The Latin-Centered Curriculum

Most of us know enough to avoid earthy, four-letter Anglo-Saxon words in polite company. But who would think that saying the word humanism could have the same effect in some Christian circles? Why such hostility to a word that many of us struggle even to define clearly?

On the surface, the reason is understandable. “Humanism” is often used as a shorthand for atheistic secularism, a worldview that makes man the measure of all things. Understood in this way, humanism is the sin of idolatry turned into an ideology, and it is easy to see why Christians of all backgrounds would shun it.

But is this what classical educators mean when they talk about “humanism”? Why is it that the publishers of the Henle Latin series describe the goal of Fr. Henle’s course as “humanistic insight and linguistic training”? And what does all this have to do with “the humanities” or what David Hicks, in Norms and Nobility, refers to as “the Humane Letters” – the Great Books?

Listen to the words of one Christian humanist of the Renaissance:

"To each species of creatures has been allotted a peculiar and instinctive gift. To horses galloping, to birds flying, comes naturally. To man only is given the desire to learn. Hence what the Greeks called paideia, we call studia humanitatis. For learning and training in Virtue are peculiar to man; therefore our forefathers called them Humanitas, the pursuits, the activities proper to mankind." –B. Guarino

Just as liberal arts are those studies that are appropriate to free persons and that free our minds from ignorance, humanistic studies are those subjects that are appropriate to human beings and that “humanize” us. They prevent of from becoming, in C. S. Lewis’s words, mere “trousered apes.” Far from being in opposition to religious faith, they help us fulfill the Lord’s commandment to love Him with our whole mind. So it should come as little surprise that the most ancient Christian communities have treasured and transmitted humanistic learning – including that of pre-Christian, classical writers – as evidence that whatever is True and Good and Beautiful in human thought can only have its origin in the ultimate source of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.

So we find that the Eastern Churches venerate the Three Hierarchs – known as the Cappadocian Fathers in the West – as “patron saints of learning and educational values.” As Demetrios J. Constantelos explains:

"The teachings of the Three Hierarchs derived from the Bible and the Greek classics, because the object of both is the formation of the perfect human person, indeed the salvation, the theosis, of the human being. The Greek philosophers emphasized virtue, spiritual freedom, character. The practice of philosophical training and ascesis was the elevation of the human to the godly, (philosophia esti omoiosis theo kata to dynaton anthropos). People like the Three Church Fathers brought together the best of antiquity with the best of the new faith.

"By emphasizing the value of the Greek Classics, the Fathers acknowledged that there are many steps by which man ascends to the abode of truth, even though it is not an easy process to reach the climax. There are values in many schools of thought, and wisdom is not the monopoly of any one system. But in Greek thought and in Christianity there are two very rich inheritances which include values of tried worth – they are not conservative or static but galvanized values which have endured the trials of time and proven worthy of retention. The Three Hierarchs were not afraid to test everything which claimed even seeds of truth, for they believed that “Wherever good is to be found is a property of the truth” as Socrates Scholastikos, the Church historian writes.

"The question is, why was it necessary for the Three Hierarchs to reconcile the old heritage with the new faith? Why was it so necessary for the Church to place so much emphasis on the importance of Greek thought and learning in the Christian tradition? In simple terms, the Christian community considered the achievements of the ancient Greek mind as propaedeutic for the Christian faith, as providential and as a divine gift." (emphasis added)

Likewise, in the West, Christians grappled with how to handle ancient sources in light of the faith. Guided by the Church Fathers of East and West, they ultimately refused the wholesale rejection of the past and instead developed a balanced approach to classical learning:

"Now I meet an objection. You will be confronted by the opposition of the shallow Churchman. 'Why waste precious time studying such sources of corruption as the pagan poets?' They will quote Cicero and Plato, Jerome and Boethius, and will cry out for banishment of the very names of the ancient poets from the soil of your country. To this your answer can only be: “If this tirade indeed represents the serious opinion of my people, I can but shake off the dust from my feet and bid farewell to a land shrouded in darkness so appalling.” […] Nay, the Fathers themselves, Jerome, Augustine, Cyprian, did not hesitate to draw illustrations from heathen poetry and so sanctioned its study. […] Finally, it is enough to remember that Paul the Apostle availed himself of Epimenides or Menander to enforce a doctrine. Is not this a sufficiently strong position: 'You despise Paul’s authority; can you ask us then to respect yours?' […]

"The crucial question is: how do you use your authors? Basil has left us a clear guidance on the matter: we leave on one side their beliefs and superstitions, their false ideas of happiness, their defective standard of morals; we welcome all they can render in praise of integrity and in condemnation of vice… Herein is laid down an admirable principle by which we may be guided in reading all authors of antiquity. Wherever excellence is commended, whether by poet, historian, or philosopher, we may safely welcome their aid in building up the character." –Aeneas Sylvius (Pope Pius II) (emphasis added)

This principle remains in force; the current Catechism of the Catholic Church does not hesitate to quote Cicero on natural law and reason (§ 1956), and certain educational movements within the Church (e.g., Ignatian education) have long made the close study of worthy classical material central to their curriculum. This is Christian humanism at its most developed.

Nor was classical learning rejected by the Reformers and those who followed in their footsteps. From Martin Luther to Jonathan Edwards to modern Christian apologists like C. S. Lewis and Dorothy Sayers, humanistic studies have been a valued part of Christian intellectual formation.

If this approach of our spiritual forefathers’ and –mothers’ is sound, then we may safely eject the bathwater without sacrificing the baby in the process. We need not reinvent the educational wheel nor reject the Greco-Roman roots of our educational heritage in favor of so-called Hebrew methods. We need not create false dichotomies between “Latin-centered” education and “Christ-centered” education. To do so is to confuse means with ends. A Latin-centered education is not an end in itself, but undertaken in the light of faith, it may serve as one means to a Christ-centered life. Its humanism is not that of scientism or atheism, but that of the Fathers of the Church herself.

Drew Campbell is the author of The Latin-Centered Curriculum.