I have invested quite a bit of thinking (this is the thirteenth post of this series) around the notion of philosophia as a way of life (with obvious reliance on Pierre Hadot's works Philosophy as a Way of Life and What is Ancient Philosophy?), and of Christianity as a philosophia. That ancient philosophy understood itself differently from present day academic philosophy would seem to go without saying (though the implications of that assertion are surely much more controversial), and that several important second century Christian documents present Christianity as a philosophia, similar though superior to ancient philosophiai, ought also be relatively uncontroversial. But whether one ought to invest in advocacy of the notion of Christianity as a philosophia is surely less obvious. What is important is to simply live the Christian faith as it has been passed down from the incarnate ministry of our Lord to today.
That is to say, the imposition of the structures of ultimate principles (logoi), a distinctive discourse (dialogos), and soulish exercises (askeses) is the imposition of external classificatory categories and structures that it is not clear arise naturally from within Christianity itself. That is to say, while the H