Christian thinkers with a classical education
Hi,
After reading some of the discussion on the WTM board about pagan vs. Christian education, I thought of weighing in to say that many of our greatest Christian thinkers had an education far more like LCC than the neo-classical model. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, so can you all help me think of others to add to this list of classically educated Christian theologians?
Here's a beginning; please add to it (or correct me if I'm wrong):
St. Paul
St. Jerome? Other early fathers of the church (can someone help out here?)
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas More
Martin Luther
Erasmus
Other refomers (more help here, please)
Lancelot Andrews and his fellow translators of the KJV
Edmund Campion
Milton
C.S. Lewis
G.K. Chesterton? (don't know for sure, but am guessing so)
Why can't I think of anyone between Milton and C.S. Lewis? I've tried to list here only those whose primary contribution was in the realm of theology and religion, but we could cast a wider net and add
other Christians as well:
Shakespeare
Ben Jonson
Samuel Johnson
John Adams
other founding fathers
other poets?
JRR Tolkien
Best wishes,
Jennifer
Weren't all the founding
Weren't all the founding father of the US save Wahington classically educated?
Elizabeth
Single Mama to Annabelle who is five and a half because "I chopped that year right in half HIYA!"
Others...
Many of the early Fathers were classically educated. The "Three Hierarchs," as they're called in the Eastern Church - Sts. Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory the theologian - were among those who "baptized" the classical tradition. St. Augustine and St. John Chrysostom are two other classically educated luminaries, Latin and Greek, respectively. Virtually all medieval theologians in the West were educated in a traditional way - although often without the Greek component.
He's a bit before Milton, but another big name is Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits).
Many of the early Puritans were classically educated - Jonathan Edwards comes to mind - as were people like the Wesleys (their "Method" was first developed while they were attending Oxford). Of the 19th-century churchmen, John Henry Newman stands out, along with many of his contemporaries involved in the Oxford Movement. Tolkien, Lewis, Sayers, and others of the Great War generation were likewise products of classical training.
And you're right: if you move out to include scientists, poets, and so on, you'll find that many of them before the 20th century had some level of exposure to Latin and/or Greek. Less well known (at least to me until recently!) is the extent to which scientific research and technological development in the Middle Ages and early Modern periods were funded by the Church - and assumed the necessity of classical education. This book has a lot of information about that connection.
-Drew
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"Hardly any lawful price would seem to me too high for what I have gained by being
made to learn Latin and Greek. —C. S. Lewis
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