Send us a text

Can Christians read and appreciate pagan literature? The vexed relationship between the Church and a world that hates it has generated many different responses. The most popular recent proposal is Rod Dreher's "Benedict option" - Dreher counsels Christian retrenchment and quasi-monastic self-sufficiency. But the great saint of late antiquity and compiler of the Vulgate, Jerome (aka Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus), proposes a different option, drawn from the Mosaic Law. Jonathan and Ryan look at three different letters from Jerome's voluminous correspondence, each taking a different angle on literature and learning.

Richard M. Gamble's The Great Tradition: https://amzn.to/3Q4lRnO

Recommended edition of the Vulgate: https://amzn.to/3FFjqaR

Athanasius' On the Incarnation: https://amzn.to/42h3ww9

Apuleius' Metamorphoses: https://amzn.to/4429DWz

Rod Dreher's The Benedict Option: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780735213302

Passion of Perpetua and Felicity: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0324.htm

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

Send us a text

In the final chapter of Climbing Parnassus, Tracy Lee Simmons distinguishes between the "skills" and the "content" arguments for classical study, and says that the skills argument is in fact the stronger. Content, Simmons says, can be learned by reading translations - or even from scanning Wikipedia (or asking A.I.!). What is irreplaceable about true classical study is the formation of the mind and the skills acquired from long years of intense training in reading and writing in Greek and Latin. The death of this educational program caused European literary culture to rot, just as critics and poets like W.H. Auden, T.S. Eliot, and C.S. Lewis had warned: they were the last generation to receive this education, and so it should be no surprise that they were the last generation of Anglophone writers even to approach greatness.

Tracy Lee Simmons' Climbing Parnassus: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781933859507

New Humanists episode on Albert Jay Nock: https://newhumanists.buzzsprout.com/1791279/episodes/10528217-should-everyone-be-educated-episode-22 

J.R.R. Tolkien's Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics: https://jenniferjsnow.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/11790039-jrr-tolkien-beowulf-the-monsters-and-the-critics.pdf

Plato's The Last Days of Socrates: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780140449280

Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780393320978

ALI's Latin for Kids program: https://ancientlanguage.com/latin-for-kids/

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

Send us a text

Classical education has declined and fallen before - as the Roman Empire succumbed to internal weakness and external threats, so did its bilingual educational regime. Humanists in the Renaissance revived the ancient world's Greek and Latin literary paideia, or at least created a new system of education modelled on it, which flourished for centuries, well into the modern era. But it fell apart once again after the catastrophe of the First World War. In Chapter Two of Climbing Parnassus, Tracy Lee Simmons give an account of classical education's many lives.

Tracy Lee Simmons' Climbing Parnassus: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781933859507

Cicero's Pro Archia Poeta: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780674991743

John Henry Newman's The Idea of a University: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780268011505

Micah Meadowcroft's Classical Education's Aristocracy of Anyone: https://nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/classical-educations-aristocracy-of-anyone

David Sider's Greek Verse on a Vase by Douris: https://www.ascsa.edu.gr/uploads/media/hesperia/41012854.pdf

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

Send us a text

A truly classical education is centered on the study of the Classics: the ancient languages and literatures of Greece and Rome. The adjective "classical" is thus a misnomer for a school that strays promiscuously from the true Classics into the "Great Books" or the "Great Tradition." So argues Tracy Lee Simmons in his landmark book, Climbing Parnassus. Jonathan and Ryan dive into Simmons' book and debate whether classical education is, as he says, a lost cause.

Tracy Lee Simmons' Climbing Parnassus: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781933859507

Micah Meadowcroft's Classical Education's Aristocracy of Anyone: https://nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/classical-educations-aristocracy-of-anyone

John Winthrop's A Model of Christian Charity: https://minio.la.utexas.edu/webeditor-files/coretexts/pdf/163020model20of20christian20charity.pdf

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

Send us a text

The Renaissance humanist Biondo Flavio dedicated his massive book Roma Triumphans, a historical investigation of what made Rome great, to his fellow humanist Pope Pius II. He contended that central to the story of Roman greatness was Roman religion, and that the Roman Catholic Church was the heir of the Roman Empire, correcting its faults even as it carried its legacy into the modern world. As James Hankins discusses in Virtue Politics, the main policy position that Biondo advocated for, in order for Europe to recapture the spirit of ancient Rome, was a renewal of the Crusades, so that the dominion of the Catholic Church could encompass the territory of the Roman Empire.

James Hankins' Virtue Politics: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780674278738

New Humanists episode on Irving Babbitt, feat. Eric Adler: https://newhumanists.buzzsprout.com/1791279/episodes/15574729-humanism-with-or-without-god-feat-eric-adler-episode-lxxiv

Biondo Flavio's Roma Triumphans: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780674055049

Patrick Deneen's Why Liberalism Failed: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780300240023

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

Send us a text

Representative government, freedom of religion, the right to privacy - these are just some of the liberties of the modern world which we cherish. But at what cost? After the French Revolution and the subsequent rise and fall of Napoleon, the French classical liberal Benjamin Constant undertook an examination of ancient liberty as compared to modern liberty, in a bid to defend the modern liberal project against its detractors. But Constant is honest about the downsides of the modern liberal regime, and explains what rights and powers from the ancient world modern men can no longer exercise.

Benjamin Constant's The Liberty of Ancients Compared with that of Moderns: https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/constant-the-liberty-of-ancients-compared-with-that-of-moderns-1819

Jean-Jacques Rousseau's The Social Contract: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780141191751

Thucydides' The Peloponnesian War: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780684827902

Herodotus' Histories: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781400031146

Stendhal's The Red and the Black: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780140447644

Julius Caesar's The Gallic War: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780674990807

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

Send us a text

When civilization is crashing down all around you, what do you do? Retreat to the hills, build a monastery, and preserve what you can. That is exactly what Cassiodorus did in the 6th century when he founded the Vivarium, an Italian monastery dedicated to copying, emending, and preserving the classics of Greek and Roman literature. In this episode, Jonathan and Ryan take a look at the proposed curriculum and list of great books and authors that Cassiodorus recommended for his students.

Richard M. Gamble's The Great Tradition: https://amzn.to/3Q4lRnO

Rule of Saint Benedict: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780375700170

Athanasius' Life of Anthony: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780809122950

Virgil's Georgics: https://amzn.to/417pzFK

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

Send us a text

This week, Jonathan and Ryan discuss two early medieval selections from Richard M. Gamble's The Great Tradition, one taken from Gregory the Great, perhaps the most significant pope in the history of Christendom, and another from Alcuin of York, adviser to Charlemagne and architect of the Carolingian Renaissance. Both Gregory and Alcuin were churchmen, statesmen, scholars, and are linked closely to the Christianization of Britain. Jonathan and Ryan discuss the relation between rational thought and proper grammar, the Great Books according to Medievals, and whether education properly belongs to the contemplative life or the active life.

Richard M. Gamble's The Great Tradition: https://amzn.to/3Q4lRnO

Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780140445657

New Humanists episode with Tim Griffith on Latin Teaching: https://newhumanists.buzzsprout.com/1791279/episodes/14692390-the-art-of-language-teaching-feat-tim-griffith-episode-lxiv

Andrew Beck interview in Align: https://www.theblaze.com/align/interview-beck-stone-co-founder-andrew-beck

New Humanists episode with John Peterson: https://newhumanists.buzzsprout.com/1791279/episodes/12698279-education-that-makes-aquinas-look-modern-feat-john-peterson-episode-xlvi

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

Send us a text

He who teaches the truth finds himself locked in battle against all those who teach falsehood. With what tools will you equip him? That is the question motivating "Education of the Clergy," a 9th century treatise written by one of the great students of Alcuin: Rhabanus Maurus. The stereotype of the "dark ages" - the narrowness of mind and dogmatic intolerance of the early medieval period - is shown up to be mere mythmaking by the broad, even humanistic cast of mind Rhabanus Maurus brings to the question of education.

Richard M. Gamble's The Great Tradition: https://amzn.to/3Q4lRnO

Jonathan Roberts's Classical Schools Are Not Really Classical: https://ancientlanguage.com/classical-schools-not-classical/

Rhabanus Maurus' De inventione litterarum: https://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/04z/z_0788-0856__Rabanus_Maurus__De_Inventione_Linguarum__MLT.pdf.html

Vegetius' De re militari: https://www.loc.gov/resource/rbc0001.2014rosen0061/

Derrick Peterson's Flat Earths and Fake Footnotes: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781532653339

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

Send us a text

What if the true heir of the Roman Empire was not Rome, but Florence? Over the course of his life and career as a scholar and politician, the great humanist Leonardo Bruni made this argument multiple times, and in a variety of ways. In doing so, he gave novel accounts of liberty and virtue, and eventually moved away from an appeal to Florence's Roman roots and appealed instead to her Etruscan roots. In doing so, he laid the groundwork for the preeminent Italian political thinker commonly associated with the birth of modernity: Niccolò Machiavelli.

New Humanists episode on Leonardo Bruni's letter to Battista Malatesta: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1791279/episodes/14460440-mediocrity-versus-glory-in-the-renaissance-episode-lxii

James Hankins's Virtue Politics: https://amzn.to/3UiQpp3

Leonardo Bruni's History of the Florentine People: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780674005068

C.S. Lewis's The Weight of Glory: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780060653200

Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781107612235

Donatello's Saint George: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_George_(Donatello)

Roberto Valturio's De re militari: https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=315

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com