Christianity (What is Ancient Philosophy?)

To be aware of ourselves thus means to be aware of our moral state. This is what the tradition of Christian spirituality calls the examination of the conscience, a practice which was very widespread in the philosophical schools of antiquity. This practice has its roots, first of all, in the simple fact that in all schools, the beginning of philosophy means becoming aware of the state of alienation, dispersion, and unhappiness in which we find ourselves before we convert to philosophy. An Epicurean principle states: “The knowledge of our errors is the beginning of our salvation.”

At its origins, Christianity, as presented in the word of Jesus, announced the imminent end of the world and the coming of the Kingdom of God. Such a message was completely foreign to the Greek mentality and to the perspectives of philosophy; rather, it was inscribed within the intellectual universe of Judaism, which Christianity overthrew, but not without preserving some of its fundamental notions. Nothing, it seems, could have predicted that a century after the death of Christ some Christians would present Christianity not only as a philosophy-that is, a Greek cultural phenomenon-but even as the sole and eternal philosophy.

Christian philosophy was made possible by the ambiguity of the Greek word Logos. Since Heraclitus, the notion of the Logos had been a central concept of Greek philosophy, since it could signify “word” and “discourse” as well as “reason.” In particular, the Stoics believed that the Logos, conceived as a rational force, was immanent in the world, in human beings, and in each individual. This is why, when the prologue to the Gospel of John identified Jesus with the Eternal Logos and the Son of God, it enabled Christianity to be presented as a philosophy. The substantial Word of God could be conceived as the Reason which created the world and guided human thought.

Here, we begin to see that, as was the case for the philosophers of this period, reading texts is a “spiritual” process closely related to the progress of the soul. The philosophical notion of spiritual progress constitutes the very backbone of Christian education and teaching. As ancient philosophical discourse was for the philosophical way of life, so Christian philosophical discourse was a means of realizing the Christian way of life.

It might rightly be said that there is nevertheless a difference, for Christian exegesis is the explanation of sacred texts, and Christian philosophy is based on a revelation: the Logos is the revelation and manifestation of God. Christian theology developed gradually through dogmatic controversies, based always on the exegesis of the Old and New Testaments. Yet within Greek philosophy as well, there existed an entire tradition of systematic theology, inaugurated by Plato’s Timaeus and the tenth book of the Laws and developed in book twelve of Aristotle’s Metaphysics.

First, and most important, we must not forget that although Christian spirituality borrowed certain spiritual exercises from ancient philosophy, these formed part of a broader ensemble of practices which were specifically Christian. The entire monastic life always presupposes the help of the grace of God, as well as a fundamental disposition of humility, which was often manifested in bodily attitudes signifying submission and guilt, such as prostration before one’s fellow monks. The renunciation of one’s own will was realized through absolute obedience to the orders of one’s superiors. Often, training for death was linked to the remembrance of the death of Christ, and asceticism was understood as participation in the Passion. Similarly, the monk saw Christ in every human being: ” Aren’t you ashamed to get angry and speak evil of your brother? Don’t you know that he is Christ, and that it is Christ you are harming?” Here, the practice of the virtues takes on a completely different meaning.

The Christian philosophers tried to Christianize their use of secular philosophical themes by giving the impression that the exercises they advised had already been recommended by the Old or the New Testament. For instance, when Deuteronomy uses the expression “pay attention,” Basil concludes that the biblical book is advising the philosophical exercise of “attention to oneself.” Such attention to oneself was also called “the guard of the heart,” be¬ cause of a text fr om Proverbs: “Above all, guard your heart.”

When the Christian philosophers read the exhortation “Put your¬ self to the test” in Second Corinthians, this was interpreted as an invitation to examine their conscience;39 and when, in First Corinthians, they read “I die every day;’ they understood this as the model of the exercise of death. But such allusions to texts fr om Scripture obviously could not prevent the Christian philosophers fr om describing their spiritual exercises by means of the vocabulary and concepts of secular philosophy

Christianity’s great superiority consisted in the fact that it was not “the simple abstract knowledge of the truth, but an efficacious method of salvation.” To be sure, Gilson admitted, philosophy in antiquity was both a science and a life; but in the eyes of Christianity, ancient philosophy represented nothing but pure speculation, whereas Christianity itself is “a doctrine which brings with it, at the same time, all the means for putting itself into practice.” There could be no clearer affirmation that modern philosophy has come to consider itself a theoretical science because the existential dimension of philosophy no longer had any meaning from the perspective of Christianity, which was simultaneously both doctrine and life

Source: What is Ancient Philosophy?

YARPP List

Related posts:

1. Epicureanism (What is Ancient Philosophy?)
2. Stoicism (What is Ancient Philosophy?)
3. Skepticism (What is Ancient Philosophy?)
4. Meditation (What is Ancient Philosophy?)