A confusing error by John Gray
Early in John Gray's Seven Types of Atheism, he writes the following:
"The[] Jewish and Greek views of the world are not just divergent but irreconcilably opposed. Yet from its beginnings Christianity has been an attempt to join Athens with Jerusalem. Augustine's Christian Platonism was only the first of many such attempts. Without knowing what they are doing, secular thinkers have continued this vain effort" (29).
From an otherwise admirably lucid and fair-minded thinker, I find this a bizarre claim in a number of ways.
First, Augustine was far from the first to "join" Platonist philosophy with Christian faith. His most prominent predecessor being (I can barely resist saying of course in all caps) Origen of Alexandria, whose influence spread far and wide, east and west.
Second, Gray's presentation suggests that Hellenization and Platonization commenced after Christianity's advent, after its creation as a post-Jewish phenomenon—indeed, apparently only after Constantine. But Ben Sirach and the Wisdom of Solomon and Philo and the apostle Paul and the book of Hebrews all predate both Augustine and Origen; most of them predate the establishment of mainstream Christianity by the end of the first century. Judaism and therefore messianic Nazarene Judaism were thoroughly Hellenized and, at the very least, exposed to Platonist thinking for centuries prior to Augustine, indeed were such at the very source, in the age of Tiberius and Claudius and Nero.
Third, there is no such thing as "the" Jewish or "the" Greek "view of the world." Nor, even if there were, would either be a hermetically sealed whole, in relation to which ideas and practices extrinsic to itself must necessarily be alien intrusions. True, Israel's scriptures are not Platonist. So what? Who is to say what is and what is not complementary between them? Who is to say what modifications or amendments or additions would or would not count as corruption?—as if there ever were a stable essence to one or the other in the first place. It is not as if Origen or Augustine took on Platonism wholesale; they clearly and directly and explicitly reject certain philosophical ideas as inimical and contrary to the catholic faith. That's not syncretism or vain eclecticism. It's Christian theology, well and faithfully done. It might be untrue or imperfectly practiced, but it's not invalid or impossible on principle. How Gray could have come to such a conclusion I haven't the faintest clue.
"The[] Jewish and Greek views of the world are not just divergent but irreconcilably opposed. Yet from its beginnings Christianity has been an attempt to join Athens with Jerusalem. Augustine's Christian Platonism was only the first of many such attempts. Without knowing what they are doing, secular thinkers have continued this vain effort" (29).
From an otherwise admirably lucid and fair-minded thinker, I find this a bizarre claim in a number of ways.
First, Augustine was far from the first to "join" Platonist philosophy with Christian faith. His most prominent predecessor being (I can barely resist saying of course in all caps) Origen of Alexandria, whose influence spread far and wide, east and west.
Second, Gray's presentation suggests that Hellenization and Platonization commenced after Christianity's advent, after its creation as a post-Jewish phenomenon—indeed, apparently only after Constantine. But Ben Sirach and the Wisdom of Solomon and Philo and the apostle Paul and the book of Hebrews all predate both Augustine and Origen; most of them predate the establishment of mainstream Christianity by the end of the first century. Judaism and therefore messianic Nazarene Judaism were thoroughly Hellenized and, at the very least, exposed to Platonist thinking for centuries prior to Augustine, indeed were such at the very source, in the age of Tiberius and Claudius and Nero.
Third, there is no such thing as "the" Jewish or "the" Greek "view of the world." Nor, even if there were, would either be a hermetically sealed whole, in relation to which ideas and practices extrinsic to itself must necessarily be alien intrusions. True, Israel's scriptures are not Platonist. So what? Who is to say what is and what is not complementary between them? Who is to say what modifications or amendments or additions would or would not count as corruption?—as if there ever were a stable essence to one or the other in the first place. It is not as if Origen or Augustine took on Platonism wholesale; they clearly and directly and explicitly reject certain philosophical ideas as inimical and contrary to the catholic faith. That's not syncretism or vain eclecticism. It's Christian theology, well and faithfully done. It might be untrue or imperfectly practiced, but it's not invalid or impossible on principle. How Gray could have come to such a conclusion I haven't the faintest clue.
