1
Neither Damned, Nor Saints
Dante gave the ancient philosophers their own place in the afterlife according to his own set of criteria. Limbo is a strange quasi-hell, a comfortable ante-chamber, “an opening luminous and lofty,”1 where the philosophers stroll upon a green meadow along with the souls of prophets, ancient heroes, and innocent unbaptized children. Even if they lived sinless lives and achieved much deserved fame, the unbaptized state of the philosophers prevents them from crossing the threshold of heaven and so they spend their ambivalent afterlives in a hellish Arcadia.2 The positive valuation of philosophy, if it wants to remain Christian, cannot go any further without difficulty. If we do not want to usurp the prerogative of dispensing divine mercy then an empty hell can only be an object of our hope, but never a certainty of our faith. Dante and Erasmus both knew this well, especially since the latter built a fence of reservations around his famous beatification of Socrates.3 Christ is the principle of Christian identity and that is why the problem of salvation outside of Christ, outside of his teaching and sacrifice, is a critical boundary for Christian theology.
However, we should remember that not all Christian thinkers perceived the problem of the salvation of ancient philosophers as something that made them lose sleep. The contempt showered upon pagan sages by thinkers of the caliber of Peter Damian aptly illustrates the range of stances toward philosophy. The picture of noble pagans who march through Elysian Fields to the rhythm of a Dantesque terza rima is just one of the many possible answers to the problem of how philosophy relates to revelation. Yet, as suggested by its peculiarity, this might be an especially telling sign of the complicated relations between Athens and Jerusalem, a problem which too often falls prey to tempting oversimplifications.
Juliusz Domański is correct in warning against forcing Christian attitudes toward philosophy into simple binaries.4 Too often the descriptions of patristic attitudes toward Greek wisdom all too willingly apply the schema of, on the one hand, the party of the sworn enemies of philosophy, and on the other hand, the party of the faithful friends of philosophy. The work of Marcel Simon can serve as one example, out of many, of this tendency. He sets up Justin Martyr as a symbol of the tendency to harmonize, whereas Tertullian is labeled as a representative of anti-philosophical radicalism.5 But are not such categories wrongheaded? Actually, there is a grain of truth to them. Therefore, the task of the historian who would attempt to precisely delineate the exact principles for discriminating the relationship between theology and philosophy is truly unenviable! Should the guiding principle be the extent and number of Greek quotations, or official declarations of affinity, or the actual fervor for utilizing the heritage of the pagans? Are hidden sympathies more important than involuntary borrowings? We should also ask why the masked Stoicism of Tertullian is less “philosophical” than the ostentatious Platonism of Justin? It would be easy to multiply these types of questions without end. That is not all, the confusion will only multiply if a scholar wants to utilize this dichotomy to demonstrate an “inevitable antagonism” between faith and reason—understood as a supra-historical conflict, that is, independent of the concepts specific to late antiquity.6
The Problem of a Pure Christianity
The debate is much more heated than what one would expect given the amount of time separating us from the early church fathers. Is it any wonder? The debate is not about moldy ideas when salvation is at stake. The debate is about whether ties with philosophy poisoned the wells of the Christian tradition. Can we say the diseases of Hellenism were deadly to the life-giving truths of Christ’s teaching? These questions cannot be indifferent to Christians. Searching for their resolution directs us into the stream of history. But can we really answer them while using historical tools? We should remember that certain ways of addressing these questions have a way of pigeonholing the historian into the stance of a theologian, if not a prophet, of the revelation that they encounter through their studies.
At the very least since the Reformation laymen have looked with suspicion upon the philosophical robes of Rome. The waning influence of the ancients caused the following questions to emerge: Did the fathers betray revelation when in Chalcedon, or perhaps as early as Constantinople, they expressed the Christian faith with categories borrowed from Greek philosophy, categories not present in the Gospels? Was revelation betrayed by philosophers who only passed for Christians? It is enough to listen to what Martin Luther thinks about it to understand that this debate is about the relevance of the tradition of the ancients.7
The name of Adolf Harnack is synonymous with twentieth-century debates about the relationship of philosophy to Christianity. In his seminal work, What is Christianity?, Harnack argued that the Christian tradition was effectively Hellenized, and he understood this as a falsification of revelation’s core.8 According to Harnack, the categories of ancient philosophers became the constitutive elements of Catholic dogmatics to the detriment of revealed truth’s purity.9 The biggest controversies surrounding Harnack’s position did not exclusively concentrate upon the influence of Greek thought in the shaping of Christian tradition. They also concentrated around Harnack’s somewhat arbitrary boundary of how much Hellenization is permissible for revelation. It seems that his historical discussion came to be defined by certain a priori categories that were unjustifiable on purely historical grounds, even though Harnack appeared to be only concerned with the field of history. It seems that the fervor of his discussion obscured the boundary between historical description and its theological or philosophical interpretation.
It is obvious that revelation, at least to a certain degree, is relativized by the language and culture in which it is expressed. Even the radical other-worldliness of Christianity cannot become a supra-cultural phenomenon. In order to understand the difficulty of establishing restrictive boundaries for the tradition it is enough to recall the choice of the term logos as a Johannine theological category, or that the good news was delivered to the world in the native Greek of the philosophers.10 What historical instruments are available to permit us to establish a clear boundary separating the Hellenization undertaken by Saints Paul and John from those of Justin Martyr?
It would do us well to remember that the first step toward the Hellenization of Christianity was taken long before Christ came into the world, that is, in the work of Hellenization undertaken by the Alexandrian diaspora. After all, the Alexandrian translation of the Pentateuch into the language of Zeno and Plato could not avoid utilizing terminology that had a long history of philosophical usage. The historian can point to the sources and changes of meanings, but we must remember that these tools cannot verify the fact of divine inspiration. The legend about the independent and identical translation of the Bible by seventy-two scholars, which sanctions and baptizes the terminological decisions taken by the translators of the Pentateuch, is beyond the reach of historical criticism. History and literary criticism are obviously very important aids in the study of the Scriptures and revelation. History can equip the theologian with very important information, however, the question of faith’s veracity, or, an evaluation of faith’s sources, lies beyond its competence. Christian dogmatics have always considered tradition, besides the Scriptures, to be just such a source, one that comes into being through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. All who desire to undermine the authenticity of tradition with the help of historical tools take up an entirely vain and cumbersome labor. One cannot derive the criteria of judgment from outside the texts themselves without the risk of falling into a vicious hermeneutic circle. This is why even though Harnack’s contribution brought many lively elements into the discussion about the historical dimensions of Christian doctrine, it also led to the insight that the tools of the historian can aid theology, but cannot replace it.11 The historian is not called to unravel dogmatic questions, because those who speak about orthodoxy are no longer historians, they are theologians. It is obvious that a Christianity essentially free from Hellenization is a theological construct par excellence.
The interpretation of Tertullian’s work is a practical example of these conundrums. Depending upon the interpreter’s opinion about the essence of Christianity, Tertullian is either a prophet of an anti-intellectualism hostile toward the church, or the forerunner of a fiery gospel anti-rationalism.
Let us take a look at the first example. Etienne Gilson is surely preeminent among the thinkers who did not paper over the influence of classical philosophy upon Christianity while defending the authenticity of the teaching passed on by the Christian tradition. Gilson, against Harnack, defended the existence of a Christian philosophy. Referring to Tertullian he said, “It is important for the history of Christian thought that the main enemy of Greek philosophy died outside the Church”; while speaking of Justin Martyr he said, “the one who struggled to gain for Christianity all the advantages of what in Greek culture is good and true, died as a martyr and saint.”12
Leszek Kolakowski can serve as an example of the second stance. He saw a reflection of the age-old struggle between faith and reason in the writings of the Carthaginian. In Tertullian he saw a Shestovian rebel against reason and a defender of a gospel anti-intellectualism.13 And so, depending on which perspective upon Christianity one chooses, the one and the same Tertullian constitutes either the personification of what is foreign to the church, or what most fully expresses the gospel.
Someone might say that we can find common ground here. Both authors agree upon the anti-philosophical stance of the Carthaginian. This much is true. This is why both of them will never be able to account for why this declared enemy of everything that is philosophical praises Seneca.14 bothers to construct philosophical proofs for the existence of God,15 heartily condemns frivolous faith,16 and in the work On the Pallium calls Christianity itself a philosophy.17
Philosophy
The controversy Harnack started, which put the spotlight upon the notion of a pure Christianity, totally ignored the other side of the coin: the essence of the philosophy that Hellenized Christianity. The absence of such a discussion makes it impossible for us to give a serious answer as to why the very same authors could condemn philosophy and at the same time use it to their purposes at will. Furthermore, they also called Christianity a philosophy! When I say “a serious answer” I mean one that does not reduce these difficulties to a lack of consequence, or something like Gospel-marketing strategies of the ancient Christians.
In the introduction to his monumental The Spirit of Mediaeval Philosophy Gilson, somewhat in passing, formulates the principle dividing philosophy and religion, which according to him protected Christianity from betraying its essence: “The incarnation and death of Christ on the cross found themselves at the center of the world’s history thanks to Christianity’s concentration upon on the living person of Christ, it is less a speculative point of view upon reality than a way of life. Not a philosophy, but a religion.”18 I would like to turn our attention not to the definition of Christianity, but to the definition of philosophy, which is identified with a speculative gaze upon reality. Furthermore, it is somewhat negatively identified with not being a way of salvation, not being a way of life.
Gilson utilizes in his polemic with Harnack a fixed definition of philosophy, understood as a purely theoretical or epistemological activity. Today we know that this is a caricature of ancient philosophy. Thanks to studies on the nature of the philosophical enterprise written by scholars such as Juliusz Domański in Poland and Pierre Hadot in France, we know without a doubt that ancient philosophy was a “way of life.”19 Moreover, according to Hadot, “If we disregard, for the moment, the monastic usage of the word philosophia, we can say that philosophy in the Middle Ages had become a purely theoretical and abstract activity. It was no longer a way of life.”20 We should add that it is precisely this understanding of philosophy—scholastic in its roots—that Gilson projects onto the reality that constituted the intellectual milieu of early Christianity.
An entirely different answer can be expected from those whom we can call “oversimplifiers.” What I mean is those who hold an interpretation of the relationship between ancient Christianity and philosophy as being a collision between a faith that derives its reasons from revelation and a reason (rationality, philosophy) independent of the authority of religion. Without going into matters that will be covered later in this book, we can say that it would be extremely difficult to find real-life evidence for the existence of both sides of this confrontation as characterized in these two ideal models.
Both of the positions described above ignore the philosophy that ancient Christianity encountered: a philosophy that was more than anything a “way of life.” In contemporary times, for several reasons, the spirit and practice of ancient philosophical schools is more readily found in monasteries than universities—especially when we take into consideration the constant effort of moral and intellectual exercises (askesis) that transformed the knowledge and lives of authentic philosophical adepts.21 Many phenomena that we are inclined to recognize as par excellence religious today were actually decisive for demonstrating the philosophical nature of ancient Christianity.22 Additionally, Werner Jaeger notes, “Even the word ‘conversion’ stems from Plato, for adopting a philosophy meant a change in life in the first place.”23 Philosophical schools played such an important role in the ancient world because they did help to explain worldly phenomena, but also “[s]econdly—and this is a point of cardinal importance—the schools offered a life with a scheme. One of the terms for a school of philosophy, whatever its kind, is agoge, which means way of teaching and way of living.”24 We should also keep in mind that it was not only the Christians who willingly called themselves philosophers, but those pagans involved in polemics against them called the Christians philosophers as well.25 This was made possible by the convergence of interests, goals, and methods of the spiritual life. It was likewise connected to the widespread authority afforded to spiritual masters,26 but also, because of an entirely different approach (from our contemporary perspective) toward the key issue of the relation between faith and reason.
In all ancient philosophical schools the element of faith, with the exception of the skeptics, constituted the starting point on the way toward happiness, virtue, and the fullness of knowledge. Philosophy, understood as the path toward perfection, promised the fullness of knowledge only at the end of one’s philosophizing—this was the case for students of Plato, Aristotle, Chrysippus, or Epicurus. Philosophy involved faith in the authenticity of the guidelines that led one to the goal, that is, faith in the correctness of the advice given by the spiritual director (kathegemon, Greek for one who leads, who shows the path). Both of these factors were integral elements of the philosophical life.27 Before we hastily take the accusations of Celsus or Galen that the Christians, “believe without rational thought,”28 as the paradigm for the battle of Greek philosophy against Christianity, we should first, for example, pick up Lucian’s Hermotimus where similar objections are voiced by the skeptic against, more or less, nearly every ancient philosophical school.29
Even if the extreme egalitarianism of the church might have greatly multiplied the accusations that Christians cared less about the intellectual development of their pupils than other schools, the claim that Christians based their lives upon faith can be more properly understood within the context of the controversy between the skeptics and the academics, that is, a controversy at the heart of philosophy itself. The claim that the heart of the discussion between philosophy and faith was constituted by differences between skeptics and Christians requires an absurd concession, namely, that the skeptics—not, for example, the Platonists, Peripatetics, or Stoics—represented the true spirit of ancient philosophy and the mainline ancient philosophical understanding of reason.
Whether one likes it or not, the situation of the early Christians cannot be transposed upon the discussions between Peter Damian and Abelard or Shestov and Husserl. If in the name of some arbitrarily selected definitions of philosophy and reason we take away ancient Christianity’s right to use these two concepts, then we should also consider whether we are not at the same time involuntarily depriving other ancient philosophical schools of those two concepts; we should also remember that these very philosophical schools converted their pupils by utilizing the concept of reason whose definition depended upon the categories of causality, nature, and teleology.
Three Questions
I realize that I am sticking out my neck by making another attempt to answer Tertullian’s question about what Athens and Jerusalem have in common. The fact that I limit myself to only several early Christian thinkers does not substantially change this situation. My decision to embrace this risky undertaking is based upon my belief in the merits of taking up three distinct yet interconnected questions.
Right from the beginning Christians were convinced about the existence of numerous convergences between certain positions of the philosophers and the truths of revelation. Saint Paul’s confrontation with the philosophers (Acts 17:22–31) is the best example. In a short speech at the Areopagus, which did not ignore the substantial uniqueness of Christianity, Saint Paul made use of a surprisingly long list of theses Christianity holds in common with some ancient philosophical schools. The following generations of Christians would expand this list of convergences to impressive dimensions, filling it out with subtle analyses and commentaries full of numerous reservations. Independently of how the presence of these overlaps was interpreted, nobody doubted their existence. It was impossible to ignore the question of their origins, even though for many thinkers they appeared to be too inconsequential to cast an appreciative eye upon pagan philosophy. Therefore, it is impossible to avoid asking about the origin of the pearls that can be found outside the church and the question of how they are related to revelation, even for those who hold a very antagonistic stance toward the philosophical achievements of the Greeks. Were not some philosophical theses, as the Alexandrian school of theology thought, simply stolen from the Jewish Bible?30 Could it be that while traveling to Egypt Plato encountered the teachings of Moses? The earnestness of this hypothesis does not really deserve more than a polite smile.31 It mainly reveals the civilizational aspirations of ancient Jews and Christians, but it also reveals the gravity of the problem facing ancient Christians.32
Adjudicating the analogies between philosophy and Christianity requires an attempt to distill and answer the following questions: How are we to explain these similarities? Does their existence seriously challenge the radical uniqueness of the teaching revealed by Jesus Christ? Whence comes the truth outside of revelation? When relying only upon his own powers is man capable of knowing any of the truth revealed to Christians? Is it the case that, despite the unambiguous teaching of the Epistle to the Corinthians, the wisdom of the world can have anything to do with the wisdom of God? Can one speak of some kind of universal or natural revelation that God gave to all reasonable creatures? Did God not make the wisdom of the world foolishness (1 Cor 1:20)? “Certain of our brethren,” wrote Augustine, “are amazed when they hear or read that Plato had an understanding of God which, as they see, is in many respects consistent with the truth of our religion.”33 If, as Aristotle claims, philosophy is born in wonder, then his statement also refers to this strange coincidence. It simply cannot be ignored. The problem of the sources of truth leads straight into the question of how reason and revelation are related—and to the very core of philosophy.
This is our starting point. Now we will address and attempt to answer the three main problems outlined above. If we agree that the pagans came to know some part of the truth then: 1) We must ask how it happened, 2) what portion of the truth they did come to know, 3) whether philosophical knowledge of this truth is needed after the fullness of truth was revealed by God. Above all, the first problem is a question about the causes of the possible overlaps between the teachings of the pagans and revelation, that is, the matter of mutual relations between pagan philosophy, reason, nature, and revelation. The second problem constitutes an evaluation of the factual range of similarities, that is, a question about how much truth can be found in philosophy. The third problem pertains to the issue of selection and adoption, that is, a question about the usefulness of philosophy and ways of utilizing pagan philosophy in Christian teaching and life. These are the three domains which, as it seems to me, will help us to best characterize the stance of Christians toward philosophy and, at the same time, they will help us avoid accusing the theologians of ignorance, chicanery, lack of consequence, exuberance in rhetorical enthusiasm, or even psychological disorders.34
1. Dante, The Divine Comedy: Hell, IV.116.
2. See: ibid. IV.31–42, “Thou dost not ask / What spirits these, which thou beholdest, are? / Now will I have thee know, ere thou go farther, // That they sinned not; and if they merit had, / ‘Tis not enough, because they had not baptism / Which is the portal of the Faith thou holdest; // And if they were before Christianity, / In the right manner they adored not God; / And among such as these am I myself. // For such defects, and not for other guilt, / Lost are we and are only so far punished, / That without hope we live on in desire.”
3. See: Erasmus of Rotterdam, Convivium religiosum 683d–e (English translation in: Familiar Colloquies, 119) where he writes, “Indeed it was a wonderful elevation of mind in a man, that knew not Christ, nor the Holy Scriptures: And therefore, I can scarce forebear when I read such thing of such men, but cry out, Sancte Socrates, ora pro nobis; Saint Socrates, pray for us.” This same tone can be found in the great Polish post-Romantic Cyprian Norwid, who wrote of the all-but-evangelical figure of Epimenides in “Epimenides: A Parable.”
4. Domański, “Patrystyczne postawy wobec dziedzictwa antycznego” [Patristic Stands toward the Heritage of Antiquity]. An expanded version of the paper can be found in: U progu trzeciego tysiaclecia. Czlowiek, nauka, wiara [On the Threshold of the Third Millenium: Man, Science, Faith], 39–67.
5. Simon, Cywilizacja wczesnego chrzescijaństwa [Early Christian Civilization], 143–51.
6. By postulating the possibility of a more or less non-anachronistic description, I want to avoid regions of dispute redolent with complicated hermeneutical problems. I agree that the ideal of a description free of all anachronisms or interpretations is an intellectual utopia at best—a vain utopia at worst. The final goal of my description is the expression of certain problems in categories that are as universal as possible. The idea of a translator, who through hermeneutical piety refrains from translating, can be our symbol for what I designate as vanity here. Yet, at the same time, I believe that one can and must avoid using categories so inadequate that they blind the researcher to the fundamental distinctions for any given period.
7. See: Gilson, Heloise and Abelard, 122–44.
8. E.g., “. . . Roman Catholicism has nothing to do with the Gospel, nay, is in fundamental contradiction with it.” Harnack, What is Christianity? 283.
9. “[T]he Church appears as the great insurance society for the ideas of Plato and Zeno” and “Thus was created the future dogmatic in the form which still prevails in the Churches which presupposes the Platonic and Stoic conception of the world long ago overthrown by science.” Harnack, History of Dogma, Vol. 2, 228–29.
10. “It remains one of the most momentous linguistic convergences in the entire history of the human mind and spirit that the New Testament happens to have been written in Greek—not in the Hebrew of Moses and the prophets, nor in the Aramaic of Jesus and his disciples, nor yet in the Latin of the imperium Romanum, but in the Greek of Socrates and Plato . . . .” Pelikan, Christianity and Classical Culture, 3.
11. We can avoid much confusion caused by an inadequate definition of the boundaries of competence for both historians and theologians by proposing two different sets of problems, one for each discipline to address: 1) The following set of problems should be addressed by historians: studying the declared and actual relationship of Christians to philosophy as described in the texts of Christian thinkers, but also the various pagan understandings of philosophy and Christianity, and finally, outlining the historical understandings of the differences and the principles guiding the differences. 2) The theologians should work upon the following: a theological hermeneutic of these phenomena, one that is done with reasonably clear interpretive instruments—without hiding the presuppositions it brings to the table, especially when it comes to analyzing the assumptions of the tradition.
12. See: Gilson, History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages. [Translated directly from the Polish edition of the book, Etienne Gilson, Historia filozofii chrzescijanskiej w wiekach srednich, 19.] We should note that the view that Tertullian left the church is widely questioned today, for example in David Rankin, Tertullian and the Church.
13. Kolakowski, Religion: If There Is No God, 128.
14. Tert., An. 20.1.
15. For example, in the short work The Soul’s Testimony.
16. Tert., Marc. 5.1.1.
17. Tert., Pall. 6.2.
18. Gilson, Historia filozofii chrzescijanskiej w wiekach srednich, 8. [Translated directly from the Polish edition of the book—trans.]
19. See: Domański, Erazm i filozofia. Studium o koncepcji filozofii Erazma z Rotterdamu [Erasmus and Philosophy: A Study of Erasmus of Rotterdam’s Concept of Philosophy], especially the chapter “Osobliwosci i paradoksy filozoficznego zycia” [The Peculiarities and Paradoxes of the Philosophical Life], 20–90; Domański, “«Scholastyczne» i «humanistyczne» pojecie filozofii” [The “Scholastic” and “Humanist” Conceptions of Philosophy], 8–24; Domański, “Metamorfozy pojecia filozofii” [Metamorphoses in Understandings of Philosophy], 3–19. And for Hadot: Philosophy as a Way of Life, 79–144 and 264–76; What is Ancient Philosophy?; The Inner Citadel, especially 35–53.
20. Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, 270. Hadot directly addresses his debt to Gilson in ibid., 277. For Domański’s criticism of Gilson refer to his afterword to the Polish edition of Philosophy as a Way of Life, 255–56 and also see: Domański, “Quelques observations sur l’attitude d’Erasme envers la philosophie” [Some Observations on the Attitude of Erasmus towards Philosophy].
21. Hadot, What is Ancient Philosophy?, 239.
22. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, 23. There Kelly discusses the philosophical environment in which Christianity emerged as one where, “Philosophy was the deeper religion of most intelligent people.”
23. Jaeger, Early Christianity and Greek Paideia, 8; See: Meeks, The Origins of Christian Morality, 23.
24. Nock, Conversion, 167.
25. Jaeger, Early Christianity and Greek Paideia, 32.
26. Dembińska-Siury, “Filozoficzne duszpasterstwo. O religijnej misji Sokratesa” [Philosophical Priesthood: The Religious Mission of Socrates], 208–18; I. Hadot, “The Spiritual Guide,” 436–52.
27. Nock, Conversion, 181.
28. Origenes, Cels. I.9–11, 12.
29. Lucianus, Herm., 85.
30. Philo listed three sources of the truths found in Greek philosophy: borrowings, reason, and divine inspiration. See: Daniélou, Gospel Message and Hellenistic Culture, 40. Daniélou shows how Philo’s arguments were adopted by the Apologists.
31. However extravagant this theory appears today Henry Chadwick is correct to note that, “it must also be recognized from a strictly historical viewpoint our superior smile is a grossly unimaginative anachronism.” Chadwick, Early Christian Thought and the Classical Tradition, 14.
32. The belief that the Greeks borrowed their wisdom from the Bible was born among the Alexandrian diaspora when Aristobulus and Philo who—much like the early Christians later—were amazed by their discovery of Greek wisdom. The writings of these Jewish thinkers passed on this conviction both to Christians and even some pagans, who like the Pythagorean Numenius of Apamea asked rhetorically: “For what is Plato, but Moses speaking in Attic Greek?” See: Clem. Al., Str. I.XXII.150.4, ANF2, 335. [Henceforth all citations from the 10-volume Ante-Nicene Fathers series from the Christian Publishing Company (1885) will be cited starting with the author and standard abbreviated title of the patristic text, followed by ANF plus the number of the volume, and finally the number of the page(s) cited. The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers series will cited the same way, but with a NPNF. —trans.]. Proclaiming the primacy of the Bible over philosophy, depending upon the apologetic needs, is utilized to explain similarities and to point out pagan perversions of the original truth. I am convinced that something greater is at play here than just than the hopes of discrediting the Greeks by the monotheistic upstarts, or that it all is a pious masquerade to cover up the Hellenization of revelation. All of this leads to the question about the possibilities of human reason when faced with God’s transcendence. Is the concept of theft an answer that is dear to all those who had a low appraisal of natural knowledge? The matter is not that simple. Essentially the notion of theft—or to put it more kindly, borrowing—is capable of explaining overlaps that clearly go beyond what is given to natural reason. This is why its rejection forces one to put more emphasis on the capabilities of natural reason. Saint Augustine, who criticizes the theory of borrowing in The City of God (VII.XI), answers the question of where Plato got his knowledge of God with the words of Romans 1:19–21. However, in practice, it is difficult to ascribe to the theory of borrowing some type of unambiguous understanding of the relationship between faith and reason. It is not a necessary consequence of any of the positions toward reason or philosophy. It is used by enthusiasts of philosophy such as Clement in the Stromata (I.XXII.150.1–3), but sometimes both understandings are used simultaneously, for example, in Justin Martyr—who sees as borrowings only those elements whose discovery seems impossible by way of natural reason. See: Iust., Apol. I.44.8–9; 59–60; Tat., Or. 1.35–40; Min. Fel., Oct. 20.1; 34.5; Tert., Ap. 19; Clem. Al., Str. I.XVI.80.5. Also see: Pelikan, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition, 33–34; Daniélou, Gospel Message and Hellenistic Culture, 46–47.
33. Augustinus, De civ. Dei VIII.XI.1.
34. Jung, Psychological Types, 11.