Asher Sisneros

The church expanded after the reign of Emperor Constantine. It was an age when Greek literature was popular. But with the Canon of the Bible finished and pagan literature flourishing, an honorable question arose: What was the church’s view on pagan literature? Were Plato, Socrates, Livy, and all the other classics ignorable since the world had the divine word of God? That is the topic of this essay.

Tertullian was a theologian and lawyer. He said Greek philosophy was a waste of time since Christ’s Bible was full of wisdom. It was superfluous to study the Greeks who worshipped Zeus since it was already impossible to learn all the depths of the Bible. In a nutshell, he said the Bible was all the philosophy we needed. He was, however, the minority, and ironically, he and the other theologians who shared his sentiment—Hippolytus and Epiphanius—all fell into heresy.

But if Tertullian had the minority’s view, what did the church’s majority think?

Saint Justin Martyr thought that Christ made Himself known through pagan philosophy. Just because someone was unchristian didn’t mean everything they said was untrue. That was because of common grace. The doctrine of common grace stated that since God made everyone in His image, the souls of unbelievers could still convict them of biblical truths. On its most elementary level, everyone agrees pushing a grandma down a flight of stairs is an atrocious crime, even unbelievers. That was because of God’s common grace. Saint Justin Martyr argued that common grace was why philosophy shouldn’t be ignored, just because it was pagan. Instead, he took the good elements of Greek philosophy and disregard the bad. That was the same thing Saint Basil the Great wrote in his Address to Young Men on the Right Use of Greek Literature. Saint Justin Martyr said all the truths in pagan philosophy pointed to Christianity, and Christ was the fulfillment of Socrates.

Clement of Alexandria said in An Exhortation to the Greek that there was a parallel between philosophy and Christianity because the philosophers had access to the Hebrew law. Directly or indirectly, they borrowed principles from Moses and the prophets. I do not know whether that’s true, but it’s what Clement thought. The point remains: He wasn’t hostile to Greek philosophy, just its unchristian teachings. He took the good and excluded the bad.

Minucius Felix said reason pointed to God. That might sound contrary to biblical teaching since Jesus said people are saved by faith alone. Minucius didn’t discount that, but he also pointed out how the philosophers addressed issues they didn’t have the answers to. God was the answer. For example, Aristotle thought there was one Godhead. The Stoics believed in divine providence and said there was no use in developing emotions since “destiny” would have its course. That was accepting some force outside of human control shaping the timeline of history. And in Plato’s Timaeus, he revered a Maker and Father of the universe, acknowledging life wasn’t an accident.

Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 265-340 AD) had an interesting point. He went so far as to say that Greek philosophy prepared Rome for the Gospel. Why? Because through philosophy, Romans became dissatisfied with their inhumane gods. Their gods didn’t teach about moral behavior. They were immoral themselves. Zeus, Athena, Dionysus, Ares, and all the others were murderers and adulterers. The only thing separating the gods from men was alleged power; Greek gods were only superhumans. When philosophers came and provided various theories on moral behavior, it paved the way for dissatisfaction with Greek religion and asked questions that only Christianity could fully answer.

Saint Ambrose of Milan (c. 340-397 AD), who famously rebuked and denied the emperor entry into the church for murdering 7,000 hostages, loved Cicero and memorized Virgil’s poems. He acknowledged that all beauty came from God, even the poetry in Greece and Rome. Once again, he disregarded the bad and immoral acts in the poetry, but where it was good, righteous, and beautiful, he said it was a blessing from God. Saint Ambrose of Milan was also the saint who converted Saint Augustine of Hippo.

Finally, Saint Jerome (340-420 AD), who translated the Bible into Latin, said the classics could serve the Christian faith insofar as they had righteous teachings. Saint Gregory of Nyssa saw the parallel between Platos’ cave allegory and Christianity, and Saint Gregory of Naianus said the church could use Roman rhetoric to advance the truth eloquently.        

In conclusion, some of the historical Church shunned the classics in light of the Gospel. But most of the church adopted a different philosophy—embracing the good teachings and shunning the bad. The belief that Christianity was anti-classics is repugnant with the truth. As Saint Basil the Great said in his Address to Young Men on the Right Use of Greek Literature, “To be sure, we shall become more intimately acquainted with these precepts in the sacred writings, but it is incumbent upon us, for the present, to trace as it were, the silhouette of virtue in the pagan authors.”