THE HELLENISATION OF JUDAEO-CHRISTIAN FAITH OR THE CHRISTIANISATION OF HELLENIC THOUGHT?'

Abstract

Abstract<title> Abstract </title>In this article I explore the relationship between faith and reason among the early Christianities. The approach here favours the perspective of social history whereby the establishment of claims to a universal and absolute monotheism in Western society is viewed as an outcome of power relations - or an increasingly close alliance among certain of the early Christianities and between these and the state. In this sense, my thesis is that rather than understanding a Judaeo-Christian faith that became Hellenised, we might better speak of a tradition of Hellenic thought that increasingly became theologised under the dominant sway of Christian power. I explicate this thesis from the point of views or theories proposed by Max Weber and supported by Michel Foucault. As such, what follows is an overview of the conventional view of Christianity, an examination of Weber's view, which is followed by my critique of it, and some concluding remarks.