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The French Thomist A.G. Sertillanges, O.P., is most famous for The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods. The book is a moving and handy meditation inspired by Thomas Aquinas’ Letter to Brother John about what it will take to devote your life to contemplation. This is the first episode in a three-part series on The Intellectual Life in which Jonathan and Ryan examine their own lives to see how Sertillanges can help them out.

A.G. Sertillanges’s The Intellectual Life: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780813206462

The Ad Fontes Podcast, episode feat. Ryan: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/now-youre-talking-my-ancient-language/id1557560666?i=1000559442987

Robert Cardinal Sarah’s The Power of Silence: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781621641919

Plato’s Symposium: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780674991842

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

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Who is at the helm of the ship of state? Is the United States doomed to go the way of the Titanic? In the essay “Academic Leadership,” Paul Elmer More expounds on the crucial role that humanistic study plays in cultivating a natural aristocracy that guides and protects the body politic. More, along with Irving Babbitt, was a luminary of the New Humanism movement and an essayist, prolific letter-writer, editor, and Christian Platonist.

Paul Elmer More’s Academic Leadership (free): https://jkalb.freeshell.org/more/leaders.html

Richard M. Gamble’s The Great Tradition: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781935191568

Sir Thomas Elyot’s The Book Named the Governor: https://amzn.to/3977IWO

René Girard’s A Theater of Envy: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781587318603

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

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Was Socrates a Christian? Did Plato meet Jeremiah? Are pagan myths based on garbled versions of the Hebrew prophets? Welcome to Justin Martyr’s First Apology, a plea to the Roman Emperor to stop killing Christians, a philosophical defense of Christianity, and a master class in biblical exegesis. ALI Latin & Greek Fellow Calvin Goligher returns to New Humanists to discuss the poetry, philosophy, and revelation in Justin Martyr with Jonathan and Ryan.

Justin Martyr’s First Apology (free in English): https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0126.htm

Dennis Minns and Paul Parvis’s Justin, Philosopher and Martyr: Apologies (critical edition): https://amzn.to/3GJOMtp

Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0128.htm

Pliny-Trajan correspondence on Christians: https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/texts/pliny.html

Plato’s Republic: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780465094080

Yoram Hazony’s The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780521176675

Matthew W. Bates’s The Birth of the Trinity: https://amzn.to/3taSZ3U

Cicero’s De Officiis: https://amzn.to/3x9TGwT

Ambrose’s De Officiis: https://amzn.to/3Nc3j3C

Robert Louis Wilken’s The Christians as the Romans Saw Them: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780300098396

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

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Where is Geatland? Beowulf has been taken as a founding poem for England, yet England never appears in the poem. Linguist Colin Gorrie joins Jonathan and Ryan to discuss this heroic and tragic Old English masterpiece, the history of scholarship surrounding the poem, and J.R.R. Tolkien’s titanic contribution to modern understanding of it.

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

Dick Ringler’s translation of Beowulf: https://amzn.to/3sv1yWQ

J.R.R. Tolkien’s translation and commentary on Beowulf: https://amzn.to/3w81O09

Colin Gorrie’s Why the Grammar-Translation Method Does Not Work (And What Does): https://ancientlanguage.com/why-grammar-translation-method-does-not-work/

J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Monsters and the Critics: https://amzn.to/3FE4rdo

Tom Shippey’s Lecture 1 of 3 on J.R.R. Tolkien’s Beowulf: https://youtu.be/FPBt05KUfzg

Norton Critical Edition of Beowulf: https://amzn.to/3McPv8y

Virgil’s Aeneid: https://amzn.to/3FMLAN9

Colin Gorrie’s website: https://www.colingorrie.com/

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

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Making humanistic education democratic and freely available was its downfall, at least in the eyes of Albert Jay Nock, as he discusses in The Theory of Education in the United States. Taking a cue as well from Plato’s Republic, Jonathan and Ryan address the apparent tension between the excellence of the tradition and the equalitarian, democratic mores of American life. Should everyone be educated? Can they be?

Richard Gamble’s Great Tradition: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781935191568

Albert Jay Nock’s The Theory of Education in the United States: https://amzn.to/38v94tR

Albert Jay Nock’s Memoirs of a Superfluous Man: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781610160353

Plato’s Republic: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780465094080

Dorothy Sayers’s The Lost Tools of Learning: https://www.pccs.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/LostToolsOfLearning-DorothySayers.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.

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“The true hero, the true subject, the center of the Iliad is force,” wrote Simone Weil. And yet, she said that Homer’s poem is “the purest and loveliest of mirrors.” How can a poem that revels in the visceral description of death and that chronicles the destruction of a great city be so pure and lovely? Jonathan and Ryan take a look into this epic mirror and into Weil’s justly famous essay on it.

Simone Weil’s The Iliad, or the Poem of Force (free English translation): http://biblio3.url.edu.gt/SinParedes/08/Weil-Poem-LM.pdf

Simone Weil’s The Iliad, or the Poem of Force (bilingual French-English critical edition): https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780820463612

Homer’s Iliad: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780374529055

Aeschylus' Oresteia: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780140443332

Sophocles' Theban Plays: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780156027649

Ovid’s Metamorphoses: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780156001267

Virgil’s Aeneid: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780553210415

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

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The Lost Tools of Learning, a 1947 lecture delivered at Oxford by Dorothy Sayers, was largely ignored at the time and in England until decades later in the United States, when it became a foundation text of the Classical Christian Education movement. Despite being the lecture that launched 1,000 classical schools, Dorothy Sayers appears to undermine the classical tradition and repeatedly side with educational progressives. Jonathan and Ryan dig into the lecture, its impact on the CCE movement, and some pedagogical alternatives.

Richard M. Gamble’s The Great Tradition: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781935191568

Dorothy Sayers’s Lost Tools of Learning: https://www.pccs.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/LostToolsOfLearning-DorothySayers.pdf

Dorothy Sayers’s translation of Dante’s Inferno: https://amzn.to/36yr31C

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

C. Stephen Jaeger’s The Envy of Angels: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780812217452

J.R.R. Tolkien’s “On Fairy-Stories”: https://coolcalvary.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/on-fairy-stories1.pdf

C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780060652944

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

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In one of his many letters to his nephew Lucilius, the famous Stoic philosopher, playwright, and statesman, Seneca, advises his nephew to avoid reading too much. Jonathan and Ryan take up the philosopher’s advice and consider what dangers there are, if any, in reading too much or too widely. 

Seneca’s Epistle 2 (free in English): https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_2

Seneca’s Epistles 1-65 (English - Latin): https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780674990845

Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780812968255

Joseph Keegin’s What is College? https://fxxfy.net/2021/09/08/what-is-college/

St. Thomas Aquinas’ Question 166: https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3166.htm

C.S. Lewis’s Learning in War-Time: https://bradleyggreen.com/attachments/Lewis.Learning%20in%20War-Time.pdf

Cicero’s Pro Archia Poeta: https://amzn.to/3KLj8fT

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.

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Should teachers teach their pupils what to think? Or how to think? The great English philosopher Michael Oakeshott says it’s not so simple. Students certainly must learn how to think, but can only do so by learning about things in particular - in other words, by learning what to think. Jonathan and Ryan are joined to discuss this excellent Oakeshott lecture on learning and education by Dale Stenberg.

The Davenant Institute: https://davenantinstitute.org/

Pilgrim Faith Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pilgrim-faith-podcast/id1494222569

Pietas Classical Christian: https://pietasclassical.com/

Richard M. Gamble’s The Great Tradition: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781935191568

Carl Trueman’s Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781433556333

Alastair Roberts’ blog: https://alastairadversaria.com/

Donald Phillip Verene’s The Art of Humane Education: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780801440397

C.S. Lewis’s An Experiment in Criticism: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781107604728

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.

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Long before the New Humanists podcast was born, Irving Babbitt helped found the movement now known as New Humanism. University of Maryland Professor of Classics Dr. Eric Adler, along with his former student (and current ALI Fellow) Katherine Bradshaw, join the podcast to discuss the original New Humanist and what we might stand to gain from him in our debates about education, the humanities, and the canon.

Irving Babbitt’s “What Is Humanism?”: http://www.nhinet.org/lac1.htm

Irving Babbitt’s “What I Believe: Rousseau and Religion” from Spanish Character and Other Essays: https://amzn.to/34ZP9RH

Dr. Eric Adler’s The Battle of the Classics: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780197518786

Dr. Eric Adler’s Classics, the Culture Wars, and Beyond: https://amzn.to/36a7V9H

Dr. Eric Adler’s Valorizing the Barbarians: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780292744035

C.S. Lewis’ Abolition of Man: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780060652944

Alan Jacobs’ The Year of Our Lord 1943: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780190864651

Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s First Discourse: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780312694401

George MacDonald’s The Princess and Curdie: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781952410475

Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780060935467

Robert E. Proctor’s Defining the Humanities: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780253212191

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