You use the word "patristics" as a plural designation for the Fathers themselves. That's not standard usage. Patristics is the discipline that studies the Fathers; the men themselves are just "Fathers."
Among the motivations that might explain this habit, 1 a common one seems to be the desire to discover hidden pockets of the “plain and precious truths” otherwise garnished from the scriptures by the corrupting doctors of theology.
In my experience, this is not an accurate statement of the LDS motivation. Rather, they assume that anywhere the Fathers reflect LDS doctrine, they do so because of a received tradition. The LDS motivation is to point to this alleged tradition as evidence that their own belief system is a genuine restoration of early Christianity.
Because Alexandrian Christianity was thought to have been reared within the context of Hellenized Judaism, 4 this approach was not unreasonable to either of them.
You may want to change the bolded word to present tense?
The approach was eminently reasonable, because Greek philosophy was the science of their day. I have great respect for the Greek philosophers because, while they weren't correct on all counts, they got a lot of things right. The Early Church Fathers didn't just blindly adopt every crazy idea the philosophers had to offer; rather they applied their reason (we do believe that faith should be held in tension with reason, don't we?) and adopted those aspects of it that were compatible with the revelation recorded in the Bible and handed down in the received tradition. We do the same today when we adapt our teachings to the findings of modern science (unless we're evangelical fundamentalists).
One of the few Fathers who was definitely not influenced by Greek philosophy was the first century Clement of Rome, who, in his first epistle to the Corinthians, shares in the Apologist conclusion of creatio ex materia.15 First Clement predates the onset of the Greek influence in Christian theology. His ideas, while not ultimately canon, are definitely an accurate representation of the doctrines widely accepted by the membership of the church immediately following the Apostolic Age.16 The doctrine of eternal matter in First Clement operated within Christianity independent of classical philosophy.
We have no reason to believe that Clement of Rome operated in a vacuum. He certainly wasn't immune to cultural influences; we find him using the Phoenix as evidence of the resurrection. Greek influences aren't absent even in the writings of the Apostle Paul, though they are considerably more subdued there than in later writings. More importantly, the New Testament church was an heir to Jewish exegesis, and Jews had already been mulling the question over in light of the philosophers.
The fact remains, however, that the doctrine was not originally born of Platonic influences, as is often asserted.
It could probably be argued that it was born of pagan influences: think Ugarit or Sumeria.
As has been asserted by the Fathers, our created state is to blame for our eternally impotent nature. While Christ is dual in nature – having an eternal spirit and a mortal body - our spirit and body are only two sides to a single, composite nature, and that finite.23 In this definition we are again separated from God by the eternities. Some are optimistic that a link is found in the various Patristic mentions that we are working to return to a former state, but these statements refer not to our individual natures, but to that of the human family (i.e., Adam’s communion with God).
The distinction isn't always clear, especially among the gnostics. They believed that our souls were derivatives of the cosmic pleroma, and that our goal was to be reunited with it.
Considerations need to be made to find the source for the monotheistic dogma, and the scriptures don’t seem to be the best prospect. Throughout the Bible we are told of the existence of various beings clad in the title of “god.”
The Bible also, however, repeatedly insists that Yahweh is the only God. The easiest way to resolve this contradiction is to posit the existence of many gods but only one God, which is precisely what the Fathers did. There's no reason to look to Greek philosophy for the impetus to monotheism (though it made a nice supplement to what we find in the Bible). We rather find it in the pages of Isaiah, Deuteronomy, and maybe (if you're looking for outside influences) the Yasna.
Good paper.
-CK
