John Colet, Catholic Humanist (essay by Thomas Banks) https://t.co/HPMgDPteAk
— ImaginativeConservat (@imaginativecons) August 29, 2020
Imaginative Conservative
Colet’s life and learning represent Catholic humanism at its finest. He advocated for such reforms in education as the soundest minds of his day also desired, and gave real impetus to the study of the Greek language, which was then seen by certain more cautious authorities as too powerful an intoxicant. He knew the value of learning and—unlike more than a few intellectuals—he knew also the limits of its advantages. So much we find in one of his surviving letters to Erasmus, in which he writes, “Of books and learning there is no end; but there is nothing better in this short life than to live purely and holily, to strive daily after perfection and enlightenment, as these books teach us; but that can only be done by a tender love and imitation of Jesus Christ.”
Would it be unfair to criticize the Christian humanists for failing to appreciate Greek theology on its own terms and as a proper inheritance from Hellenism, and instead of focusing too much on the pagan Greeks (and Latins)?
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