ABSTRACT
Platonic thought succeeded in being transmitted to the Latin middle ages to the extent that it was because it was largely compatible with Christian belief. Taking the form of Christian Platonism, its teaching of the significance of number and the maintenance of harmony through correct proportion was rational, detailed and definite. To confirm this, the principal sources of Christian Platonism, as far as the West is concerned, will be set out chronologically. Yet early Christianity, especially in Alexandria, was to embrace many of the ideas and methods of classical philosophy to the point where some of the tenets of the Pythagoreans would still be recognizable as almost Christian by modem believers. Marius Victorinus, who taught rhetoric in Rome and became a Christian convert in the middle of the fourth century, translated writings of Plotinus and other Neoplatonists into Latin which may have numbered among the works of Victorinus recorded by Alcuin at York.
