"It is seldom mentioned in the philosophical literature that the earliest advocates of Neoplatonism did not reside either in Greece or Rome, but in Africa. It is surprising to Hellenistic chauvinists to be reminded that Philo, Ammonias Saccas and Plotinus--the central players in Neoplatonism--were all Africans. After taking firm root in the Nile Delta, in due time it would move north to Rome and Athens and Byzantium .
"Some African-born philosophers like Marius Victorinus would come to reside in Rome, others like Bishop Synesius would remain in Cyrenaica. Christian teachers like Clement of Alexandria were among the earliest to set forth circumspect connections and distinctions between logos philosophy and the Christian teaching of God. The Neoplatonic influences on the early Augustine are well known. But what is seldom noted is that these influences appeared earliest in Africa before they migrated north.
"Modern intellectual historians have become too accustomed to the easy premise that whatever Africa learned, it learned from Europe. In the case of seminal Neoplatonism, however, its trajectory from Africa to Europe (a south to north movement ) is textually clear. But why is it so easy to forget or dismiss this trajectory? The tendentious premises of Harnack and Bauer have pervaded several generations of historians with this prejudice. Current corrective African scholarship now has the task of redefining this north-moving trajectory based on textual and factual evidence."
P.55-56, HOW AFRICA SHAPED THE CHRISTIAN MIND : REDISCOVERING THE AFRICAN SEEDBED OF WESTERN CHRISTIANITY by Thomas C. Oden (2007)

Friday, May 13, 2016
HOW AFRICA SHAPED THE CHRISTIAN MIND, excerpt
"It is seldom mentioned in the philosophical literature that the earliest advocates of Neoplatonism did not reside either in Greece or Rome, but in Africa. It is surprising to Hellenistic chauvinists to be reminded that Philo, Ammonias Saccas and Plotinus--the central players in Neoplatonism--were all Africans. After taking firm root in the Nile Delta, in due time it would move north to Rome and Athens and Byzantium .
"Some African-born philosophers like Marius Victorinus would come to reside in Rome, others like Bishop Synesius would remain in Cyrenaica. Christian teachers like Clement of Alexandria were among the earliest to set forth circumspect connections and distinctions between logos philosophy and the Christian teaching of God. The Neoplatonic influences on the early Augustine are well known. But what is seldom noted is that these influences appeared earliest in Africa before they migrated north.
"Modern intellectual historians have become too accustomed to the easy premise that whatever Africa learned, it learned from Europe. In the case of seminal Neoplatonism, however, its trajectory from Africa to Europe (a south to north movement ) is textually clear. But why is it so easy to forget or dismiss this trajectory? The tendentious premises of Harnack and Bauer have pervaded several generations of historians with this prejudice. Current corrective African scholarship now has the task of redefining this north-moving trajectory based on textual and factual evidence."
P.55-56, HOW AFRICA SHAPED THE CHRISTIAN MIND : REDISCOVERING THE AFRICAN SEEDBED OF WESTERN CHRISTIANITY by Thomas C. Oden (2007)

