Christian Culture and Pagan Culture in Basil The Great’s Perpective

Abstract

These reflections aim at showing the possibility of a dialog between Christian culture and pagan culture from Basil the Great’s or Basil of Caesarea’s point of view. Indeed, three tendencies marked the relationship between “Cristian wisdom” and “pagan wisdom” throughout the first centuries of the Christian thought: a tendency that sees an almost equivalence between both areas (Justin Martyr), another tendency that digs an insurmountable gap between the one and the other (Tertullian) and, finally, an intermediate or complementary tendency, which links both spheres of knowledge. It is the latter that characterizes the thought and writings of Basil the Great. Nonetheless, one must also consider the paradoxes and ambiguities that permeate Basil’s own texts. This is what this study also intends to explore based on the writing: Address to Young Men.