care of orphans and widows, and those who are in want on account of sickness or any other cause, and those who are in bonds, and the strangers who are sojourners among us, and, briefly, he is the protector of all those in need” (1st Apology, 67).
Justin also argued that Christianity provided a truer and nobler philosophy than that of the various Greek philosophies of his day. He claimed Plato got the idea for the Demiurge from the writings of Moses. He also claimed that classical philosophy had the seed of the Logos as the source of truth. The Logos was obviously a Greek philosophical concept, but Justin argued that the Logos had actually become a human being and was revealed to be Jesus Christ. This idea probably can be traced back to the Gospel of John, and certainly turned Platonic philosophy on its head. Finally, in contrast to the classical philosophical notion that human beings were ultimately slaves to impersonal fate, Justin argued that God did not, in fact, predestine human events, but rather only foreknew them. The point here is simple. Justin Martyr was not a wild-eyed fanatic. He was an established and respected philosopher who made his home base in the capital of the Roman Empire. He interacted and debated with the leading philosophers of his day, and his arguments were even presented to the emperor himself.
Athenagoras of Athens (133-190 AD)
Another Christian philosopher from that time was Athenagoras of Athens. Originally a Platonic philosopher, he originally familiarized himself with the Christian Scriptures in order to disprove them. Somewhere along the line, though, the critic became a Christian, and spent the rest of his life defending the truth of Christianity on both moral and philosophical grounds. Like Justin Martyr, he too wrote an Apology for Marcus Aurelius and his son Commodus, in which he addressed the false charges of atheism. Ironically, in the same work, he made the philosophical argument for monotheism by citing, above all, pagan writers and thinkers.
Like Justin Martyr, he argued that Christianity was a better philosophy than the other classical philosophical schools. He defended the Christian sanctity of marriage, he proposed a philosophical argument for the Trinity, and he argued against violent gladiator games, as well as abortion. In another work, entitled The Resurrection of the Dead, he provides his philosophical argument for, as is obvious, the possibility of the resurrection of the dead.
Clement of Alexandria (150-215 AD)
As Athenagoras was making his case for Christianity in Athens, Clement of Alexandria, one of the early Church’s most influential bishops, was making the Christian case in Egypt. He argued that both faith and reason originate from God, and are, in fact, from God. And although he rightly understood that philosophy alone was insufficient for coming to the Christian faith, he argued there is an intricate connection between faith and reason. There were, in fact, philosophical arguments to be made that could make Christianity more attractive to the skeptical pagan eye and show it to be an intellectually sound and reasonable worldview.
When discussing the Christian faith and reason, Clement said, “Do not think that we say that these things are only to be received by faith, but also that they are to be asserted by reason. For indeed it is not safe to commit these things to bare faith without reason, since assuredly truth cannot be without reason” (Recognitions, 2:69). Clement wanted to be clear: the Christian faith was, in fact, reasonable, rational, and philosophically viable. He would have never said, “Oh, you just have to have faith, even though Christianity seems irrational!” I dare say, such a sentiment might have been considered ridiculous by early Church Fathers like Clement.
Clement also argued for the necessity of all Christians to be somewhat well-versed in philosophical matters. As Vincent Carroll points out in his book, Christianity on Trial, Clement wrote, “Both slave and free must equally philosophize, whether male or female in sex…whether barbarian, Greek, slave, whether an old man, or a boy, or a woman…. And we must admit that the same nature exists in every race, and the same virtue” (2). For Clement, part of the duty of a Christian was to be able to give a well-reasoned defense of the Gospel…and that inevitably requires being familiar with the prevailing philosophical thought of the day.
Being a bishop, though, Clement did far more than just make philosophical arguments. He was part of that Christian counter-cultural movement that sought to extend Christian charity to the poor, sick and needy. As with most other Christians of the time, Clement argued against slavery. He said, “I would ask you, does it not seem to you monstrous that you—human beings who are God’s own handiwork—should be subjected to another master, and even worse, serve a tyrant, instead of God, the true king?” Clement argued that since every human being is made in God’s image, that it logically follows that all men and women, regardless of race or gender, are moral equals, and therefore something like slavery was an abomination.
Origen of Alexandria (185-254 AD)
Perhaps the most influential Christian philosopher of the time was Origen of Alexandria. His father, along with a number of other Christian leaders in Alexandria at the time, was martyred in 202 AD during the reign of Septimius Severus. Origen possessed such a gifted mind, that after Septimius Severus’ persecution resulted in the deaths of many Alexandrian Christians and the decimation of the Alexandrian church’s catechumen school, he was put in charge of that school when he was only 18 years old.
Throughout his lifetime, he proceeded to produce some of the most significant theological and philosophical treatises on Christianity. He is considered to be the first systematic theologian in Church history, the first textual critic of the Bible in Church history, and one of the most prominent Christian philosophers in history. His most famous work, which has been unfortunately lost, was known as the Hexapla—an edition of the Bible in six different translations. The significance of this was that it shows that from the earliest days of Christianity, Christians were concerned with getting the original text of the Bible correct. Origen’s work was a meticulous masterpiece that effected Bible translation and interpretation from that time forward.
Yet not only was Origen a master Biblical scholar, he was also a prodigious philosopher, well-versed with the Greek philosophical schools, and fully capable of interacting with Greek philosophy. In his work, Against Celsus, Origen wrote a philosophical tour de force in which he gave a point by point, detailed response to the work of the pagan philosopher Celsus, in which Celsus savaged and ridiculed Christian beliefs and practices.
When one reads Origen’s work, one will be astounded not only at how so many of Celsus’ attacks on Christianity in the third century sound very much like many of the modern day attacks on Christianity put forth by men like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens, but one will also be amazed at the depth of familiarity Origen has with classical philosophical thought. Origen not only showed the ignorance of Celsus in regards to the Hebrew Scriptures and basic Christian beliefs, but he also demonstrated a greater understanding and mastery of classical philosophy than the pagan philosopher himself.
Origen’s other famous work was entitled First Principles. In it, Origen set forth the first true systematic theology of the Church. In doing so, he attempted to use Greek thought and philosophical categories in his attempt to explain Christian belief and thought. It is such an extensive and thorough work, I confess it took me two years to read through it, and I readily admit much of it was simply over my head. After reading Origen’s First Principles, I became fully convinced that, compared to early Christian philosophers like Origen, I am an utter novice.
In hindsight, Origen probably went a bit too far with some of his explanations, and had the tendency to interpret Christianity a little bit too much through the lens of Greek philosophical thought—and that led to some views that were far too speculative and not rooted in the Bible. We must remember, though, that the early Church didn’t have everything “spelled out” at that point. In fact, in Origen’s day there wasn’t even yet an officially agreed-upon New Testament. So yes, Origen got some things wrong, but without his pioneering work, Christianity would not have developed in the way it did.
One final thing should be mentioned about Origen. In light of much of my writing about Young Earth Creationism this past year, it is worth noting that Origen’s interpretation of Genesis 1-3 is nothing like that of Ken Ham. He did not believe Genesis 3 was about a historic space-time “fall” into sin by the first two human beings. Instead, he argued that it was a pre-cosmic myth that pointed to the reality about the condition of all people. In fact, many early Church Fathers (like Irenaeus) held similar interpretive views of Adam and Eve.
In my next post, I will look at two more early Christian philosophers: Tertullian and Irenaeus of Lyons.
