The Mutual Influence Of Christianity And The Stoic School - Softcover

James Henry Bryant

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0371679702 ISBN 13: 9780371679708

Publisher: HardPress, 2021

Synopsis

The Mutual Influence Of Christianity And The Stoic School by James Henry Bryant. The Mutual Influence Of Christianity And The Stoic School is a historical analysis of how Christian truth and Greco?Roman philosophy intersected in antiquity and shaped later thought. Bryant surveys Christianity’s first encounters with Gentile philosophy in Athens, especially St. Paul’s sermon at Mars’ Hill, and contrasts the moral aims of Stoicism and Christian teaching. He then presents a sketch of the Stoic founders—Zeno of Citium, Cleanthes, and Chrysippus—and explains how Stoicism was a practical ethics concerned with living according to nature and attaining virtue, while remaining compatible, in some respects, with Epicurean and Platonic ideas. The study proceeds to examine the mutual influences: on one side, Christianity’s doctrine of providence, humility, and a personal God influencing later Stoic writers such as Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius; on the other, Stoic ascetic and fatalistic tendencies shaping certain strands of early Christian practice. Bryant concludes that while Christianity ultimately surpasses Stoicism in renewing individuals and society, Stoic ideas left a persistent ethical imprint on Christian thought.

Edition details

• Publisher: HardPress
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0371679702
• ISBN 13: 9780371679708
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 127