Convergencias y divergencias entre el epicureísmo y el cristianismo primitivo

Abstract

The objective of this work is to study the convergences and divergences between Epicureanism and early Christianity, since they participate in the same Hellenistic cultural world. Our claim is to limit ourselves to the Christianity of the first century, more specifically, to the writings of Saint Paul. However, as Epicureanism extends from the fourth century BC., until the third century AD., we will make inevitably several references to the Church Fathers of the second and third century, which directly refer to Epicureanism. At first, we will study the differences between Epicureanism and Christianity, since there are aspects of Epicurean teachings that are unacceptable to Christianity. Next, we will analyze the similarities of Epicureanism with early Christianity. And we will see that some matters of the Epicurean teachings have common elements with Christianity or that certain affinities can be found. We will focus on this aspect that perhaps due to anti-epicurean propaganda has been ignored or has been more obscured throughout history.