Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible (1898)
PHILOS'OPHY. During his visit to Athens, Paul was encountered by certain philosophers of the Epicureans and of the Stoics, Acts 17:18, the two great moral schools of Greek philosophy. T. of an encounter between Christianity and Western speculation. , we recognize not only an outgrowth of Eastern speculation, but the prototype of that phantastic mysticism which afterward played so conspicuous a part in the history of the Eastern Church under the name of Gnosticism. Comp. 1 Tim 6:20.