Key Idea Identification: Christian Humanism
One of the key ideas in this week’s reading of Petrarch, Luther, and Comenius, was that the ultimate purpose of humanist study that they envisioned was not to become learned, but to become good. Wisdom and virtue, they believed, are much more useful in one’s daily life than erudition, and that society and culture as a whole benefits from such an individual’s study of wisdom, rather than devoting oneself to a mastery of technique.
Plato states, in Laws,
“At present, when censuring or commending a man’s upbringing, we describe one man as educated, and another as uneducated, though the other may often be uncommonly well educated in the trade of a pedlar or skipper or some other similar education. The education we speak of is training in childhood in goodness, which makes a man eagerly desirous of becoming a perfect citizen, understanding how both to rule and to be ruled righteously. This is the special form of nurture to which, as I suppose, our present argument would confine the term ‘education,’ whereas, an upbringing which aims only at moneymaking, or physical strength, or even some mental accomplishment devoid of reason and justice, it would term vulgar and illiberal and utterly unworthy of the name ‘education.’ ”
The humanist era saw the recovery of the secular and humane philosophy of Greece and Rome, which led to the rebirth of individualism, long suppressed by the Church and feudalistic society. Medieval Christianity restricted individual expression and demanded implicit faith and unquestioning obedience.
The intellectuals of ancient Greece and Rome, in contrast, were more interested in how to live wisely rather than the assurance of ultimate salvation. When Petrarch and his fellow humanists read classic literature, they were infected with an appreciation of worldly knowledge, social values, and secular attitudes, in spite of their formal Christian training. Humanism became the terminus of the Middle Ages and the beginning of modernism.
Petrarch confessed in his letter to posterity that he always disliked his own age, saying that he lived between two worlds: “I would have preferred to have been born in any other time than our own.” The brutish times he lived in, the ravages of the Plague and the deaths of so many of his friends, may have stirred him to look for an answer outside of his traditions. He found himself suspended between medieval supernaturalism and secular human interests, and sought to bridge the chasm. The world of the medieval Christian no longer existed for him, but he had not yet found an alternative to provide principle and stability. And though a devout Christian, he worshipped the brilliance of Cicero and other classic writers, and sought their wisdom and moral discipline:
“Nothing moves me like the examples of famous men. For it helps the soul to rise up, to test whether there is anything solid, noble, indomitable, and unbroken in it in the face of adverse fortune, or whether it has lied concerning itself. Except through experience, which is the surest teacher of things, this certainly happens in no better way than if I compare my soul to those whom it wants most to be alike.” Familiar Letters VI,4
Individualism and curiosity were cultivated to counter unreasoning faith. The skeptical viewpoint became accepted, and the spirit of individualism, to a degree, incited the Protestant revolt led by Luther, which, in theory, embodied a thorough application of the principle of individualism in religion.
Luther’s idea of a Christian school also stated the need to study and understand the classics as a way to maturity and to understand the Gospels: “In the meantime, the mind will be exalted by the sublimity of the heroic verse, and will conceive ardor from the magnitude of affairs and be endowed with the noblest sentiments, as Augustine also approves in his first book of the City of God.” And quoting Cicero: “ ‘… history is the witness of time, the light of truth, the teacher of life, the messenger of antiquity.’ Therefore it is advantageous to know as many histories as possible and to train yourself in them, so that, by the example of others, you may know how to follow what is useful and to avoid what is harmful.”
To Comenius, education was not merely the training of a child, but a process affecting a man’s whole life and all the adjustments he must make to contend with society. And Comenius’ concept of moral education – that men should be taught to be wise, honest, and pious – shows a preference for humanist experience, rather than compulsion or indoctrination:
“The virtues are learned by constantly doing what is right…. it is by learning that we find out what we ought to learn, and by acting that we learn to act as we should. So then, as boys easily learn to walk by walking, to talk by talking, and to write by writing, in the same way we will learn obedience by obeying, abstinence by abstaining, truth by speaking the truth, and constancy by being constant. But it is necessary that the child be helped by advice and example at the same time. If this universal instruction of youth be brought about by the proper means, none will lack the material for thinking and doing good things. All will know how their efforts and actions must be governed, to what limits they must keep, and how each must find his right place….”
In the early part of the fifteenth century, Leonardo Bruni, a humanist scholar and contemporary of Petrarch, wrote to a scion of a Florentine family, urging him to devote himself to a new educational program, concerning life and morals, known as studia humanitas:
“Let your study be twofold, first in the skill of letters … and second in the knowledge of those things which pertain to life and moral character (mores). These two are therefore called the humanities (studia humanitatis), because they perfect and adorn a human being (homo).”
Barclay, William. (1959). Educational Ideals in the Ancient World. London: Collins Clear-type Press.
Jerrold, Maud. (1909). Franceso Petrarca, Poet and Humanist. London: J. M. Dent and Co.
Proctor, Robert E. (1988). Education’s Great Amnesia: Reconsidering the Humanities from Petrarch to Freud. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
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