Griechische „paideia”, Philosophie und Christentum Konvergenzen der antiken Philosophie mit der früh-patristischen Tradition
Greek “Paideia”, Philosophy and Christianity. Convergence of Ancient Philosophy with Early Patristic Tradition

Summary/Abstract: Among the great intellectual and spiritual disputes in history, there was also that between Christianity, philosophy and pre-Christian Hellenistic Antiquity. Far from pretending to provide a complete and vast presentation of the subject foreshadowed by the title, this paper offers the informed reader a rather partial but still consistent image of what that confrontation from the early Christian era really meant. The fact that Christianity was born within the existential- religious framework of Judaism, and also its dissemination throughout the Hellenistic cultural world, caused not only a spiritual earthquake, but also – and simultaneously – significant changes within the civilised human society, especially in those areas that were deeply influenced by the philosophic culture of those times. Greek culture offered Christianity its profound and complex philosophic language, while Christianity started to make its presence felt in what represented the philosophy of those times. We could say there was an osmosis, a beneficial reciprocation. This multilateral synthesis, generated by the mutual contact between Christianity and the cultural philosophic world of Antiquity, opened new, prolific horizons for Christianity to take the lead, step by step.

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