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The medieval Christian curriculum focus was on
study. The medieval scholars used classical
learning for Christian purposes. Judaism rejected
the world's standards of the pagan culture
and education. By this time, the church went
from mostly Hebrew to mostly Gentile. Christianity
embraced the world views with open arms.
David Mulligan's book Far Above Rubies: Wisdom
in the Christian Community
illustrates how the medieval approach to education
used many non-biblical
sources-even to the point of neglecting Scripture.
Two traditions of classical literature and philosophy
separated the classical
world, but were brought together for the first
time in fruitful union by the church and
rearranged into an educational method that would
be the standard of learning for the next
one thousand years.
The joining of the literary and scientific world
views in Christ was the unique contribution
of Medieval Christianity. The science of grammar
and rhetoric were brought into conjunction
with the science of dialectic (logic). They
were arranged progressively, so that the student
could use them to achieve his true goal,
which in many cases was the science of theology.
This system, known as the Trivium, was the
foundation of the seven liberal arts programs
that became universal throughout the Middle Ages.
This methodology was kept alive in the West. It
used textbooks and examples from the ancient
world [Greek and Roman] and never saw a need for
writing new ones. That was not because it
accepted paganism, but because it believed that
in many cases the basic curricula of certain structures
had been worked out in the ancient world
and did not need to be written again. This explains,
for instance, the medieval emphasis on philosophy.
Natural knowledge became prevalent at the end
of the Middle Ages. "Philosophy was discredited,
the link between theology and the sciences broken;
and man began to work out an approach to
life that was independent of religion, independent
of God. Secularism was born.
During this period the Hebrew people continued
to teach their children the ways of God,
rejecting pagan culture. Anti-Semitism continued
to flourish. Christians believed horrendous
lies about the Jews and therefore continued to
separate from anything Jewish.
Michael Brown explains the attitude toward the
Jews during the later Middle Ages in his
book Our Hands are Stained With Blood:
The Black Death that ravaged Europe, wiping out
about one-third of Europe's entire population,
was blamed on the Jews. Christians believed the
lies that the Jews secretly contaminated
the wells with a poison mixture made of spiders,
lizards, and the hearts of Christians. As a result,
thousands of Jews were butchered by angry
mobs and Jewish children under the age of seven were
baptized and reared as Christians after their
families were murdered.
Mulligan's book continues to explain in Far Above
Rubies: Wisdom in the
Christian Community (pp 65-66); After the peace
of the church, in the reign of Constantine, Christianity began
to make converts amid the educated classes. More
than ever before, the church was brought
into direct confrontation with the dilemma offered
by pagan ideals of education and the perfect
man. To a large extent the confrontation
took place over classical literature. A majority
of citizens were of the literary/rhetorical
tradition. The issue was over the classical
world view. Was the church to discard all pagan
culture, or was it to attempt
a synthesis between Christian and classical thought?
Within the circle of
orthodoxy many answers were given. After long
trial and debate, what was
finally settled upon has affected our intellectual
culture to this day.
By the time the church confronted the issue of
education on an institutional
level, several important events had already occurred:
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The
Church had transferred from Jewish to Gentile
soil.
-
The
standard of orthodoxy was moving in a more
theological direction.
-
The
Judaic roots of Christianity were radically
de-emphasized as the
Gospel message was universalized.
-
The
Biblical wisdom tradition was discarded in
exchange for Greek
education.
-
Wisdom
was redefined in classical terms.
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As
the Church became more and more Gentile, less
and less Judaic, an
education system arose. The Bible standards
that would have caused friction
with the classical paideia [education] had
retreated into the distance. The
Church had undergone a strange transformation.
Next: Puritan
Education
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