The problem of appropriation of Hellenistic education is investigated in this paper on the example of 4th Speech by Gregory of Nazianzus. Paideia is declared by the emperor Julian as the property of the pagans philosophers, but the church father seeks to make it common cultural heritage. For purpose of argumentation he attributes it not to the sphere of religion, but of language. Hereby he secularizes the late antique paideia, but at the same time he deprives it of its religious foundation, and gives it exclusively instrumental value. The Olympic gods for Gregory are no longer real entities, but metaphors and allegories. I suggest that such an approach, adopted by Christian theologians, led to the decline of not only classical paideia as an educational system, but also paganism as a whole. Pagan Platonism, under the influence of this conception, was transformed into Christian Platonism.
     

paideia, Hellenism, Julian, Gregory Nazianzen, Neo-Platonism, Christianization

*Исследование выполнено при финансовой поддержке РФФИ в рамках научного проекта № 18-011-01243, «Формирование понятийно-категориального аппарата восточно-христианской философской и теологической мысли в III–IV веках».