Hellenic Paideia
and Church Fathers - Educational Principles and Cultural Heritage
Lecture delivered by Fr. Dr. Demetrios J. Constantelos
To The Hellenic Society Prometheas in celebration of the Greek Letters Day
On
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Although the tension between Greek
thought and Christian faith has never been absent from the history and
experience of Hellenism, a synthesis and a balance was achieved in the fourth
century thanks to the intellect of persons like Basil the Great, Gregory of
Nyssa, Gregory the theologian, Cynesios of Cyrene,
Socrates Scholastikos and others who were trained in
the Greek classics and the Holy Scriptures. A student of early Christianity
soon discovers how often ideas from the wisdom of the ancient Greek compliment
rationally some of those in the Gospels and the literature of the New
Testament.
Thinking rightly, reasonable
assumptions, a dialogic approach to issues and problems that divide nations and
communities; a search for a balance in the conflict between belief and reason;
a sense of what is right and wrong; the principle that it is more ethical to be
treated unjustly than treat anyone unjustly, as Socrates advised; the belief
that each deed leaves its imprint in one's deepest inner self; the conviction
that there is a correlation between right thinking and correct action, patient
suffering and ultimate victory, knowledge and the overcoming of evil - these
are some of the fundamental educational ideals of the ancient Greeks.
But their emphasis
on logic, democratic living, knowledge, cultivation of the inner person were
not viewed as guarantees for the elimination of evil. The Greeks summed up all
their educational ideas in two words: "know thyself";
do not commit the sin of "hubris", unforgivable arrogance which sees
the mortal as immortal, the human being as equal to or above the divine.
"Know thyself" meant that every human being
must think rightly about the self, the divinity, the laws of life, and nature.
Man must remember his limitations and his strengths; his weaknesses and shortcomings, but also his abilities. One must remember that
one is mortal and live accordingly.
But the mortal was educated for
immortality. Man was not God but called to become "like god". The
human was not a divinity, but he possessed the potential of becoming divine.
Whether in ancient or Christian Hellenism, Greek thinkers emphasized that there
is an affinity between humanity and divinity. Both the Parthenon on the
Acropolis of Athens, and Hagia Sophia in
"By each of us there stands
straightway from birth a kindly spirit-guide to lead us through the
labyrinthine mysteries of life. And we must never think this spirit evil, nor
filled with wickedness to harm our lives, but always hold God good in
everything. Those who themselves turn base in character and complicate their
lives exceedingly, wen they have ruined all through
heedlessness, declare and hold as cause this spirit-guide, and make him evil,
becoming themselves", in the words of Menander.[1] (342-290 BC).
Humility was perceived by the Greeks
not as weakness but as realistic knowledge of ourselves
and our environment. Love for self and the cosmos were appreciated as the crown
of all ethical virtues. The formation of character, the making of the "kalos kagathos anthropos" (the good and virtuous person), was the
ultimate purpose of education. And character is the result of some cardinal
virtues. Aeschylos speaks of the sophron, dikaios, agathos and eusebes aner, the
man of self-control, justice, goodness and piety. It is character that
differentiates the logical from the illogical animals. "Good breeding in
cattle depends on physical health, but in human beings on a well-formed
character," writes Demokritos.[2]
Man is "a miniature cosmos - a microcosm," in the words of the same
philosopher,[3]
and he must live in conformity with the orders, beauty, harmony and laws of the
cosmos.
It was in the light of these and
several moral precepts and ethical standards of the ancient Greeks that early
Christian Fathers saw in ancient Greek thought elements or germs of divine
revelation. The Cappadocian fathers in particular and
the Alexandrian and several Antiochian theologians
formulated the attitude of Orthodox Christianity toward the ancient Greek
heritage. Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory the theologian and John
Chrysostom were contemporaries who lived between 329 and 407 of our era. They
became successful men of letters, great theologians and church leaders. They
had studied in
The fourth century of our era was one
of the most critical in the history of Western Civilization. It was an age of
major social, economic, political, and religious upheavals and changes. Old
institutions and religious beliefs were in decline and Christianity emerged as
the dominant movement. The new faith engaged in a dialogue and conflict with
Greco-Roman culture. Readjustments, reformations, compromises, departures from
the past as well as new beginnings became characteristics of the fourth
century. Christian Hellenism received its final form in the fourth and fifth
centuries.
Education and educational values
became the concern of the new era. The Three Hierarchs played such a great role
in the events and developments of the fourth century that the faithful for
several centuries contended as to which one of the three was the most
important. It was in the eleventh century, however, that the Church proclaimed
their equality and set aside a special day of the year to commemorate all
three. Ever since, the Three Hierarchs have been the patron saints of learning
and educational values. But what was their educational ideal? And what were the
sources from which they derived their ideal?
No one of the Three Fathers composed
a philosophy of education or an educational manual. Only Basil wrote a brief essay
for young people. Chrysostom delivered several sermons on various issues
peripheral to education. Nevertheless, all three have been proclaimed
"Ecumenical teachers". Why? They deserve this appellation because
even though they wrote no manuals, they wrote a great deal of educational
value. Their educational ideas are dispersed in their doctrinal, apologetic,
hermeneutical, and other writings. Indeed we could reconstruct some of their
educational ideals. Here we can provide only a brief summary of their thought.
The educational ideal of the Three
Hierarchs was the training of the human being into a cultivated person, whose
ultimate goal is the formation of a god-like ikon.
The fathers addressed themselves to the question: when is a person educated? To
be sure, a high school or college degree, technical knowledge, accumulation of
data and facts, certificates of graduation, wealth, social status do not
necessarily make the educated person.
For all times, an educated person is
one who has developed a character, a person who possesses a core of tried
values. An educated person is one who is thoughtful, kind and considerate; one
who has a proper regard for the rights, the liberties and the privileges of his
fellow men. An educated person is modest and unassuming, searching and
inquisitive. He does not think of himself as the center around which mankind or
his neighborhood revolves. He practices the ancient Greek wisdom "know thyself" (gnothi s'auton).
Furthermore an educated person is
one who had made himself familiar with the thought currents of history, imbedded not only in the great books of the past
but in current literature as well. He has learned to appreciate the heritage of
the past in order to confront the present and contribute to a better future.
The educated man has learned to appreciate the good, the true, and the
beautiful; he strives to imitate the prototype - God himself. The educated
person is one of independent judgment, a judgment based on the facts. He takes
no action, pronounces no condemnation, reaches no
decisions until he has the facts. Neither pride, nor passion,
prejudice or partisanship should determine the educated person's actions
and behavior. The educated person looks at both sides of the issue before he
arrives at any decision.
The Three Hierarchs emphasized the
need for the acquisition of values, especially by young people. Their views are
very timely. All of us are witnesses to a growing harvest of crime,
irresponsibility, confusion. And young people, consciously or unconsciously, have
been asking for spiritual, moral, and intellectual values. Thus honesty,
trustworthiness, kindness and compassion, respect for law, and a search for
God, a quest for metaphysical values, for inner spiritual fulfillment, are not
old-fashioned. The great Church fathers, along with history as a whole, tell us
that a nation becomes civilized when its people are cultivated to the degree
that they subordinate selfish gratifications and desires, passions,
irrationality and savage impulses to the common good, to a finer future, to
things beyond the present; that is, an educated person sees his won activities
in proper perspective.
The Three Hierarchs asked young
people to probe and search for higher principles, because an educated person
knows that there are values in human life which go beyond the physical and the
temporary. They reminded their flock of what the Holy Scriptures write: that it
is belief which determines conduct. As a man thinks in his mind, so is he. They
taught the young that the supreme lesson of human life is that "man is
more than what he eats and drinks" and that "one's life does not
consist of the things that one owns."
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).[4] People like the Three Church Fathers
brought together the best of antiquity with the best of the new faith. They
brought about the synthesis of Hellenic-Christian civilization. Greek
philosophy emphasized that an educated man does not hesitate to ask, to search,
to probe. But in his quest he must possess the necessary humility and the
inquisitive spirit of the historian, the compassion of the humanist, the zeal
of the religious believer, and the discrimination and exactitude of the
scientist. Many of our forefathers, whether of pagan or Christian Hellenism,
taught that "nothing makes man more like God than philanthropia,"[5] love that derives from God and is
directed toward fellow human beings. They searched to gratify their inner
yearning, to perceive the authentic standard of behavior, to formulate a
life-style which was based on man's innate reason and conscience, man's natural
quest for spiritual values, for truth, wisdom, beauty and goodness.
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.[6]
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.
In order to understand the
importance of the Greek heritage for Christianity one needs to understand first
the impact of Hellenism on post-exilic Judaism. Long before the conquests of
Alexander the Great in
The question concerning the
relations between the Christian faith and Greek thought preoccupied the
Christian community for nearly three and a half centuries but it was resolved
as a result of the intellectual efforts of people like the Three Hierarchs.
What do Basil, Gregory, and John
Chrysostom have to teach us today? First that our struggles and frustrations,
our defeats and disappointments are not unique; that as we carry humanity's
perpetual quest for truth, for wisdom, for inner freedom, for happiness, we
must think historically and let our forefathers, either of the very distant antiquity
or of later ages, provide us with their experience and their wisdom. Of course,
we must build our research on their discoveries and add upon the structure of
human experience our own experience. The primary requirement which many of the
best thinkers of the Hellenic-Christian heritage advocated - from Solon,
Sophocles, Euripides, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch to Basil, Gregory,
Chrysostom, Photios, Palamas
- was a realization of man's limitations, the need for self-knowledge and
humility, for a sincere search beyond the limited views of the natural senses,
and an invitation to an endless intellectual adventure. In brief, the
educational ideal of the Greek and Christian heritage is the development of the
human being into a cultivated person possessing faith in a core of values and a
persistent effort to apply them in every day life until the ikon
of the god-man Christ, the theanthropos, is
formed in him.
B
The attitude of the Three Hierarchs
toward faith and reason, Christianity and Hellenic ideals, became a standard
for later fathers and ecclesiastical personalities. Throughout the Byzantine
millennium, paideia- education rested on two
legs: Christian and Hellenic, the Bible, and Patristic writings and the Greek
classics from the Homeric epics down to the philosophers, poets, and historians
of late antiquity.
The relationship between Greek
learning and Christianity after the great Cappodocians
and other Church fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries was strengthened
even more through the work and influence of great theologians who lived either
within or outside the boundaries of the
Whether within the Byzantine Empire
or in other Christian centers under Arab rule, Church fathers who upheld the
close relationship between Christian faith and Greek learnings
rested their case on the attitude of the early Church fathers and
ecclesiastical writer who saw no antithesis between the best in Hellenism and
Christianity.
In the seventh-century tract known
as the "Trophies of Damascus", written between AD 661 and 681, a
Christian responding to comments of a Jew defended the ancient pagan Greeks as
follows: "Some of the Hellenes, especially philosophers, both recognized
God and said a great deal about him; if you like, I put it to you that despite
being Hellenes [pagans] they knew more about God and spoke better than you, the
doctor of law [Mosaic law], even though they did not reach full knowledge [of
God]."[9] This was a standard answer of Church
fathers to those who ignored the religious value of ancient Greek thought and
religious quests.
The same attitude toward both
"sacred" and "profane" learning, the study of the Bible an
dearly Christian writers and of the pagan classics, continued to enrich and guide
the mind of Church fathers of later centuries, such as the Ecumenical
Patriarchs Tarasios, of the eighth century; and
Photios of the ninth; the Metropolitan of Euchaita Ioannis of the eleventh century; and Eustathios,
Archbishop of Thessaloniki, of the twelfth.
Saint Tarasios,
who convoked the seventh Ecumenical Council (787), had mastered
"abundantly the Divine Scriptures and collected the best of secular
[Greek] learning."[10]
His liberal education helped him to achieve a balanced attitude toward the
issues of his days. He handled the conflicts between extremes, with moderation,
achieving a harmony between the radical positions of iconoclasts and iconophiles. Under the leadership of Tarasios,
the fathers succeeded in restoring the use of icons in Christian worship, while
at the same time they condemned an idolatrous attachment to icons.
Saint Photios was a beacon of
learning and a unique personality of the Middle Ages,
East and West. He was highly educated in both Christian (biblical and
patristic) and Greek classics. He admired Plato, Aristotle and other thinkers
of antiquity whom he studied along with his students. He harmonized Christian
learning and Greek classical thought, but he did not go to extremes. The
learning and the wisdom of the ancients (the "secular") was used in
order to defend and clarify Christian doctrine and belief. On the basis of
classical learning, Photios emphasized the importance of natural law, which was
taught by the ancient Greeks. In a beautiful homily on Good Friday, Photios
appealed to his audience in Hagia Sophia as follows:
"Let us bring forth fruit unto God, Use the same standard for yourself as
for your neighbor. Whatever grieves you, harms you, and distresses you, consider that same thing grievous, distressing and
damaging to your neighbor. Whatever grieves you, harms you, and distresses you, consider that same thing grievous, distressing and
damaging to your neighbor. Many pagan nations live by this inborn law," a
teaching common among Stoic philosophers. In another speech "On the
Inauguration of a church," St. Photios speaks of the famous Pheidias, Parrhasios, Praxiteles,
Zeuxis, and of Demokritos, the father of atomic
theory.[11]
Students of the ninth century know
that St. Photios, along with many other Church fathers and theologians of the
later Byzantine era, were deeply versed in both biblical learning and Greek
classical literature. They admired but also studied the ancient Greeks whom
they considered pagans but nevertheless ancestors. They profited from their
style, wisdom, and educational values, but also castigated them for their
religious views and mythological stories.
Two more
illustrations on the subject. Ioannis Mavropous, Metropolitan
of Euchaita in
Saint Eustathios,
of the twelfth century, was Archbishop of Thessaloniki, the second most
important city of the Empire after
The question concerning the
relationship between Orthodox Christianity and Greek classical learning engaged
many scholars, both clergymen and laymen, for several centuries after the
twelfth, including the period after the fall of Constantinople and the
engulfment of the Greek nation by the Ottoman Turkish Empire. Two trends, a
conservative, which viewed Orthodox Christian theology and learning all
sufficient, and a progressive or enlightened, which advocated a tradition that
had been established by Church Fathers of previous centuries.
The progressive church Fathers,
including Patriarchs, believed in education, a broad paideia
which would not only enlighten but also help the Greeks to maintain their
identity and perpetuate their heritage. The last quarter of the seventeenth,
and the eighteenth century were especially significant for the revival of Greek
learning. Frequently the impetus for a renaissance of the Greek classics came
from churchmen and laymen who lived in cities outside the boundaries of the
It was in the eighteenth century in
particular that the Church, whether through the initiative of the Ecumenical
Patriarchate, eparchial ecclesiastical authorities, or individuals, encouraged
the founding of schools and academies. Several such academies were established
in
Some of the leading progressive
churchmen of the period were Eugenios Voulgaris (1716-1806), Nikephoros
Theotokes (1736-1800), Chrysaanthos
Notaras (ca. 1663-1731), Anthimos
Gazes (1758-1828) and Neophytos Doukas
(1760-1845).
What is important to stress is that
mainstream Church fathers were students of both the Bible and Greek Literature,
people who understood the Semitic and also the Greek thought-world. From as
early as the Apostolic age, Christian Apologists,
theologians, ecclesiastical writers and leading Church fathers realized that
Christianity is only in part a Semitic religion. As students of the Scriptures,
they discerned that from its very beginning Christianity's teachings were
fertilized with Greek ideas, terminology, and concepts that were more
cosmopolitan than their Semitic counterparts.
For example the
Semitic mind, the Old Testament's teaching that God is morally perfect and that
God is what he is with no specific name, was not wholly strange to Greek
thought.
From the sixth century before Christ
arose among the Greeks views which freed the gods of objectionable features
attributed to them either by myths or by writers. Some philosophers questioned
the very existence of gods or God. Others emphasized the limits of human
knowledge and human intelligence to penetrate the mystery of Divinity. Here are
a few illustrations.
Xenophanes of Colophon (c. 570-c.
460 BC) attacked anthropomorphic conceptions of the deity and accused Homer and
Hesiod because they "attributed to the gods all things that are shameful
and a reproach among mankind." For Xenophanes "there is one god among
gods and men, the greatest not at all like mortals in body or in mind."[14] For Herakletos
of Ephesos, a contemporary of Xenophanes, god in the
universal Logos, the mind and law of the Cosmos. "All things came into
being in accordance with the Logos." One must live according to this
Logos, a common possession of all.[15]
In the fifth century the great poet
and tragedians raised the question whether "God" has a name. in his Agamemnon, Aeschylos speaks of Zeus or
"whatever his name may be" or "whatever he [Zeus] may like to be
called." He implies that the name Zeus was given to an unknown god.[16] And in his Trojan Women,
Euripides has Hecuba addressing Zeus saying "we do not know your essence -
a most difficult thing to know whether it is by nature of by human invention
that we address you with a name."[17]
Again, the implication here is that the deity has no name.
In the fourth century, Plato (d. 347
BC) in his dialogue Kratylos has Ermogenes questioning Socrates whether it is logical to
give names to the divinities, or divinity.[18]
The view that God has no name and that there is "an unknown" God
gained ground to the extent that several Greek city-states had erected statues
to the "unknown God." The "unknown" God came to be
perceived as absolute goodness and beauty, universal and common to all mankinds. The "unknown god" is the Being that
brought everything into being, the Being in whom all human beings have their
being.
The ethical teachings of Socrates,
Sophocles, Aristotle and Zeno were more cosmopolitan and humane than those of
Semitic origin. Many stories of the "Wars of the Lord" in the Old
Testament contradict the claims that ancient Israelites were only of a peaceful
disposition. The command of the Old Testament to love one's neighbors applies
only to people of one's nation. Cosmopolitan ideas are not absent from some of
the Old Testament prophets, but here, too, it is Israel that remains exalted
above all people. Their view is always
It was for this well established
attitude of the Church toward the intellectual inheritance from ancient
Hellenism that made Byzantine writers (clergymen and lay people alike) to
embellish their writings not only with references to Holy Scripture but also
with passages from ancient Greek poets, philosophers, historians and religious
thinkers. By doing this, Church fathers on the one hand asserted their
Christian faith and commitment, but on the other hand they maintained their
Greek cultural identity. Long before modern anthropologists, philosophers, and
theologians, Church fathers confirmed that culture is the outer garment of
religion and religion is the heart of culture, that is
the two are inseparable.
[1] Menander, Fragments
549k.
[2] Democritus of Abrera, Fragments, no. 57, Ancilla
to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers, ed. Kathleen Freeman (Cambridge, Mass.
1978), p. 100.
[3] ibid., no. 34.
[4] Plato, Theaetetus, 1766.
[5] See my book Byzantine
Philanthropy and Social Welfare, 2nd ed.
[6]
Socrates Scholastikos, Ecclesiastical History,
Bk. 3, ch. 16.
[7] Abba Eban, Heritage: Civilization and the Jews (
[8] T. R. Glover, The Conflict of Religious in the Early
[9] G. Bardy, Editor, "Tropaia kata loudaion en Damasko" Patrologia
orientalis, vol. 15.
[10]The Life of the
Patriarch Tarasios by Ignatios
the Deacon, ed. by Stephanos
Efthymiades (Ashgate,
Variorum 1998), p. 75 (tr. 173).
[11] Photios, Homilies, no. 4, ed. B. Laourdas,
Photiou Omiliai,
Thessaloniki 1959, pp. 17-19. English tr. by Cyril Mango, The
Homilies of Photius Patriarch of
[12] Apostolos Karpozilos, Symbole ste melete tou biou
kai tou ergou
tou Ioanne Mauropodos. Ioannina 1982,
pp. 103-106.
[13] See Agios Eustathios Praktika Theologikou Synedriou, ed. Christoforos Kontakis. Thessalonike 1989, especially the papers by Christos Theodorides,
pp. 117-129 and Ioannis Nikolaides,
pp. 209-221.
[14]
G. S. Kirk and J. E. Raven, edd. The Presocratic
Philosopher.
[15] ibid., p. 187.
[16] Aeschylos, Agamemnon, 160.
[17] Euripides, Trojan
Women, 884.
[18] Plato, Kratylos (Cratylus), 400d-e.
[19] cf. Theodore N.ldeke, Sketches from Eastern History, tr. by John
Sutherland Black (