Philanthropia and the Criticisms of Christianity(<Special Issue>Criticism of Religion)

Abstract

In this article I make a survey of some criticisms of Christianity in the first four centuries C.E. in relation to the concept of philanthropia. In 64 C.E. the Christians in Rome were persecuted by the emperor Nero. Tacitus, the famous Roman historian, has written about this in his Annales 15, 44, that the Christians were executed for their "hate toward mankind" (odium humani generis=misanthropia). The Christians were viewed by the Romans as those who were antisocial in the Roman Empire. Against this criticism Justin of Rome pointed to the philanthropia of the Christians in his Second Apology 10;1 (ca.155 C.E.). According to Justin, God is philanthropos and the Christians imitate their philanthropical God. In about 247 C.E. Origenes of Alexandria wrote Contra Celsum, which tried to refute the criticisms of Celsus the philosopher against Christianity. Celsus had made the criticism that God must not be incarnated into a human being because God is perfect in himself and need not to change himself (CCels. 4 14). Against this Origenes replied that God is essentially philanthropical, so he became a human being. He did not, Origenes said, change himself, but remained essentially as same as He had been, because He is always philanthropical. In the fourth century Julian the Apostate criticized in his Letter to a priest that the Christians cared for the poor people and by their practice "atheism" (which refers to Christianity), spread over the Roman Empire. In 372 Basil made a hospital for the poor near Caesarea. He practiced the care for the poor who were affected with leprosy and thus showed his philanthropia. In this period philanthropia meant philoptochia, and Christianity spread philanthropia as philoptochia throughout Roman society and developed itself in the Roman Empire. In the midst of these criticisms in the first four centuries, Christianity has practiced and thought of philanthropia and theologicaly and practically developed itself.