Abstract

The monograph intends to reconsider the relationship between Early Christianity and Greek philosophy. In the nineteenth and twentieth century such relationship was considered as part of the influence which Greco-Roman culture exerted on the new religion. In compliance with the interpretation suggested by the originally liberal and positivistic philology, this relationship was explained as a more or less stressed Hellenisation of the new religion operated by the culture of the society over which it spread out. Such an interpretation is no longer well-grounded. It is necessary to appreciate how freely the Fathers bent some basic tenets of Greek thought, so that they met the demands of the Christian message. Discussion should be centred on how Hellenisation took place rather than on Hellenisation itself.The intermingling of Christian kerygma and Greek Philosophy will be considered from the early Apologetic to the sixth century, i.e. up to the floruit of Boethius , and of Maximus the Confessor, at the beginning of the Byzantine tradition