Abstract

There are some who today assert that biblical ideas should provide a critique of contemporary presuppositions, that theologians should not pay respect to current scientific knowledge at the expense of distinctively Christian insights. My aim in this paper is to explore the extent to which the Bible actually did perform such a function in the theology of the patristic period, by examining the relationship between science and the Bible in two key anthropological texts of the late Fourth Century. These two texts differ to the extent that one purports to be an exegetical work, while the other is a philosophical or scientific treatise. (It should be remembered that science and philosophy were not then distinguishable disciplines, though one can, and should distinguish between serious philosophy of a professional kind, including medicine, and more popular semi-philosophical assumptions.) Simply because they belong to different genres, the similarities and differences between these two treatises should prove particularly illuminating.

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