Letter 21

From: Braulio of Zaragoza, bishop To: [Recipient unknown] Date: ~639 AD Context: Letter 21 of Braulio of Zaragoza; one of a series of letters whose recipients have not been definitively identified in the surviving manuscript tradition. To my beloved brother in Christ, greetings, The matter you raised in your last letter has stayed with me, and I think I owe you a more careful reply than the hasty note I sent by return. You asked whether the ancient practice of reading pagan poets and philosophers in the church's schools can be justified, given that so much of what those authors say is contrary to Christian teaching. It is a fair question and one that has generated genuine controversy since the time of Jerome — who famously dreamed that he was condemned before God for being "a Ciceronian and not a Christian," and who nonetheless continued to quote Cicero throughout the rest of his career. My own view is that the grammar and rhetoric that the pagan authors transmit are instruments, not ends. We teach a child to use a knife without teaching him to murder. The study of Virgil teaches a student how Latin at its finest is organized, how imagery works, how a sentence can carry weight. These are skills that the Christian preacher needs. The theology of Virgil — insofar as he has one — we reject. But we do not need to pretend, as some have suggested, that the rejection of pagan religion requires the rejection of pagan learning in every form. Isidore of Seville, my great teacher, assembled pagan and Christian learning side by side in the Etymologiae for precisely this reason. The knowledge does not become false because the man who first organized it was not baptized. I hope this is useful. Braulio