CONFLUENCE // AD 51

 

What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?

While this critique wouldn't be penned formally until Tertullian wrote it more than century after the death of the apostle, the tent maker had perhaps pondered it in his own lifetime. Six years into his ministry, the man who had made many sojourns to Jerusalem would now journey to Athens, then brought to the the high court- the Areopagus. Paul was being tried for the teaching of foreign divinities, just as Socrates had four centuries earlier and sentenced to death. Even while in immense danger, the tent maker seized the opportunity. His discourse directly challenged the assumptions of Greek philosophical thought, while affirming certain aspects. That God did not dwell in physical temples would have affirmed the Epicurean idea of gods transcendent beyond matter, while his insistence that God is present and "not far from each of us" would have affirmed the Stoic concept of God permeating all things. His overall message is this: the truth of God lies hidden within your philosophy, but is buried in ignorance.

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Tertullian's critique would in time be difficult to maintain. Philosophia- the love of wisdom- was no stranger to Christian assumptions made from the Hebrew Scriptures. The book of Job could stand alongside the Platonic works in it's exploration of thought through dialogue. Both Solomon and Socrates had a place in Christian thought, though the former was more perfect than the latter. By the fourth century AD, the Cappadocian Fathers would lay the foundational theological understanding of the Trinity using technical terms not from Hebrew or Latin traditions, but Greek. Paul's remarkable rhetorical discourse in Athens would reveal a basic principle Christians throughout the generations would draw upon: all truth bends toward Christ. The Christian tradition is not one of stagnation but of dynamism, rightly dividing truth in every place by the Spirit. Greek philosophical thought remained the celestial expanse against which Christ rose as the Glorious Sun, permeating the truth hidden within and causing the darkness to vanish- Himself shining through- appearing ever more resplendent.