Recently there has been a new marketing fad (sigh) amongst home schoolers tied to a “distinction” between Hebrew thought and Greek and Roman thought.
These groups attack a straw man by arguing against “Greek education” and advocating “Hebrew education.” I am sure from looking at their sites that these are good people with good intentions.
I agree with much of what they say. The Bible must be the center of any reading list. Virtue is the goal for any Christian parent in education . . . over skills or knowledge.
However, it is easy to demonstrate (in even a hasty blog post) that good intentions on sites like “Heart of Wisdom” combined with bad information are not going to help the Christian home school movement.
Classical Christian educators advocate traditional Christian education. They use some Greek and Roman texts, but use does not equal endorsement. In fact, to end confusion perhaps “classical” Christian education should be called “traditional” Christian education, since if “classical” means an emphasis on Greek and Roman thought as central than what we are advocating is not “classical.”
A quick scan at the Torrey Honor’s reading list will show that Greek and Roman texts do not dominate. They have their place in the history of ideas leading to the formation of Christianity and then we move on to see what Christians did with those ideas. The Bible remains central every term.
Reading Homer as one author amongst scores no more makes the curriculum “Greek,” than the Bible’s citations of Greek philosophers make it Greek philosophy.
The Trivium that Christian educators use is based on centuries of Christian thought and not simply on classical Greek and Roman thought as even a cursory reading of history will show.
Read Augustine on the pagans. He uses some of their terms, ideas, and rhetoric, but for Christian ends. Read Aquinas. Read Calvin. One sees the same appropriation of the best of Greek culture for use of the Church at play in these writers.
It is an abuse of history to argue that the varied educational methods that produced thousands of years of Church leaders are simply “pagan.”
We are not first-century Jews after all, but as Christians have our Greek New Testament firmly in hand and are the heirs of centuries of Christian thought on education. Should we throw all of that out? Must we throw out the stained glass, the Bach, all the art of the Renaissance?
Of course, we would do it if doing so would make us more holy, more likely to see God, but the history of the Church suggests that this fearful narrowness and over-worry about mental contamination has not been helpful, but has led to narrow pharisee-like sectarianism and cult-like behavior.
What does “Athens have to do with Jerusalem?” thundered Tertullian. “Nothing!” was his implication and so he failed to notice that the Roman and Greek ideas one gets from the very air of Western civilization (even if one home schools!) were driving him to heresy.
Better the more capable Eastern Fathers who could show disdain for the bad ideas in paganism while knowing them and using any technical vocabulary developed in Greek philosophy to clarify Christian ideas. . . or Augustine who loved God’s word, but relied on his Roman education (even when he did not notice!) to defend (and define) the Faith.
Shall we get rid of the Trinity or the doctrines of the two natures of Christ? These are Biblical (which is why we believe them), but are clarified and formulated best for the church using Greek terms borrowed from the philosophers.
The danger of “new ideas” is that they can lead to cult-like behavior. The nice thing about “classical/traditional” Christian education is there is nothing new about it. It is the fruit of a long process of development.
To simply associate it and the ideas behind it with Adler and the “Great Books” set as many of “Heart of Wisdom” people do is to give them credit for the six hundred years of Christian education at Oxford!
The problem with the “Heart of Wisdom” argument is not the intentions, but the reasoning.
First, the entire distinction between Greek and Hebrew thought is rarely spelled out and when it is the distinction is unsustainable.
What Hebrews? What Greeks?
The Greek Jews who translated the Bible into Greek, heavily influenced by Greek philosophers?
This Greek Bible was used by many New Testament writers and by most of the early Church. How shall we know where to begin to purge this influence from the New Testament?
Which Greeks? The atheists? The ones who welcomed Paul at Mars Hill (Acts 17), because he had the answer to their philosophical questions that had prepared the way for their reception of the gospel? The Platonists? the neo-Platonists? The Cynics? The Stoics? The Epicureans? They agreed on so little that making a chart of their beliefs as a unified whole is absurd.
One would be hard pressed to find a single doctrine on this chart that would command a majority of Greek philosophical support. It should disturb home school folks tempted to believe these folks that the chart is just wrong . . . not wrong from a worldly point of view, but wrong factually.
I am not disagreeing because I am not a traditional, conservative Christian, but because the chart cannot be defended . . . even from that point of view.
You can find that out yourself. Were the Romans just Greeks? Was Cicero just a Greek speaking Latin? The chart lists Roman writers under the catch-all Greek thought category.
If we allow for the general category Greek-Roman thought (summarized as Greek thought), then the authors lumped together on the chart can easily be found to have not agreed with each other or with many ideas on the chart.
Did Spartans educate like Athenians? No. This suggests “Greek educational methods” were a lot more complex than this chart suggests
Did Plato want students to memorize Homer? Safe to say (see Republic) that Plato disliked Homer’s lies about the gods.
Plato and Aristotle (to name two philosophers) believed in moral absolutes contrary to what is suggested on this chart.
Plato believed even Homer and the great poets could be judged by standards of absolute morality (”the good”). Aristotle’s Golden Mean did not apply to “base acts” and in Ethics he argues for a universal justice.
The fact that this chart can rapidly be shown false not just in some small details (as any hasty blog post like this might contain!), but in almost every point should cause the home school mom to lose faith in it.
Of course, the entire argument from the “Heart of Wisdom” folk depends on a false dilemma. Nobody (at least no sane Christian) is arguing for a return to pagan Greek education (whatever it is). Everyone (I know) is arguing for a return to traditional Christian education. This education includes Greek pagan texts, because traditional Christianity is not afraid of the roots of Western civilization.
The Bible is the center of all education, but half the Bible is written in street Greek. That Greek depends (in part) on the technical vocabulary built for centuries by Greek philosophers.
Greek culture helped make the world intellectually ready for the coming of Christ. Christianity itself shows heavy Greek influence. Three facts make knowledge of Greek culture vital.
First, the New Testament is written in Greek. The vocabulary used in the New Testament has a long history of development in Greek thought.
Second, much of the New Testament and the early Church used a Greek Old Testament. This book was also based on a language that depended on centuries of Greek thought. The relationship is very complex, but ignoring it does not make it go away.
Finally, Christianity was born and shaped in a Greek-Roman context (for the most part). This seminal influence matters and continues to matter. Christians in the West (or who can read the Western language of English) are a product of the interaction between Hebrew and Greek and Roman thought. We ought to know our roots.
Nobody is suggesting that Jewish/Hebrew thought is not more important to Christian thinking. The Old Testament is beyond vital . . . as the inspired word of God. The Bible is the central text to true Christian education.
We also cannot ignore the fact that Palestinian Jews of the first-century were themselves the product of a long interaction with Greek thought. There were no “insulated” Jews who did not receive this influence in God’s divine plan. Even “reacting” to an idea after all influences the way a person thinks . . . the act of rejecting bad pagan idea “x” will cause the person to think about “not x” which might (itself) be a new idea. Thus even in the act of rejection one culture can shape the other.
Here is one page from the Heart of Wisdom site.
I have copied some of it here and respond below each paragraph to show some of the problems in this well-intentioned movement that rejects what they do not even understand.
The Heart of Wisdom article begins with this Biblical quotation:
The Bible warns us about Greek philosophies:
Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. (Colossians 2:8)
Does the Bible warn against Greek philosophy?
The word “Greek” (suggested by the “Heart of Wisdom” writer) is not in the Greek (!) of this passage. What philosophy did Paul mean? He could have (after all) been referring to Jewish philosophy, Roman philosophy, or any number of different schools of Greek philosophy.
There is no reason to think that Paul is talking about specifically Greek philosophy of the sort Christian, classical education advocate reading, since whatever Paul is talking about is based on “elemental spirits/principles” . . . a pretty plain reference to the mystery religions of the day which Plato and Aristotle would not have viewed as philosophy at all!
It is interesting that most modern speech translations link “vain and deceitful” to philosophy in this way: “vain and deceitful philosophy.” Using the King James at the Heart of Wisdom site makes this Greek construction unclear to the modern reader. Since Saint Paul shows profound familiarity with Greek thought (including fairly obscure Stoic poets in places like Acts 17), it seems unlikely that he is talking about avoiding reading all Greek philosophers, but only the useless ones (and there were many of those!).
In fact, given the context (see verses 16-19) it appears more likely that Saint Paul was arguing against the use of gnostic or Grecian-Jewish religious-myths and not against Plato and Aristotle at all.
In any case, the most that can be said from this verse is that Christians should not be made captive to bad philosophy . . . and that is certainly true. Is there good philosophy? This verse implies there might be, but does not say. Since Paul used Greek philosophy (and Greek philosophical vocabulary) when it suited him, there might be . . . but in any case nobody should be “captured” by Greek philosophy.
To know a thing, even to understand it, is not to be captured by it. In fact, the “Heart of Wisdom” misunderstandings of Greek thought make them more likely to misread and misunderstand (and even adopt!) bad thought. It is hard to reject a thing if you don’t understand it.
The “Heart of Wisdom” folk say:
Under the ancient Greek system, learning begets goodness. Under the biblical system, goodness begets learning. All non-biblical education assumes that man can become learned without God. Biblical education makes knowledge the foundation of learning.
This is a “straw man” argument.
Of course, nobody is suggesting we return to the ancient Greek system. First, we are not Greek. Second, we are not ancients. Third, there is no one Greek system of education over the thousand years or so of Hellenism.
Next it confuses a classical use of “learning” and “goodness” with a Hebrew view as if the two could just be compared . . . . of course the Greeks never used the words “learning” or “goodness” since they were writing in Greek and the Hebrews (writing in Hebrew) also were not using these terms.
To simply compare the English words in translations done by different scholars who were after different things in different types of texts (classical versus Biblical) is bad scholarship.
For example, what Aristotle meant by “goodness” is complex . . . the English word only imperfectly captures his meaning. One has to read Aristotle carefully to begin to get the textual context of what he means. . . and we can be sure of this: he did not think a bad child could become a good child by education. He was eager to habituate the very young in virtue (a complicated word itself!) before what we would call formal education!
To simply take a sentence from Aristotle (for example) and compare it (in English) to what the English Bible says abuses both texts.
Finally, some Greeks acknowledged (even before the coming of the Christ), that no man can become learned without the help of God. Plato is one such example, but again nobody is suggesting that we just adopt Greek thought or methods.
Instead, classical Christian education centers on the Bible and then reconciles culture to Christ. Just as the Evangelist reaches out to pagans (and so runs the risk of being soiled by such contact!), the Christian mental evangelism works to find the Image of God dimly seen in early cultures, redeems, and reconciles it to God. This is not an easy task, but the fruitful formation of Western civilization was the result.
The “Heart of Wisdom” folk continue:
Greece was a once mighty empire. The ancient Greeks promoted beautiful fashion, fine dining, sonorous music, aesthetic arts, vigorous athletics, captivating entertainment, and a bevy of similarly stimulating activities. The ancient Greeks were the most advanced and sophisticated culture of their time. Were it not for their excellence (applying the principle to modern terms), we would not have heart transplants, ballet, air transportation or, for that matter, the Internet.
The Greeks were not at their greatest when a mighty Empire, though I am unclear what Empire they are talking about. Do they mean Alexander’s short term personal Empire? The tiny Athenian “empire?” As Plato, Thucydides, and any number of Greek writers would point out this “empire” was not Athens at her best.
Second, there was no single Greek culture or philosophy in any of the periods mentioned.
Finally, the rest of the paragraph is also false and gives the pagans too much credit . . . it was the appropriation of the best of Greek thought/philosophy (most of it opposed to the pagan religions) by Christians that allowed for the Christian university, modern science, medicine, and the great Western culture we celebrate.
It is that very precious appropriation these folk would destroy by pretending that classical/traditional Christian education is founded on paganism.
But wait, there is more:
So why didn’t the ancient Greek empire survive more than a few hundred years? Historians concur that they were destroyed by moral decay. Pursuing knowledge without God is a recipe for disaster. We simply cannot survive without clear moral direction.
What historians?
What Greek empire? There was no single pagan Greek empire that lasted “hundreds of years.” There were many Hellenistic states, there was the Empire of Alexander, and the successor states to it, but this reference is to a confusing entity or multiple entities.
There was a Greek speaking Christian Roman Empire that lasted one thousand years before being destroyed by Islam, but I doubt they mean Byzantium!
Ironically Plato would agree (see his attack on Homer in Republic) that a city-state (or nation in our context) cannot survive without morality.
However, morality in a nation is complicated. Were we more moral in the US when we had state sanctioned segregation than today? Surely not in that important way . . . racism is after all at least as bad as the sexual libertine behavior of our culture. The idea that it is easy to tell what particular moral problem brought on judgment to a nation was refuted for all time for Christians by Augustine’s classic (Latin!) text City of God.
Finally, the notion that a nations being destroyed is a sure sign of God’s judgment (by itself) and a nation enduring for a long time is (by itself) a sign of God’s blessing is sub-Christian thinking. The ways of God’s providence are hard to discern and some very wicked places are allowed to flourish for long periods of time while better nations are destroyed.
Does the destruction of the Jewish state at the hands of the Romans indicate Roman superiority? Should the “Heart of Wisdom” folk study Confucian literature given the long enduring nature of Chinese culture?
I think not.
The good news is that the reading list in High School of the Heart of Wisdom folk shows they do not actually sustain their bad ideas consistently. Whatever the problems this creates for the coherence of their philosophy of education, it is at least good news to students using the curriculum!
The Bronte sister’s books make the list . . . despite the obvious evidence of the very classical/traditional Christian education (and not a Jewish one!) they received from their Cambridge (ahem!) educated father. This traditional Christian education shows up in their writings.
The reading list also shows a weird prejudice against pre-Christian Greek pagans (like Homer), but a willingness (I think laudable) to read anti-Christian writers like Melville. The Heart of Wisdom folk will read Dickens (not a practicing Christian in their sense and pretty hostile to Evangelicals), but do not read Plato who agrees with much of their educational methods!
I know more Christians bitter (as Melville was) about conservative Christianity than I know traditionally educated folk tempted to worship Zeus. In fact, reading Homer makes my students glad NOT to be pagan idol worshipers while reading Melville poses real problems for them.
(I don’t think reading Melville is wrong, but I would like to see some consistency on the Heart of Wisdom people. Aren’t pre-Christian pagans less blameworthy than anti-Christian moderns?)
The fact that Eusebius appears on the Heart of Wisdom reading list is perhaps the biggest indication that the curriculum writers simply do not recognize Greek and Roman thought (or assumptions), because they don’t know them. Eusebius celebrates (in Constantine) the very appropriation of the best of Greek and Roman cultures that they wish to avoid. Eusebius celebrates the world view of classical/traditional education.
It appears the curriculum writers know that you cannot understand much of the West’s art, theater, or culture without knowing something about the classics. So they adopt the “quick hit” overview approach in their own text on the subject.
The danger of this approach is that it is (by its nature) superficial and can turn into textual abuse. An example of this can be found in the lesson on Plato at a recommended site. It is safe to say that almost nothing in it is true of the Platonic texts which it (I am sure unintentionally) abuses at every turn. Look at one sample section:
Quoting Plato from his Symposium: “I believe that the greatest good for a youth is to have a worthy lover from early on and, for a lover, to have a worthy beloved. The values that men need who want to live lives of excellence lifelong are better instilled by love than by their relatives or offices or wealth or anything else . . .”.
This misquotation from Plato would be funny if one did not know that many students will never know what has been done to them.
The Symposium is a series of speeches on love. To attribute every view in them to Plato would be like attributing every view held by characters in a play to the author . . . or Jezebel’s views quoted in the Bible to the Bible!
Most of the speeches in Symposium surpass each other in interest and complexity as the text develops. The passage cited appears to be from a speech by Phaedrus at the very start of the dialogue. This speech is criticized in the dialogue as grossly inadequate!
The view of love in it is explicitly rejected by Socrates (love is NOT a great god!) who does not simply express Plato’s view, but is closest to it. Saying this citation represents a view held by Plato is simply, hopelessly wrong.
In the Greek social life of his time, homosexuality was common love. Greeks, by this period, found it ‘natural’ for an older man to be sexually aroused by the physical beauty of a boy. Physical immorality was not to possess eternity, only the soul.
Plato opposed homosexuality. He condemned it in his Laws.
Not all Greeks (in any case) or even Athens for all its history believed in the homosexual practices described. There is no hint of homosexuality in Homer, for example. (See the Oxford Classical reference work for a quick summary of Greek views on homosexuality over the centuries.)
Safe to say, these statements are far too general to be useful . . . and are false about the one author cited, Plato.
Plato also began the era of the ’sophists’.
In fact Plato attacked the sophists at every turn and helped end their great era of dominance in Greek thought.
Shouldn’t it disturb parents that they are rejecting learning about authors based on arguments that do not even quote one of the most important of those authors correctly?
This is not the worst problem with the Heart of Wisdom reading list. The Heart of Wisdom student appears to miss some Christian authors whose omission is very disturbing while reading a fair amount of second-rate fiction by non-Christians. I love (really love!) the “All Creatures” series, but to read it in high school while missing Dante is indefensible.
I don’t agree with everything in Dante, but his work is enduring, formative for much of Western thought, contains more good ideas (by far) than bad, and is some of the best poetry ever written.
James Herriot’s works (safe to say) will not so endure, have not formed most of Western thought, are not written by “Heart of Wisdom” style Christians (in any case), and also contain bad ideas.
The “Heart of Wisdom” student misses the Vision of God at the end of Dante’s Paradise, but does get the whiskey-soaked wisdom of Tristan Farnon!
Do “Heart of Wisdom” students also miss Shakespeare? If they do, what is the justification of reading that old sinner Mark Twain and not the greatest writer in English who produced such masterworks of Christian redemption as Hamlet or As You Like It ? Why spend time with Twain, who hated the very sort of Christian they are, and miss Shakespeare who did not?
Of course Shakespeare, who helped create the very language we are using (and abusing!) to discuss this issue was a master of the very traditional Christian education I am defending.
Can the “Heart of Wisdom” folk name one great Christian writer who was not?
If so, then will they form a list of books (a curriculum) written ONLY by people who agree with their world view and stop using folk who were traditionally educated while decrying traditional Christian education?
The Heart of Wisdom folk risk reading books to educate their children in a way that guarantees that their children could not write the books they are reading.
It is perhaps not the heart of wisdom to manage to be both hypocritical (in works selected) and incompetent.
Modern Christians are not Jewish persons living prior to the first century. They should adopt the style of education developed over centuries of Christian faith and practice. The “Hebrew thought” movement looks well intentioned but does even understand the texts they reject.
A wonderful defense of the relationship of Greek and Christian thought from the leader of the Roman Church (much in it useful to non-Romans) is here.