Plutarch and Early Christian Theologians

P. 103–118.

Avdokhin A.

Academic perspectives on the dynamics between early Christianity and the classical culture have been going through a dramatic change in the last decades. The major development in how scholars conceive of early Christians vis-à-vis vis a vis the ‘Hellenic’, or ‘pagan ’, cultural heritage has been the constantly growing realization that the watershed between the two was at least not as neat as pictured before. In what follows, I will discuss three strands in the complex interaction of early Christian theologians with Plutarch’s writings. Proceeding from the instances of polemical attacks on ‘pagan’ religious thinking in Plutarch on to patterns of positive engagement with his legacy, I will emphasize how much Plutarch was an essential part of the literary and philosophical culture which Christians shared with non-Christians in late antiquity. My focus will be mainly on the third and fourth century AD and on the instances of sustained and demonstrably deliberate use of Plutarch’s writings by Christian theologians rather than on more general parallels and echoes of his works in early Christian discourse

Keywords: philosophy of late antiquity, early Christianity, Plutarch

Publication based on the results of: ­Symbolic behavior in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period (2018)

In book

Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Plutarch

Leiden: Brill, 2019.