In his legendary introduction to An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Oxford University Press, Peter Millican had a paragraph discussing how Roman Empire expelled its seemingly political rivals:
Paraphrasing from Introduction, p. xi - xii
The Christianization of the Roman Empire had long since brought about the suppression of all the pagan schools of philosophy that had thrived in ancient Greece (such as the Academic and Pyrrhonian sceptics, the Epicureans, and the Stoics).
TIPThe Roman emperor Theodosius I ordered the destruction of pagan temples (including great libraries such as that in Alexandria) in 391; the emperor Justinian then suppressed all the remaining pagan schools in 529.
These rival traditions were then largely forgotten until the Renaissance, when pagan manuscripts that had been preserved in the Greek or Muslim worlds were brought west by scholars fleeing the Ottoman Turks. Suddenly a range of new intellectual horizons opened up, combining with other events to prompt a general questioning of traditional authority. Population growth, technological innovation (notably gunpowder), and the discovery of new lands, cultures, and religions unknown to the ancients, all provoked political, economic, and doctrinal instability. Finally the Reformation, starting with Martin Luther’s rebellion against the Church of Rome in 1517, led to widespread religious wars founded on philosophical differences: one side took Church authority and tradition as the criterion of truth, the other appealed instead to the Spirit of God acting within the individual believer. Suddenly traditional authority looked open to doubt, and the questions of the rediscovered ancient sceptics became highly relevant, inspiring natural philosophers (i.e. scientists) to examine the world with a more critical eye.
Reasons for Roman Empire Suppressing Pagan Schools
The Christianization of the Roman Empire necessitated the suppression of pagan schools of philosophy due to a fundamental and irreconcilable clash of worldviews spanning theology, metaphysics, ethics, and politics. This was not merely a dispute between competing religions, but a collision between two different conceptions of reality, truth, and the purpose of human life. The suppression, which culminated in Emperor Justinian’s decree closing the Platonic Academy in Athens in 529 AD, was the result of three primary factors:
- doctrinal exclusivity
- competing claims to ultimate truth, and
- the integration of Christianity with state power
Doctrinal Exclusivity vs. Philosophical Pluralism
At its core, early Christianity was exclusive in its claims. It preached one God, one path to salvation through Jesus Christ, and one authoritative source of revelation in its scriptures. This created an immediate and unavoidable conflict with the entire Greco-Roman philosophical and religious landscape, which was inherently pluralistic and syncretic.
Pagan schools like Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Neoplatonism offered different paths to wisdom and the good life. While they competed with each other, they operated within a broader culture that tolerated multiple divinities and viewpoints. A Roman citizen could honor the traditional gods, attend Stoic lectures, and consult an oracle without inherent contradiction.
Christianity shattered this model. Its monotheistic certainty declared all other gods to be false idols or, as early Church Fathers like Tertullian and Augustine argued, malicious demons in disguise. The central Christian message - “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6) - was a direct challenge to the very legitimacy of the philosophical schools. There could not be multiple truths or paths to fulfillment; there was only one. This made the philosophical schools not just incorrect, but dangerous and spiritually poisonous institutions leading souls to damnation.
Competing Metaphysical and Ethical Frameworks
Beyond the theological divide, the philosophical content of the pagan schools presented profound challenges to Christian doctrine. While some Church Fathers like Justin Martyr saw Greek philosophy as a “preparation for the Gospel”, containing “seeds of the Word,” others viewed it as a source of heresy.
- Aristotelianism: Aristotle’s metaphysics posed several problems. His concept of an eternal, uncreated universe directly contradicted the Christian doctrine of creatio ex nihilo (creation out of nothing). His “Unmoved Mover” was a distant, impersonal intellect - a First Cause - starkly different from the personal, interventionist, and loving God of the Bible. While later theologians like Thomas Aquinas would brilliantly synthesize Aristotelian thought with Christianity, for many early church leaders, these differences were too fundamental to bridge.
- Stoicism: On the surface, Stoic ethics - with its emphasis on virtue, self-control, and duty - had much in common with Christian morality. However, the foundations were entirely different. For the Stoic, the goal was ataraxia (imperturbability) achieved through reason and aligning oneself with the impersonal Logos, or rational principle governing the cosmos. The power for moral improvement came from within. For Christianity, human nature is corrupted by Original Sin, and salvation and virtue are impossible without the external grace of God. The Stoic emphasis on self-reliance was seen as a form of spiritual pride that denied the need for a savior.
- Neoplatonism: This was perhaps the most sophisticated philosophical rival to Christianity. It posited a single, transcendent source (the One) from which all reality emanates. While seemingly close to monotheism, Neoplatonism’s God was impersonal and salvation was a mystical, intellectual ascent back to this source. This clashed with the Christian belief in the Incarnation - the radical idea that the ultimate divine being, the Logos, became flesh in the person of Jesus. To the Neoplatonists, the material world was a lower emanation, a shadow of true reality, making the idea of God becoming a physical human being scandalous and illogical.
Integration of Church and State
The final blow to the pagan schools came when Christian doctrine became fused with Roman imperial power. Following Constantine’s conversion in the 4th century, Christianity gradually transformed from a persecuted sect into the official state religion. This process was solidified by the Theodosian Decrees in the late 4th century, which outlawed pagan sacrifices and worship.
Once Christianity became the ideological glue of the empire, the philosophical schools were no longer seen as mere intellectual clubs; they were perceived as centers of political and cultural resistance. They were institutions that kept alive the old “pagan” worldview, educated the non-Christian elite, and provided a powerful intellectual alternative to the state-sanctioned faith. Their existence represented a challenge to the vision of a unified Christian Roman Empire (corpus Christianum).
Emperor Justinian I’s closure of the Academy in 529 AD was the logical endpoint of this process. It was an act of statecraft intended to eliminate the last institutional vestige of a competing ideology. For the Christian empire to be truly universal and ideologically pure, the venerable schools that had defined ancient thought for nearly a millennium had to be silenced.
Aristotle Back to the Show
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, intellectual life fragmented. Knowledge of Greek declined precipitously in Latin-speaking Europe, and with it, access to the original philosophical texts. For much of the Early Middle Ages (often called the Dark Ages), the West knew of Aristotle primarily through a handful of his logical works (the Organon), which had been translated into Latin by the Roman philosopher Boethius. His more challenging and controversial works on metaphysics, ethics, and natural science were almost entirely unknown.
While these texts vanished from the West, they were preserved and treasured elsewhere:
- The Byzantine Empire: The Greek-speaking Eastern Roman Empire maintained access to the original texts.
- The Islamic World: More importantly for the West, as the Islamic Caliphates expanded, they came into contact with this Greek heritage. During the Islamic Golden Age (roughly 8th to 13th centuries), there was a massive translation movement. Scholars like Avicenna (Ibn Sina) and Averroes (Ibn Rushd) translated Aristotle’s works into Arabic, studied them intensely, and wrote extensive commentaries that sought to harmonize his philosophy with Islamic theology. Averroes became so famously associated with Aristotle that in the later Middle Ages, he was known simply as “The Commentator.”
Beginning in the 11th and 12th centuries, increased contact between the Christian and Islamic worlds, particularly in Spain (Al-Andalus) and Sicily, sparked a second great translation movement. Christian scholars, especially at the Toledo School of Translators, began translating Aristotle’s lost works - along with the rich Arabic commentaries - from Arabic back into Latin.
Suddenly, a flood of sophisticated, challenging ideas poured into a Europe that was just beginning to establish its first universities. The initial reaction from the Church was deep suspicion, just as it had been in the late Roman era. The “new Aristotle” brought back all the old problems:
- His claim that the universe was eternal, contradicting the Christian doctrine of creation.
- His concept of an impersonal “Unmoved Mover”, which was difficult to reconcile with the personal, loving God of the Bible.
- Averroes’s controversial interpretations, which seemed to deny the personal immortality of the soul.
This clash led to the Parisian Condemnations of 1210-1277, where the Church officially banned the teaching of many of Aristotle’s and Averroes’s works at the University of Paris. The pagan philosopher was, once again, a threat.
Despite the regulation from its authority, the Church was overall losing control of the intellectual narrative. An institution with absolute authority doesn’t usually welcome a disruptive outsider. The Church at that time needed a brilliant solution to several urgent problems that simple “rules” and dogma could no longer handle. Aquinas gave them the tools to win it back.
The Great Synthesis: Thomas Aquinas
The man who turned the tide was the Italian Dominican friar Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). He was a student of Albertus Magnus, who had already begun the monumental task of studying and commenting on Aristotle’s work.
Aquinas realized that Aristotle’s system of logic and rational inquiry wasn’t a threat to be destroyed, but a powerful tool to be used. He embarked on one of the most ambitious intellectual projects in history: a complete synthesis of Aristotelian philosophy and Christian theology. In his masterwork, the Summa Theologica, Aquinas argued that faith and reason were not in conflict. They were two harmonious paths leading to the same truth: God.
He masterfully used Aristotelian concepts to explain and defend Christian doctrines:
- He used Aristotle’s arguments about cause and effect to formulate his famous “Five Ways” (five rational proofs for the existence of God).
- He used the concepts of substance and accident to provide a philosophical explanation for the doctrine of transubstantiation (the belief that the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ).
- He used the framework of matter and form to explain the relationship between the human body and the soul.
By “baptizing” Aristotle, Aquinas transformed him from a pagan adversary into the greatest philosophical ally of the Church. He provided a rational, comprehensive, and systematic framework for Christianity that became the foundation of Scholasticism, the dominant medieval philosophy. After Aquinas, Aristotle wasn’t just a superstar; he was simply “The Philosopher.”
Learning From History - The Power of Synthesis
What can we learn from history from expelled Aristotelianism and embrace of its ideology again? From the historical cycle of Aristotelianism’s expulsion and later embrace, we can learn that ideas are judged not just on their content, but on their perceived utility and threat to the dominant ideology of the time. This story reveals timeless lessons about the pragmatism of power and more importantly the enduring power of synthesis.
Ideas are Tools, Not Absolutes
Institutions, even those claiming absolute truth, treat philosophies as tools. In the late Roman Empire, Aristotle’s ideas - like the eternity of the universe and the impersonal “Unmoved Mover” - were a direct threat to the narrative of a single, creator God central to Christianity. This made his philosophy a dangerous weapon for pagan intellectuals, and so it had to be suppressed.
Centuries later, the context had changed. The Church wasn’t fighting paganism; it was fighting sophisticated internal heresies and rival theologies. In this new battle, Aquinas demonstrated that Aristotle’s logical framework was the most powerful tool available for defending Christian doctrine. His concepts of cause and effect, substance, and potentiality became the intellectual bedrock for proving God’s existence and explaining complex doctrines. The philosophy itself hadn’t changed, but its function had. It went from a threat to a tool, and so it was embraced.
This teaches us that the acceptance or rejection of a body of knowledge often has more to do with its utility to the prevailing power structure than its intrinsic truth.
Looking at this issue from a different angle, we can easily grasp that Aristotle’s dominance was cemented by institutional and theological needs, not by winning some objective philosophical contest. This should raise everybody a strong urge to give equal weight to Stoicism and Neoplatonism as a great way to get a more complete and balanced picture of ancient thought, because they have been shown to be essentially equally important as Aristotelianism. Should readers agree with it, the best first step is to engage with one foundational primary text from each school that captures its unique spirit, paired with a reliable modern guide to give us context.
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Stoicism - Focus on Practical Ethics
Chapter 1 of the Enchiridion of Epictetus from a 1683 edition in Greek and Latin
Stoicism’s surviving texts are less about abstract metaphysics and more about living a good, resilient life. Our ideal starting point is Epictetus’s Enchiridion (which literally means “The Handbook”). The Enchiridion is a short, punchy, and incredibly direct summary of Stoic ethical principles. It’s not a dense theoretical work; it’s a practical guide on how to distinguish what we can control from what we can’t, and how to find tranquility by focusing only on the former. It’s the perfect distillation of Stoic practice. We can read it in an afternoon, but spend a lifetime mastering its lessons. It bypasses complex cosmology and gets straight to the heart of what made Stoicism so appealing to soldiers, emperors, and everyday people. Get a modern translation (like the one by Anthony Long or Robert Dobbin) and read through it. As we do, think about how its advice applies to our own daily challenges. This immediate, practical application is the key to understanding the Stoic mindset. After this, we can move on to Seneca’s Letters from a Stoic or Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations.
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Neoplatonism - Grasp the Metaphysical Vision
Neoplatonism is the opposite of Stoicism in this regard; it’s all about metaphysics and the soul’s journey to a transcendent reality. The foundational text is the Enneads, a collection of essays by Plotinus, compiled by his student Porphyry. It outlines a grand metaphysical vision of reality flowing from a single, ineffable source called “the One”, down through levels of being (Intellect, Soul) to the material world. Diving straight into the Enneads, however, is notoriously difficult, because Plotinus’s writing is dense, mystical, and assumes a deep familiarity with Plato. It’s not a “handbook” but a profound spiritual and intellectual meditation. Don’t try to read the whole Enneads at first. Instead, start with a good modern introduction that explains the basic concepts (The One, emanation, the ascent of the soul). A book like Plotinus: An Introduction to the Enneads by Dominic J. O’Meara can provide a crucial map.
TIPIn addition to Stoicism and Neoplatonism, there other pagan schools we can look at for the same reason. In particular, 2 other schools were incredibly influential in the ancient world and offer profoundly different ways of seeing the world: Epicureanism and Skepticism. They were marginalized for the same reason: their core tenets were even more incompatible with Christian doctrine than those of the Stoics or Neoplatonists.
Synthesis is More Powerful Than Suppression
History shows that suppressing a powerful idea rarely works in the long run. The knowledge of Aristotle was not destroyed; it was merely preserved elsewhere, waiting to be rediscovered. The ultimate victory for the Church was not its initial ban, but Aquinas’s brilliant synthesis.
By integrating Aristotle’s reason with Christian revelation, Aquinas created a system far more resilient and intellectually formidable than a faith based on revelation alone. This demonstrates a recurring historical pattern: cultures and belief systems that successfully synthesize new and challenging ideas with their own traditions are the ones that thrive and endure. Suppression creates martyrs and underground movements; synthesis creates a stronger, more comprehensive worldview. The story of Aristotle is a powerful reminder that the future often belongs not to the purists, but to the synthesizers.