Christianity and Hellenistic philosophies experienced complex interactions during the first to the fourth centuries. As Christianity spread throughout the Hellenic world, an increasing number of church leaders were educated in Greek philosophy. The dominant philosophical traditions of the Greco-Roman world then were Stoicism, Platonism, Epicureanism, and, to a lesser extent, the skeptic traditions of Pyrrhonism and Academic Skepticism. Stoicism and, particularly, Platonism were readily incorporated into Christian ethics and Christian theology. Historic development Christian engagement with Hellenistic philosophy is reported in the New Testament in Acts 17:18 describing the Apostle Paul's discussions with Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. Christian assimilation of Hellenistic philosophy was anticipated by Philo and other Greek-speaking Alexandrian Jews. Philo's blend of Judaism, Platonism, and Stoicism strongly influenced Christian Alexandrian writers such as Origen and Clement of Alexandria, as well as, in the Latin world, Ambrose of Milan. Clement of Alexandria, demonstrated Greek thought in writing, The Church historian Eusebius suggested in his Praeparatio Evangelica that Greek philosophy, although in his view derivative, was concordant with Hebrew notions. Augustine of Hippo, who ultimately systematized Christian philosophy, wrote in the 4th and early 5th century, John Burnet (1892) noted The Neoplatonists were quite justified in regarding themselves as the spiritual heirs of Pythagoras; and, in their hands, philosophy ceased to exist as such, and became theology. And this tendency was at work all along; hardly a single Greek philosopher was wholly uninfluenced by it. In later days, Apollonios of Tyana showed in practice what this sort of thing must ultimately lead to. The theurgy and thaumaturgy of the late Greek schools were only the fruit of the seed sown by the generation which immediately preceded the Persian War. Conception of God Commentary from Sir William Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870, p. 620). One, or unity, is the essence of number, or absolute number. As absolute number it is the origin of all numbers, and so of all things. (According to another passage of Aristotle, Met. xii. 6. p. 1080, b. 7. number is produced) This original unity they also termed God (Ritter, Gesch. der FML vol. i. p. 389). These propositions, however, would, taken alone, give but a very partial idea of the Pythagorean system. A most important part is played in it by the ideas of limit, and the unlimited. They are, in fact, the fundamental ideas of the whole. One of the