The intellectual debate between Christians and pagans

Bibliographic Data

ID23489178
AuthorsAlan Brown (0000-0003-0322-5902, corresponding author)
Year2007
Pages248-278
Publication date2007-08-30
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeCHAPTER
VenueConstantine to c. 600 (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherCambridge University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1017/chol9780521812443.012
OpenAlexW2501951904
ISBN9780521812443
LanguageEN
References cited20

When one speaks of Christian-pagan intellectual debate, it is about an intellectual debate between pagans and Christians on religious matters that late antique Christians had with anyone and everyone who was neither Christian nor Jewish. Despite this internal heterogeneity of paganism, late antique Christian-pagan intellectual debate possessed considerable uniformity. For it was always conducted with reference to the framework of the Platonic philosophical thought of the day. The debate began in the first Christian centuries when intellectual pagans objected that specific fundamental aspects of Christianity could not be coherently understood in terms of this Platonic framework, and that Christianity therefore had to be rejected as alogon. Christians responded to polemical pagan objections to Christianity through the composition of apologiae, in which they defended themselves from the pagan criticisms of Christianity and mounted anti-pagan counter-objections of their own. This apologetical tradition reached its climax with Eusebius of Caesarea's mammoth Praeparatio and Demonstratio evangelica in the first half of the fourth century.

Ancient history · Antique · Art · Christianity · Judaism · Literature · Paganism · Theology · Classical Antiquity Studies · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · History · Linguistics and language evolution · Philosophy · Religious studies

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