A concise and accessible overview of the response of early Christian thought to classical philosophy and its integration into Christian theology. Anthony Meredith has poured a lifetime of learning into this extraordinary book. He tells the dramatic, yet subtle and complex story of the Church in its relation to Philosophy, always managing to avoid the two-fold danger, fatal to so many other accounts, of glib and misleading generalities, on the one hand, and a dizzying, excessive display of detailed learning, on the other. Meredith is learned; but he's always a pleasure to read. His prose is relaxed, yet clear and forceful; eloquent, even uplifting when it needs to be, and frequently graced with a wink of puckish humour.This book will surely become a standard source for students seeking to discover just what Athens did in fact have to do with Jerusalem.
