Greg shares some of his reading list (for Myth of the Blueprint) on his blog.

What he says about two books interests me:

First:

Dörrie, H. “Zehn Jahre Forschung zum Thema Platonismus und Kirchenvästerhe “ in H. Heinrich Dörrie, Platonica minora (München 1976) 508-23. Dörrie argues that Platonic philosophy is fundamentally incompatible with Christianity. While early fathers used platonic terms and material, however, Dörrie argues they never absorbed the “substance” of Platonism. I think Dörrie’s largely right in thinking the basic worldview of Platonism is incompatible with the basic worldview of Christianity, but (I’ll try to show) largely mistaken in thinking certain early fathers remained untouched by the “substance” of Platonism. The problem, I suspect, is that Dörrie seems to think of Platonism and Christianity as two distinct, well-defined, self-contained religious schools of thought. To the contrary, I argue, “Platonism” and “Christianity” represent two loosely knit movements that were quite porous and that bled into each other.

Did the early fathers “absorb” the “substance” of Platonism? I think not. I can hardly think Greg believes they did. Now, Greg says he wants to show that the fathers were not “untouched by the ‘substance’ of Platonism.” Untouched vs absorbed? Hmmm.

I think in the end (and I know very little about this) it’s true that the fathers broke with Platonism in extremely important ways, perhaps in all the crucial ways. However, we all have different opinions on what counts as a “crucial way” that a Christian must break with Platonism. And that is why some will say the fathers absorbed or were “touched by” the “substance” of Platonism.

I hope Greg gets this part right. I hope he doesn’t argue that the fathers were drunk on Platonism.

But there there’s this too:

Siniossoglou, N. Plato and Theodoret: The Christian Appropriation of Platonic Philosophy and the Hellenic Intellectual Resistance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). Started this one yesterday and finished it this morning….a real page turner (at least for me). Packed full of important insights! Basically, Siniossoglou demonstrates that Christians (focusing on Theodoret) in late antiquity (4th and 5th centuries A.D.) intentionally and unintentionally distorted, altered and edited Hellenistic philosophical texts (esp. Plato) to suit their own apologetic purposes. This contrasts sharply with the pagan Neoplatonists (esp. Proclus, Simplicius and Olympiodorus) who Siniossoglou argues were sincerely trying to construct a coherent view of Plato in order to preserve what they regarded as sacred and saving teaching for later generations. (As Christianity rose in power they saw that the Hellenistic philosophical worldview was going to have to go underground). The fundamental divide between Neoplatonists and Christians, then, was a difference between a “philosophical hermenuetic,” on the one hand, and a “rhetorical hermenuetic,” on the other. A number of things interest me about this thesis, only a few of which have to do with The Myth of the Blueprint. For example, I’d be interested in exploring more fully the way in which Christian engagement with Hellenistic Philosophy changed after Constantine. I strongly suspect Christian theologians became much more political, Machiavellian, triumphalist and down right nasty in their treatment of pagan philosophers once they got the upper hand of political power.

What’s interesting is that if Siniossoglou is right and the fathers “distorted, altered and edited Hellenistic philosophical texts to suit their own apologetic purposes,” wouldn’t it follow that the fathers did NOT “absorb the substance of Platonism” or at the very least that the fathers WERE “untouched by the substance of Platonism” in the most crucial ways necessary?

T