Original scientific paper
Quid Athenae Hierosolymis ... Classical Education and the ‘Christian Republic’
Dino Milinović
; Filozofski fakultet Sveučilišta u Zagrebu
Abstract
While responding to the call for contribution to the volume of Prilozi povijesti u Dalmaciji consecrated to our eminent and honorable colleague, academic Nenad Cambi, I wish to step aside from the usual topics of classical and late antique archaeology and art history to consider the fate of classical education at the time when Christianity progressively came to dominate Roman society during the Late Empire. The reasons for choosing this topic is related to well-known interests of academic Cambi in the field of classical history, but also his continuing efforts in promoting the considerable humanistic literary heritage in Split and Dalmatia, in particular his involvment with Marulianum, the research center devoted to the work and life of the great renaissance poet Marko Marulić, known as the ‘father of Croatian literature’. The Christian ‘revolution’, as it was seen by Edward Gibbon, who painted a bleak picture of the process which transformed Roman Empire in the centuries following Constantine, had to find ways to deal with classical culture and education, which was considered to be the condition for belonging to the precious realm of hellenistisch-römische civilization, a bulwark against the sea of barbarians surrounding the ancient world of Greece and Rome. The ideal of education, in particular the knowledge of classical literature (litteratura quae omnium virtutum maxima est) led to the phenomenon of mousikos aner, an ideal which came to dominate the self-perception of men and women in the Late Empire, as manifested in contemporary images (Repräsentationsbilder), particularly in funerary art. For a considerable length of time, Christian elites did not have a uniform viewpoint on this issue. It varied from outright rejection (Tertullian), to secret admiration (as in Jerome’s dream). Eventually, the continuity of classical culture, assured by the institution of municipal schools and the university founded by Theodosius II in Constantinople, the importance of which was recognized by the generation of great theologians (Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianz, Augustine), assured the transmission of a large part of classical knowledge in Christian Europe. This served as fertile ground for renaissance movements during the Middle Ages (Carolingian, Ottonian), leading to the great blossoming of classically oriented humanistic research during the Renaissance, which helped shape modern Europe. Instead of Gibbon’s ‘revolution’, we should be speaking of the ‘Christian Republic’, as envisaged by Desiderius Erasmus, worthy successor to Saint Jerome.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
240632
URI
Publication date:
29.6.2020.
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