Many philosophers in the Medieval period aimed to reconcile theistic belief with pagan philosophy. Describe and then critically assess how successful you consider such attempts to be.

“Knowing what a thing is” and “knowing that a thing exists” are fundamentally distinct truths (Exodus 3:14).

Introduction:
Many philosophers believe that first century Christianity and the New Testament were heavily influenced by pagan philosophical systems. Nearly all of the medieval thinkers, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim were pre-occupied with some version of the attempt to amalgamate philosophy with religion. For example Philo Judaeus (Philo of Alexandria) (20 B.C.E.-50 C.E.) was an Alexandrian Jewish philosopher who tried to integrate Greek philosophy with Judaism by means of an mythical interpretation of the scripture. According to Philo, the personal God of scripture is identical with the Form of the Good in Plato. Accessed http://www.philosophypages.com/ph/plat.htm
As the concept and practice of mysticism developed through the early centuries of church history, it took on a very different form in the West than it did in the East. While Eastern orthodoxy focused ...