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For those taking this course, some knowledge of Plato and Christianity is recommended, but not essential.
This course is likely to run again in 2025. Contact us to register your interest or subscribe to the blog for updates.
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Introduction
At the heart of the Christian canon is the miracle-man Jesus promoting a way to enlightenment through cryptic parables. Yet the four divergent accounts of his sayings and deeds are devoid of essential Christian teachings familiar to those who have grown up with them. There is barely any theology, certainly no Trinity, let alone any clear statement of Jesus’s relation to it; and not a word on his mother’s progress from Immaculate Conception to heavenly Assumption. Consider how the very doctrine of heaven, and the soul’s expected journey there, has long motivated Christian ethics. Yet, if the books of the New Testament inform church teachings on the soul’s immortality, then they also present alarming inconsistencies.
The Judaic origins of Christianity are hard to miss, and yet the Jewish books of the Old Testament introduce as much confusion as clarity, if only because their world is filled with competing deities challenging Christianity’s essential monotheism. The sources of this and other core doctrines must be found elsewhere in the broader Hellenistic culture. It was from Platonism that Christian theology was first borrowed and then debated and transformed.
Rediscovering the Platonic influence on early Christianity opens up a world of Hellenistic philosophy that has profoundly influenced European civilization in ways long since forgotten or obscured.
See another introduction here.
Session 1 | From Plato to hellenistic judaism
We start with the parallel histories of Jewish and Greek religion before their confluence around 330 BC when the conquests of Alexander created the Hellenistic world. Both traditions begin with legends of gods and of their interactions with humans. For the Greeks, the traditional mythology was challenged from the 5th century BC by the emerging philosophy and science. Then Plato’s dialectic method of inquiry aimed at turning around the eye of the soul so that it envisages the formal nature of reality, including, ultimately, the mystical unary essence of all. We consider how Plato influenced Hellenistic Platonism, stoicism and other schools of philosophy, and how these schools influenced the Hellenistic Judaism out of which Christianity emerged.
Further Reading
Start with a Bible: If you already have a Bible then note that Anglican versions (‘King James’ or ‘New Revised Standard’) do not have the Book of Wisdom found in the Catholic and Orthodox New Revised Standard translations. If you do not have a Bible, then the annotated version of the New American Bible translates accurately into modern English with a brief running commentary. If you are a geek for the Greek then a good start is a Greek/English Interlinear New Testament.
For a taste of Judaism old and new, try reading different parts of the Bible. Start with the books of Moses by sampling Genesis or Exodus. Next read from any of the prophets. The prophesies of Isaiah are most pertinent to messianic Christianity. For Hellenistic Judaism, try the Book of Wisdom (online), especially Chapter 7, verses 15-21. This book was originally written in Greek under the title Sophia, which was one reason it was removed from the protestant Bibles. If you have an Anglican Bible, then try the prologue added to the Book of Proverbs (Ch 1-9), especially Chapter 8. Or try Ecclesiastes for the influence of Hellenistic scepticism.
For a history of Jewish religion, legends and culture, many publications will serve our purpose. Try for example The Jews: A History.
Early Greek philosophy only survives in fragments. For an introductory survey of these fragments, try Early Greek Philosophy by Jonathan Barnes.
Hellenistic philosophies also mostly only survive in fragments. For early and ‘middle’ Platonism, see Dillon’s collection and summary. For early Stoicism, A A Long’s Hellenistic Philosophy still provides one of the better overviews.
Session 2 | hellenistic judaism and early christianity
The Hellenization of Judaism occurred on many levels. We consider the demise of Hebrew as a spoken language and the consequential importance of the Torah’s translation into Greek. We consider how allegorical interpretation of scriptures was used to bring Platonic concepts into Judaism. And we consider the Hellenistic influences on emerging sects such as the Essenes, Sadducees and Pharisees. In the New Testament, affinities with Hellenistic philosophy are mostly implicit, but there are also direct explicit engagements with the schools. Finally, we notice how the Hellenistic aspects of Apostolic Christianity contributed to its break with Judaism right when Judaism’s own transformation was triggered by the destruction of their temple in 70 AD.
Further Reading
For an introduction to early Christian doctrine, there are a number of good choices, see for example J N D Kelly.
For how the Gospels developed and evolved, it is hard to come by good introductions to modern philological understandings. Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus gives a popular insight into the scholarship. Also helpful, brief (and less controversial!) is Marvin Meyer’s introduction to the Gospel of St Thomas.
For the development of the Christian Canon see Barton’s A History of the Bible. For collections of non-canonical Christian and (contemporaneous Jewish) writings, see The Other Bible, The Other Gospels or A New Eusebius.
Reading samples from the Bible (and other surviving writings):
- Old Judaism: Genesis
- Hellenistic Judaism: Proverbs Chapters 1 to 9 | Wisdom
- Gospels: (Thomas) then Mark then Luke
- Breaking away from Judaism: Acts of the Apostles from Chapter 9 (the conversion of Saul), then the letters of Paul to the congregations in Galatia, then Rome and Corinth
- Apocalypse: Daniel Chaper 7 | Revelations (Enoch)
Session 3 | The divine logos: through it all things were made
Before the Christian Trinity came the earlier Christian doctrine of the divine Father and his Son. This was interpreted to express the Platonic/Stoic principle of creation whereby the original unity (the Father) emanates by means of his immanent Logos-Son. The Son is already potent in the Father, just as the Logos is the potency of the first-born Dyad in the original Monad. This Christian application of a Platonic/Stoic solution to monotheism’s problem of self-creation was soon perverted through misunderstandings and corruptions in the relentless Trinitarian controversy.
Further Reading
For logos-as-ratio in Platonic philosophy, see ‘The Pythagorean Doctrine’ by Simone Weil, which is Chapter XI in Intimations of Christianity among the Ancient Greeks. London: Routledge, 1957. (Ch XI online)
For an introduction to geometric emanationism, see Robert Lawlor’s Sacred Geometry : Philosophy and Practice. London: Thames & Hudson, 1982.
For some of the Platonic background to the original Trinitarian controversy, see Christopher Stead’s ‘The Platonism of Arius’ in The Journal of Theological Studies, 1964, 16–31.
For a collection of the surviving texts of the original Trinitarian 4th Century Trinitarian (Arian) Controversy see The Trinitarian Controversy by Rusch.
Session 4 | Mythos: teaching and interpreting allegorically
If all knowledge is divine, and the higher wisdom is unsayable, then special techniques are required in the teaching. Allegory has the power to show what cannot be said. In his Republic, Plato used allegory explicitly to this purpose. But his purpose in telling/retelling fables of the afterlife has been interpreted in different ways. We consider some Platonic myths that have powerful affinities with later Christian teachings on the immortal soul. Then we consider how allegorical interpretation of scripture was used by the early Church fathers to bring Platonic teachings into the doctrinal mainstream.
Further Reading
For a powerful and influential myth of the soul’s journey after death, start with Plato’s Phaedo, p. 107c to 115a. For other Platonic myths of the immortal soul, see: the Myth of Er at the end of the Republic, p. 614-621; The Winged Chariot in the Phaedrus, p. 246a to 254e.
For comparison with the canonical Christian eschatology, see Ch. 20-22 of the last book of the Bible, The Revelations of John.
For an introduction to ancient religious scepticism, see Battling the Gods by Tim Whitmarsh. For an introduction to epistemological scepticism in the Socratic-Platonic tradition, see The Sceptics by R J Hankinson. For the sociological approach to knowledge in Roman literature, see Titus Livy’s History of Rome, Book 1, where he discusses the value of Numa’s introduction of religion. For the Renaissance revival of the sociological approach, see Machiavelli’s Discourses on the first 10 books of Titus Livy, Book 1, Discourses 11-15.
For the exclusion of poets and poetry from Plato’s Republic, see its Book III, p. 386-392, and then Book X, p. 595-608.
For Plato’s use of allegory to show higher truths, see where the allegorical section begins with the Ship of State in Book 6, p. 487, and continues through to the Cave Allegory, ending at p. 521.
For parables of Jesus giving likenesses of the Kingdom of God, see the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 13.
For the textual context of Philo the Jew of Alexandria, see Chapter 3 of Dillon’s The Middle Platonists.
For the old Jewish story of Hagar and Ishmael, see Genesis Chapter 16. For Philo’s allegorical interpretation, see his On the Cherubim pt. II & III. See also his On Sobriety Pt. II. For Paul’s new Christian interpretation of this story, see his letter to Galatians, Chapter 4.
Session 5 Mysticism and negative theology
Platonic mysticism finds a route to Medieval and Renaissance Christian mystics through a lineage that includes writings accepted as Christian but that show little more than a nominal attachment to the teachings of Jesus.
Further Reading
For Paul’s engagement with Greek Philosophy in Athens, see Acts of the Apostles Chapter 17, 16-34
‘The Mystical Theology’ of Pseudo-Dionysius is in The Classics of Western Spirituality collection. The translation by Rolt includes an inspired introduction.
For the neo-Platonists on the mystical One, see Plotinus, The Enneads, especially III.8. For Proclus’s account of the One and its emanation, see the first chapters of The Elements of Theology.
For Beguine writings, see the collection in Beguine Spirituality and also Marguerite Porete’s Mirror of Simple Souls. For Meister Eckhart, start with the Penguin Books selection.
For Nicholas of Cusa, see any of the translations by Hopkins, but start with On Learned Ignorance.
Session 6 Christianity as old as creation
Christianity’s borrowings from outside its Judeo-Christian narrative have always sat uncomfortably with its claim to exclusive revelations of divine truth. From the very beginning, and down through the centuries, Christian apologists have used a variety of strategies to account for the transmission of Greek wisdom in their teachings. Sometimes it was said that wisdom was given to the Greeks by the Christian God to smooth the way for his similar (but somehow more profound) revelations through the risen Christ. At other times the claim to exclusivity was softened. In the Renaissance it was almost entirely removed with the notion that essential divine teachings have been passed down from the earliest times through all the great and ancient traditions. That is, just before the Reformation came crashing through, there briefly flourished an image of Christianity inclusive of other traditions and as old as creation itself.
Further Reading
A good place to start with the early church view of Christianity’s ancient heritage is the first Book of Eusebius’s The History of the Church.
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