St. Basil’s Guide to Cultural Appropriation
- sofiapbaker
- Dec 7, 2021
- 1 min read
Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the European Renaissance was the profound harmony it achieved between the classical and Christian elements in Western history. That harmony remained characteristic of Western schools down to recent times. It is worth reflecting on how it came about.
By the mid-fourteenth century, when Petrarch invented the studia humanitatis or humanities, the clamor of the ancient battle between pagan classical culture and Christianity, whose greatest monument was St. Augustine’s City of God, had been largely stilled. A new Christian civilization had grown up since the twelfth century that fed with gusto on the rich fare of Roman grammar, rhetoric, and law as well as Greek philosophy and medicine. Canon lawyers, above all Gratian—compiler of medieval Europe’s most influential canon law textbook—agreed that formed Christians in universities could read pagan books without damage to their faith. Medieval universities were in essence corporate bodies created and loosely supervised by religious and secular authorities. For the most part they were highly effective in preventing heresy and political subversion. Most university students intended to make careers in the Church or in lay government, and could be counted upon to do and say nothing that might blight their prospects of advancement…