early Christianity was much more comfortable appealing to pagans. by the time of Constantine, paganism was defunct, and there was no longer any need to appeal to those elements. Thus, any theology that gave any credence to pagan elements was suppressed or quietly swept under the rug, but if you look into it you will find very bizarre possibilities on how we could see Christian doctrines. For example, the talking snake of Eden had not been identified with Satan. In Christian circles he was, but this teaching is either Moses or Pherecydes of Syros. Many early Christian arguments rely on the pseudo-historical idea that all Greek philosophers and oracles learned of Moses in Egypt, and thus that retroactively explains any ideas Greeks had that sound good as they are just from Moses. Pherecydes of Syros is probably not the source origin on an evil snake, obviously, but Christians were legitimately worried that his evil Ophione was actually where this whole snake hubbub was about. Josephus, Clement and others had to repeat over and over that the pagan oracles were wrong and contradictory, the philosophers were wrong and contradictory but also simultaneously that they had learned from Moses through Egypt and that they also were maybe secretly Christians hiding from the evil former pagan tyrannies and also simultaneously they were publicly revealing Christian oracles like mentioning Adam and Jesus hundreds of years ago. It may seem ludicrous to us now that they would say those things, like say pagan mythological figures like Orpheus were real but went to Egypt, but who was gonna fact check it? No one; it was as part of the mythology of the 1st and 2nd century as Ophione was or the Eden snake only later when it seemed obviously violation of christian theology on revealed truth or prophecy was it swept under as apocrypha. heads I win, tails you lose.