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This chapter describes the range of philosophers discussed in this book, going from Plotinus and his school in Rome to the schools of Iamblichus in Syria (Apamea) and of his successors at Athens and Alexandria. The relations between these schools and the situation of the various philosophers in time, place, and social context are briefly sketched.

This chapter explores the kind of community founded by Pythagoras. It considers those types of association which actually existed in Greece in the Archaic and Classical periods. If the Pythagorean community was really a religious association, it should conform to the type of religious association of its time, and not to that of the Qumran community or a Christian monastery. To describe the nature of the society founded by Pythagoras, we may choose from a very small number of variants available for that period: a philosophical school (σχολή), like those which appeared in the fourth century; a cultic community (θίασος); and a sociopolitical association (έταιρεία). The chapter shows, first, that none of the features of a religious community is confirmed by reliable evidence. Second, that to apply to the Pythagoreans the term ‘sect’, as developed in the sociology of religion, is methodologically unsound. Third, that the tradition on Pythagorean ‘symbols’, reflected in Anaximander the Younger and Aristotle, mostly bears no relation to the realities of the Pythagorean way of life, while the picture which arose on the basis of that tradition, of acusmatici and mathematici dates from the Imperial period.

This chapter examines Seneca’s views on the collective practice of philosophy, through his representations of the philosophical school. Seneca believes that the Stoic school uniquely combines intellectual coherence with latitude for individual inquiry. He demonstrates these features of the Stoic intellectual community by contrast with Epicureanism. The Epicurean school also receives more sympathetic treatment, though, as Seneca uses it to illustrate how philosophy’s vulnerability to public misunderstanding and caricature. The chapter highlights the fundamentally social character of the philosophical way of life in Seneca’s writings, expressed through the often transtemporal and virtual model of community offered by the philosophical school.

This chapter provides an overall introduction to the book. It outlines its methodological approach, explains the selection of authors, and sets out the case that will be argued. Central for the approach is the concept of Patristic philosophy meant to stem the traditional dualism of Christian thought and philosophy. Christian writers themselves are thus seen as philosophers. While Christian philosophy in this sense began in the second century, it obtains a distinctive shape at the end of the fourth century through the work of the Cappadocian fathers. The book recounts the history of this uniquely influential, classical theory. It is subsequently received but also modified and transformed. The history must represent the diversity of this development and cannot be restricted to Chalcedonian authors only. The tensions between the needs of the Christological controversy and the inherited Cappadocian theory lead to philosophical innovations that prepare much later developments.

Irenaeus’s incorporation of an updated version of the Syntagma against All the Heresies into Book I of his monumental treatise Against the Heresies marked a watershed moment in the history of heresiology. Given his influence upon subsequent generations of polemicists, Irenaeus’s use of a version of the Syntagma as the cornerstone of his own heresiological treatise not only ensured the dominance of this one particular approach to heresy over others; it also led to the creation of the “school called Gnostic,” which, this chapter argues, does not refer to an actual historical community, but instead serves as a polemical designation imposed upon those heretics named in the updated version of the Syntagma.

It is widely assumed amongst scholars that Clement of Alexandria’s citations of Philo demonstrate continuity between Philo’s Jewish community and early Christians in ancient Alexandria. This chapter argues that the assumed continuity between Jewish synagogue and Christian church in Alexandria is problematical. This is due to two factors. The first is the Jewish uprisings against Rome under Trajan and Hadrian at the beginning of the second century and the second the mobility of people and texts in the Roman Empire. The frequent copying and easy circulation of texts among students of philosophy in the Roman world suggests that Clement may have encountered Philo’s writings in a philosophical school rather than via transmission in an institution such as a Jewish-Christian synagogue or catechetical school.

This chapter looks at the concrete settings of place in which Romans have experience related to Greek literature. The spatial separation of Roman and Greek literature is bridged by alleged contacts before 240 bc. In Rome, contact may be roughly divided between occasions publicly arranged for the Roman people and situations privately brought about either by Greek initiative or by Roman patronage. These include theatre and public libraries; rhetorical and philosophical schools and lectures; and scholars, doctors, and poets captured or attracted to Roman homes. Villas form a different and more intimate environment for receiving (and displaying) Greek literature. Cities in South Italy provide a relatively Greek setting for experiencing Greek literature, not least in theatres and in competitions.

Between the second and the sixteenth centuries CE, references to the Jewish exegete Philo of Alexandria occur exclusively in texts written by Christians. David T. Runia has described this phenomenon as the adoption of Philo by Christians as an “honorary Church Father.” Drawing on the work of Jonathan Z. Smith and recent investigations of the “Parting of the Ways” of early Christianity and Judaism, this study argues that early Christian invocations of Philo reveal ongoing efforts to define the relationship between Jewishness and Christianness, their areas of overlap and points of divergence. The introduction situates invocations of Philo within the wider context of early Christian writing about Jews and Jewishness. It considers how Philo and his early Christian readers participated in the larger world of Greco-Roman philosophical schools, text production, and the ethical and intellectual formation (paideia) of elite young men in the Roman Empire.

The distinct opposites of order and disorder, harmony and chaos were only knowable from social reality, after looking back at centuries of human behavior. The simultaneous projection of the concepts of order and of systematic correspondence from society onto nature could occur only after this knowledge had been attained. It led to origin of the doctrines of yin-yang and the five agents. The latter was initially conceived of expressly to explain social and political change. The doctrine of the five agents was expanded only in a second step to explain all kinds of change. Change is the temporary dominance of certain agents. The foundations for Chinese natural sciences were laid by 300 bc that led to the assumption of inherent laws. Law is the opposite of arbitrariness, or the randomness of actions, in which the decisions to act in one way or another follow no schematic instructions. They could arise from either emotions or from considerations of the present moment.

This chapter summarizes key themes and presents some final thoughts. The account in this book has been of philosophical schools trying to make sense of a puzzling phenomenon. As is always the case in looking at an intellectual history from this perspective, one may rightly raise the question of whether it has pertinence outside these rarified circles. Do the perspectives apparent in those texts allow us to gain new insights in other domains of culture? The remainder of the chapter offers a slightly closer look at a case study which provides an example for the kinds of insights that may be available. The vantage provided here gives new purchase on the divine signs in the culminating books of Homer's Odyssey, which are sending us a slightly richer message about Penelope than we have yet fully appreciated.