CLASSICI PAGANI, QUESTIONE OF THE. - It is the problem of the advisability and liceity of using the classical authors in Christianity.
**SUMMARY:**
I. In the early days of the Church
II. In the Renaissance
III. In the 17th century
IV. In the 19th century.I. IN THE EARLY DAYS OF THE CHURCH. - From the very beginning, Christians asked themselves to what extent their cultural and moral life, so opposed to the paganism surrounding them, could be reconciled with the reading, study, and imitation of Greek and Latin classics. The responses varied, and the issue became heated, taking on the character of a bitter and intense struggle.
It cannot be denied that, both in the East and in the West, many Christians (by 1900, according to St. Gregory Nazianzen, in *In laudem Basilii magni*: PG 36, 508) declared themselves content with their faith alone and their book, the Bible, and believed that they should do without, indiscriminately, the entire literary heritage of the classics of Greece and Rome. Even in many monasteries, religious men, intent above all on the salvation of the soul, decried the works of pagan writers as fatal to their task (cf. Cassian, *Collat.*, XIV, 12-13; PL 49, 974; and the witty saying of St. Jerome, *Contra Vigilantium*: PL 23, 367; «Monachus... non doctoris habet sed plangentis officium»). The propagation of this mindset was strong and supported by many ecclesiastical writers (e.g., Tertullian, *De spectac.*, 18: PL 1, 650; *De anima*, 3: PL 2, 651; Theophilus of Antioch, *Ad Autolycum*, I, 2: PG 6, 1025), among whom the denigration of classical culture became outright (e.g., Tatian, *Oratio adversus Graecos*, 1-3: PG 6, 803-11; Hermias, *Irrisio philosophorum qui extra sunt*: PG 6, 1169-80). Against this fanatical intransigence, defenders had to step forward: Clement of Alexandria (*Strom.*, I, 11, 11-14 and VI, 11: PG 8, 693-92 and 9, 304-37), St. Jerome (*Epist.*, 70: PL 22, 664-68), St. Gregory Nazianzen (loc. cit.), Synesius of Cyrene (*Epist.*, 53: PG 66, 1553), and Socrates (*Hist. eccl.*, III, 16: PG 67, 420).
The distrust of classical culture was partly justified: all around, the circus, the theater, festivals, institutions, every public and private, collective and individual activity, recalled idolatry and exuded sensuality. And this naturally reflected in literature with its immoral narratives, indulging every kind of complacency, even the most shameful; with its atheistic and subversive philosophy; and through the charm of style and imagery, its deadly poison seeped into souls. It is enough to recall Augustine in tears reading in Virgil the unhappy loves of Aeneas and Dido (*Confess.*, I, 13); or how he tried to restrain his friend Licentius from describing the story of Pyramus and Thisbe (*De ordine*, I, 3-8: PL 32, 977-979); or St. Paulinus of Nola, who sought to convert the poet Jovius, who remained hesitant and wavering because ensnared by his love for classical poetry (*Epist.*, 16, 6: PL 61, 227-34); or St. Jerome, who described to the virgin Eustochium his remorse because, though immersed in fasting and penance, he felt drawn to reading Cicero and Plautus, and the terrible judgment he received in a dream, where he was reproached: «You are a Ciceronian, not a Christian» (*Epist.*, 22, 30: PL 22, 416-17). These examples could easily be multiplied; but while they reveal the painful tragedy of so many Christians in those early centuries, they also show that the most learned and educated could not bring themselves to renounce what they had studied since childhood and the fascination of such a grand and effective culture as that of pagan Greece and Rome.
Therefore, if at first these «great minds», in defending themselves against the exaggerated intransigence of others, spoke hesitantly and sought non-literary reasons, appealing to practical utility and better understanding of Sacred Scripture, by the 4th century they spoke more freely, insisting on how much that was not only useful but also beautiful and literary could be drawn from ancient writers. All the more so because, faced with the mockery, irony, and sarcasm of pagans, who reproached Christians for their illiteracy and the «barbarism» of the biblical style in Greek and Latin translations, they understood that to meet them on equal terms, they had to present not only the truth but also the superior beauty of Christian doctrine, expounding it with the art of eloquence, the rigor of philosophy, and the perfection of literary form.
The reason for this became clear, for even Tertullian, so intransigent, could declare: «I will acknowledge that letters are necessary both for worldly dealings and for our studies directed toward God» (*De cor.*, 8: PL 2, 87). Thus Clement of Alexandria defended the study of the classics and their methods (cf. P. Camelot, *Les idées de Clément d'Al. sur l'utilisation des sciences et de la littérature profane*, in *Recherches de science religieuse*, 21 [1931], pp. 38-66; cf. also ibid., pp. 541-
PAGAN CLASSICS — CLASSICISM
569); St Basil wrote the famous little treatise, falsely placed among his sermons (PG 31, 563-90), on how to profit from pagan authors (v. BASIL, Saint, § 1v); St Ambrose wrote the De officiis ministrorum, closely following Cicero’s De officiis; St Jerome, in his letter to Rufinus, who had reproached him for perjury and sacrilege for failing to keep the famous vow made in his dream not to occupy himself further with the classics, replied that the demands of apologetics required otherwise (Apol. contra Rufinum, I, 30: PL 23, 441); St Augustine, in the De ordine (II, 8 ff.: PL 32, 1006 ff.) and in the De doctrina christiana (II and III: PL 34, 35-90), reached the same conclusions (cf. H. I. Marrou, St Augustin et la fin de la culture antique, Paris 1939).
The problem, especially under the authority of Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine, was thus resolved, and ancient culture was preserved; indeed, it was precisely the Church, through the work of monastic copyists, that saved the texts of ancient writers during the age of barbarian invasions, diffused them throughout Europe, maintained and recommended their use in schools. One need only mention the names of Cassiodorus, Alcuin, Rabanus Maurus, Gerbert, and Gerson (cf. Daniel, pp. 56-178; Labriolle, op. cit., pp. 37-41).
II. In the Renaissance
The question of the use of pagan classics resurfaced with great intensity in Florence in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, where the study of ancient authors flourished anew. This began to disturb some, who saw in it a danger to faith, morals, the integrity of doctrine, a deviation from sound Christian philosophy, something that could be fatal to the right understanding of the world, history, and the human person. The danger seemed all the more grave in that devout and believing humanists were not lacking.Hence the controversy, begun by Fra Giovanni da San Miniato, a Camaldolese, joined by other lesser anti-humanists and especially by some religious from various convents. But the most formidable opponent was the Dominican Blessed John Dominici, later a cardinal. Already in the Regola del governo di cura familiare he had passionately inveighed against the tendency that taught more about Jupiter and Saturn, Venus and Cybele than about God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that poisoned delicate and still unformed minds with sacrifices to false deities, that nurtured in them the apostate nature of truth. But his voice was even stronger in the work Lucula noctis (published in full in Paris only in 1908 by the Dominican R. Coulon), addressed to Coluccio Salutati to dissuade him from yielding to the allure of classical antiquity. To arguments that, while warning of dangers, were sound, were added exaggerated, unfounded, and at times contradictory claims, such as the statement: “It is more useful for Christians to till the earth than to attend to the pagans.” For this reason, his opponents had the better of the debate, and the cause of humanism gained in strength and zeal. For the aberrations observed were not reasoned consequences of the renewed study of antiquity itself, but abuses by some who seized upon it as a pretext for unbridled spirits and emancipation from all morality. For this reason, the Church continued to promote every salutary cultural progress.
III. In the Seventeenth Century
A new flare-up occurred in the seventeenth century through the exaggerated and untimely work of the Abbé Armand-Jean Le Bouthillier de Rancé, reformer of La Grande Trappe: De la sainteté et des devoirs de la vie monastique (2 vols., Paris 1683), in which, speaking of a monk’s occupations, he clearly stated that study and scholarship are foreign nourishment for his state, an occupation that harms him because it destroys humility, disturbs the heart, and ruins piety. Intellectual labor must therefore be set aside. The book, backed by Bossuet, caused a great stir but elicited only a series of responses and controversies. Le Bouthillier, however, was manifestly in the wrong, and the flame he ignited, after some initial uproar, ended in disillusionment.IV. In the Nineteenth Century
More acute was the controversy aroused in the nineteenth century by Abbé J. Gaume, vicar general of Nevers, who published against the predominant use of pagan authors in Catholic colleges a vehement book: Le ver rongeur des sociétés modernes (Paris 1851). He proposed that in the early years of Latin and Greek instruction only Christian authors should be used; pagan classics would come later, in the final years, but only after careful review and explanation. The failure to do otherwise had caused the deplorable state of society at that time, whereas his thesis, if applied, would have eliminated socialism, communism, and every other formidable error. The peremptory, aggressive, and violent tone—even calling the hitherto prevailing instruction “scholastic paganism”—undermined his cause and nearly obscured what good there might have been in II. Though he found some enthusiastic supporters (Montalembert, d’Alzon, Donoso Cortés, and especially Louis Veuillot), his opponents were more vigorous and decisive: the bishop of Nevers, the Jesuits in their colleges, Dupanloup, and La Civiltà Cattolica, through the pen of Fr. Carlo Curci, refuted his unjust assertions. Soon, however, to calm the storm and restore balance, came the word of Pius IX in the encyclical Inter multiplices of 21 March 1853, in which he warmly urged the bishops of France to ensure that young students in the seminary “learn the true elegance of speech and writing, eloquence, both from the most wise works of the holy Fathers and from the most distinguished pagan writers, duly purged” (Acta Pii IX, I, Rome 1854, p. 433).In any case, this has always been the norm followed and inculcated from the beginning of the Church, “which has always known how to appreciate the benefit brought by the study of the classics through the appropriation of the immortal beauty of form peculiar to antiquity” (Pastor, I, p. 56).