Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
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 then were Stoicism , Platonism , Epicureanism , and, to a lesser extent, the skeptic traditions of Pyrrhonism and Academic Skepticism .
An example is John Milton's Paradise Lost, an "epic elaboration of the Judeo-Christian mythology" and also a "veritable encyclopedia of myths from the Greek and Roman tradition". [ 166 ] According to Cynthia Stewart, during the Reformation, the Protestant reformers used "the founding myths of Christianity" to critique the church of their time.
Converts to Christianity brought with them such mental cultivation as they had received while pagans. They used their knowledge of mythology and ancient traditions as a means of attacking paganism. Tertullian forbade Christians to teach, but admitted that school attendance by Christian pupils was unavoidable. [4]
The Gospel of John bears indirect influences from Platonism, via earlier Jewish deuterocanonical texts, and may also have been influenced in less obvious ways by the cult of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, though this possibility is still disputed. [16]
Greek religious concepts may also have absorbed the beliefs and practices of earlier, nearby cultures, such as Minoan religion, [36] and other influences came from the Near East, especially via Cyprus [35] and Phoenicia. [1] Herodotus, writing in the 5th century BCE, traced many Greek religious practices to Egypt.
Neoplatonism was a major influence on Christian theology throughout Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages in the East, and sometimes in the West as well. In the East, major Greek Fathers like Basil, Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzus were influenced by Platonism and Neoplatonism, but also Stoicism often leading towards asceticism and harsh treatment of the body, for example stylite asceticism.
The influences of Greek thought are apparent in the earliest Christian mystics and their writings. Plato (428–348 BC) is considered the most important of ancient philosophers, and his philosophical system provides the basis of most later mystical forms.
Page from the Gospel of Judas Mandaean Beth Manda in Nasiriyah, southern Iraq, in 2016, a contemporary-style mandi. Gnosticism (from Ancient Greek: γνωστικός, romanized: gnōstikós, Koine Greek: [ɣnostiˈkos], 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems that coalesced in the late 1st century AD among early Christian sects.