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Michel de Montaigne was a native Latin speaker in modern Europe and yet a great innovator in French letters; among other things, he invited the genre known as the essay. His elegant, searching essays are intended to expose the reality of his own soul - and that of his readers. In "On Schoolmasters' Learning," this most studios of men wonders aloud whether education is actually good for you. After all, look at all the people obsessed with books and yet completely useless for anything productive. Maybe study actually harms your soul?

Michel de Montaigne's Complete Essays: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780140446043

Cicero's Pro Archia Poeta: https://amzn.to/49k1zjc

Aristophanes' Clouds: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780801485749

The Cost of Glory | Lucullus I: https://share.transistor.fm/s/4ef111e2

Plato's Hippias Major: https://amzn.to/3SI8PA6

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

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Aeneas Silvius was an accomplished Renaissance humanist, author of erotic literature, and influential aide to emperors and popes (and an antipope). Then, he became a pope himself. As Pope Pius II, he then added memoirist, urban planner, and antiquarian to his list of accomplishments. He contributed to the popular Renaissance "mirror of princes" genre in a letter to a young boy-king in Central Europe, where he makes the case for reading pagan poetry as a Christian.

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

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

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Jonathan and Ryan turn to a set of selections from the Prince of Humanists himself, Desiderius Erasmus. In Liber Antibarbarorum, Erasmus pillories the precious Christians who refuse to read pagan authors on account of their own squeamish consciences. In Education of a Christian Prince, and On the Education of Children, Erasmus gives principled arguments for humanistic education and practical advice for those responsible for carrying it out.

Roland Bainton's Erasmus of Christendom: https://amzn.to/3v8NlTC

Desiderius Erasmus' Praise of Folly: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780691165646

Desiderius Erasmus' Education of a Christian Prince: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780521588119

Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780664241582

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

Eric Adler on The New Thinkery: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/eric-adler-on-the-new-humanism/id1524739522?i=1000638422051

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

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"As only the Catholic and communist know, all education must be ultimately religious education." So argues T.S. Eliot in his essay "Modern Education and the Classics," in which he contrasts three different camps in the world of education: the radical, the liberal, and the orthodox. Eliot seems to say that the only hope for continued erudition in the Greek and Roman classics is a rebirth of Christendom. Jonathan and Ryan discuss Eliot's provocative thesis, along with the lessons he offers to would-be educational reformers.

T.S. Eliot's Modern Education and the Classics: https://muse.jhu.edu/document/615

T.S. Eliot's Selected Essays: https://amzn.to/3GD5mft

Eric Adler's Humanistic Letters: https://amzn.to/41kvlSb

John Peterson's College Is Too Late: https://americanmind.org/features/how-to-save-higher-education/college-is-too-late/

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

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

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In The Greek State, Friedrich Nietzsche argues that the Greek polis existed in order to hold the many in slavery so that the Olympian few could give birth to the beautiful Helen known as Greek culture, and that the Greek state had to be periodically renewed by war so that it could continue to create geniuses. This, he says, is the esoteric meaning behind Plato's Republic. Jonathan and Ryan take a look at this "preface to an unwritten book" and examine the ethical, metaphysical, and historical implications of Nietzsche's argument.

Friedrich Nietzsche's The Greek State: https://www.stephenhicks.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Nietzsche-Greek-State-text.pdf

Jacob Burkhardt's The Greeks and Greek Civilization: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780312244477

C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780060652920

T.S. Eliot's Vergil and the Christian World: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27538181

Jacob Burkhardt's The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy: https://amzn.to/49RKXk1

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

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Why was it that the Greeks, the most humane of all peoples, also possessed such a tigerish lust for blood? Why did the Greeks so delight in Homer's depiction of cruelty and death in the Iliad? That is the question animating Friedrich Nietzsche's preface to an unwritten book, "Homer's Contest." Nietzsche turns to the dark Hellenic past, the "womb of Homer" for an explanation, and finds it in Strife, the double-souled goddess lauded by Hesiod.  

Friedrich Nietzsche's Homer's Contest: http://www.northamericannietzschesociety.com/uploads/7/3/2/5/73251013/nietzscheana5.pdf

Lee Fratantuono's Madness Unchained: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780739122426

Robin Lane Fox's Homer and His Iliad: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781541600447

Hesiod's Theogony, Works and Days: https://amzn.to/467Nh3l

Dan Carlin's Death Throes of the Republic: https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-death-throes-of-the-republic-series/

C.S. Lewis's Surprised by Joy: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780062565433

Jacob Burkhardt's The Greeks and Greek Civilization: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780312244477

René Girard's Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780804722155

New Humanists episode on Simone Weil's "The Iliad, or the Poem of Force": https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-iliad-or-the-poem-of-force-episode-xxi/id1570296135?i=1000557727910

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

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Thomas Elyot wrote "The Boke named the Governour," the first book about education written in the English language, an outstanding example in the crowded field of Renaissance-era mirrors for princes. The mirrors for princes were works designed to instruct and train future kings, nobles, and leading men. Machiavelli and Erasmus wrote famous mirrors for princes, but what does the English tradition of this genre have to show us?

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

Thomas Elyot's The Boke named The Governour: https://www.luminarium.org/renascence-editions/gov/gov1.htm

Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780199535699

Desiderius Erasmus' The Education of a Christian Prince: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780521588119

Niccolo Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy: https://amzn.to/463xl2y

Plutarch's Parallel Lives (inc. Lycurgus): https://amzn.to/3YbAPxk

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

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"Simple necessity has forced men, even among the heathen, to maintain pedagogues and schoomasters if their nation was to be brought to a high standard." In his address "To the Councilmen of All Cities in Germany," Martin Luther exhorts Germany's civic leaders to establish public schools for the education of all German children. Foremost among his priorities in his proposed educational program is instruction in ancient languages, something that, according to Luther, Satan wants to suppress. We dive into German education, ancient language instruction, and the eternal debate over public schools versus homeschooling.

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

Plutarch's Parallel Lives (inc. Numa and Lycurgus): https://amzn.to/3YbAPxk

Andrew Cuff's Marcus Aurelius, Uncensored: https://beckandstone.com/created/marcus-aurelius-uncensored

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

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Ulrich Zwingli was one of the towering figures of the Reformation, a committed humanist, and a warrior who ultimately fell in battle. He despised the idea that Christianity could render men passive, and in a short treatise from 1523 to a young nobleman, he sketches the outlines of his ideal education for the creature called man: "We are set between the hammer and the anvil, half beast and half angel."

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

Davenant Institute Ad Fontes podcast on Zwingli: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/zwingli-we-hardly-knew-ye/id1557560666?i=1000545490988

Bruce Gordon's Zwingli: God's Armed Prophet: https://amzn.to/43zIOVN

New Humanists episode on T.S. Eliot's Notes Towards the Definition of Culture: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t-s-eliots-praise-for-privilege-episode-xvi/id1570296135?i=1000549689865

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

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In the opening lecture of his course on Homer, the Professor of Greek at the University of Wittenberg, Phillip Melanchthon, first invokes the aid of the gods and declares that to Homer belongs "the highest and noblest place." Further, Melanchthon proclaims that Homer "alone snatches away the palm of victory from all poets that any age has brought forth, and he leaves them all far behind." Jonathan and Ryan take a look at Melanchthon's encomium for Homer and defense against the many varieties of Homeric critics, both ancient and modern.

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

C.S. Lewis' The Discarded Image: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781107604704

Homer's Iliad (Greek-English): https://amzn.to/3O2sBEd

Homer's Odyssey (Greek-English): https://amzn.to/46DbOPe

New Humanists Episode on T.S. Eliot's Vergil and Christian World: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/was-virgil-divinely-inspired-episode-xxxiii/id1570296135?i=1000582748821

Daoiri Farrell's The Valley of Knockanure: https://youtu.be/lu-FG92a9Cw

New Humanists Episode on Simone Weil's The Iliad, or the Poem of Force: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-iliad-or-the-poem-of-force-episode-xxi/id1570296135?i=1000557727910

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

Cicero's Pro Archia Poeta Oratio: https://amzn.to/3JS7y4D

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