Lecture 8 - Latin West to Renaissance Flashcards
Recall St. Benedict of Nursia ?
What is it to be a monk, how to run a monastery… (lec 6)
But there are 3 that predate him!
St. Augustine
Found Mother’s Christian faith unconvincing
->simplistic, unpersuasive
Found St. Ambrose’s brand of Christianity convincing
- > emphasize allegory
- > persuasive rhetoric
- > a very intellectual religion
Aug needed deep intellect, but got that most don’t
Sets down theological foundations of most sects
->also deep appreciation from time as non-Christian
The Confessions:
- > autobiog, 2 times he had true revelations
- > 1 comes from reading Plato (deep appreciation)
A Neo-Platist
- struggle to mesh Plato & Christianity
- > mashups of Timaeus and Trinity
Tertullian
WHAT DOES ATHENS HAVE TO DO WITH CHRISTIANITY
->Academia got nothing to do with Church
Greek is “authorised Paganism”
->don’t touch it
->minority opinion
St. Justin
Thought Greek Philosophers given a revelation
->knowledge is a divine revelation
->scientists are unknown Christians
Jesus wasn’t even born yet, but they were still having revelations
->hey, knowledge is knowledge
The Literal Interpretation of Genesis - St. Augustine
1) Be Logical and Rational
2) Preserve the text, don’t alter it
3) Consistent with knowledge of Natural World
e.g days can’t exist before Sun
->God probably created world in 6 stages
But very few people read literally
-> it says Mustard seeds are the smallest
Why should Religion care about N.P.?
Still handy for sailing, crops
->when is Easter or other holidays?
Spreading religion
->I won’t believe anything you say if you’re stupid
Latin Translation Movement
9th C, Charlemagne (King of France) brings stability
- > edict: all monestaries open schools
- > public accesible areas for higher learning
- > a renaissance
Renaissance:
- > fewer Barb Raids
- > population boom b/c/ better weather, farming innovations (water wheel, rotations) = more food
- IMP FOR INTELLECTUAL SOCIETY
- > more urbanization - better labour division = more leisure time
- > stable society + food for scientists
1ST PHASE: SPAIN
->more schools
->significant Christians, Muslims in Spain
->take Muslim area + Arabic texts
-why spain?
->part of Muslim world for long time
->many translated texts and Latin study groups
A centre for T. Movement - people interested in libraries, knowledge already went to spain
2ND PHASE: BYZANTINE
- > populated by Greeks with greek texts
- > wanted originals
Unlike Arabic:
- > extreme focus on Math, Logic, N.P.
- > intellectual Christians, need for all those new schools
Birth of the Medieval University?
From those Cathedral Schools and all the books!
- > scholarly community, study everything
- > scholarly communities emerged
- > start of dialectical culture, publish commentary
Pull together to understand Greek texts
- > debate what Aristotle was talking about
- > Platonic system, lively debate
Focused on the seven liberal arts
-Trivium: Rhetoric, Grammar, Logic
-Quadrivium: Music, Arithmetic, N.P, Astronomy
You needed the 7 to participate in Roman civil life
->early Unis were just scholarly Guilds
Infrasturcture? Owned nothing
- > rented buildings and books
- > move around, attract students
- > would set up in town, bringing tons of $$$
Who?
- upper class, who could pay
- enter at 14, 15
- > study until you can get a job (e.g. clerk)
- > most don’t get full degrees
- Bachelor’s = 3-4 yeras
- > could get then Masters, so you can teach
- > teach anywhere
- Master of Theology = 15 - 20 years
- > unmarried, crazy dedicated
Classes more structured, participatory
Scholasticism
By 13th C, most curricula was just Aristotle
- > He talked about every topic, v. comprehensive
- > clear method for studying natural world
Is a METHOD of studying basically anything -master begins wiht Question ->reads text, gives an analysis ->asks "whether... " ->one student defends each -then professor gives answer Lets you ask anything ->even heretical ->was like a sport
Treaties often written like this
- > Augustin questioned Genesis
- > let you sort treatises on what they discussed
People became good at asking questions
->taught to find and pin them down
Condemnation of 1277
Church didn’t like Aristotelian method
- > Aristotle Pagan, believed world eternal, prime matter
- > but you couldn’t shut down a Uni
- > since they were informal
Edict passed with “authority of Pope”
- > condemns 219 phil propositions
- > on threat of excommunication
- > anything limiting God’s power
- > asking if GOD can create a vacuum? Blasphemy!
- > celestial bodies control us, or Human Free Will?
- > recall, free will is God’s greatest gift! Blasphemy!
Pope John 21 was a theologian, didn’t want Papal
- > people complaining, he doesn’t wanna deal
- > already 2 innefective past bans
- > delegates task to people complaining
- > when pope dies, they ban the texts
- > really just affects Paris, though Oxford too later
So God an do anything (Archbishop of Paris said so)
- > good for development of science
- > God can do anything so let’s talk about // worlds, vacuums
- > did Jesus die for their sins too? Or own Jesus?
- > made questions people would never have asked
- > motion, kinetics, space, time?
- > will be traced to Galileo’s New Sciences
