Christianity

Although frequently misunderstood as a "finished product", codified at once, Christian doctrine was instead formulated slowly, out of the complex, and often amorphous co-existence of various and diverse trends. Considering the chronological and geographic context, that is understandable.

The people mentioned unflatteringly as Philistines in Scripture were Greek-speaking; the term is simply a linguistic variant of the present-day word "Palestine", which is, in turn, a Latin version of the earlier Greek. Such a people, in close, everyday contact with Hebrews, Samaritans, and all the other Semitic peoples living in the Roman dominions of Judea, must have certainly exchanged views -- not necessarily in amicable terms, but surely on the level of mutual acquaintance with each other's religious/philosophical understanding of life and the world.

The tone of the prose in the Gospels sounds decidedly Stoic at times, and occasionally Epicurean.

As Christian doctrine "hardened" with time, however, it became openly hostile to Epicureanism, especially as regards Epicurus' fundamental negation of an involved, caring God. Christian critics maligned Epicureanism as a philosophy of self-indulgence and debauchery; this may have been truly their opinion of Epicureanism, or perhaps an excuse to defame it, as it posed a far more substantive threat to the cornerstone of Christianity and Abrahamic theism altogether.