ABSTRACT
Christianity is the result of a fusion of Jewish religion and Greek philosophy. Second-century Christians welcomed Plato as a forerunner of Christianity and were happy to use as much of his philosophy as they could. The earliest Christian documents after the New Testament show no interest in philosophy. Moral philosophy underwent a profound change at the end of the fourth century BC. Christianity has drawn great strength from philosophy. No other religion has a philosophical dimension, or aspires to meet the perplexities of people who think of themselves as intellectual beings. There are greater difficulties in applying Aristotle's notions to the Eucharist. The theologians who did this in the Middle Ages believed in a special kind of matter they called 'Prime Matter', materia prima, and used this idea not only in theology but in physics and metaphysics.
