The Greek Apologists 1.

ARISTIDES he introduces himself as a Christian Philosopher

He affirmed the superiority of Christian faith over philosophy on two grounds: 1.) Faith had brought men to both a higher idea of God and 2.) Faith had brought men the most perfect rules of human conduct (mans goodness) God and man will always remain the central objects of Christian Philosophical speculation. QUADRATUS- Christian philosopher Letter to Diognetes Christianity (as the new religion) against non- Christians (old religion) The Christians live in this world without belonging in this world. Christians dwell on earth but their homeland is in heaven Christians still consider themselves as not being of this world, that is, of the society of men as organized apart from God and in view of purely temporal ends; but they also believe that did, they keep faith with it, their true mission would be, while they are in the world, to quicken it from within and to lead its citizens to eternal salvation. 3. JUSTIN MARTYR a convert to Christianity

it is truly the duty of a philosopher to investigate the deity or God Philosophical journey: He encountered several persons; Stoic- he said they are not knowledgeable; Peripathetic they are walking while discussing philosophy; but they ask for fee; Pythagorean to reach God man must to learn geometry and math; Platonist there is absurdity in Plato

His turning point was when he met an old man who asked him about: God, human soul and transmigration. He answered in a Platonist could do, but the old man made him see how inconsistent his answer was. Justin asked the old man where he could find such doctrine and being answered that it was not found in the book of the philosophers but in the Sacred Scriptures. Christianity could appear to some philosophers as the best answer to the questions asked by philosophy. The teaching of the Christian faith looked much more rational that philosophical reason itself. Reason is on the side of the Christians, not on the philosophers. His philosophy:

 The Word (Seminal Reason) as the Logos is Christ Everything created in the world has the influence of Christ Seminal Reason is not the Word himself, but a participation or the imitation of the Word, according to his grace; yet, this is enough to justify the Christians in claiming for their own all the truths which have ever been known by all the philosophers. If Socrates was right in fighting the false gods of the Greeks, the reason for it was he had partially known Christ. Whatever things were rightly said among all men, are the property of us Christians. Trinity of St. Justin Martyr: The FATHER is the Creator and Unbegotten, the SON is begotten and the agent of creation and there was a less mention on the Holy Spirit. He uses the analogy of the rays of the sun, in which the FATHER is the sun and the SON and HOLY SPIRIT are the rays that radiates from the sun . 3. TATIAN Address to the Greeks (his book)

He calls himself as a disciple of the Barbaric Philosophy, this meant that the philosophy of the non- Greeks, that is Christianity. Arguments against the Greek: Greek have borrowed from the Barbarians all their most celebrated inventions. Even in Philosophy, the Greeks have borrowed from the Barbarians. What is best in their doctrine is what they have found in the Bible. Christian revelation had appeared as an intellectual revelation no less that faith. 4. ATHENAGORASIntercession for the Christians (book)

The Emperor Marcus Aurelius admired the Christians. Athenagoras undertook to justify against the accusations of: atheism, cannibalism and the practice of incest. He defends the Christians against the accusation of atheism by proving their monotheism, and it is while justifying their refusal to worship the national gods of the empire that had to take possession of the Greek philosophers. Unlike Justin, Athenagoras is not interested in those philosophers who have not known Christ; but unlike Tatian, he does not say that the Greeks have borrowed their philosophy from the Old Testament. On certain point there are factual agreement between the teaching of philosophy and those of the Christian revelation. He attempts to prove that Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics have been monotheists. Christianity and Philosophy can go side by side His Theology: Argument about the resurrection; Resurrection is not impossible for God, because he has created man, and has given him life, can give life back to man after he has lost it. 2

 Faith is not opposed to reason: 1. The arguments for truth- we have just seen 2. The arguments about truth- remains for us to see Because God acts according to reason and does nothing in vain, he has created man for an end. Why God created man? 1. Because of the wisdom of God that shines in his works 2. And the perpetual existence of such being as man, who is able to know, through reason, the goodness of God and his wisdom. Man soul and body are two parts which respective functions: either to move (soul) or to be moved (body). Since mans end is to live, the resurrection of the body after death is required for the achievement of his end. Nature of man: God has not created souls but men, that is beings made up of souls and bodies. The end of each parts must needs be identical with that of the whole. What had received understanding and reason is not the soul; it is man. Consequently, in order that reason may subsist, it is necessary that man himself should subsist; and since the human body dies, human reason could not subsist if there were no resurrection. Theology of Athenagoras is using the demonstrative argument to prove that God is One. Since God is just, he should judge men according to their merits. Let us not say souls but men. Consequently the resurrection of the body is required by the ultimate end of man. Christian philosophy is founded on faith in God, Word of God but he never denied rationality, so why is it also the beginning of Scholastic Philosophy. 5. THEOPHILUS OF ANTIOCH

To Autolycus (book) Theophilus starts from the faith un one God, creator of heaven and earth, orderer of the universe which he rules by his providence, and lawgiver who prescribes to men both justice and piety. Creation: God has made man out of slime, which itself was nothing before it had been made by God. Formula of creation ex nihilo the production of the very being of things is what makes creation different from the work of an artisan shaping things out of some pre- existing matter. He opposed the visible false pagan gods. He criticizes the Greek mythology He believed in the resurrection and how the fulfillment of the prophecies. That the world has been created by God through his Word. 3

 That the Holy Scriptures is more ancient than the writings of the Greeks, of the Egyptians or of any other historians. 6. ST. IRENAEUS

Adversus Haereses(book) a defense against the Gnostics Gnosticism- a general movement divide into different schools, they integrate with their doctrines elements borrowed from Christian faith, but instead of starting from faith in order to achieve some understanding of its objects, the Gnostics openly aimed to turn faith into a knowledge or wisdom accessible to reason alone. He is the first theologian to say that no man could possibly be one time a Christian and a Gnostic Justin Martyr- Christianity is our philosophy Iranaeus- Christianity is our gnosis true gnosis is the teaching of the Twelve Apostles The doctrine of Irenaeus is directed towards Gnosticism Gnostic Marcion distinguished between two Gods, the God of the OT (the orderer of the world, a judge) and the God of the NT (essentially goodness, powerful and rules with providence. That the created world is the outcome of apostasy, of a defection and ignorance and mistake. Refutation: Irenaeus maintains that there is only on God, who is both the God of the OT and the NT, revealed to men by the Holy Scriptures. Creation: The world is created out of nothing by a free act of divine will, the cause of the world is the good ness and generosity of God. Man Man has been made good , but since he was created out of nothing, he was not perfect. His imperfection appears from the fact that he is finite and limited, but also from the necessity which there is for him ceaselessly to change in order to reach his end, his perfection. His idea about man, that man is in a state of infancy, or of childhood and that he needs to grow in order to achieve his spiritual maturity. Man is made in the image and likeness of God. Human Nature He opposes the threefold distinction of man: spiritual, animal and material. Man is a essentially a living and rational being with body and soul.

Soul a soul in not a man, it is mans soul. It is strictly individual and belongs to him exclusively. Has the power of knowing, perceiving, reasoning and freedom as the substance of the soul. Reason and freedom are inseparable. Through this man is made in the image and likeness of God thus through that he deserves reward and punishment. Transmigration He refuted that since a soul assumes the shape of its body, it cannot fit possibly to other body Morality Gnostics claimed that there are two types of men; good and evil, so each one of us is born the way or the other and have no capacity to change our nature. If this is true, then the creator of the universe is responsible for the existence of evil including moral evil. He refuted that, the responsible for the evil in the world is the human will. Therefore, morality is founded on freedom and responsibility of man, the freedom the choose and the responsibility of his freedom.

7.

HIPPOLYTUS

On the universe and Philosophumena (Books) He is following St. Irenaeus He attacks the Gnostics by going to the very source which is the Greek philosophy and Plato. 3 classes of Philosophers: 1. Naturalists- presocratics 2. Moralists- Socrates and Plato 3. Dialecticians- Aristotle, Stoics His was the first Christian effort to set their doctrines before refuting them. Beside Greek philosophies he attacked many pseudo- sciences as the important source of Gnosticism. THE ALEXANDRINES 1. Clement of Alexandria

Exhortation to the Greeks (Book) related to the works of Justin, Athenagoras and Tatian.

 The main attention of Clement is lees to defend the Christian faith against its opponents, than to teach it to unbelievers. He exhorts pagans to renounce the worship of idols and turn to the true God, in which the revelation of the true God is to be found only on the words of the prophets only. The Word is our instructor, because He teaches the soul. Christian Gnosis- he does not mean that there are no selected groups of super- Christians superior in perfection compared to the common flock, but he means that all Christians are the true Gnostics. (all Christians are equal) Nothing is required in salvation but faith, for if his faith is in itself full and perfect, a Christian lacks nothing. Phematokoi- spiritual; psychikoi- animality; hylikoi- material His Ethics: God is good and just, his goodness cannot be separated from his justice. He advocates the simplicity of life and moderation. A wealthy man can be saved provided that he will not be slave to his wealth, but its master. Spiritual poverty is the true poverty. His Philosophy: Philosophy in itself is good because it is willed by God. Kinds of people: 1. Artisans- use senses; 2. Intellectuals- use understanding. Philosophy is important for the understanding of the Gospel because it is from God also. God was not speaking directly to the philosophers ; unlike the prophets, the philosopher did not receive from God special revelation, but since natural reason itself is a divine light, it can be said that through it God is guiding the guiding the philosophers towards truth. Philosophy is the study of wisdom, and wisdom is the knowledge of things divine and human. Wisdom therefore sways philosophy, as philosophy sways preparatory intellectual culture. Philosophy is the handmaid of Theology. Jewish Law and Greek Philosophy are synthesized into Christianity. The first task of a Christian philosopher is to eliminate from philosophy all that is false. ORIGEN

2.

He studied Philosophy under Ammonius Saccas. Greek philosophy is either good or bad in itself; it can become either one according as we make a good or bad use of it. Sacred Scriptures use to convince then, he says if you read the bible keep careful to the words. It can be literal or allegorical. A. God- is immaterial There are four elements: water, earth, air and fire, a fifth one is the Quintessence.

 Matter is by nature subject of change, so it entail corruption, if God is material he would be corruptible, that is imperfect. God is perfect so he is incorruptible and therefore immaterial. Nature of God: God is thought and absolute spiritual unity, therefore he is simple, no divisions in him. The Lord is one God, philosopher says that he is the absolute One, that is the monad. Negative Theology- God is beyond being itself. Logos: The Son of God- the begotten son as an image and resemblance of God, simply called God without article. The son of God is only God because he is not the God par excellence he is the Word, because he is the Logos par excellence. The World: Created from nothing (ex nihilo) Eternal---- attached into destruction of the world. Greek out of something---- pre- existing cause (1. Material form, 2. Cause themselves, 3. God as creator Eternity of the world does not mean that the very world we are now is always existing but it means that the series of these successive worlds itself is eternal, the present world will sometime be destroyed, we must conclude that it must be followed by the other one. Gnostics claim that the world is created imperfect: Refutation: God has made each creature perfect in its own kind, such as the soul is united with the body. All men are equal and of the same nature. They shared in the intelligibility and rationality with the Father since they are created through the Word who is the image of the Father. But the world did not remain in the pristine condition because although it had been made good by God, its goodness is just accidental not essential goodness of a received gift. The only way for man to return to his condition is to accept it. Freedom was precisely the power either to accept the gift of God or to turn it down. Proof of free choice: The goodness of creation follows from the nature of God, what evil there is in things are the initiative of the creatures. Other beings receive their motions from without like the stones, others have internal growth like the plants, other have souls which move them from within like the animal, other move through their intellectual knowledge like men. They are free because freedom is nothing else than the power of choice, born of reason. Unlike animal man can judge things according to his reason. Every soul has a personal history: this is the doctrine of origin, among the spirits created by God, some have chosen to remain to be spirit. But instead of remaining spirit, spirits have chosen to become souls. These have made the wrong choice and their history is that of their fall as well as of their effort to return to their pristine condition. For a spirit to become a soul is to tie up with the body. Men are spirits that received human bodies in punishment of their wrong choice made by their free will. 7

Matter has been the first remedy to the consequences of the original sin, second remedy is the end of the world, or rather the successive end of the successive worlds. He believed in the resurrection of the bodies like Athenagoras. THE LATIN APOLOGISTS 1. TERTULLIAN- On Prescription Against the Heretics (treatise) Instead of addressing to the emperors in behalf of the Christians, he addresses the heretics; his apologies are in favor, not of the Christians but of Christianity. He attacks philosophy and compare it philosophy and Christianity Philosophy is for the heretics because they used of Philosophy particularly in dialectic is a worldly affair Philosophy is the wisdom of the world He blamed Aristotle as the cause of heresies. The rule of faith is entrusted by Christ, not to the heretics but to the Apostles, who transmitted it to the church. Tertullian expressed his opposition to philosophy, and to any kind of philosophical thinking in matters of faith: Example, the Son of God died it is absurdity of faithI believe because it is absurd This means that faith and absurdity are not equal, absurdity refers to the object of faith; faith is a personal disposition, faith brings us to the understanding of absurdity. Faith is more certain than human reason, and that, since only what is incomprehensible to reason can be an object of faith. Trinity: He defended against the attack of polytheism--- modalist monarchianism, that says that the true God is only the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are just manifestation If there is no one God, there is no one at all God is one substance but three distinct and undivided person (principle of operative individuality) 2. MINUCIUS FELIX

Cecilius Natalis (Greek, philosophy) Christian Octavius- faith (Christianity) Truth should not be exclusive property of some but it should belong to all What philosophy had not been able to give to the most learned intellects, Christianity was offering to the millions. The end of the world, the immortality of the soul, the rewards and punishment that awaits men in the future life- these are the truths the pagans have worked hard to discover which Christians already received it from God. 8

3.

ARNOBIUS - (Adversus Gentes) book He defines that Christians are the worshipers of the Supreme King of the world under the guidance and leadership of Christ. Christ is the teacher by whom the truth about the Supreme King is revealed to us. There is more that faith can offer compared to the reason. Revelationhas something more to offer that the mysteries of the human reason. Limits of the mind: 1. The problem of the mind, 2. The mind believes in the mysteries of nature; why should we not believe also on the mysteries of faith?, 3. Understanding the nature of mind and the nature of animals (soul is immortal)

4.

LACTANTIUS To the pagans; the only remedy to the evil is the acceptance of monotheism which opens the door to both true philosophy and true religion. Wisdom without religion is weak.

THE CAPPADOCIAN FATHERS 1. GREGORY NAZIANZENUS Arian Eunomius (his adversary)Arianism was a philosophical heresy, that the begotten son as inferior to the unbegotten father. According to Eunomius- the Son or the Word cannot be God in the same sense with the father. Since the Word is begotten he is entirely different from the father and in no way consubstantial with him. The God of Eunomius has made a god by adoption. Plotinus, Origen clearly subordinated the Nous to the One, and the World Soul to the Nous. 2. BASIL THE GREAT He is more organized than Gregory of Nazianzenus Basil reminds his reader about the immorality and impiety of the Greek literatures, but he also underlines that some of them can contribute to the formation of virtue. Basil maintains that although no name can be describe the nature of God, every one of his names points out either something that he is not, or something which he is positively is. Incorporeal (1st) =, creator, just, judge (2nd class). The best name designates God is being (ousia), and what it points out is the very being of God. The starting point of a theologian, should not be the unbegotten being nature of God, but his being (ousia), which is common to the three divine persons, insures consubstantiality. Eunomius reduce the object of faith to the exigencies of dialectical reasoning, Basil used dialectics in order to define with precision the object of Christian faith. Hexaemeron----

 God has not created a matter common to all, each class of being has its own matter according to its own nature. Basil observes that if we eliminate from a certain being its properties in order to reach its matter, we shall not reach matter, but nothingness. 4. GREGORY OF NYSSA

A. Cosmology In Hexaemeron In the beginning, God created heaven and earth= Gods words equals to the work of creation God created the world, when he say let there be. He mean it, it is present in the mind of God in his wisdom. The creation story of Genesis is a summary way. B. Anthropology Man was created after the rest because all the rest are created for him. Man is created in the image and likeness of God, therefore he is the master of creation. Creation is divided into two regions; the visible world and the invisible world. Man belongs to the visible world by his body and the invisible world by his soul, man is therefore their connecting link. Man is the summit of the visible world, an animal with reason, next to him are the animals and plants. Man is body, soul and spirit: the body is pursued by man for carnal pleasure; the soul is followed by man to acquire virtue and to shun vice; spirit, leads men to perfect life according to the laws of God. Like all creation, God made man good but the fact that creatures are made out of nothing introduces into their natures an elemental mutability. This implies even to mans freewill, capable of choosing good or evil, man made an evil choice. So sin enters when man chooses evil rather than good, his morality can be tainted. He can only regain his lost morality through faith which can lead him to the love of God. Trinity In man there is the spoken word which is the expression of his thought (nous). Since we are made in the image of our creator, God too should be conceived as the Supreme Thought, that begets the Word. This divine Word is the expression of the Father. The Word is inseparable with the Thought, like our thought which is also inseparable with our words. And just our breaths proceeds from the unity of our body and soul, so also the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son. 4. NEMESIUS

Like Gregory of Nyssa, Nemesius attributes an exceptional importance to the knowledge of human nature, particularly the human soul. On the Nature of ManPlato and Aristotle Man is made up of body and soul, man is placed on the border line of the world of spirits and the world of bodies.

10

For Plato the souls is independent, it has its own existence and is perfect in itself, it can leave the body without affecting the body. Man is not both soul and body, but a soul using a body. Nemesius is aware that if we say that the soul is using a body, it is like a garment that we put on, so there is no unity. Ammonius Saccas made an answer: unlike corporeal substances intelligible substances can unite without undergoing any transmutation. It is manifest that soul and body are united since the soul shares in the modifications of the body. It is no less evident that the soul remains distinct from the body since it separates from it is sleep and ecstasies. The soul unites with the body after the manner of intelligible substances, without undergoing alteration. Soul is from the created act of God. Man can truly be man if he can contemplate his person to the immaterial We can know God as Anamnesis (remembering) idea Powers of human soul: 1. Imaginative- an irrational faculty of the soul acting by senses and whose object is imaginable. 2. Phantasy- irrational faculty of the soul, the impression caused by the imaginable. 3. Phantasm- an objectless impression of the soul which no imaginable answers in reality. Imagination- frontal lobes of brain; memory- in the middle ventricle of brain. Parts of human soul: 1. Rational- intellectual; 2. Irrational- 1. Obeys reason- 1. Appetitive power, irascible power (identifying good and not good); 2. Not controlled by reason 1. Nutritive, 2. Generative, 3. Vital functions Acts- a rational operation (1. Voluntary- from the interior of the agent and from the detailed cognition; deliberation= reason= free choice; 2. Involuntary Man is free because he is deliberated by reason. Trinity for the Cappadocians: The Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit are koinonia/ communion (make them one); are all co- equal hypostasis/ as person with one divine ousia (being); by nature they are related.

MARIUS VICTORINUSArian Candidus- the problem regarding the begotten God (time to be not and he is) is unthinkable. If God is being, then he cannot possibly become in virtue of any generation; if the Word is begotten, he cannot possibly be God. 11

Answer: he resorted to the doctrine of Plotinus The One as God the Father, since the One comes before being, God is much less being than pre- being. God is the cause of all. God is being since he is the cause of all that is. God is Supreme being, it is precisely supreme that he is said to non- being, he is above being as One. Everything comes from God either by generation (the Word) or by production (the world). Divisions of being: 1. 2. 3. 4. That which is truly is (intellectible realities) universals That which merely is (intelligible realities) human souls Not truly non- beings (perceptible realities) things exists- perceptibly through the senses That which truly are not (material realities) not possible to be non- beings

God cannot be founded among the four Logos- is the eternal generation therefore he is God.

12