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Paul and the Athens Epicureans: Between Polytheisms, Atheisms and Monotheisms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Renée Koch Piettre
Renée Koch Piettre*
Affiliation:
École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris
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Abstract

The paradoxical affinities that research has managed to identify between the Epicurean philosophical ‘sect’ and the Christian sect in the early centuries of our era are recalled, then examined in detail in relation to the first document that attests to a specific encounter between the two sects, the narrative of the Acts of the Apostles, which shows Paul discussing with the Athens Epicureans and Stoics, then recovers for us Paul's speech before the Areopagus in Athens. It seems that Paul sets himself up as a philosopher to expound his doctrine in terms that are to a certain extent compatible with a materialist or even polytheistic doctrine.

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Type
Research Article
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Diogenes , Volume 52 , Issue 1 , February 2005 , pp. 47 - 60
Copyright
Copyright © ICPHS 2005

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