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The expression goes back to [[wikipedia:Justin Martyr|Justin the Martyr]] and to [[wikipedia:Clement of Alexandria|Clement of Alexandria]].
The expression goes back to [[wikipedia:Justin Martyr|Justin the Martyr]] and to [[wikipedia:Clement of Alexandria|Clement of Alexandria]].


Saint Justin (100-165 AD) affirms in his Second Apology:
Saint Justin (100-165 AD) affirms in his ''Second Apology'':
For I myself, when I discovered the wicked disguise which the evil spirits had thrown around the divine doctrines of the Christians, to turn aside others from joining them, laughed both at those who framed these falsehoods, and at the disguise itself and at popular opinion and I confess that I both boast and with all my strength strive to be found a Christian; not because the teachings of Plato are different from those of Christ, but because they are not in all respects similar, as neither are those of the others, Stoics, and poets, and historians. For each man spoke well in proportion to the share he had of the '''spermatic word''', seeing what was related to it. But they who contradict themselves on the more important points appear not to have possessed the heavenly wisdom, and the knowledge which cannot be spoken against. '''Whatever things were rightly said among all men, are the property of us Christians.''' For next to God, we worship and love the '''Word''' who is from the unbegotten and ineffable God, since also He became man for our sakes, that becoming a partaker of our sufferings, He might also bring us healing. For all the writers were able to see realities darkly through the '''sowing of the implanted word''' that was in them...
[https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0127.htm Second Apology, 13]


And Saint Clement of Alexandria (150-215 AD) affirms in his Stromata:
{{Quote
For, like farmers who irrigate the land beforehand, so we also water with the liquid stream of Greek learning what in it is earthy; so that it may receive the '''spiritual seed''' cast into it, and may be capable of easily nourishing it. The Stromata will contain the truth mixed up in the dogmas of philosophy, or rather covered over and hidden, as the edible part of the nut in the shell. For, in my opinion, it is fitting that the '''seeds of truth''' be kept for the husbandmen of faith, and no others. I am not oblivious of what is babbled by some, who in their ignorance are frightened at every noise, and say that we ought to occupy ourselves with what is most necessary, and which contains the faith; and that we should pass over what is beyond and superfluous, which wears out and detains us to no purpose, in things which conduce nothing to the great end. Others think that philosophy was introduced into life by an evil influence, for the ruin of men, by an evil inventor. But I shall show, throughout the whole of these Stromata, that evil has an evil nature, and can never turn out the producer of anything that is good; indicating that philosophy is in a sense a work of Divine Providence.
|text=For I myself, when I discovered the wicked disguise which the evil spirits had thrown around the divine doctrines of the Christians, to turn aside others from joining them, laughed both at those who framed these falsehoods, and at the disguise itself and at popular opinion and I confess that I both boast and with all my strength strive to be found a Christian; not because the teachings of Plato are different from those of Christ, but because they are not in all respects similar, as neither are those of the others, Stoics, and poets, and historians. For each man spoke well in proportion to the share he had of the '''spermatic word''', seeing what was related to it. But they who contradict themselves on the more important points appear not to have possessed the heavenly wisdom, and the knowledge which cannot be spoken against. '''Whatever things were rightly said among all men, are the property of us Christians.''' For next to God, we worship and love the '''Word''' who is from the unbegotten and ineffable God, since also He became man for our sakes, that becoming a partaker of our sufferings, He might also bring us healing. For all the writers were able to see realities darkly through the '''sowing of the implanted word''' that was in them...
[https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/02101.htm Stromata, Book 1 Ch. 1]
|author=[[wikipedia:Justin Martyr|Saint Justin the Martyr]]
|title=[https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0127.htm Second Apology, 13]
}}


While [[wikipedia:Eusebius|Eusebius of Caesarea (260-339 AD)]], in his Praeparatio Evangelica, affirms that the Greeks were clearly influenced in their philosophy by the Hebrew Scriptures, thus affirming from another point of view that the best in human culture was influenced by the Word of God:
And Saint Clement of Alexandria (150-215 AD) affirms in his ''Stromata'':
THE preceding Book, which is the tenth of the Evangelical Preparation, was intended to prove by no statements of my own, but by external testimonies, that as the Greeks had contributed no additional wisdom from their own resources, but only their force and elegance of language, and had borrowed all their philosophy from Barbarians, it was not improbable that they were also not unacquainted with the Hebrew Oracles, but had in part seized upon them also; seeing that they did not keep their hands clean from theft even of the literary efforts of their own countrymen...
 
{{Quote
|text=For, like farmers who irrigate the land beforehand, so we also water with the liquid stream of Greek learning what in it is earthy; so that it may receive the '''spiritual seed''' cast into it, and may be capable of easily nourishing it. The Stromata will contain the truth mixed up in the dogmas of philosophy, or rather covered over and hidden, as the edible part of the nut in the shell. For, in my opinion, it is fitting that the '''seeds of truth''' be kept for the husbandmen of faith, and no others. I am not oblivious of what is babbled by some, who in their ignorance are frightened at every noise, and say that we ought to occupy ourselves with what is most necessary, and which contains the faith; and that we should pass over what is beyond and superfluous, which wears out and detains us to no purpose, in things which conduce nothing to the great end. Others think that philosophy was introduced into life by an evil influence, for the ruin of men, by an evil inventor. But I shall show, throughout the whole of these Stromata, that evil has an evil nature, and can never turn out the producer of anything that is good; indicating that philosophy is in a sense a work of Divine Providence.
|author=[[wikipedia:Clement of Alexandria|Clement of Alexandria]]
|title=[https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/02101.htm Stromata, Book 1 Ch. 1]
}}
 
While [[wikipedia:Eusebius|Eusebius of Caesarea (260-339 AD)]], in his ''Praeparatio Evangelica'', affirms that the Greeks were clearly influenced in their philosophy by the Hebrew Scriptures, thus affirming from another point of view that the best in human culture was influenced by the Word of God:
 
{{Quote
|text=THE preceding Book, which is the tenth of the Evangelical Preparation, was intended to prove by no statements of my own, but by external testimonies, that as the Greeks had contributed no additional wisdom from their own resources, but only their force and elegance of language, and had borrowed all their philosophy from Barbarians, it was not improbable that they were also not unacquainted with the Hebrew Oracles, but had in part seized upon them also; seeing that they did not keep their hands clean from theft even of the literary efforts of their own countrymen...
  Moreover in the same Book we learned by the comparison of dates that they were very young in age as well as in wisdom, and fell very far short of the ancient literature of the Hebrews.
  Moreover in the same Book we learned by the comparison of dates that they were very young in age as well as in wisdom, and fell very far short of the ancient literature of the Hebrews.
  Such were the contents of the preceding Book: but in this present one we hasten on at once to pay as it were a debt, I mean the promise which was given, and to exhibit the agreement of the Greek philosophers with the Hebrew Oracles in some if not in all their doctrinal theories.
  Such were the contents of the preceding Book: but in this present one we hasten on at once to pay as it were a debt, I mean the promise which was given, and to exhibit the agreement of the Greek philosophers with the Hebrew Oracles in some if not in all their doctrinal theories.
([http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/eusebius_pe_11_book11.htm Eusebius of Caesarea, Praeparation Evangelica, Book XI])
|author=[[wikipedia:Eusebius|Eusebius of Caesarea]]
 
|title=[http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/eusebius_pe_11_book11.htm Eusebius of Caesarea, Praeparation Evangelica, Book XI]
}}


The patrologist Berthold Altaner (Patrologia, Marietti, 7ª ed., 1977) writes in regards to Justin the Martyr and his expressios “seeds of the Word”:
The patrologist Berthold Altaner (Patrologia, Marietti, 7ª ed., 1977) writes in regards to Justin the Martyr and his expressios “seeds of the Word”:


«Con la sua teoria del λόγος σπερματικός [logos spermatikos] Giustino getta un ponte tra la filosofia antica e il Cristianesimo. In Cristo apparve, in tutta la sua pienezza, il Logos divino, ma ogni uomo possiede nella sua ragione un germe (σπέρμα) del Logos. Questa partecipazione al Logos, e conseguente disposizione a conoscere la Verità, fu in alcuni particolarmente grande; cosí nei Profeti del giudaismo e, fra i greci, in Eraclito e Socrate. Molti elementi della verità sono passati, cosí egli opina, nei poeti e nei filosofi greci dell’antica letteratura giudaica, poiché Mosè era ritenuto lo scrittore assolutamente piú antico. Di conseguenza i filosofi, in quanto vissero e insegnarono conformemente alle regole della ragione, furono dei Cristiani, in un certo senso, prima della venuta di Cristo. Tuttavia solo dopo questa venuta i Cristiani sono entrati in possesso della verità totale e sicura, priva di ogni errore. Il pensiero teologico di San Giustino è fortemente influenzato dalla filosofia stoica e platonica» (pp. 70-71).
{{Quote
|text=Con la sua teoria del λόγος σπερματικός [logos spermatikos] Giustino getta un ponte tra la filosofia antica e il Cristianesimo. In Cristo apparve, in tutta la sua pienezza, il Logos divino, ma ogni uomo possiede nella sua ragione un germe (σπέρμα) del Logos. Questa partecipazione al Logos, e conseguente disposizione a conoscere la Verità, fu in alcuni particolarmente grande; cosí nei Profeti del giudaismo e, fra i greci, in Eraclito e Socrate. Molti elementi della verità sono passati, cosí egli opina, nei poeti e nei filosofi greci dell’antica letteratura giudaica, poiché Mosè era ritenuto lo scrittore assolutamente piú antico. Di conseguenza i filosofi, in quanto vissero e insegnarono conformemente alle regole della ragione, furono dei Cristiani, in un certo senso, prima della venuta di Cristo. Tuttavia solo dopo questa venuta i Cristiani sono entrati in possesso della verità totale e sicura, priva di ogni errore. Il pensiero teologico di San Giustino è fortemente influenzato dalla filosofia stoica e platonica
|author=Berthold Altaner
|title= Patrologia, Marietti, 7ª ed., 1977, pp. 70-71
}}


=== Roots in the Gospel and the New Testament writings ===
=== Roots in the Gospel and the New Testament writings ===