The Influence of the Greek Principle of God-Fittingness on 2nd-Century Christianity

Abstract

My thesis argues that the principle of god-fittingness played a major role in early Christian thought and exegesis. Originally a tool which had been developed and employed in Homeric critique and scholarship, it influenced not only Jewish thinkers like Philo of Alexandria but also second century Christian thinkers such as Marcion, Ptolemy, and Justin Martyr. The emerging theology of the second century had not only to account for problematic depictions of God in the Old Testament but had to also square common philosophical notions such as creation, evil, and providence with a Christian understanding of God’s nature as revealed in the Old Testament and in Christ to whom the emerging New Testament testified. Thus, the reading of texts formed the basis for their theology and I argue that the reading of these texts was heavily influenced by the ancient and complex principle of god-fittingness. This is the first study to exclusively focus on the use of god-fittingness in the different reading strategies of Homer and its relevance in philosophical ethics and the impact of god-fittingness on a broad array of second century Christian writers.