Early Christian Church — Christian Debate https://christiandiscourse.net/index.php?p=/ Mon, 13 Apr 2026 15:12:13 +0000 en Early Christian Church — Christian Debate The Body: Love it, Hate it or Escape it? https://christiandiscourse.net/index.php?p=/discussion/222/the-body-love-it-hate-it-or-escape-it Sun, 01 Apr 2018 04:03:21 +0000 Bible Questions C Mc 222@/index.php?p=/discussions Brethren,
Many see the body as a prison from which the soul must deliver itself, an idea linked back to Plato. How is it that what God has made have become so despised? It's a shame that many competing philosophies in the world that surrounded the church during its period of development contributed to our current lack of emphasis on the physical. For instance, the early Christian church took the attitude that the Roman and Grecian ways of life pampered and indulged the body at the expense of the soul. So intense was the reaction of the church to this philosophy that an overreaction to this way of life led to the opposite error. By the time of the Middle Ages it was considered immoral to view even one's own body; therefore, people seldom bathed and wore notoriously dirty garments [D. G. Dawe, "The Attitude of the Ancient Church Toward Medicine," Part II, Minnesota Medicine XLVII (November 1964), 1352].

My question, has Neoplatonism entered the Bible? Whether or not it did, what influence did it had on the developing Christian church? CM

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