>>708700
> Does it factor into Christian theology at all?
Sort of. the first Christian to use the idea of hypostasis in reference to the Trinity (Father-Son-Spirit) was Origen who was a colleague of Plotinus (who used the term in reference to the trinity of Soul/Intellect/One) both were students of Ammonius Saccas.
The idea of the privation of evil, that it has no substantial existence (evil is a lack of substance, a corruption, a deformity of the good that exists) is Platonic.
They're similar in themes but I wouldn't say they borrowed from each other. They both believe in objective morality, judgement of the soul, hell/heaven, eternal truths and the immaterial realm.
But the details are very very different, for example:
Plato invoked the Story of Er to present his soteriology. Upon death a soul travels upward or downward, and is judged by the fates/judges, the bad souls go to hell and experience 10x punishment for each sin they commit earth, the good souls go to heaven and experience 10x reward for all the good they did. If they are really horrible (evil tyrants)they may stay in hell forever, if they are a pure saints they may stay in heaven forever. The normie souls, after their experience of heaven or hell, get to pick what they will reincarnate as in the next life, then they drink the waters of Lethe which makes them forget everything, and emerge in a new iteration of embodied existence. This factors into his theory of knowledge, that all true knowledge is actually a sort of remembering what was forgotten, the more you remember who you actually are the more you traverse the ladder of divine ascent toward the forms and truth and the less material reality can confuse and enslave you.
So for a Platonist the path to salvation is one of knowledge/wisdom, while for the Christian its the path of submission to a savior, dependence on Christ and love of a particular man as your God. Plato in critiquing normies who love Poets and Athletes said never to revere any man above the truth. In Christianity a man IS the truth, so this would seem bizarre to a Platonist.
>Gnostic trash?
No. Plotinus ranted against the gnostics of his day. They were dualists, they were hypocrites, and they thought all matter/earth/nature was evil and that an evil God trapped them in the world, and only through their secret teachings could they break the "spell" and some taught suicide wasn't evil, etc… A platonist is a monist and thinks matter is neutral and the world is actually beneficial because it allows one the opportunity to purify themselves, seek virtue and the truth, each rebirth is precious, suicide is an evil and weighs the soul down with burdens, it should be avoided. etc. They differed on a lot of things.
>Are Christians interested in Plato practicing syncreticism, or is Platonism built into Christian doctrine from the beginning?
They share similarities because both systems are seeking the truth and inevitably reach similar conclusions: there is an umoved mover, an eternal principle behind the world, we have an immortal soul, we have a connection to the divine, everyone will be judged, etc. But they reach their beliefs in different ways, Christianity does it by revelation and the authority of prophets, Plato does it by reason and intuition and meditation.
A Platonist shouldnt be a syncretist, if he finds a god/religion whose rites are beneficial he should stick to that and not mix-and-match others.