Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 Plotinus
- 2 Plotinus's metaphysics of the One
- 3 The hierarchical ordering of reality in Plotinus
- 4 On soul and intellect
- 5 Essence and existence in the Enneads
- 6 Plotinus on the nature of physical reality
- 7 Plotinus on matter and evil
- 8 Eternity and time
- 9 Cognition and its object
- 10 Self-knowledge and subjectivity in the Enneads
- 11 Plotinus
- 12 Human freedom in the thought of Plotinus
- 13 An ethic for the late antique sage
- 14 Plotinus and language
- 15 Plotinus and later Platonic philosophers on the causality of the First Principle
- 16 Plotinus and Christian philosophy
- Bibliography
- Index
16 - Plotinus and Christian philosophy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2006
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 Plotinus
- 2 Plotinus's metaphysics of the One
- 3 The hierarchical ordering of reality in Plotinus
- 4 On soul and intellect
- 5 Essence and existence in the Enneads
- 6 Plotinus on the nature of physical reality
- 7 Plotinus on matter and evil
- 8 Eternity and time
- 9 Cognition and its object
- 10 Self-knowledge and subjectivity in the Enneads
- 11 Plotinus
- 12 Human freedom in the thought of Plotinus
- 13 An ethic for the late antique sage
- 14 Plotinus and language
- 15 Plotinus and later Platonic philosophers on the causality of the First Principle
- 16 Plotinus and Christian philosophy
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
A study of the relationship between Plotinus and Christian philosophy is far less than an investigation of the overall influence of Platonism on Christianity. It treats of the effect on Christianity of a particular Platonist philosopher of the third century a.d.: A task at once more manageable in scope and more difficult to identify precisely. For Platonism had influenced Christian philosophers before Plotinus (particularly Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen) and it was to be influential over hundreds of years on later Christians, many of whom knew Plotinus as just a prominent name in the tradition. However, to discuss the influence of Plotinus on Christianity is not only to discuss those who knew Plotinus at first hand, and liked (or reacted against) what he taught; it is also to consider the thought of those whose understanding of Platonism was affected indirectly by the particular brand of Platonism established as dominant by Plotinus and which in modern times we have learned to call Neoplatonism.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus , pp. 386 - 414Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1996
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