The paper by Stowers is another unusual one for such a book. It focuses on the use of philosophical terms and concepts by Paul of Tarsus of the New Testament, in particular those of Platonism and Stoicism. Stowers argues that Paul in his letters draws on Platonic doctrine in his moral psychology along with a Stoic-like role for pneuma, variously construed as wind or air or breath, as constituting the substance of the divine. Human mental pneuma is an inferior version of divine pneuma and Platonic assimilation to divinity is construed by Paul as the refining of the former into the latter. This is not, as Stowers, emphasizes, the separation of the intelligible from the sensible, but an indication of a cosmic hierarchy of substance, more Stoic than Platonic. According to Stowers, Paul's mission to bring the Gospel to non-Jews was promoted in the currency of Stoic and Platonic ideas. He sought to give an account of divinization decidedly more Stoic than Platonic in its anthropomorphism and rejection of a rigorously non-sensible realm. So, at the core of Christian doctrine we find a Stoicizing Platonism, something anticipated by Antiochus of Ascalon, a figure who looms in the background of this book.
--"From Stoicism to Platonism: The Development of Philosophy, 100 BCE-100 CE". Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
Troels Engberg-Pedersen (ed.), From Stoicism to Platonism: The Development of Philosophy, 100 BCE-100 CE, Cambridge University Press, 2017, 399pp., $120.00 (hbk), ISBN 9781107166196.
Reviewed by Lloyd P. Gerson, University of Toronto
2017.06.17
"The Good Life" in Paul and the Giants of Philosophy
Nijay K. Gupta
Paul used a wide variety of metaphors in his letters: sacrifice, athletics, body and head, sowing and reaping, and so on. But remarkably, martial imagery appears in almost all of Paul’s letters with interest in guiding the Christian life. (95)
In this chapter, we will compare Paul and the philosophers on four subjects: life is a battle, the good soldier’s courage, the good soldier’s obedience and cooperation, and the good soldier’s self-discipline. (96)
If life is a battle, who or what is the enemy? … Paul saw the primal “enemies” as “sin” and “death.” (98)
For many of the ancient philosophers, like Socrates, the primary concern was the war against passions. Seneca, as a Stoic, believed that one had to face the realities of “fate” and inevitable hardships, and ultimately one was called to resist temptation and control human desires (see Ep. 87.41; 95.5). (98)
--"Paul and the Giants of Philosophy | Reflections & Notes". vialogue. 31 October 2019.
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