The influence of Greek ideas and usages upon the Christian church
By: By the late Edwin Hatch. Ed. by A.M. Fairbairn
Contributors: Fairbairn, A. M. (Andrew Martin), 1838-1912, editor
Edition: 4th ed.
Series: The Hibbert lectures -- 1888; Hibbert lectures -- 1888.
Publisher: Williams and Norgate
Published: 1892
Place of publication: London; Edinburgh
Language: eng
Number of pages: 359
Subjects: Primitive and early church; Doctrinal Theology; Church history; Ancient Philosophy
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.

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Table of contents: title: Lecture I: introductory; title: The problem:; title: How the church passed from the sermon on the mount to the Nicene creed; the change in spirit coincident with a change in soil; title: The need of caution: two preliminary considerations; title: 1. A religion relative to the whole mental attitude of an age: hence need to estimate the general attitude of the Greek mind during the first three centuries A.D.; title: 2. Every permanent change in religious belief and usage rooted in historical conditions: roots of the gospel in Judaism, but of fourth century Christianity; title: the key to historical; title: in Hellenism; title: The method:; title: Evidence as to process of change scanty, but ample and representative as to ante-Nicene Greek thought and post-Nicene Christian thought; title: Respects in which evidence defective; title: Two resulting tendencies: 1. To overrate the value of the surviving evidence; title: 2. To under-estimate opinions no longer accessible or known only through opponents; title: Hence method, the correlation of antecedents and consequents; title: Antecedents: sketch of the phenomena of Hellenism; title: Consequents: changes in original Christian ideas and usages; title: Attitude of mind required; title: 1. Demand upon attention and imagination; title: 2. Personal prepossessions to be allowed for; title: 3. Need to observe under-currents, e.g.; title: (a) The dualistic hypothesis, its bearing on baptism and exorcism; title: (b) The nature of religion, e.g. its relation to conscience; title: History as scientific study: the true apologia in religion; title: Lecture II: Greek education; title: The first step a study of environment, particularly as literary; title: The contemporary Greek world an educated world in a special literary sense; title: I. Its forms varied, but all literary:; title: Grammar; title: Rhetoric; title: A "lecture room" philosophy; title: II. Its influence shown by:; title: 1. Direct literary evidence; title: 2. Recognized and lucrative position of the teaching profession; title: 3. Social position of its professors; title: 4. Its persistent survival up to to-day in general education, in special terms and usages; title: Into such an artificial habit of mind Christianity came; title: Lecture III. Greek and Christian exegesis; title: To the Greek the mystery of writing, the reverence for antiquity, the belief in inspiration, gave the ancient poets a unique value; title: Homer, his place in moral education; used by the Sophists in ethics, physics, metaphysics, &c.; title: Apologies for this use culminate in allegory, especially among the Stoics; title: The allegoric temper widespread, particularly in things religious; title: Adopted by Hellenistic Jews, especially at Alexandria; Philo; title: Continued by early Christian exegesis in varied schools, chiefly as regards the prophets, in harmony with Greek thought, and as a main line of apologetic; title: Application to the New Testament writings by the Gnostics and the Alexandrines; title: Its aid as solution of the old testament problem, especially in Origen; title: Reactions both Hellenic and Christian: viz. in; title: 1. The apologists' polemic against Greek mythology; title: 2. The philosophers' polemic against Christianity; title: 3. Certain Christian schools, especially the Antiochene; title: Here hampered by dogmatic complications; title: Use and abuse of allegory; title: the poetry of life; title: Alien to certain drifts of the modern spirit, viz.; title: 1. Historic handling of literature; title: 2. Recognition of the living voice of God; title: Lecture IV. Greek and Christian rhetoric; title: The period one of widely diffused literary culture; title: The rhetorical schools, old and new; title: Sophistic largely pursued the old lines of rhetoric, but also philosophized and preached professionally; title: Its manner of discourse; its rewards; title: Objections of earnest men; reaction led by stoics like Epictetus; title: Significance for Christianity; title: Primitive Christian "prophesying" v. later "preaching"; title: Preaching of composite origin: its essence and form, e.g. in fourth century, A.D.: preachers sometimes itinerant; title: Summary and conclusions; title: Lecture V. Christianity and Greek philosophy; title: Abstract ideas among the Greeks, who were hardly aware of the different degrees of precision in mathematics and philosophy; title: Tendency to define strong with them, apart from any criterion; hence dogmas; title: Dogmatism, amid decay of originality: reaction towards doubt; yet dogmatism regnant; title: "Palestinian philosophy," a complete contrast; title: Fusion of these in the old catholic church achieved through an underlying kinship of ideas; title: Explanations of this from both sides; title: Philosophical Judaism as abridge, e.g., in allegorism and cosmology; title: Christian philosophy partly apologetic, partly speculative; title: Alarm of conservatives: the second century one of transition and conflict; title: The issue, compromise, and a certain habit of mind; title: Summary answer to the main question; title: The Greek mind seen in:; title: 1. The tendency to define; title: 2. The tendency to speculate; title: 3. The point of emphasis, i.e. orthodoxy; title: Further development in the west; title: But Greece the source of the true damnosa hereditas; title: Lecture VI. Greek and Christian ethics; title: The average morality of the age: its moral philosophy; title: An age of moral reformation; title: 1. Relation of ethics to philosophy and life; title: Revived practial bent of stoicism; Epictetus; title: A moral gymnastic cultivated; title: (1) Askesis: Philo, Epictetus, Dio Chrysostom; title: (2) The ''philosopher'' or moral reformer; title: 2. The contents of ethical teaching, marked by a religious reference; title: Epictetus' two maxims, ''follow nature'', ''follow God''; title: Christian ethics show agreement amid difference; based upon the divine command; idea of sin; agreement most emphasized at first, i.e. the importance of conduct; title: 1. Tone of earliest Christian writings: the ''two ways''; title: Apostolic constitutions, Bk. i.; title: 2. Place of discipline in Christian life: Puritan ideal v. later corpus permixtum; title: Further developments due to Greece:; title: 1. A church within the church: Askesis, monasticism; title: 2. Resulting deterioration of average ethics: Ambrose of Milan; title: Complete victory of Greek ethics seen in the basis of modern society; title: Lecture VII. Greek and Christian theology; title: I. The creator; title: The idea of one God, begotten of the unity and order of the world, and connected with the ideas of personality and mind; title: Three elements in the idea; title: Creator, moral governor, absolute being; title: Growth of idea of a beginning: monism and dualism; title: 1. Monism of the stoics: natura , naturata and naturans: a beginning not necessarily involved; title: 2. Dualism, platonic: creation recognized; title: Syncretistic blending of these as to process: logos idea common; title: Hence Philo's significance: God as Creator: monistic and dualistic aspects; title: His terms for the forces in their plurality and unity: after all, God is creator, even Father, of the world; title: Early Christian idea of a single supreme artificer took permanent root; but questions as to mode emerged, and the first answers were tentative; title: 1. Evolutional type; title: supplemented by idea of a lapse; title: 2. Creational type accepted; title: There remained:; title: (i.) The ultimate relation of matter to God: dualistic solutions: Basilides' platonic theory the basis of later doctrine, though not at once recognized; title: (ii.) The creator's contact with matter: medication hypothesis: the logos solution; title: (iii.) Imperfection and evil: monistic and dualistic answers, especially Marcion's; title: But the divine unity overcomes all: position of Irenaeus, &c., widely accepted: Origen's cosmogony a theodicy; title: Prevalence of the simper view seen in monarchianism; title: Results; title: Lecture VIII. Greek and Christian theology; title: II. The moral governor; title: A. The Greek idea; title: 1. Unity of God and unity of the world: will and order; title: Order, number, necessity and destiny: intelligent force and law; title: The cosmos as a city-state; title: 2. New conceptions of the divine nature: justice and goodness in connection with providence, and a tendency to synthesis; title: Through two stages; title: In the use of the term God; title: 3. The problem of evil emerges: attempts at solution; title: (a) Universality of providence denied (Platonic and oriental); title: (b) Reality of apparent evils denied (Stoic); title: (c) Theory of human freedom; title: Its relation to universality of providence: the stoical theodicy exemplified in Epictetus; title: B. The Christian idea; title: Primitive Christianity a contrast: two main conceptions; title: 1. Wages for work done; title: 2. Positive law; title: God a lawgiver and judge; title: Difficulties in fusing the two types; title: (i.) Forgiveness and law; title: Marcion's ditheism; title: Solution in Irenaeus, Tertullian, &c.: result; title: (ii.) The moral governor and free-will; title: Marcion's dualistic view of moral evil; title: Justin Martyr, Tatian, Irenaeus; title: Tertullian and the Alexandrines; title: Origen's comprehensive theodicy by aid of Stoicism and Neo-Platonism; title: Lecture IX. Greek and Christian theology; title: III. God as the supreme being; title: Christian theology shaped by Greece, though on a Jewish basis; title: A. The idea and its development in Greek philosophy; title: Parallel to Christian speculation in three stages; title: 1. Transcendence of God; title: History of the idea before and after Plato; title: Its two forms, transcendent proper and supra-cosmic; title: Blending with religious feeling, e.g. in Philo; title: 2. Revelation of the transcendent; title: Through intermediaries:; title: (i.) Mythological; title: (ii.) Philosophical, e.g. in Philo; title: 3. Distinctions in the nature of God; title: Philo's logos; title: Conceived both monistically and dualistically in relation to God; title: But especially under metaphor of generation; title: B. The idea and its development in Christian theology; title: 1. Here the idea of transcendence is at first absent; title: Present in the apologists; title: But God as transcendent (v. supra-cosmic) first emphasized by Basilides and the Alexandrines; title: 2. Mediation ( = Revelation) of the transcendent, a vital problem; title: Theories of modal manifestation; title: Dominant idea that of modal existence:; title: (i.) As manifold: so among certain Gnostics; title: (ii.) As constituting a unity; title: Its Gnostic forms; title: Relation of the logoi to the logos, especially in Justin; title: The issue is the logos doctrine of Irenaeus; title: 3. Distinctions in the nature of God based on the logos; title: (i.) Theories as to the genesis of the Logos, analogous to those as to the world; title: Theories guarding the ''sole monarchy,'' thus endangered, culminate in Origen's idea of eternal generation; title: (ii.) Theories of the nature of the logos determines by either the supra-cosmic or transcendental idea of God; title: Origen marks a stage; title: and but a stage; title: in the controversies; title: Greek elements in the subsequent developments; title: Ousia; its history; title: Difficulty felt in applying it to God; title: As also with homoousios: need of another term; title: Hypostasis: its history; title: Comes to need definition by a third term; title: Resumé of the use of these terms; the reign of dogmatist; title: Three underlying assumptions; title: a legacy of the Greek spirit; title: 1. The importance of metaphysical distinctions; title: 2. Their absolute truth; title: 3. The nature of God's perfection.