The attitude of the early Christian apologists to Greek philosophy as exemplified in Irenaeus of Lyons, Tertullian of Carthage and Clement of Alexandria

Abstract

The bask here set for us, namely, to ascertain the nature of the encounter "between Christianity and Greek philosophy in the period specified would be less difficult in itself if we came to its consideration with our minds unhampered by the opinions which have been given and the conclusions reached concerning it* We have mainly to bear in mind that the individual Christian thinkers with whom we shall have to deal lived through that period of transition in the development of Christianity in which many things we regard as normative had been neither formalized nor stamped with the seal of later orthodoxy. The Creed which some of us repeat, for instance, while in process of evolution, had not as yet been reduced to standard form.(^) Indeed, those second and third century pioneers in the realms of Christian thought express themselves occasionally in terms that would certainly have startled and would not in all likelihood have been tolerated by the later Fathers of the Church.