The Gospel and the Greek Philosophers
By James M. West. Copyright © March 16, 2009. All Rights Reserved.
E-mail: ogdood@yahoo.com
In the historic battle between orthodoxy
and heresy there is one particular issue which has always fascinated me. I
refer to the way that early Christians came away from the New Testament
writings with radically different interpretations of theology. Early
Christianity was a fragmented movement in which various factions quite
literally believed in different and opposing gods. In one of my other articles
I described the situation this way: Thus one Christian’s “Creator God” was
another Christian’s “devil.” And one Christian’s “flesh and blood” Messiah was
another Christian’s other-worldly phantom. Some Christians believed that Jesus
came to save the flesh; others believed He came to destroy the flesh. Some
Christians believed that Jesus wanted his followers to obey the Law of Moses;
others believed that Jesus came to destroy the Law. Some Christians believed
that the Law was given by God; others said this Law was given by lower angels
who opposed God. No other religious movement in history was so profoundly
divided as were the early Christians.
The reality behind this situation is that
early Christians could not agree on the language, meaning and concepts that
were contained collectively in the New Testament writings. Some elements of the
NT were consistent with the Old Testament whereas other elements reflected the
popular Hellenistic philosophies and mysticism of the day. This left the
writings open to interpretation; and it was for this very reason that the
Gnostics were able to make effective use of these writings in advancing their
peculiar God and mode of theology. This historic situation is reflected in the
writings of the Catholic Fathers, especially Irenaeus and Tertullian, where
their anti-Gnostic arguments often revolved around certain key New Testament
passages. The problem for the Fathers was that these passages often failed to validate
the ‘orthodox’ principles that these clerics attempted to support from the
scriptures. A remarkable example can be seen in Irenaeus’s effort to rescue
Paul’s words from the Gnostics as found in 1 Corinthians 15:50,
“Flesh
and blood cannot inherit the
The Gnostics understood Paul’s words to be
an affirmation of the philosophical dualism of Gnostic tradition. What follows
is Irenaeus’s comment on the same passage in his effort to rescue Paul from the
Gnostics.
“For
as the flesh is capable of corruption, so also is it capable of incorruption.”
(Against Heresies, 5.12.1)
Clearly Irenaeus has stated the opposite of
what Paul wrote; and it is obvious that Paul and Irenaeus were really
approaching the “gospel” from two different schools of ideas. Irenaeus twisted
Paul out of context in order to validate his anti-dualistic belief that Jesus
was raised as a fleshly being, and that fleshly bodies would be raised along
with the soul in the resurrection. But the words of Paul actually favored the
philosophical dualism of the Gnostics which, like Plato, elevated the soul and
rejected the body (see below). Irenaeus’s blatant twisting of Paul is part of a
pattern in that the New Testament writings are influenced by philosophical
ideas that later “orthodox” theologians like Irenaeus refused to acknowledge [1].
The Latin Father Tertullian likewise
struggled with the scriptures in his arguments against the Gnostics. He was
quite frank at times about his frustration with the scriptures and the use
thereof by the heretics:
“Now,
without a doubt, the Divine Scriptures are exceedingly profitable for this kind
of skill… Nor do I risk contradiction in saying that the very Scriptures were
even arranged by the will of God so as to furnish materials for the heretics…”
(On Prescription Against Heretics, 39)
For Tertullian the theological problems
presented by the scriptures were so pervasive that he offered the following
advice to his fellow Catholics in their confrontations with heretics:
“Our appeal, therefore, must not be made to the
Scriptures; nor must controversy be admitted on points in which victory will
either be impossible, or uncertain, or not certain enough.” (ibid. 19)
And again:
“On the present occasion indeed, our treatise
has rather taken up a general position against heresies, showing that they must
all be refuted on definite, equitable, and necessary rules without any
comparison with the Scriptures.” (ibid. 44)
The problem for Tertullian was that he
could not use the scriptures to prove that the Apostles embraced the ‘correct’
theological principles as he defined them. The Gnostics were able to use those same
scriptures in support of an entirely different theology. Tertullian engaged in
specious arguments in order to explain the “heretics” away. He compared the Gnostics
to the cult of Mithras. He argued that just as the cult of Mithras had monks,
virgins and sacraments that resembled Catholic tradition, so also the Gnostics
had a theology that resembled something that could be found in the scriptures
[2]. Tertullian’s solution, in addition to what is quoted above, was to state
that the true Apostolic doctrine was something that was handed down by
succession through the bishops—who in turn had received this doctrine by voice
from the Apostles themselves when the churches were founded. Tertullian’s words
in this regard are notable: “…all
doctrine must be prejudged as false which savours of contrariety to the truth
of the churches and apostles of Christ and God.” (ibid. 21)
Inevitably Tertullian does not refer
primarily to scripture, which can resolve nothing, but refers instead to some
oral tradition as described through the mouths of Tertullian and his fellow
Catholic clergymen. Whatever the heretics may bring forth from the scriptures
can be disregarded and “must be prejudged
as false which savours of contrariety to the truth of the churches and apostles
of Christ and God.”
With these words Tertullian, the Father of
Latin theology, absolved the Catholic Church of any obligation to maintain its apostolic tradition (i.e. orthodoxy) on
the basis of the Apostolic writings (or “Scriptures”). What Tertullian’s
legally specious arguments mean for posterity is that theologians have followed
his logic and have projected their own notions of Apostolic doctrine into
scripture based on some unwritten tradition that all “orthodox” Christians
regard as a kind of common sense, or common knowledge. But the unresolved
question is whether this common consensus has any basis in scripture, or in history?
It is notable that Tertullian himself was never able to use the Apostolic
writings to validate his own supposed Apostolic authority and doctrine—and he
admitted it! His “prescription” against “heretics” was ultimately based on an
appeal to an oral tradition “without any comparison with the scriptures.”
Tertullian’s problems are the result of
the fact that the New Testament writings collectively do not represent a single
and uniform system of theology. This goes to the crux of the problem in that
Christianity from its inception has been wracked by dissentions and heresies.
From near the very beginning Christianity has been expressed through a variety
of cultural and philosophical perspectives. In this article we will look at the
influence of Greek philosophy on the theology of the New Testament. Tertullian
himself condemned the heretics of his time for the way they intermingled Greek
philosophy with Christian theology: “Away
with all attempts to produce a mottled Christianity of Stoic, Platonic, and dialectic
composition!” (ibid. 7) But we will see how the New Testament writings
themselves catered to these inclinations among gentile Christians. And, as we
will see, it was these varying conceptions of God, inspired by Greek thought
and philosophy, which allowed the “heretics” to perceive the existence of some
other God in the scriptures.
First we must understand that Greek
culture and thought has had an influence on the Christian movement even in the
first generation. This reality is alluded to in Acts chapter 6 where we learn
that there were two factions in the early church: the “Hebrews” and the
“Hellenists.” The word Hellenist referred to Greek-speaking Jews who had
joined the church. The Greek-speaking Jews brought theological ideas into the
church which originated from the pagan centers from which they came, and had no
basis in the old Hebrew biblical tradition. And certainly it is no coincidence
that two of the earliest heretics, Nicholaus and Simon Magus, both had ties to
the “Hellenist” wing of the early church.
Two other controversial figures who were
part of the Hellenist church were Stephen and Paul. Like Simon and Nicholaus,
Paul also has an extensive legacy in the realm of heresy; and both Paul and
Stephen alike embraced ideas that, to this day, do not conform to “orthodox”
Judeo-Christian opinions. One prominent example is where Stephen and Paul both
equate the Lawgiver of the Old Testament with an angel. This was a common
practice among Hellenistic Jews who were influenced by Greek notions of
philosophy, ethics and theology. Both the Stoic and Platonic schools had their
own notions of a pious, monistic supreme Being that was more sophisticated than
the popular pagan myths and superstitions. Greek-speaking Jews and Christians
inevitably picked up on these ideas. Among Jews the influence of Greek
conceptions led them to regard their own often sordid Bible accounts as
referring to angels and not the supreme Being. Thus whereas philosophical
Greeks would often regard the myths of Hesiod as referring to a lower class of
gods, the Hellenistic Jews came to regard their scriptures as referring to
angels instead of “God” (J. Charlesworth, New Testament Pseudepigrapha,
vol. 1, pg. xxxi; Robert M. Wilson, The
Gnostic Problem, pg. 43f.). This mode of thought is clearly evident in the
words of Stephen in Acts 7:38, 53, and of Paul in Galatians
There are other examples in the New
Testament showing that the writers were influenced by Hellenistic or Greek
ideas. One of the better examples is in the book of Acts 17 where Paul is
portrayed as giving a speech to the Greeks of Athens from the Hill of Ares.
Here “Paul” speaks to the Greeks regarding the shrine of the “Unknown God.”
Paul claims to have knowledge of this God; and he proclaims that “God that made
the world and all things therein…dwelleth not in temples made with hands… For in
him we live and move and have our being; as certain also of your own
poets have said” (Acts
Scholars believe that when this writer
refers to “poets” that he refers to Stoic philosophers who taught exactly this
kind of doctrine about the supreme Being, whom they actually identified with
Zeus [3]. Right away we must recognize that the conceptions expressed in Acts
17, as cited above, are not based on Hebrew scripture. The author of Acts even
admits this. In the Old Testament there is no language describing mankind and
the cosmos as existing in God. Moreover, the Bible admits that “God”
commissioned King Solomon to build his temple (cf. 2 Sam.
It is ironic that Tertullian, as mentioned
above, can quote the scriptures against the heretics, and he accused the latter
of dabbling in Stoic and Platonic ideas. Tertullian even quoted Acts at length
in opposition to the heretics. Yet at the same time we can see that the writer
of Acts was doing the very thing that Tertullian condemned: he was mixing
Judeo-Christian theology with pagan Stoic conceptions and placing them in
Paul’s mouth. Indeed Tertullian railed at the heretics: “Away with all attempts to produce a mottled Christianity of Stoic,
Platonic, and dialectic composition!” Yet here was the writer of Acts
engaging in this very activity. And certainly this writer wasn’t doing anything
that Paul and other NT writers weren’t doing.
Whether or not Paul’s theology was based
on a Stoic model is an open question. In 1 Corinthians 8:6 Paul writes of
“gnosis” and expresses ideas of God that resemble the words in reference to the
“Unknown God” as mentioned in Acts 17. Paul writes “For us there is but one God,
the Father, out of whom are all things, and we into him… And in Romans
As his letters now exist, Paul seems to
express himself like a Stoic thinker, who believes that the cosmos emanates
from God and is in God. But in other passages Paul also expresses himself like
a dualist, like a follower of Plato. And indeed Platonists and Stoics are known
for the radical differences between their systems. Stoics believed that all
reality was essentially material and could only be discerned through the five
senses. This was the only way that God and the universe could be perceived or
experienced. God was regarded as the intelligent fire that was the source of
life, intelligence and law in everything. For the Stoic thinker there is
nothing metaphysical about God or the universe. It is all one Soul. All is in
God and from God. (I suspect that the big dirty secret behind the history of
Stoicism is that they more often identified their God with Pan meaning
“All.” But for Christian historians to admit this would create obvious
problems. Nonetheless there is extant historical evidence that some Hellenist
Jews identified their supreme Being with Pan.[4])
In comparison to the Stoic school, the
Platonists believed that there were two levels to the universe: the physical
and the metaphysical, and which also may be described as the intellectual and
the material. The metaphysical realm is perfect and eternal whereas the
physical realm is imperfect, material and transient (Timaeus, 28). All
material objects are reflections of non-material, perfect archetypes. The human
body and soul were considered to embody this order accordingly (ibid. 30b).
It was in this dualistic context that
Plato defined his concept of theology. He taught that there was an unknown
supreme Being who presided over the gods and the order of the visible, material
cosmos (ibid. 41b). Hence there is that famous statement from Plato in the Timaeus
dialogue: “Now to find the Maker and
Father of this universe is hard enough…
and to declare Him to everyone is impossible.” (ibid. 28c)
Plato’s dialogue Timaeus contains
the epic creation account of the origin of the universe according to Plato. He
proposed that the unknown God had created the cosmos by bringing order to the
material realm which had existed in a primeval state of chaos (ibid. 29e). This
unknown Father then created lesser gods to govern the cosmos and to create the
material bodies for the souls of man, and to govern them. According to Plato it
was the unknown God who created the immortal souls of man; whereas the lesser
gods created the inferior, physical bodies (ibid. 41, 42). Unlike the Stoics,
the Platonists believed that man can only discover his true nature and origin,
and the true state of all things, by seeking within the soul (ibid. 28a, Phaedo,
79d). And, in contrast with the Stoics, the Platonists maintained that the supreme
Being could not be revealed to or discerned by all men.
Plato’s ideas are reflected in Paul where
he writes that “We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things
which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary; but the things
which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor.
The deprecation of the Platonists toward
the body is also reflected in Paul. In his own way Paul drew a distinction
between material and non-material elements of human nature: which Paul referred
to in terms of the flesh and the spirit. For Paul the flesh was
the source of evil and spirit was the essence of salvation (Gal.
In a stark theological context Paul’s
dualism and theological implications can be seen in 2 Corinthians 3 and
4. Here Paul sets forth the dichotomy between the Spirit and the Law “written
in stone” which is the “ministry of death” (2 Cor. 3:6–7). This dichotomy is
based on the notion of a duality and conflict between the spirit and the flesh,
and is extended to include Jesus vs. Moses, and the Lawgiver (the “god of this
world”) vs. the Father of Jesus (2 Cor. 3:12–4:6). In this passage Paul does
not affirm any unity of God, but portrays Moses and the Lawgiver as at odds
with the Spirit and Glory of Christ and the Father. This coincides with 1 Cor.
15:24–28 where we read that the “last enemy to be destroyed is death” so that
“God may be all, and in all.” Paul here denies that “death” came from God, or
is in God. And in 2 Corinthians 3:6–7 Paul refers to the Law “written in
stone” as the “ministry of death.” Who was it that gave the “ministry of
death”? It was the Lawgiver!—whom Paul also refers to as the “god of this
world.” (2 Cor. 4:4)
Paul’s ideas in this passage actually go
beyond Platonic dualism and actually set a precedent for later Gnostic theology
and myth. Paul denies that the Law and death came from God. In Plato everything,
aside from pure matter and chaos, is part of God’s plan. Platonism makes
distinctions in terms of what is better and what is worse. But Plato does not
condemn the body, nor does he know of any enemy of God. All the gods, good or
bad, have been set in place by the supreme Being. They are inferior, and the
material substance is inferior; but Plato never defines any of this as evil.
Paul and the later Gnostics have taken the unique step in that they deny the
unity of God and instead propose the notion of conflict. This is where Gnostic
tradition splits off from Greek philosophy and the general realm of Hellenistic
thought and mysticism (e.g. Philo). Paul himself is the earliest known
historical figure to make the initial break with popular conceptions regarding
the unity of God.
But again it is of interest to note that
Platonism was certainly a launch point for the unique ideas that appear later
in Paul (in his own terms) and in Gnostic tradition (which appeals to Plato
directly). Plato introduced the idea of a lofty hidden God that reigned over
the gods of heaven and earth. The goal of the philosopher is to search for this
God by seeking in the non-material, intellectual realm—apart from the material
senses (Timaeus, 28a, Phaedrus, 249c–250c). Thus the philosopher
searches for the supreme Being by use of his soul alone. These essential ideas
are at the foundation of Gnostic tradition, and again, are reflected in Paul
[5]. Plato also introduces the idea that this unknown supreme Being is not
jealous; which is a central tenet also embraced by the Gnostics. Paul expresses
this notion in his discourse on the virtues of the Holy Spirit in 1 Corinthians
13. The Holy Spirit reflects the essential nature of God. Paul tells us that
the “spirit” is not “jealous” and “keeps no account of evil.”
Greek Philosophy and the Gospels
There are passages in the four New
Testament Gospels where Greek philosophy has likewise left its impression on
the teachings of Jesus and related theological conceptions. In certain passages
Jesus describes a God and an ethic which cannot be reconciled with the God of
the Law. Two examples are presented from the following passages:
“But I say unto you, Love your enemies… That you may be the sons of your Father
which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun rise on the evil and the good, and
sendeth rain on the just and the unjust.” (Mt. 5:44–45).
And then once again from Luke
“But love your enemies… and ye shall be
children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and the evil.”
Any good heretic will recognize that Jesus’s
words cannot be reconciled with the ethics of the Lawgiver in the Old
Testament. In the Old Testament “God” was known to warn and punish those who
“murmured” or were disobedient (e.g. Numbers 14). A classic example of this
traditional, biblical God can be seen in the following passage from Deuteronomy
6:13ff.;
“You
shall fear the Lord your God, and serve him, and shall swear by his name… For
the Lord your God is a jealous God among you; lest the anger of the Lord your
God be kindled against you, and destroy you from off the face of the earth.”
Certainly the heretics cannot be blamed
for discovering another God in the Gospel passages. But what is the actual
historical source of these unique statements and conceptions? The answer is to
be found with the Hellenistic thinkers who wrote these gospel passages. The
“God” that is described here is derived from popular pagan conceptions of the
supreme Being that are traced back to Plato and/or the Stoic school. In
contrast with the legalistic and wrathful God of the Law, the words of Jesus
above can be compared with the theology and ethic then current in Stoicism,
which maintained that all existence was the unfolding of the will of God for
the long-term good (providence), and that pious men should accept whatever
happens with virtue and good will, whether it be good or evil. Thus in the
Stoic Hymn to Zeus we read: “For you have fitted all, evil with good, in
one great whole, so that in all things reigns one reason (logos) everlastingly”
[6]. For the Stoic there is no real evil; all things work together for the
providence of God. In a similar manner Jesus seems to refer to a God who is
indifferent to the issues of good and evil. In this context Jesus advises his followers
to love their enemies and resist not the evil person. The reality here is that
Jesus’s teaching is no longer purely Jewish or biblical.
And again, Platonism likewise promotes the
idea of a Creator who is essentially benevolent and good-natured, and, in
Plato’s words “…can never become jealous
of anything.” (Plato, Timaeus,
29e).
The Gospel of John also bears the imprint
of popular Hellenistic thought. Here the Son of God is the described as the
“Logos.” More than likely the Logos concept in John reflects the popular Greek
concept of Hermes as the messenger and “Logos” of Zeus (W. Boussett, Kyrios
Christos, pg. 393). The Stoic source is less likely in this case because in
Stoic tradition the “logos” is present in all things; whereas in John Jesus is
the manifest “Logos” who created all things.
In reflecting on all this I recall once
again the accusations of Tertullian against the heretics: “They either pretend
that there is another god in opposition to the Creator, or, even if they
acknowledge that the Creator is the one and only God, they treat him as a
different being from what he is in truth. The consequence is that every lie
which they speak of God is in a certain sense a sort of idolatry.” (On
Prescription Against Heretics, 40)
As far as I’m concerned Tertullian may
just as well be speaking of the New Testament writers themselves. And certainly
it is all too convenient that Tertullian has let himself off the hook where
scripture is concerned, through his legally specious “prescription.” Tertullian
presumes to judge people on the basis of hearsay because he knows he can’t use
the scriptures as a viable standard by which to impose his theological creed on
others.
In the end we must recognize that the
pagans too had enlightened ideas of God and that these truths had infected and
inflamed the minds of some New Testament writers. In truth we must acknowledge
the Greek philosophers along with Paul and the Gospel writers for the
foundations that they laid for Gnostic Truth. —jw
Notes
1] The famous
scholar Wilhelm Bousset states that Irenaeus made Paul suitable for orthodoxy
by “distorting the genuine Pauline ideas and divesting them of their essential
nature” (Kyrios Christos, pg. 446). James Dunn states that the Catholic
Fathers could only rescue Paul from the Gnostics by “abusing” him (Unity and
Diversity in the New Testament, pg. 291).
2] Chapter 40 of
Tertullian’s On Prescription Against Heretics is one of the most
intriguing passages in all patristic literature. I urge my readers to take the opportunity
to read this passage and to note the unique set of problems that were faced by
Christian theologians of this time period. Just click on the link below and
scroll down to chapter 40.
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0311.htm
3] Cf., e.g., the Hymn to Zeus by the Stoic philosopher Cleanthes (d.
230 BC). The very notion that Paul’s theology was shaped by Stoic thought is
affirmed by, among others, the conservative theologian W.D. Davies, Paul and
Rabbinic Judaism, pg. 178f. See also Edwyn Bevan, Stoics and Sceptics,
pp. 13f., 41.
4] E.g. R. Gordon, J.
Aitken, The God of
5] Paul does not
specifically describe the concept of soul-searching the way Platonists and
Gnostics do. But Paul does make statements that show that the revelation of
Christ is concerned with the inner life of a person. Thus Paul states that “God
revealed his Son in me” (Gal.
6] Quoted from W.
Davidson, The Stoic Creed,
By James M. West.
Copyright © March 16, 2009. All Rights Reserved.
E-mail: ogdood@yahoo.com