Yet Christian education also failed in its search for truth. As we have seen, the exigencies of the time drove its exponents to a zealous narrowness whose watchword was stated by Claudianus Mamertus, when, in his Contra vanos poetas, he said that the divine alone must be studied:
Incipe divinis tantum dare pectora rebus.
By limiting the meaning of ‘divina’ to dogma, the Church imposed fetters on the seeker after truth which, though not very prominent in our period, became exceedingly galling in the times that followed. Eucherius (to take a final example) writes to Valerian appealing to him to lay aside the love of the world and the study of worldly philosophy, to turn to the study of true piety and true philosophy.[1415] The key-note of the letter is: ‘Quid enim prodest homini si mundum universum lucretur, animae vero suae detrimentum patiatur?’ with a special connotation of ‘mundum’. The incompatibility between secular and sacred literature is emphasized, and illustrated by edifying stories about Clement, Gregory, and Paulinus of Nola. The conclusion is: ‘Quin tu, repudiatis illis philosophorum praeceptis ... ad imbibenda Christiana dogmatis studia animum adicis?... In illis namque eorum praeceptis vel adumbrata virtus vel falsa sapientia....’ The position is not that the philosophers should be read and then rejected, but that they should not be read at all.
Thus, the leaders of Christian education in Gaul, however excusable their attitude at the time, established that regrettable dichotomy between secular and sacred knowledge which has been the bane of succeeding ages. While, on the one hand, they made an advance towards truth by stimulating thought and criticism, on the other, they did not, perhaps could not, succeed in recognizing that truth is one and indivisible, and that her seekers know of no such divisions.
And so we are forced back on our ever-recurring problem: how is man, his emotions and environment being what they are, to attain to the scientific attitude of mind? Socrates long ago saw the difficulty of having a body which fills us with ‘passions and desires and fears and all sorts of fancies and foolishness’, and makes it impossible for us to be single-minded in our pursuit of the truth.[1416] Yet he, and the great teachers of mankind throughout the ages, have insisted with an earnestness that reached to martyrdom, that such an unswerving and disinterested quest is the one result in education that truly matters, that it is the condition of progress and the criterion of culture. And if the way is long and the battle fierce, we must choose the dust and heat rather than lose sight of the ideal. καλὸν γὰρ τὸ ἆθλον καὶ ἡ ἐλπὶς μεγάλη.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Cf. Freeman, Methods of Historical Study, pp. 31 ff.
[2] e.g. Bury, Roman Empire, Introd., p. vii; Freeman, Western Europe during the Fifth Century, p. 260.
[3] Cf. Lavisse, Histoire de France, I. ii. 325 and 326, ‘Chrétiens et païens s’accordaient pour reconnaître ‘en lui un sauveur’.
[4] Pacatus (Pan. Lat. ii. 28) celebrates his loyalty, while Prosper condemns it (Bury-Gibbon, iii. 138). Hodgkin, i. 380, accepts his fidelity.