Hallowed Halls the Christian Story of the University the Fear of the Lord Is the Beginning of Knowledge

Issue 139

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Hallowed halls The Christian story of the university The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Proverbs 1:7a, NRSV Third in our faith and flourishing series christian instruction Medieval university students attend class in Bohemia— probably at the University of Prague.

lecturing has changed very little in over a millennium! Unlike many other universities you’ll soon read about, where theology headed the curriculum, the University of Bologna did not teach theology or the liberal arts until the 1300s. Students at Bologna officially ran the school at first. They took up a collection to give a financial gift to their instructors because, as the school’s history notes, “at that time science, as a gift of God, could not be sold.” Eventually these gifts developed into regular salaries.

do not attack the dean The University of St Andrews in Scot- land grew from a papal schism. In the fifteenth century, Scottish students who wished to pursue higher education attended the Uni- versity of Paris (in Scotland’s historic ally, France), Did you know? rather than Oxford or Cambridge (in Scotland’s historic enemy, England). But the Western Schism—in This issue shares many stories about which French cardinals and the Scottish church sup- colleges and universities trying to purported rival popes—made this impossible. Scottish sue human flourishing. Here are a few churchmen incorporated a new university in 1411, finally obtaining a charter from beleaguered Pope

to start you off. Benedict XIII in 1413. When the charter arrived, peo- edia m ple set celebratory bonfires. Science cannot be sold The early days of the university were tempestu- The earliest recorded attempts at something like a mod- ous, between town-and-gown fights and the turmoil ern university occurred in Bologna, Italy. In the late of the Protestant Reformation. Its school history notes,

1080s, a scholar named Irenius (c. 1050–c. 1125) gathered “In 1470, several masters and students were expelled ages / [CC BY 4.0] Wiki Im

students for instruction in Roman law. He read the law for attacking the Dean with bows and arrows. In 1544 e edia m o m

code aloud and added his own “glosses” while the stu- the university banned beards, the carrying of weap- c dents dutifully took notes—proof that some university ons, gambling and football [soccer].” At its founding —Well 4.0] Wiki

St Andrews was a center of humanist SA scholarship, and, after Scotland became 1828 Protestant in 1560, it became a flagship ngraving,

school for the new movement. kare / [CC BY- E c a P .— c godless college, famous duel One of Great Britain’s first completely sec- 14

ular colleges, University College London, ondon Colored L was founded in direct contrast to Oxford ript detail, and Cambridge, which only allowed c College,

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reformer Thomas Arnold (1795–1842)— m niversit

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Christian History christian study This 13th-c. edition (below) of Conso- lation of Philosophy by Boethius shows the liberal arts as a ladder leading to philosophical truth.

christian formation Dartmouth (above, in 1834), like many US Ivy League schools, was originally founded to train clergy (see pp. 39–41).

(see pp. 43–45). In response in 1905, the state legislature edia passed “An Act to Prohibit White and Colored Persons m from Attending the Same School”—specifically aimed

ain] Wiki at Berea, which was convicted and fined $1,000. Berea m was forced to open the Lincoln Institute several hours do c li

b away to educate Black students. u P President and Congregational minister William Goodell Frost (1854–1938) announced a change of focus eipzig—[ L to poverty-stricken communities in eastern Kentucky; he is, in fact, credited with coining the concept of edia liothek m b “Appalachia” as a cultural region. Not until 1950 could would influence generations of English schoolchil- Black students again attend Berea. C H

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ortrait over King’s refusal to limit students to Church of Eng- P land members! ational N — who can flourish here? edia 1839

m Berea College in Kentucky is one of the few colleges in the United States to charge no tuition; every student receives a scholarship and enrolls in a work-study pro-

il on Canvas gram on campus. Founder and nondenominational O

rts, De consolatione philosophiae , M minister John Fee (1816–1901) explicitly began the school A rnold

A in 1855 to educate men and women, Black and White, in eral athaniel Currier / Wiki b as N i L m the first coed and integrated college in the South. He ho

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Issue 139 1 How to Save Western CuLture

◆ HOW TO DESTROY ◆ SEX AND THE UNREAL CITY WESTERN CIVILIZATION e Demolition of the Western Mind Peter Kree Anthony Esolen A series of brilliant essays about many of the problems that With saber-like wit, Esolen leads us on a tour through the undermine our Western civilization, along with ways to ruins of our own Western world. is hilarious guide to a address them. In his witty, readable style, Kree implores us culture gone mad with sex and self-care minces no words to gather wisdom and preserve it, as the monks did in the and spares no egos. We the people of Unreal City are no Middle Ages. He o ers relevant philosophical precepts that better, and certainly no smarter, than our fathers. can be collected to guide us in the days ahead. But fear not. Esolen lights a torch and heads up the well- Kree emphasizes the most necessary thing to save our trod path back to our cleaner, kinder, truer homeland: Earth. civilization is to have children. e “unmentionable elephant Along the way, the author sings the songs of masters long in the room” is sex, properly understood. Religious liberty is forgotten—Shakespeare, Dante, Milton, the Evangelists— being attacked in the name of “sexual liberty”, i.e. abortion. and asks us to join in. He encourages us to ght back, with joy and con dence, with SUCP . . . Sewn So cover, $17.95 the one weapon that will win the future: children. " is work wins my 'book of the year' award for 2020!" HDWCP . . . Sewn So cover, $17.95 — Tracey Rowland, Ph.D., University of Notre Dame “Kreeft has produced many valuable books in his long career. is one, in its broad scope and incisive analysis, may be the best “Esolen is a prophet—the rare doctor who nails the diagnosis, of them all.” — Robert Royal, Author, A Deeper Vision: The exposes the false treatments that made the patient sicker, and ap- Catholic Intellectual Tradition in the 20th Century plies the lasting cure. Elegant sock-to-the-jaw prose!" — Patrick Co n, Author, e Contraception Deception “A pithy, o en very funny book, with a serious underlying purpose. Kree is a keen diagnostician of our moral and spiritual disorders. “De nitively deconstructs the Unreal City crumbling around us A book to be savored on many levels.” and leads us back into the joy of the only real city—the City of God. — Robert Reilly, Author, America on Trial: A Defense of the Founding A must read !” — Sue Ellen Browder, Author, Sex and the Catholic Feminist Related Title Related Title WESTERN CULTURE: Today & Tomorrow ADAM AND EVE AFTER THE PILL This ground-breaking book by Mary Joseph Ratzinger offers his keen in- Eberstadt examines the seismic social sights about the social and political chal- changes caused by the sexual revolution. lenges confronting modern Western It will change the way you view the para- societies. He prescribes a return to the doxical impact of the sexual revolution on truths taught by the God of the Bible as ideas, morals, and humanity itself. essential for restoring our culture. AEAPP . . . Sewn So cover, $16.95 WCTTP . . . Sewn So cover, $17.95

www.ignatius.com

P.O. Box 1339, Ft. Collins, CO 80522 (800) 651-1531 Letters to the editor Readers respond to Christian History

who gives wealth? I am perplexed that no article [in #137] made any reference Publishing Despite a pandemic to Deuteronomy 8:18 where God says (through Moses): Thank you so much that with all that is going on you “And you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is still sent out a new issue. God bless you.—Deborah He who gives you power to get Dockett, Monrovia, CA wealth. . . .” (NKJV). This seems fundamental to Note: In issue #138, we neglected to mention #43, How We the issue at hand.—David Got Our Bible, in the list of related issues. Please check it out! Butler, Monrovia, CA Also in issue #138 we misidentified what is most probably a Wycliffite Bible on p. 12 as a printing of Tyndale’s Bible, based Hundreds of Scripture pas- on an erroneous attribution by the photographer. Thank you sages speak of money or the to our eagle-eyed reader Mark Rankin, professor of English at market—we only discussed James Madison University, for pointing this out. a few and did not direct our authors to use specific ones. You may want to look at our Meet the intern: grace pointner two previous issues on money (#14 and #19); issue #14 refer- What is your role at CHI? enced Deut. 8:18. My internship has allowed me to do a little bit of everything, from editing articles to drafting my own blog Finance and violence posts. I can observe the professionals at I love the magazine and often encourage friends and CHI while also trying my hand at editing, family to read it. However, [issue #137 said:] “In canon marketing, and writing. I have been shown law usury by Jews was deemed acceptable via a loop- how to write short descriptions of articles hole based on Deuteronomy 23:20, granting Jews the for posting on social media, what the pro- opportunity to use financial violence against foreigners cess of compiling an issue looks like, what in the form of interest.” . . . Deuteronomy 23:20 does not kinds of edits are more helpful than oth- portray “interest” (usury) outside of the distinct fam- ers, and how to better communicate stories ily of God as violence—but as “allowed” with foreign through film. Although I edit and write alongside the peoples.—Tim Miller, e-subscriber staff of CHI, I have found that my role is also to observe and learn from the well-oiled-machine that is CHI. We asked Dr. Nathan Hitchcock, the author, and he responded: “In an earlier draft I had elaborated that some premodern Why did you want to join CHI for your internship? interpreters understood Deut. 23:20 as financial violence, My brother Max works for CHI, so he was my initial which was their superimposing of the talk of ‘enemies’ earlier connection. I am interested in nonprofit or freelance in Deut. 23 on top of v. 20’s permission of lending at interest editing and writing as a career, making this internship to ‘foreigners.’ They understood usury as a financial aggres- especially appealing. I personally find the content of sion permitted under certain parameters. Such reasoning was the magazine interesting, making the work enjoyable behind canon law. I did not intend to comment on the actual and compelling! biblical meaning.” What are you studying and what are your plans? A light bulb went on I am studying Communication Media with an Anthro- I loved issue #137. I especially appreciated the histori- pology minor and a Journalism Certificate at Wheaton cal aspect to Christians charging interest. . . . If you are College (IL). My dream job would be freelance writing desperate and have no money for food and I give you a or storytelling for ministry purposes. Being able to lis-

hoto loan with interest, and all you end up doing is paying ten, absorb, and retell people’s narratives is what I hope p more than you needed for food, that is predatory on my my future brings. part at some point. But if I give you a loan with interest

#137 so that you can invest in a business idea that results in What do you do in your spare time? you making more money and having greater economic I love to engage with both arts and athletics. Much of istory # 138 H HISTORY freedom (including the ability to donate to charity) then my time is spent journaling, watercoloring, playing I have actually given you a blessing, and that is a won- soccer, cooking, or walking with friends. C H HRISTIAN C Christian Grace Pointner—Personal derful thing.—Langdon Palmer, Philadelphia, PA

Issue 139 3 Editor’s note

Even though my older daughter is only 14, we’ve adults like me—and my daughter—for the common already begun to talk about college. Not in the prep- good has been a question almost since there have ping-the-kid-with-an-impeccable-resume-to-get-into- been Christians. an-Ivy-League-school sense. Just in a sense of “What Does a classical education complement Chris- do you want to do? What do you think you might major tianity or oppose it? How important are the liberal in? Do you want to go to a big school or a small one? Do arts? What place does religion have in the univer- you want to stay close to home or go far away?” I ask sity curriculum? Should explicit Christian practice these questions as an explicitly Christian parent, want- be required of students? What courses and activities ing the best possible education for my daughter on both best equip young people to be good Christians and an informational and a formational level. good citizens? Thirty-five years ago, when I was just a little older than she is, I too was considering these questions. What’s the right answer? Back then we submitted typewritten college applica- In this issue of Christian History, we look at a num- tions (as I have never been able to touch-type, mine ber of attempts to answer these questions, beginning included copious amounts of white-out). Schools sent with the development of the first institutions that us brochures in the mail, hoping to entice us to an clearly look like modern universities in the High open house. I visited a few schools, went to some col- Middle Ages. lege fairs at my high school, read brochures, had phone We explore their vision for a classical education conversations with admissions folks, and ultimately centered around theology as the queen of the sci- applied to eight colleges. ences and trace what happened to that vision as post- The one I selected was a small liberal-arts college Enlightenment developments ushered in a new kind of about two hours from my home, historically church- university focused on research and professional train- related but not explicitly Christian—no doctrinal or ing—conceiving of religion as a subject of study like chapel requirements. I did what many college stu- any other. Finally we consider how these visions made dents do: picked a major or two (English and music), their way to America, where today wholly secular uni- read works of classic literature and learned a little versities, explicitly Christian schools, and historically German, took electives, did theater and joined a ser- church-related colleges like my alma mater all dot the vice organization, made late-night ice-cream runs landscape. We trace this history through a “case study” while studying, attended lots of concerts and lectures, approach, following schools of particular historical went to chapel, and stayed up late in the dorm dis- interest to the story. cussing the Meaning of Life with my friends. All in I don’t know yet where my daughter will go to all it was thoroughly fulfilling but not in any way college. I do, after working on this issue, feel better unusual. Serious study of the liberal arts prepared me equipped to ask questions about what her experience pretty well for the direction my life has taken since, might look like. There won’t be any typewriters or both spiritually and intellectually. white-out. But there will, I hope, be

Maybe your experience looked like mine, or questions about the common good. CH obin Heller R maybe it didn’t. Maybe you went to a state school or an explicitly Christian college. But I suspect you Jennifer Woodruff Tait wrestled with some similar questions. Whether, and Managing editor TAIT how, Christians should go about educating young ERINE H CH appreciates Robert Porwoll’s assistance with the prepa- AT Find Christian History on Facebook as ChristianHistoryMagazine, ration of this issue. ait—C or visit www.christianhistorymagazine.org. Find our daily stories T eadquarters—line drawing by h

at www.christianhistoryinstitute.org/today. For Twitter, use We thank the many readers who support this ministry, I @ChristiaHistory, and for Instagram, @christianhistorymagazine. making it possible for us to provide Christian History in print. Don’t miss our next issue, “C. S. Lewis at Home,” which will Please visit www.ChristianHistoryMagazine.org to renew or discuss stories of the famous apologist and his friends and family. begin a subscription to Christian History. Jennifer woodruff Vision Video/CH

4 Christian History 17

6 41 53 Christianity and higher education

6 Restoring the divine likeness 39 Fruits of the ivy vine Christian humanism and the rise of the university Ivy League schools and the good of a new nation Jens Zimmermann Benjamin P. Leavitt edia edia m 12 City of scholars 43 “God will bless us in doing right” The University of Paris model Oberlin College and Christian social reform ] Wiki

3.0 Robert J. Porwoll Christina Hitchcock Y B

CC 16 Guild of learners 46 Delicate balance ko / [ l Oxford and Cambridge in the Middle Ages Fundamentalism and the evangelical mind at Wheaton

ai S

— G. R. Evans George Marsden 50 Seeking and teaching virtue 1334–1337 20 Politics, popes, and Prague A cascading failure of the common good Christian bearers of the liberal arts tradition ence r Jennifer A. Boardman

o Edwin Woodruff Tait Fl e, l The backwoods school that 53 Humility, truth, mentoring, love ani 23 edia mp

m Is something missing from the modern university? a changed a continent C Craig Boyd; Drew Trotter; Luke Bobo; Margarita Mooney Wiki Wittenberg served as a Reformation center 3.0]

Beth Kreitzer SA

Y- Also: B ons • Did you know?, inside front cover CC mm 26 Tolerant and pious o iefs of Giotto’s l C Halle gave Europe a Pietist vision • Letters, p. 3 • Editor’s note, p. 4 afsh / [ e Re

edia • School profiles, pp. 29, 32 l Douglas H. Shantz

r m b a r D • Timeline, p. 30 ] Wiki ht— e) Ma • Berlin, p. 37 • Newman, p. 42 g From Paris to Berlin l 33 2.0 Y nsi B I • Revivals, p. 49 • Questions, p. 57 The university’s post-Enlightenment transformation istot CC • Recommended resources, p. 58 Ar Thomas Albert Howard and y ex / [ Al — iviniti Founder Executive Editor Image Researcher ©2021 Christian History Institute. Cover: The Long Room of the Old y D ato and l A. K. Curtis Bill Curtis Max Pointner sit Library at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland—Diliff / [CC BY-SA 4.0] Wiki- ith r w Senior Editor Director of Editorial Staff Proofreader media. Christian History is published by Christian History Institute, P.O. nive gy

U Box 540, Worcester, PA, 19490 and is indexed in Christian Periodical Index, o Chris R. Armstrong Dawn Moore Meg Moss l

ll ISSN 0891-9666. Subscriptions are available on a donation basis. Letters to ne heo Managing Editor Design Editor Circulation T r the editor may be sent to Jennifer Woodruff Tait (editor@christianhistory o Jennifer Woodruff Tait Doug Johnson Sara Campbell C permissions requests Credits

, institute.org) and to Kaylena Radcliff. : We make l e a Robbia, Dialectic (P every effort to obtain proper permission to reproduce images. If you have p Contributing Editors Editorial Coordinator Print Coordinator ll

ha Edwin Woodruff Tait Kaylena Radcliff Deb Landis information about an image source that is not credited, please let us know. C

e Michelle Curtis g atican Mosaic, a Layout V Luca de S www.ChristianHistoryMagazine.org • 1-800-468-0458 Dan Graves

Issue 139 5 Restoring the divine likeness CHRISTIAN HUMANISM AND THE RISE OF THE MEDIEVAL UNIVERSITY Jens Zimmermann

IMAGINE A TIME when higher education was cavernous halls to town-and-gown conflicts to the intended for character formation rather than as a cata- wearing of academic gowns—but they did not invent pult into a higher income bracket. Imagine a time when this idea of Christ-formation. It grew naturally from university students pursued truth rather than—as the early church and its emphasis on something many argue now—political correctness and identity called Christian humanism. The word “humanism” politics. The medieval period from which our ideal of a on a modern popular level calls to mind thinkers university education emerged was such a time. who reject God, but for the church fathers, “human- We often associate medieval learning with scho- ism” was a Christian concern for human flourishing

lasticism, and scholasticism with narrow-minded in the light of what Jesus has done for us. —GETTY CENTER / [PUBLIC DOMAIN] WIKIMEDIA

theological fundamentalists obsessed with abstract, 1460 obscure questions. Yet this assumption is foundation- THE IMAGE OF CHRIST TO ally wrong. Medieval universities were dedicated to The apostle Paul fleshed this concept out in his let- 1460 forming students in both intellectual skills and virtue. ters to the churches. For Paul Christianity was about They championed a broad education in the liberal arts, “being molded to the image (eikonos) of [God’s] son promoting the unity of faith and reason for the devel- that he may become the eldest of many brothers and opment of the whole person. For them education was sisters” (Rom. 8:29). Transformation into “the image Christ-formation. or likeness (eikona) of the heavenly one” (1 Cor. 15:49) These universities invented many structures that drives the Christian life and fulfills the Christian’s

persist in modern universities—from lectures in ultimate purpose. And this “heavenly one” in COËTIVY MASTER, PHILOSOPHY PRESENTING THE SEVEN LIBERAL ARTS TO BOETHIUS TEMPERA COLORS, GOLD LEAF, AND GOLD PAINT ON PARCHMENT,

6 C H TRAIN OF LADIES In this image (left), Philosophy presents the seven liberal arts to Boethius (p. 50)—as so often in medieval art, they are personified as young women.

THE ORIGINAL EDUCATOR Medieval educators felt they were forming others in the image of Christ—who, after all, had disputed with scholars in the temple (below).

later shape the medieval university. The first was that faith and reason work in harmony to give us a deeper understanding of reality and godly conduct. The goal of Christ-likeness is attainable through knowledge pursued for the sake of wis- whom “all things were made new” (2 Cor. 5:17) cre- dom. Thus the path to Christ-likeness is “faith ated in himself a “new human being” beyond any seeking understanding,” the systematic unfold- racial, national, or even gender divisions. ing of belief in God through knowledge. The Paul urged Christians to “put on this new human early church did not regard the pursuit of knowl- being” (Eph. 4:24). For Paul God perfected humanity edge as a threat to simple faith, as if logical through the Incarnation in Christ and invited his cre- reasoning waters down genuine belief. Rather it con- ation to share in this perfection through communion sidered knowledge an important tool to build faith with himself. (Phil. 1:9, 1 Pet. 3:15). — Early Christian theologians after the apostles The second conviction of Christian humanist 1560 faithfully continued to uphold and unfold Paul’s education that persisted into the medieval uni- humanist gospel. They held that in Christ all of cre- versity is an expansive view of truth leading to a ation is reconciled to God and renewed. The church fearless engagement with philosophy—even pagan father Irenaeus of Lyon (c. 130–c. 202) famously spoke philosophy. Christ is the center of reality, the uni- of humanity’s “recapitulation” in Christ. Through versal Logos (Word) through whom everything had Christ’s Passion and Resurrection, he argued, been made (John 1:1) and in whom “all things hang humanity is collectively taken up and perfected into together” (Col. 1:17b). Every true, good, and noble the intended final form. thing, as Paul himself taught, could reflect God’s The church fathers saw in the Incarnation truth. both the goal of the Christian life and the path to Encouraged by Paul’s own use of pagan poets get there. For them the good news and the whole in conversing with Greek philosophers (as in Acts point of Christianity was to become fully human 17:27–28), church fathers freely used Platonic, by becoming refashioned into the image of Christ Aristotelian, and Stoic philosophy for articulating through participation in the humanity of God. Christian mysteries such as the Trinity, or the union of humanity and divinity in Christ. FAITH, REASON, AND CULTURE In becoming human God revealed himself by This Christian humanist ideal of education already means of the material world and social realities. MUSEO DEL PRADO / [PUBLIC DOMAIN] WIKIMEDIA PAOLO VERONESE, JESUS AMONG THE DOCTORS AT TEMPLE, OIL ON CANVAS C. contained two important convictions that would By making himself vulnerable to the mediation of

I 7 TAKING CAPTIVE EVERY THOUGHT Church fathers and medieval thinkers wanted to use the best of Greco- Roman education for Christ—from the ideals and methods of Plato (below in a 1st-c. BC mosaic) to the books of Aristotle (left).

claimed Christianity as “the true philosophy.” But did the early church naively engage philosophy too much? Would the philosophies of the world leave a stain on the pure faith? In those early Christian centuries, Tertullian (c. 155–c. 225) famously rejected the mixing of pagan thought with Christianity into a syncretistic cocktail: “What has Jerusalem to do with Athens, the Church with the Academy, the Christian with the heretic?” Yet Tertullian’s statement has to be understood as an expression of a shared early church concern to avoid philosophical distortions of the Christian gospel.

“PLUNDER THE EGYPTIANS” Contrary to a false but tenacious rumor later set afoot by nineteenth-century German scholars such as Adolf von Harnack (1851–1930), early Christian engagement with philosophy did not introduce unbiblical catego- ries. Early apologists for the Christian faith followed Origen’s advice to “plunder the Egyptians” and col- lect from pagan philosophy every good thing that could serve to promote Christianity. This “plunder- ing,” however, followed two important rules that would profoundly shape medieval education. First, the plunder had to be genuine treasure; only philosophies or cultural values already com- patible with Christianity could serve as preparation for, or explanation of the Christian faith. For this reason Platonic philosophy, which taught assimi- space, time, and culture, God demonstrated that lation to God, was an early favorite with Christian faith, reason, and culture go together. theologians. As Athanasius (c. 296–373) pointed out in On the Second, seizing pagan intellectual treasure Incarnation, in Jesus, God became “himself an object involved critical appropriation. Origen (c. 184–c. for the senses,” with the result that “all things have 253) tried to discard from them anything incompat- been filled with the knowledge of God.” For early ible with the Christian tradition, as did Christian Christian theologians, “all things” included every theologians who followed his advice, including the

valid insight into the human condition. medieval thinker Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274). ST C. AD—MUSEO NAZIONALE ARCHEOLOGICO, NAPLES / [PUBLIC DOMAIN] WIKIMEDIA 1 Therefore Christian thinkers familiar with phil- Besides using philosophical language to express osophical currents of their day recognized in them Christian faith, church fathers also adopted and trans- a foreshadowing of God’s revelation in Christ, even formed Greco-Roman educational models. Ancient while acknowledging decisive differences between Greek education of the young for leadership in society those currents and their own faith. Philosophy, focused on rhetoric, grammar, and studying culturally after all, means “love of wisdom.” Christ embod- relevant texts, like Homer’s poetry. Poetry and litera- ies God’s world-sustaining wisdom (1 Cor. 1:24); ture were so central to Greek education that the Greek

early theologians like Justin Martyr (c. 100–c. 165) term for education, paideia, came to stand for literature MOSAIC OF PHILOSOPHER ARISTOTLE, ROMAN-GERMANIC MUSEUM, COLOGNE, GERMANY—STEVE ESTVANIK / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM PLATO’S ACADEMY, ROMAN MOSAIC,

8 C H WISDOM IS THE PRINCIPAL THING Hugh of St. Victor writes his Didascalicon, essentially an early encyclopedia (right); a 13th-c. scribe attempts to diagram the arguments of Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine (below).

—© THE BRITISH LIBRARY common goal of achieving true humanity through 1202 developing wisdom and moral virtue. They adapted as a whole. Such studies served as preparation for the the model to the Christian goal of becoming more like crowning discipline of philosophy. Christ, a decisive Christian departure point from the Greek paideia aimed to develop a complete, holistic Greek model. And Christians insisted on three fur- human personality and to form a virtuous, responsi- ther major differences.

, ROCHESTER, ENGLAND, ble citizen. Following their conquest of Greece, Romans First, Christian education aimed not at Greek vir- 4 adopted this Greek educational model, turning it into tues of courage or wisdom, but at transformation to B XII F.

—[CC BY] LEIDEN UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES the artes liberales, the liberal arts, dedicated to the cul- Christ-likeness; second, instead of Homer, the Bible 5

1177 tivation of the mind. Already in Roman antiquity, the became the central literature for study; and third, – liberal arts were shaped like the medieval curriculum theology replaced philosophy as the crowning dis- 1176

0R, into a trivium (grammar, rhetoric, dialectic) and a quad- cipline. Philosophy, secular literature, and all other 13

F. rivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music). sciences remained an important part of education, 46 Typically the upper class of free citizens enjoyed but as handmaids (helpers) to theology. However, the “liberal” or “free” arts, while lower classes received even theology itself was subservient to education’s training in the mechanical arts, or what we might today ultimate goal: the process of becoming Christlike. call technical or professional studies. Education was More than anyone else, Augustine (354–430) thus divided into two classes: those who worked and imprinted this patristic ideal of Christian humanist those who thought about the purpose of life. education on Western culture. Augustine’s vision is captured in his influential work On Christian Teaching CENTERED ON SCRIPTURE (397, with a fourth book added in 426), which deci- Christians transformed Greek paideia and Roman lib- sively shaped the medieval curriculum. A recent eral arts into a liberal arts tradition centered on the English translation renders the work’s title aptly as Bible. Greek church fathers like Gregory of Nazianzen Teaching Christianity because the book is a guide for (329–390) and Basil of Caesaria (330–379), both edu- educators of the Christian faith on how to interpret DIAGRAM OF AUGUSTINE’S DIVISIONS IN THE DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA , ROYAL HUGONIS DE S. VICTORE ERUDITIONIS DIDASCALICAE , VUL cated at Athens, recognized in Greek education a Scripture and communicate its truths.

I 9 —RUFUS46 / [CC BY-SA 3.0] WIKIMEDIA 1367 – 1365

Augustine’s own classical training in literature THEOLOGY ON THE THRONE In this fresco at the Basilica and rhetoric, along with his view that the light of of Santa Maria Novella, Thomas Aquinas is enthroned not God’s truth guides all valid reasoning, prompted only at the center of famous Old and New Testament saints but of all branches of medieval learning. him to assert the usefulness of pagan and nonbiblical sources for Christian education. He taught Christians to welcome and appreciate all secular knowledge theology. Theology stood as the queen of the sciences, insofar as it can contribute to becoming more like not because it ruled over the others, but because only Christ, or, as Augustine liked to put it, to “becoming God truly grounds and unites all the sciences. Well into fit for the fellowship of angels.” the thirteenth century, university education remained Following Augustine’s lead the first universities focused on assimilating this wisdom of ancient culture, that began to emerge in northern Europe focused guided by the ideal of ordering all wisdom and knowl- on a Christianized version of liberal arts education. edge to aid the study of theology. Medieval universities arose around the eleventh century, most directly from two institutions: first, from TRUTH AND VIRTUE Christian schools of letters and canon law run by Christian humanism of the early church ran deeply cathedrals or monasteries and second, from secular through medieval education, with a concern for edu- law schools that were independent of the church. cation as a restoration of Christ’s image in the learner. The University of Paris (see pp. 12–15) and later According to twelfth-century schoolmaster Hugh of institutions like Cambridge and Oxford in England (see St. Victor (c. 1096–1141), for example, “there are two pp. 16–19) were of the first type, while the University of things which restore the divine likeness in human Bologna in Italy (see p. 29) evolved out of the second. beings, namely the contemplation of truth and the Within the universities, liberal arts prepared students practice of virtue.” And these two things were the

for the three graduate subjects of medicine, law, and goal of university studies: ANDREA DI BONAIUTO, TRIUMPH OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS , FRESCO, CAPPELLONE DEGLI SPAGNOLI, SANTA MARIA NOVELLA,

10 C H This then is what the arts SYLLABUS FOR FLOURISHING are concerned with, this is These reliefs on what is known what they intend, namely, to as Giotto’s Belltower in Florence show students learning gram- restore within us the divine mar (top), a personification of likeness. . . . The more we are rhetoric (middle), and Plato and conformed to the divine Aristotle demonstrating logic nature, the more do we pos- (bottom). sess Wisdom, for then there begins to shine forth again in us what has forever existed Ultimately medieval Christ- in the divine Idea or Pattern, ian humanism did not succeed. coming and going in us but stand- The dream of recovering a complete ing changeless in God. knowledge of reality became untenable In seeking the recovery of that divine likeness, in light of reality’s complexity. When a few medieval scholastics walked in the footsteps of their hundred books comprised all human knowledge, patristic forebears. Education, they believed, con- this dream may have appeared reasonable, but tributes to the restoration of the divine image. the flood of publications by medieval schol- For this reason they synthesized and com- ars soon demonstrated the impossibility of piled authoritative texts from the church this hope. fathers, hopeful that this method could Moreover its lack of experimental repair the fragmentation of knowl- knowledge doomed the scholas- edge resulting from Adam and tic project to failure. The rise of Eve’s Fall from communion empirical science made obvious with God—humankind before that merely sum mariz ing and the Fall had, they believed, a rehash ing ancient assumptions ] WIKIMEDIA ] WIKIMEDIA “perfect system of knowledge,” about the cosmos did not advance 3.0 which the university tried to recover humanity’s knowledge of nature. in the service of human flourishing. Nevertheless medieval Christ ian The scholastics, like their predeces- humanists founded the modern univer-

—SAILKO / [CC BY sors in the early church, saw the Incarnation sity, and their trust in reason laid the foun-

] WIKIMEDIA as central to Christian humanism and drew dations for modern science (for more, see CH 3.0 ] WIKIMEDIA ] WIKIMEDIA their scholarly energy from the same well: when 134). In addition medieval humanism prepared 3.0 1334–1337 God’s eternal creating Word and Wisdom, the Son of the ground for the modern concept of the person God, became human in Christ, humanity could be as unique, irreplaceable, and irreducible to biol- assured of God’s love, the intelligibility of cre- ogy or social role. Without this medieval —SAILKO / [CC BY

—SAILKO / [CC BY ation, and the trustworthiness of reason. contribution, we would not have cur- rent notions of humankind’s 1334–1337 “REPAIR JOB” dignity, freedom, and rights. 1334–1337 On the basis of this conviction, In fact nothing seems more scholastic humanists energet- important to many in our day ically pursued their “repair of technological and genetic job” of restoring the fullness challenges to human identity of knowledge to humankind. than to recover this Christian They remained inspired by humanist legacy of the medi- the vision of systematic knowl- eval university—where the edge—now, as was not the case goal was flourishing in Christ- in the early and persecuted likeness rather than simply in church, accompanied by the technical prowess and exper- perfection and extension of an tise, and where truth was more organized Christian society. important than commercial success or This educational ideal often looked differ- identity politics. C H ent in reality, but on a sheer social and economic level, cathedral schools and the arts programs of the Jens Zimmermann is J. I. Packer Professor of Theology universities served a real need by providing literacy at Regent College and author of a number of books includ- and clerical staff for governing and organizing coming Re-Envisioning Christian Humanism: Education LUCA DELLA ROBBIA, GRAMMAR, MARBLE RELIEFS OF GIOTTO’S CAMPANILE , FLORENCE ANDRAE PISANO, RHETORIC , MARBLE RELIEFS OF GIOTTO’S CAMPANILE, FLORENCE LUCA DELLA ROBBIA, DIALECTIC (PLATO AND ARISTOTLE) MARBLE RELIEFS OF GIOTTO’S CAMPANILE, FLORENCE mercial and legal transactions in Europe. and the Restoration of Humanity.

I 11 rt A

f useum o M etropolitan M he T ublic domain] P / [ 1975 ollection, C ehman L obert R — 1460 to City of scholars 1452 The University of Paris developed a model copied by many schools on parchment, c. Robert J. Porwoll f

On a dark wintry day, a small boat with a Let there be light The artist of this 15th-c. book of handful of passengers crossed the stormy English hours imagines God dispersing demons from an accurate Channel bound for France. It carried John of Salisbury representation of medieval Paris and its university. empera and gold lea (c. 1120–1180), secretary to Thomas Becket (c. 1118–1170), T

the English archbishop who in a few years would meet combination of theology and liberal arts faculties—a emons D

a bloody end at the hands of King Henry II. Now, in development that would become a model for imitation he t

1164, storm clouds of conflict between king and arch- and adaptation by many later schools. t bishop were gathering; Thomas sent John ahead to pre- The roots of Paris’s synthesis of theology and the pare for his own coming flight from England into exile. liberal arts long predated John’s boat trip. The pre-Chris- hful agains t

Soon John arrived in Paris, where he had studied tian classical triad of liberal arts had equipped students ai F

years earlier—and he wondered at its change. Now to read well (grammar), to compose and deliver public he t

with multiplied schools, he saw a bustling and lively speeches (rhetoric), and to discern and argue whether ing t

town filled with clergy, teachers, and students hasten- statements were true or false (logic or dialectic). ec t o ing to their studies. He wrote that, like Jacob awakening In the late fourth century, church father Augustine r od P

from his dream of the angelic ladder, “God is in this of Hippo (354–430) argued in On Christian Doctrine G place and I was unaware of it” (Gen. 28:16). (397–426) that preachers should study rhetoric to and of

improve their preaching. Better preaching, Augustine H

City of scholars argued, would reveal the inner depths of the scriptural t Medieval Paris was truly a city of scholars—especially texts, showing forth God’s love and kindling love for scholars of theology and sacred Scripture. In the God in the heart. Ultimately, strong biblical preaching decades following John’s homecoming, a university would help produce strong Christians. emerged there that stood like a giant among medi- Medieval scholars and teachers revived and adopted

eval universities, not least for its new and unusual this scheme, but focused more closely on grammar and Jean Fouquet, The Righ

12 Christian History lecture hall Right A 15th-c. image of students listening to a lecture resembles both 13th-c. and 21st-c. ones.

permission slip This 1281 declaration umerique N (below) that acts of faculty must be considered acts of the University of Paris recognized a reality that already existed. mages I ibliotheque B

ubis logic. Studying grammar may seem to us N ridgeman B rudimentary or dull, not a subject to bring scriptural texts to life. But for the medieval student, studying grammar meant more than learning the rules of constructing royes, France / T

talab open lisence] sentences. Separate schools already existed E

”—[ in churches, especially bishops’ cathedrals,

1281 to offer free lessons in reading and writing unicipale, , M 12 Latin. Higher teachers, or “masters,” assumed their students would arrive with that foundation in place.

aris, July Grammar, as a liberal art, pried deeper into the P ibliotheque B

— meanings of words, literary devices, and, most impor- 32 . f

tant, the moral or ethical lesson flowing from the text. niversity, 129 Students read widely through the church fathers and U s M the classics and used that learning to understand and the f yre,

L digest the meaning of biblical texts. While all the liberal arts were meant to fit together and support each other, like a ladder for the student icolas de N to climb, grammarians and logicians often conflicted and collided. Improving conditions in twelfth-century western Europe meant more students sought learning in schools and more scholars sought appointments as teachers; teachers became competitive among them- taking charge of the now- selves to attract and to retain their students. retired William’s school. In these competitive schools, medieval teachers of Seeing the opportunity aculties must be considered as an act o f grammar began to find they had rivals among logic many more masters opened the f specialists. Grammar may reveal what a text means, schools in Paris. Abelard’s success euch , illustration to text written by t but logic is the art to discern what is true from what encouraged these new independent schools while a t is false. Christ is the Truth, after all, and so logic is a his fame drew many students to Paris. This encour- preeminent Christian liberal art—at least so said Peter aged more teachers to relocate, and soon Paris became le Pen r Abelard (1079–1142), who later in life sought to fuse log- home to flocks of students seeking learning. ical study of the faith with a disciplined life of prayer. illes su t Abelard’s career illustrates how this ongoing school of the masters

aris declaring that any act o debate between grammarians and logicians put Paris Other cities also grew into centers of study and learn- P rom Pos f f at the epicenter of a great resurgence of learning, add- ing that attracted droves of students and boasted ing drama to abstract questions. For instance, students successful schools. In southern Italy, for example,

orbonne once gathered at the cathedral school of Paris to hear Salerno hosted a famous, old medical school. In north- S niversity o U famous teacher William of Champeaux (c. 1070–1122) ern Italy, Bologna was home to early scholars, like the

f lecture on grammar. Abelard, one of these students Gratian, who organized and ordered church laws and

ct o and a specialist in logic, challenged William midlec- regulations (called canon law). Bolognese scholars A ), “ heology at the ture with difficult questions; sometimes William could also revived the study of Roman law. Roman law and T 1794

– not give good answers. Abelard scored points against canon law served as models for ordered governance

1215 his famous teacher and bolstered his own reputation. and church discipline. Law students went on to rise in esson in L

A Soon after, he started his own school on the outskirts of feudal and church leadership, drawing on their studies aris ( P

f Paris and drew many of William’s students with him. to reform abuses and corruption. chool,

S Laying rhetorical siege to the city, Abelard debated, More likely to be older and wealthier, these law stu- as if jousting, other rival teachers in Paris. He reported dents had already formed important connections in the niversity o U French success upon success and after a few years, ended up world. As a result the University of Bologna organized

Issue 139 13 politics Long after the deaths of Becket (reliquary at left) and John of Salisbury (shown lecturing below right in a 15th-c. edition of his work), the University of Paris endured.

personality Abelard, famous for both his scholarship and his relationships, ponders a letter from Héloïse (below left). ikimedia W ] 2.5

BY as a charter or contract, marks the CC University of Paris’s origin. The University of Paris useum / [ became the preeminent center M recto, illumination on parchment— 3

for philosophy and theology. For lbert A olio f

medicine one went to Salerno; for law to ,

Bologna. But the University of Paris had 1145 s.

both a vibrant faculty of the liberal arts M ictoria and V

and a faculty of theology. Here again— — mages I

as among the grammarians and logicians 1190

earlier—the rivalry between these two to enis Foulechat, 1180 D faculties caused conflict and yet fruitful ridgeman B consideration of the way theology and the Bible relate to human reason. ewberry /

The arts faculty taught the trivium and N . the quadrivium. These seven arts had pagan S inventors; they helped students read the rs. John alisbury, translated by

Bible but they did not originate with the M S

f f

Bible. As a result the arts offered a perspec- t o f i

tive on the world and reality potentially G

separate from the perspectives offered by rts / A

theology. Conflict arose in the 1200s, when icus by John o t a long-lost scientific books of Aristotle (pre- r served in the East) entered Paris. nstitute o I he Polic t

Papal Allies etroit D Aristotle’s books of logic had held sway in education for centuries, but these new imoges and champlevé enamel on copper alloy, crystal, glass, wood itself more quickly than Paris (see p. 29). Bologna’s uni- books revealed his arguments for ancient ideas that L

versity also looked different because the students ran conflicted with Christian orthodoxy. For example he th century)—© ecket, 14 B

it. Organized into groups called “nations” according to believed that the world is eternal, that God did not rontispiece miniature o f their homelands, they elected student officers who gave create freely or consciously, that God does not know homas rules and regulations to their masters: when classes individual persons, and that no afterlife awaits humans T t. S

should run and what books would be taught. The mas- after death. f ters functioned like hired contractors. Paris in the 1200s became the flashpoint of this The University of Paris, by contrast, was a masters’ Aristotelian thinking. Members of the theology fac- university. For many trades in medieval towns, crafts- ulty objected to Aristotelian ideas that stood contrary

men gathered in associations or guilds. Guilds could to the Christian faith; some masters made efforts to pre- the martyrdom o f alisbury teaching philosophy,

protect individual craftsmen, win special rights and vent these books from being read and taught in Paris. S

f ikimedia

privileges for them, and set up rules for their trade. A Other theologians, especially Albert the Great (1200– W guild could also be called a “university” (universitas). 1280), Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), and Bonaventure

Beginning in the mid-1100s, masters of schools incorpo- (1221–1274), sought to show the essential agreement of asket, detail o C olaud, John o

rated informally into such a network. They were more faith and reason as different, but not contrary, ways of C ublic domain] belard with scroll (tempera on parchment) French, ( P A ecket : concerned with learning and study than with legal knowing. Aquinas in particular led the effort to exam- B f tienne nF / [ he ea É T B rights and status; no formal founding document, such ine Aristotle’s arguments. L

14 Christian History putting on truth In this series from an illuminated manuscript, students at the University of Paris learning grammar (top), logic (middle), and rhetoric (bottom) gain nicer clothes and eventually stand up to present their arguments.

At other universities, like Bologna, no similar conflict between the faculties existed because there was no theology faculty. Only at Paris did a theology faculty teach alongside a liberal arts faculty. Hence Paris’s debates on the relationship of faith and reason, and the peacemaking policy of those like Aquinas, stand as key monuments in the larger Christian intellectual and mages I educational tradition. mages

I The University of Paris won early and faithful allies. mages I ridgeman

B The Capetian kings of France gave gifts, protection, and privileges to the university. And medieval popes ridgeman B encini / ridgeman B

B recognized early the potential for allying themselves with a university cultivating well-educated theologians aello encini / B encini / ff and teachers. B a R Better living conditions meant more people could aello aello ff

a be educated, and this called for more teachers of the ff hoto © R a P R faith. With new heresies springing up, most famously the gnostic Cathars of southern France, well-trained hoto © P hoto © P theologians were needed to recognize and correct errors; some might even persuade strays to return to the faith. Increasing contact with learned Muslim, Jewish, and Eastern Christian scholars called for theologians to debate the truth of the faith. Moreover the pope and other leaders had long struggled to reform abuses and corruption among church officials—the university seemed a likely ally to bolster these efforts. So popes became strong patrons of the University of Paris, granting the right to certify graduates as teachers of theology with a special license that would allow them to teach, theoretically, anywhere. This universal license strengthened Paris’s magnetic attraction to ic, philosophical and poetic writings, French, 13th century— f would-be teachers across Europe. Other universities later established theology facul- ic, philosophical and poetic writings, French, 13th century— f scienti ic, philosophical and poetic writings, French, 13th century— f f ties, ending Paris’s monopoly. However, the University of Paris remained a gold standard and was often called scienti f scienti

f upon to judge weighty and difficult matters (see p. 22). Though it enjoyed the patronage of the pope, the king of France, and others, the theology faculty also retained rom a collection o f independence; its debates and judgments took on weight for many as coming from an authority. rom a collection o f rom a collection o ialetics f D another model and a new curriculum. The ensuing copied and challenged debate would profoundly influence the sixteenth- rammar, hetoric G ogic or

L R In the later Middle Ages (1300s–1400s), more universi- century Reformation and beyond—long after f

f f ties began to appear across Europe. Most began with a Abelard’s disputing voice was at last silent, Aquinas’s founding gift and charter from a pope or emperor out- peacemaking between pagan and Christian thought lining structure and regulations. Many modeled them- was a matter for history books, and John of Salisbury’s he teaching o T he teaching o he teaching o C H T T selves on the University of Paris and, as a result, often last journey ended. v 57 58 58 . . .

f f f received similar privileges and rights.

Yet even in that same period, a new challenge Robert J. Porwoll is visiting assistant professor of religion at 2200 2200 2200 s s s M M M emerged as Renaissance humanists began to imagine Gustavus Adolphus College.

Issue 139 15 A guild of learners What was it like to study at Oxford and Cambridge in the Middle Ages? G. R. Evans

What guild created no wares and sold the lord be with you Worship has been offered in nothing tangible? Established to teach and prepare quali- King’s College Chapel, Cambridge (left) since the 15th c. fied learners, this guild spread and gathered apprentices and Merton College Chapel, Oxford (right) since the 13th c. to further the cause of its specialized trade. But it did not sell wares like a merchant or create something tangible examined the candidates, giving those who passed ] Wikimedia

as a metalsmith might. The trade was scholarship; the the appropriate gradus, or “degree,” in the guild. Like 3.0

craft, and even the knowledge, of theology—a commod- any other apprenticeship, the process, begun in ado- -S ity considered more important to a thriving life on earth lescence, could take seven years to complete, during BY than any of the material goods of the other trades. which the student would first gain the degree of bach- iliff / [CC

elor of arts before attempting the MA. D ixabay P

apprenticed to the craft Despite strict university standards for guild mem- ity— s

More than 800 years ago, after a century of extensive (but bership, would-be students simply arrived and applied ity— s not terribly organized) provision of higher education to a regent master, who would place them on his register in England, a group of scholars in Oxford established (the origin of the word “matriculation,” or “register- xford Univer

themselves as a universitas, Latin for “corporation.” The ing”). While their education eventually brought many O corporation took “apprentices” (undergraduates) and of these students into positions of public service, non- nterior,

“journeymen” (partially qualified craftsmen who had university residents of university towns sometimes I achieved the bachelors of arts). wondered whether they were worth the trouble. Masters of arts served as guild masters and taught Disputes between students and local people were the students, “ruling” the guild as regents. They trained an early problem, especially over lodgings. For this College Chapel, Cambridge Univer

students to lead the church as well as law courts, halls reason students hoped to enter the university quickly. s of government, and the trades. As in any other guild, Matriculated scholars enjoyed some legal protections, erton College Chapel

the masters organized the syllabus for training, then while unregistered hangers-on did not. Sheriffs could St. John’ M

16 Christian History domain] Wikimedia c bli Pu ribe / [ sc n w ibrary—Unkno L xford O odleian B , ity of syllabi revision Humphrey of Lancaster (above) s donated his library to the University of Oxford, enlarg- 1440 ing its collection 15-fold, but all but three of his books ter, ] Univer s vanished in the Reformation—which is also when the e 4.0 uc C Sentences (below right) was removed from the syllabus. N - lo G BY KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON Edward III renewed Oxford’s ke of / [CC-

s charter in this 1335 document (top right). Du ibrarie L mphrey, imprison students just for being unregistered. Beyond Hu registering, students had to go to class; only schol- odleian B

ript to ars who went to lectures at least three times a week

usc (assuming the master had actually lectured on those atin—© L ,

man three days) enjoyed immunity. s

1335 A town-and-gown clash over a presumed murder ne ibrary u L left three students dead and became the occasion for h enting hi s s th J the birth of a second English university, Cambridge; 27 riti B Oxford became known as its “parent.” The University in he T xford, the Fens of East Anglia (its original name) began in 1208 Oxford, and soon Cambridge, provided a new institu- O or 1209 when some scholars had to leave Oxford after tional structure in northern Europe. th C.—© ity of s

12 the conflict. A resident body of practicing canon lawyers working in the diocese of Ely may account for the Clerks and Clerics

f. 83r, decision of the refugees to settle in nearby Cambridge. Students attracted to both Oxford and Cambridge were , initial of John Capgrave pre 3241 Theirs survived as a new university while other experi- both would-be clerks and would-be clerics. Only after S us M mental scholar settlements failed. Cambridge’s practical becoming an MA could a student begin to study theol- xod E

arley arrangements continued largely to mirror those of its ogy or law for a higher degree. That could take many H granted to the Univer s parent school for centuries. more years, into the student’s forties—and it might not The late eleventh and twelfth centuries had seen happen at Oxford or Cambridge. From 1088 a growing “wandering scholars” attaching themselves to famous European demand for qualified notaries and highly privilege w masters and clustering near cathedrals, which had had educated civil servants was met by a “business school” schools for centuries. Those cathedral schools had pro- in Bologna; during the twelfth century, it became a grad- ombard, Sententiae , L mfrey b1 Commentary on duced advanced scholarship and famous controversies uate studium specializing in the teaching of law. Mean- Hu S eter P M Charter of ne on theological topics. But the Universities of Paris and while Paris offered theology as a postgraduate degree.

Issue 139 17 ancient plans Today the Oxford Botanic Garden (left), founded in 1621, still transports the viewer nternet nternet back centuries, and the university I maintains much of its medieval layout (below). domain] c bli Pu the examiners of his universitas that he knew this syllabus in a ibrary / [ L

disputation held for the purpose. al c

Oral disputation long remained edi the method of examining a can- M didate for a degree; Cambridge’s Senate House examinations be-

came written papers only in hing/Whitney us 1828, and Oxford too kept up ex- ity, C amination by Latin disputation s into the nineteenth century. The disputation survives today in doctoral de- ale Univer Y

fenses (where candidates must answer ques- —

tions orally—although no longer in Latin) 1871 and at Oxford for some undergraduate de- xford,

gree candidates. O , The holder of these higher degrees was s known (interchangeably) as master or doctor. To attain a doctorate in theology involved studying the Latin Vulgate and also what would now be called systematic theology. The Sentences (sententiae, or “opinions”) collected by Peter Lombard (c. 1096–1160) had by now become the standard textbook. Lombard compiled and organized the views of early Christian authors dealing with key themes and principles of rd during the tenth and eleventh centurie

Christian theology. Hundreds of manuscript o commentaries on the Sentences survive. f Oxf Every would-be doctor in theology would o ry o t

Theology, law, and medicine would remain postgradu- spend a period lecturing on Scripture when he reached s ate degree subjects throughout the Middle Ages at the interim level of bachelor of theology. The lecturer Oxford, Cambridge, and elsewhere. usually chose from the Psalms and the Epistles. That Everywhere the undergraduate syllabus looked the did not prevent the adventurous from exploring other same, derived from the seven liberal arts of the classi- parts of the Bible. Robert Grosseteste (c. 1168–1253) was ry,” from On the hi cal world. The set books were taught by lecturing (lectio, one of a number of students intrigued by scientific u ixabay

literally “reading”), for it was some generations before questions arising out of the story of creation in Genesis. P th Cent local stationers (stores selling writing materials) hit on (Read more about Grosseteste in CH 134.) N ity— s

the idea of renting sections of a text to students as the Franciscans and Dominicans quickly appeared in leve E lecturer made his way through the book. Normally the Oxford and Cambridge, each existing as a new kind lecturer would read a sentence or two and then pause of religious order with a mission to preach. Preachers trate us xford Univer ll I to explain difficult words, or to compare the opinions needed a good education, and both orders wrangled O of authorities who had commented on the passage in with the universities over the order in which the sylla- arden, G

earlier generations. Teaching methods reflected the bus should be covered. The question of preaching was xford to emphasis on logic; points in dispute were taught in for- contentious; while only a university had power to grant O emorial mal disputations. There the master presided and then degrees, it might not have authority to permit its grad- lan of P M h

declared the “correct” interpretation. uates to preach. That lay with bishops: the bishop of c r Lincoln for Oxford and the bishop of Ely for Cambridge. u arker, “ P

t Ch s s

passing the test Academic infighting began early in both universi- hive c r Jame A No one could become a master of arts without satisfying ties and grew fiercer through the medieval centuries Chri

18 Christian History CHAIR LEGS and cows At Cambridge students today can still enter through the 16th-c. Great Gate of Trinity College (left, where the statue of Henry VIII mysteriously carries a chair leg instead of the original sword) or stroll in ancient pastures near King’s College (above). hoto

P as more and more scholars left legacies of their opin- Mary’s sister, Elizabeth, succeeded to the throne, she k c ions in commentaries. Such infighting could also break took a firmer hand in governing both universities than out into national politics, as it did for John Wycliffe (c. any monarch before her. In 1565 Cambridge’s Statutes lamy Sto

A 1320–1384); see CH #3. He made himself unpopular were reformed: “though some few hot-headed men il / chiefly over his views on “dominion” and the standing there made some opposition. . . . But by the most and c

. Ce of clergy and nobility—making enemies, for instance, best part” they were “consented to.” O s of the by now very powerful friars. Oxford and Cambridge had been composed of medieval colleges, independent corporations in their

—Charle “hot-headed men” own right, with fellows making up the corporate bod- VIII The whole question of the teaching and study of the ies. But colleges with generous benefactors now began enry

H Christian faith in Oxford and Cambridge took on a new to multiply as part of the universities with the dissolu-

by color with the Renaissance, when study of the Bible tion of the monasteries. These colleges now admitted

1546 in the original languages of Greek and Hebrew was students and presented them to the university for introduced. The Reformation outlawed much medi- matriculation, and it became a requirement that stu- nded u eval doctrine and practice. Oxford and Cambridge dents should subscribe to the Thirty-Nine Articles revised the syllabus, under some pressure from the of the Church of England. That ended only with the Tudor monarchy, no longer teaching only the set books University Tests Act of 1871. Graduates offered fellow- of the Middle Ages. Many colleges had required fel- ships were normally expected to be ordained in the rinity College, fo

T lows (in modern terms, alumni) to gain the degree of Church of England, so Anglicanism long maintained a bachelor in divinity, which meant they had studied the strong presence in Oxford and Cambridge. e to c ixabay P Sentences; now royal injunctions of 1543 to 1547 forbade Today both schools are governed as direct ity— ntran lectures on the Sentences. democracies by a “sovereign body” (Oxford) or a “gov- s E Eventually some books from the original syllabus erning body” (Cambridge) composed of academics and ate, G physically vanished: Humphrey of Lancaster had left his academic-related staff. Although the guild has evolved reat

G library of 281 books to the University of Oxford (which into these modern forms, in a sense the two schools are

he C H T until then had only owned about 20 books) when he still corporations of scholars. died in 1447, but in 1550 the king’s commissioners stripped the library to end the study of Roman Catholic G .R. Evans was formerly professor of medieval theology and learning, possibly burning the books. intellectual history at the University of Cambridge. She has During Catholic Mary Tudor’s reign, many of published widely on medieval history and theology and is the College Chapel, Cambridge Univer s ngland, Cambridge.

E Oxford’s and Cambridge’s Protestant theologians took author of The University of Oxford: A New History and , K ing’ K U refuge in Europe until they could safely return. When The University of Cambridge: A New History.

Issue 139 19 lomouc O istrict Archive D te a t S sed by permission of U

Politics, popes, and Prague lomouc, 95 fol. 1r— O A cascading failure to meet the common good Edwin Woodruff Tait

Ecclesiastes 4:12 tells us, “A cord of three we three kings King Wenceslas IV, his father Emperor ia , Archive of the city strands is not easily broken.” This is a helpful analogy Charles IV, and Charles’s nephew Jobst of Moravia, who v

may have been poisoned as part of the political infighting. ora

for the three main institutions of medieval Europe: M of

church, empire, and university. These distinct, yet t interconnected, authorities were collectively respon- and few of the usual obligations of vassals toward their sible for maintaining the common good. If one took a lords. Meanwhile many Germans had immigrated to V, and Jobs wrong turn, the others stepped in to right the course. Bohemia after Mongol displacements, where they had I But a sufficiently catastrophic failure in one could important roles in commerce and lived under their own harles

also cascade into the others. That is what happened at law code. By this time Bohemians were unquestionably C the University of Prague. Catholic Christians. Still the anti-German sentiments mperor

that had led Good King Wenceslas’s subjects to kill him E V, the other king wenceslas remained a sullen undercurrent. I Dominating central Europe in the 1300s, the far-flung In 1348 Charles IV established what was called the Holy Roman Empire was an unwieldy collection of “Charles University” in Prague. Like many European territories ruled by an elected monarch claiming to universities, it was modeled on the University of Paris, succeed the ancient Roman emperors. When Charles IV organizing students and faculty into “nations” repre- of Luxembourg (1316–1378), a German, became king senting ethnic groups: Bohemian (Czechs), Bavarian

of Bohemia (1346) and Holy Roman Emperor (1355), (southern and western Germans), Saxon (northern ohemian kings Wenceslas B his reign cemented a long, complex relationship and eastern Germans and Scandinavians), and Polish between Germans and Bohemian Slavs. Four centu- (northern and eastern Slavs). Each nation had its own ries before, Duke Václav the Good (c. 911–935), “Good rules, lived and ate together, and had one vote in King Wenceslas,” had been the first Bohemian ruler debates over university policy. uxembourg family:

to cultivate a German alliance. Wenceslas rejected his Charles had his older son, Wenceslas IV (1361–1419), L he

grandfather’s Byzantine Christianity and his subjects’ crowned king of Bohemia at age two and entrusted his t paganism for Latin Christianity; he paid with his life. education to the archbishop of Prague. Wenceslas grew Bohemian kings enjoyed special privileges among up identifying with the Czech part of his father’s realm, the empire’s prince-electors (powerful rulers who chose while Charles’s younger son, Sigismund (1368–1437),

each Holy Roman Emperor). They had much power eventually took control of Hungary through marriage. Three rulers of

20 Christian History bohemian takeover The Decree of Kutná Hora (left) gave greater weight to Bohemian faculty and students, prompting an exodus of Germans already suspicious of the ideas of Hus (above).

Wycliffe had developed a radically Augustinian theology in which the true church was the body of the elect. If a pope showed by his actions that he was not among the elect, then he could not effectively lead; he was in Wycliffe’s view, Antichrist. Wycliffe argued for a “poor church” under greater state control. He also attacked the doctrine of transubstantiation, a controversial position alienating some would-be supporters. Meanwhile pugnacious itinerant scholar Jerome of Charles managed to get 15-year-old Wenceslas elected Prague (1379–1416) had spent a decade migrating around as “king of the Romans” in 1376 but not crowned as Europe picking up degrees and starting fights with emperor by the pope. To secure support for the election more traditional scholastic theologians. He encountered a as king, Charles revoked several city-states’ charters Wycliffe’s ideas at Oxford and brought them back to gue.eu a imedi k i and gave them to key nobles. This provoked a rebellion Prague, where they became immensely popular. W

in] against Wenceslas, one of many that plagued his reign. Jerome and his friend, the gentler, more moderate Jan a Hus (c. 1372–1415), sympathized with Wycliffe’s key posi-

—courtesy pr enter the popes tions and their role in Christian formation: the church ublic dom P 1915 All this took place against the backdrop of the as the body of the elect, a godly clergy uncorrupted —[

gue, medieval papacy’s failure to promote Christian flour- by power and wealth, and lay Christians’ reception of a 1409 , r a P ishing. For much of the 1300s, popes had lived in the Christ in both bread and wine in the Eucharist. or re, H a French city of Avignon, where French kings exer- Gregory XI finally returned to Rome in 1377, only qu

S cised significant—and resented—influence on the to die the next year. The Roman mob pressured the car-

own papacy. During the Avignon papacy, concerns about dinals to elect an Italian to keep the papacy in Rome, T

ld corruption in the church exploded. The English in and they did: Urban VI. But Urban’s stern reforms made O ecree of Kutná

D particular resented being forced to contribute to sup- him unpopular, and the cardinals deposed him and , IV port a papacy under the control of enemy French; elected another Avignon pope, Clement VII. use onument, a

M Oxford theologian John Wycliffe (c. 1324–1384) rose European monarchs lined up behind one claimant us

H to prominence during the 1370s for his attacks on the or the other. The French predictably supported Clement, n encesl a W J Avignon pope Gregory XI. and the English backed Urban. Now Wycliffe’s ideas

Issue 139 21 bach to the future Leipzig (whose original facade, destroyed in WWII, is at left) would become one of Europe’s most famous universities, with alumni including some of the sons of Johann Sebastian Bach (below).

Wenceslas hoped Prague would play a similar role for him. But he ran into the “nation” system: the German and Polish nations remained loyal to Rupert and to the Roman pope. Wenceslas now played his final desperate card; in the Decree of Kutná Hora in January 1409, he changed the university constitution to give his Bohemian allies the upper hand with three votes, while the other nations had one each. For the Germans this signaled heresy’s triumph at the university—through Wycliffe’s and Hus’s radical notions of Christian flourishing, as well as a corrupt king’s shameful attempt to manipulate academy and church into restoring his power. Johannes Hoffmann von Schweidnitz, rector of the university, led an exodus of about 80 percent of the faculty and students to Leipzig. Hus became rector of what was left of the University of Prague. Over the next five years, his conflict with ecclesiastical authorities grew. When the Council of Pisa (1409) elected yet another pope (making three), Hus, Wenceslas, and the archbishop supported him. But the Pisan papacy lacked authority and proved to be became particularly appealing. What if the papacy had, in even more corrupt than its two rivals. fact, become what Wycliffe warned against—Antichrist? In 1410 Rupert died. Sigismund secured his own a

Without an undisputed pope, theologians sug- election as “king of the Romans” and, unlike Wenceslas, a imeid k i

gested the Holy Roman Emperor could call a new took charge. In 1414 he called a new council at Con- imedi W k i ]

council. But no emperor was in place—only the unfor- stance, which, with his backing as the undisputed W 3.0 in] A a S

tunate, uncrowned Wenceslas. In 1398 the king of emperor-elect, succeeded in uniting Western Christian - BY France persuaded Wenceslas to help ask both popes to opinion. All three popes resigned or were deposed. The resign. Boniface IX, Roman pope since 1389, belatedly council elected a consensus pope, Martin V. CC ublic dom offered to crown Wenceslas emperor. All this came to The Council of Constance summoned Hus to answer P incentz / [ V

nothing. heresy charges. Sigismund issued him a safe-conduct eipzig / [ k L n , a

After two years of inaction, powerful German elec- but revoked it. Hus was burned at the stake in 1415, k r c tors had had enough. Led by Rupert of the Palatinate, Jerome a year later. Hus’s followers in Bohemia took F Haa . P

they deposed Wenceslas and elected Rupert as “king up arms against Sigismund, resulting in schism and .- H eipzig— of the Romans.” Rupert, with most of Germany behind the Hussite Wars. Within three years the once-flagship L ph— him, solidly aligned himself with the Roman papacy. University of Prague was greatly diminished. Recalling a

Wenceslas’s brother Sigismund invaded Bohemia in the fallout from Sigismund’s treachery, Charles V chose irchhof in hotogr k i P

1402. Scheming to become emperor himself, he impris- to deal more faithfully with Luther a century later. a ol k 1898 i

oned Wenceslas and coerced him into signing away his Meanwhile, the University of Leipzig grew and pros- N powers; Boniface supported this, making Wenceslas pered. There, in 1519, John Eck forced Martin Luther to irche, k

now ineligible to be crowned emperor. acknowledge his affinity with Hus’s condemned ideas, i niversity, a U

provoking Luther to a more decisive break with late ol k i N

nation against nation medieval Catholicism. The road to the Reformation eipzig L Wenceslas escaped, still claiming to be the rightful king. ran through the all-too-recent memory of the moment de of

In 1408 he turned to the third strand of the cord: his when the first German university was Czech. C H a ç

father’s creation, the University of Prague. The Univer- Fa l sity of Paris had supported a French king and rejected Edwin Woodruff Tait is contributing editor at Christian a ch monument in the rigin Ba the Avignon pope when he would not step down. History. O

22 Christian History The backwoods school that changed a continent How Wittenberg helped spread Protestant reform edia m Beth Kreitzer ] Wiki 0 CC In 1502 a university opened in the small town en / [ CAMPUS housing Now a museum, Luther’s house in

SS of Wittenberg, far from academic and cultural centers. Wittenberg started out as a university building in 1504. Dubbed the Leucorea, a Greek word meaning “White ag Mei l Mountain” (Witten Berg in German), it began with just a few hundred students, a handful of faculty (some sto- of a different branch of his family, Elector Prince unstver K len from nearby Erfurt), and borrowed rooms. Frederick III (1463–1525) desired a university of his hon

S It seemed unlikely that anything would come from own. Every good Renaissance prince (especially one such an inauspicious beginning—despite the grand referred to as “the Wise”) needed a university to pro- rück &

B Greek name in the humanist style. But the University vide him with court officials and jurists, not to men- — of Wittenberg survived and grew to national and even tion prestige; and every region needed a place of higher 1914 international prominence—it has about 20,000 students learning where men could prepare for careers in law, and 350 faculty today. Now Martin Luther University medicine, theology, and education. of Halle-Wittenberg, it is inextricably linked to the Wittenberg was a suitable if rough location, and Protestant Reformation and to the man whose name it so, with the help of Augustinian friar Johann von bears: Martin Luther (1483–1546). Staupitz (c. 1460–1524) and Frederick’s doctor (and professor of medicine in Leipzig) Martin Pollich Luther Jumps Ship von Mellerstadt (1455–1513), the university was Left without a university because the nearby school established. Staupitz, first dean of the theology fac-

Lutherhaus, Wittenberg Postcard, at Leipzig (see pp. 20–22) was under the oversight ulty and lecturer in Bible, staffed the college with

Issue 139 23 Augustinians; he brought young faculty as well as many students to Wittenberg to establish an Augustinian friary in the town and their own theology faculty to train its members. faculty meeting Luther and Melanchthon confer The already-famous university at Tübingen pro- in this 19th-c. painting (above) that may be set in the vided a number of early professors as well as the Lutherhaus at Wittenberg (left). statutes under which Wittenberg was established. Students and faculty also came from a closer school beginning. Humanist tendencies toward the priority of at Erfurt (where Luther was studying), displeasing ancient languages and original texts informed Luther’s leaders there. Staupitz brought the promising young own academic lectures on the Psalms and the letters of Luther to Wittenberg in 1511 to lecture and take the Paul, and on his understanding of biblical interpretation. edia

first steps toward his doctorate. Angered by Staupitz’s After his appointment to the chair of Bible in the m edia

poaching, the theology faculty at Erfurt at first refused 1513–1514 academic year, Luther began to push for a m ain] Wiki Wiki to recognize those first steps as legitimate, briefly put- reform of the university’s curriculum, particularly in m 2.0] ting Luther’s pursuit of his doctoral degree in danger. theological studies but also in the arts. Luther knew ic do SA l Conflict and competition drove the universities that new approaches in theology required a new basis - BY

CC of early modern Europe, and Wittenberg was a small of education in ancient languages, among other sub- .—[Pub C a / [ l school among giants. However, as new intellectual jects. But he was not suited to the practical admin- th currents reached the German Empire and the north- istration of such an undertaking. Fortunately he had 19 ern Renaissance launched, Wittenberg produced just met someone who was. great intellectual ferment and strong support for Philipp Melanchthon (1497–1560) took up the post on canvas, l i

emerging church, social, and political reforms. of professor of Greek in 1518 at the age of 21, and he O and Luther quickly became a dynamic duo of uni- the young organizer versity—and then churchwide—reform. (Luther’s 95 anchton) At its founding the university was still quite tra- Theses burst on the scene shortly before Melanchthon l assage to the courtyard—onno

ditional. Aristotle and other customary scholastic arrived.) The young man’s inaugural lecture addressed p

texts formed the basis of arts education, the begin- ways to reform the university curriculum. Faculty ith w

ning course of study for all students. (For more on (including early supporters of Luther) moved to incor- ll scholasticism and humanism, see pp. 6–10.) Students porate these insights into the curriculum. udying (Luther and Me

also faced the trivium (grammar, logic, rhetoric) in Unlike Italian universities with more casual t ntrance ha their bachelor’s and master’s level courses before and haphazard structure, northern universities like E moving on to higher faculties. As at Paris centu- Wittenberg were well organized, with faculty sen- ries before, theological studies remained scholastic ates, deans, and rectors who had power to make aca- in nature, focused on the Sentences of Lombard and demic policy and decisions. Melanchthon served as esinger, Two men s the books of the Bible. rector in 1523 and 1524, allowing him to take charge l ch S

However, humanists and humanistically inclined of curriculum reform. He introduced Greek and l ar Lutherstadt Wittenberg, faculty influenced theological studies from the Hebrew as independent subjects while revamping C

24 Christian History to be or not to be Wittenberg features prominently in literature as the alma mater of Shakespeare’s Horatio and Hamlet (right).

prince vs. archbishop Elector Frederick the Wise (below right) supported Luther and the university; Archbishop Albert of Branden- burg (below left) opposed them.

studies of Aristotle to incorporate new, humanist translations of Aristotle’s works. Rhetoric, history, and poetics were added to the arts course, and higher curricula were also modified to remove some scholastic influence and focus on new critical sources of learning. Before long, texts by Wittenberg faculty themselves, such as Melanchthon’s Loci Communes (1521) and, after 1530, the Augsburg Confession, became required. Hand-in-hand with university reform went Luther’s reform of the church, with support from his fellow faculty and from his prince. After the death of Frederick the Wise in 1525 and the ascen- sion of John (and eventually his son John Frederick) to the electorate, Luther had explicit princely support for his reform and church-building efforts. As was edia m generally true throughout Europe, rulers enforced their university and its the- ain] Wiki

m ology faculty being constituted along

ic do reforming lines. l edia m Wittenberg quickly rose as the focus edia —[Pub m of this new movement, attracting stu- 1529 ain] Wiki dents not only from around Germany, m ain] Wiki

m but also internationally. These students ic do l carried their new knowledge and their ic do lime , after l n —[Pub O humanistic and theological commitments m

—[Pub back to their own communities or to new towns became the largest university in Germany in 1520 and, 1535

Museu where they worked. apart from turmoil during war (1524–1525) or plague l to (especially 1527), remained so for the rest of Luther’s randenburg täde B 1530 S come STUDY WITH THE MAN HIMSELF life. Luther might see up to 400 students in his lecture of 1835 ht ise c. Young men from the middle classes enrolled to seek hall, and Melanchthon from 400 to 600, which consti- W ery e t knowledge and greater opportunities. Unlike in tuted the great majority of the student body. lbrec th A other parts of Europe, students in Germany could not Former students remained connected through e ceme

th expect to find court or church positions, which were ties of friendship and loyalty to the university ardinal rederick C F few. Thus many sought only basic degrees in the arts. and other alumni, sharing ideas and commitment. io in t of of t t These degrees allowed students to become tutors or While Luther might have been responsible for the rai rai t t teachers in Latin schools, where their influence multi- spark that set the Protestant Reformation ablaze, and Hora t plied; after the Reformation, such men also prepared Wittenberg’s students fed the fire and kept it burn- der, Por der, Por for jobs as pastors. Students who did seek higher ing. Luther’s brand-new, backwoods school cannot El El degrees often became university professors them- be forgotten in the larger history of the Christian selves; many became leaders in Lutheran, Calvinist, church. C H acroix, Hamle l e D ranach the ranach the and Swiss reform. C C Students continued to flock to Wittenberg, espe- Beth Kreitzer is history department head at Fusion Academy ugène Lucas E Lucas cially after Luther began gaining notoriety. Wittenberg South Bay in Hermosa Beach, California.

Issue 139 25 es g a Im an m e g rid B M / DH / © m hes Museu c istoris H hes c euts D olour litho)—© c (

Tolerant and pious 1770 aris How Friedrichs University in Halle gave Europe a Pietist vision P esnos,

of the common good D Douglas H. Shantz ouis-Charles L Students who refused to study, syllabi reform for the empire The German Empire in 1705, long outdated, professors more focused on research than shortly after Friedrichs University’s founding in Halle. building student character—these could be modern complaints on “Rate My Professor,” but they come from a seventeenth-century philosopher and legal scholar. Scholars describe German universities of the day as perors, published by

His name was Christian Thomasius (1655–1728), ailing and disreputable, hardened against change and m

and in Suggestions for Establishing a New Academy, he lacking in creative intellectual impulses. Thomasius an e m o

lamented the state of almost all German universities and Halle’s other founders rejected the privileged posi- R

in “the darkened condition of our time.” Though not tion of abstract and speculative theology, and oriented oly H the only one to complain, he was one of a small group knowledge to practical application and usefulness in who turned complaints into action by helping to found ways that would benefit society as a whole. a new university in Halle more to his liking. Thomasius did not operate alone. Pietism, a movement that emphasized personal religion, suffused The first reform university Halle’s early development and owed much to Philipp Founded in 1694, Halle ranks as the fourth oldest uni- Jakob Spener (1635–1705). Provost of Berlin’s Nicholas

versity within Brandenburg-Prussia. But its true impor- Church, he influenced the appointment of Pietist pro- pire with portraits of the Em

tance lies in its identity as the first reform university in fessors, aiming to reform theological education and an m the German Empire, a model for other German Protes- develop ethical pastors who could act as models for tant universities. believers. Theology at Halle veered away from polemics After the Thirty Years War (1618–1648), the empire’s and toward the biblical and pastoral. All of this set Halle

educational institutions suffered widespread decline. apart from other German universities until about 1730. Map of the Ger

26 Christian History a long history Politics led to an 1817 merger between and tolerance, not the polemics Wittenberg and Halle; students cross the plaza (above) of of Wittenberg (pp. 23–25) and the merged university today. Leipzig (pp. 20–22). Of first con- i am the king Friedrich (right) crowned himself king in cern, however, was the need for Prussia in 1701 with great ceremony; as king, he created social renewal after the Thirty a Prussian kingdom with its capital at Berlin. Years War—through a university oriented toward practical needs, educating teachers and Halle’s young professors faced growing antago- doctors, and providing legal nism from the town’s orthodox Lutheran clergy who training for civil servants. When distrusted the Pietist emphasis on personal religion. the university officially opened But, marked by innovation and intellectual freedom, on July 11, 1694, it became known Halle soon became an attractive choice for students, as Friedrichs University or the

edia evident in its impressive numbers. Within a few years, Fridericiana after its patron. m iki the university grew to over a thousand students, one of Halle made higher edu- W ]

4.0 the largest in the German Empire. cation available at low cost,

SA - Halle welcomed students from all over Europe. with free meals for poorer stu- BY While the majority were from Magdeburg, they also dents subsidized by a quarterly collection in local came from central Germany, free imperial cities, churches ordered by the elector. After the creation of h) / [CC c

hu Friesland, Schleswig, Norway, and England. In a 1690 an orphanage and schools in Glaucha in 1698, students c s T es letter, the Magdeburg mayor extolled Halle’s advan- served in the orphanage schools in exchange for free g a

Im tages and perhaps helped to explain the school’s rapid accommodation. an

m growth: a well-situated and attractive place with Over the next four decades, the university bene- (Gunther e T g friendly residents, plenty of fairly priced housing, and fited from the reforming work of both Thomasius and aul rid P B cheap food and drink. Halle would prove to be a per- prominent Pietist leader August Hermann Francke

any— fect university town. (1663–1727). Thomasius and Francke had been good m anvas)—

c friends at Leipzig University; Thomasius provided Care for poor students legal services to Pietist students in Leipzig connected nhalt, Ger

A Thomasius owed his opportunity as Halle’s first profes- to Francke when they came under attack from civic and sor (beginning in 1690, before the official founding) to church authorities. russia (oil on P axony-

S Brandenburg elector Friedrich III (1657–1713), known as In Halle Francke served as confessor to Thomasius of I

k “crooked Fritz” after a childhood accident left him with a and his family. The two shared much. Thomasius c aale), S twisted spine and humped back. The elector had already had sympathy for the Pietist practice of gathering in rederi alle ( supported Thomasius after he escaped arrest in Leipzig. homes for mutual edification. He also shared the Pietist F

H g

in Thomasius’s views on law and religion, and his willing- interest in encouraging the laity to nurture their own K ness to teach in German, had led him to be attacked from religious experience. esne,

P pulpits and forbidden to spread his opinions. Both Thomasius and Francke aimed at producing Even before Thomasius’s involvement, Friedrich graduates who would be both tolerant citizens and niversitätsplatz, ntoine U A desired a Lutheran university marked by moderation pious Christians; against pedagogy of the day, they

Issue 139 27 care for students Halle benefited from the labors of Spener (far left), Thomasius (below), and Francke (near left, on a pillar in the Ulm Minster in Germany).

in February 1692; a week later he held his first university lectures in the philosophy faculty. He too wanted to reform the modern student. In Timothy as the Model for All Students of Theology (1695), he reflected: Unfortunately, student life as led in most cases in the universities, even by those who call themselves students of theology, is a truly heathen, devilish life. There is nothing more contrary to the rules of Christ than the maxims and rules they have among themselves. Students of theology must forsake this godless manner of life and follow the rules of Christ, he believed, even if they were despised and mocked for it. In Portrait of a Student of Theology (1712), Francke argued that students should read only what contributes to a true, genuine Christianity, especially Johann Arndt’s True emphasized education as character-building. They Christianity (1610). Of first concern, he argued, is not broke with centuries-long precedent by holding their quantity of reading but understanding what one reads university lectures in German rather than in Latin for and applying it to one’s life. Finally, he said, if students wider educational opportunity, and both published in have never had a conversion experience, they should the German language so their writings would be acces- pray to be thoroughly converted. sible to the widest possible readership. As he taught the Bible in small academic seminars, In his Suggestions Thomasius offered several guide- or collegia, Francke explained that it was not enough lines for education reform, later put into practice. First, to practice historical criticism of Scripture; one must es edia g m a

professors should avoid unnecessary quarrels and bat- become more godly through one’s reading and study iki Im W edia tles of words and teach only what contributes to human of Scripture, just as someone who walks in the sun- an m m ain] e iki m g

happiness and general usefulness; second, professors shine feels warmed by it. W ] do rid c B 3.0

should use the German language; finally, professors Francke’s Pietism was not limited to the theol- G / SA ubli - UI should be chosen not so much on the basis of their writ- ogy faculty. His practical program for universal P BY ings as on account of their excellent manner of teaching. social reform took shape in the Halle Foundations: an —[ orphanage, schools for children from different social 1683 miserable students classes, printing and publishing houses, a mission print, entur-online/ g Despite his lofty aspirations, Thomasius resembled society, and a pharmacy for medicine production— g ilda ravin modern professors in his disillusionment with stu- all under the patronage of the Prussian state. B rank C. Müller / [CC g dents’ lack of discipline. In On the Miserable Condition Thomasius ultimately viewed Halle’s university not F

of the Students (1693) he observed: as the work of human ingenuity but of divine provi- proved— opper en m c During my fifteen years of university teaching, dence. Certainly it brought forth rich fruit in many Minster— m l ital i U I have found among most of my students very respects—in the church, in the state, in scholarship, g pener S , di

little diligence and seriousness in study. . . . It and in the German language. For generations to come, ke in ob c c 1882

bothers me not a little when I see in many not leading pastors, teachers, and Prussian state officials ran ut, F only little fear of God, but also that they have were products of Friedrichs University in Halle. C H c ann hilipp Ja m never read the first five books of Moses in the Old P er H

Testament, not to mention the stories of Jesus. Douglas H. Shantz is professor emeritus of classics and reli- ilian, K asius wood ust m Meanwhile, through Spener’s intervention, Francke gion at the University of Calgary, author of An Introduction g u ho äus A T had been called as pastor of St. George’s Church in to German Pietism: Protestant Renewal at the Dawn of m Glaucha and as professor of Greek and Hebrew at the Modern Europe, and editor of A Companion to German tatue of artholo S Christian new university. Francke preached his first sermon Pietism, 1660–1800. B

28 Christian History a Other schools of note ] Wikimedi 3.0 A

S University of Bologna Founded: 1425 Y- B (closed 1797; CC successor school

this / [ refounded in 1834 as Ma the Catholic University emi R of Louvain) ll— University of LOUVAIN Located: Belgium Ha

a Famous for: Opposition tor’s a University of Bologna to Martin Luther; center of the Jansenist movement lv

Sa Famous alumni and professors: Adrian Boeyens (Pope ] Wikimedi t S ND

- Founded: 1158, but probably existed by 1088 Adrian VI), Jacobus Latomus, Robert Bellarmine, s - NC w

Y- Located: Italy Cornelius Jansen, Michael Baius B -

CC Famous for: Oldest continuously operating univer- Basel t Andre S sity; responsible for the Latin word universitas to • a describe an institution of higher learning that gives

oletschek / [ degrees; center of canon law R ] Wikimedi

lf Famous alumni and professors: Dante Alighieri, 4.0 Ra A

S Nicolaus Copernicus, Erasmus, Charles Borromeo Y- B

CC uilding— B

y University of Basel pekking / [ S niversit U ld O imond Founded: 1460 Ra sel, Located: Switzerland Ba •

a Famous for: Center of humanist thought and of book ologne—©

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] Wikimedi Famous alumni: Paracelsus, Erasmus, Johannes

3.0 Oecolampadius, Karl Barth A S niversit Y- U University of Cologne B ld CC O University of Cologne Founded: 1388 (closed 1789, refounded 1919) nson / [ a Located: Germany Famous for: Having all four faculties (philosophy, uilding of the B

• medicine, law, theology) from the outset; center a elgium—Juh

B of Scholastic thought in,

a Famous alumni and professors: Thomas Aquinas, Wikimedi ouv

L Meister Eckhart, Duns Scotus (at the predecessor 4.0] A of a S Dominican seminary, founded 1216) y Y- B St. CC niversit ] Wikimedi Founded: 1410 0 U lter / [ CC Located: Scotland wa tholic iki Famous for: Third- w tzke / [ Ca University of Tübingen

Ra oldest university in —W a Britain; became a rsten rt of the ologn center of Protestant Founded: 1477 Ka a B education during Located: Germany blu sse— a a University of the Reformation Famous for: Founded under influence of the Italian

ünzg Famous alumni and Renaissance; produced the “Tübingen School” of sio or St Andrews M a

u d’Arenberg, p professors: John Knox, higher biblical criticism a te

a John Witherspoon, James Wilson, Robert Reid, Famous alumni: Johannes Kepler, Joseph Ratzinger h übingen, C T • •Archiginn • Donald Baillie, N. T. Wright (Pope Benedict XVI), Hans Küng

Issue 139 29 THE CHRISTIAN HISTORY TIMELINE GladlyGladlyGladly learning,learning,learning, gladlygladlygladly teachingteachingteaching

— 11 8 5 Herrad of Landsberg completes her encyclopedia, The Garden of Delights. — 1 2 0 9 Some Oxford students and professors found their own university in Cambridge. — 1 21 0 The first of three condemnations is issued against the theology faculty of the University of Paris banning ideas connected Duke Humphrey, benefactor to Aristotle’s philosophy; other of Oxford, with his wife, Eleanor (1431) condemnations will come in 1270 and (most famously) in 1277. — 1347 Emperor Charles IV estab- — 397-426 Augustine writes lishes the University of Prague. On Christian Doctrine. — Early 1400s Teachings of John — Early 400s Seven liberal arts are Wycliffe and Jan Hus, and a explicitly codified in On the Mar- St. Augustine, by dispute over rival popes, cause riage of Philology and Mercury by Justus van Gent (1474) controversy at Prague. Martianus Minneus Felix Capella. — 1409 Decree of Kutná Hora gives — Early 500s The word quadrivium — 1 529 Erasmus publishes On the decisive control of the University ] WIKIMEDIA

begins to be used for the four Teaching of Boys. 3.0 of Prague to its Bohemian faction. “upper” liberal arts—music, German students and professors — c. 1 6 0 0 In Shakespeare’s famous arithmetic, geometry, and leave and found a new university tragedy Hamlet, the titular astronomy. at Leipzig. character attends Wittenberg. — c. 524 Boethius defends classical — 1502 Frederick the Wise — 163 6 Harvard is founded. education in The Consolation of of Saxony establishes the Philosophy. — 1 69 0 Friedrich of Brandenburg University of Wittenberg. calls Christian Thomasius to — 78 2 Alcuin takes charge of — 150 8 Martin Luther is invited to Halle to found a new university. Charlemagne’s palace school, teach at Wittenberg; his presence where he guides an educational — 1 69 2 August Francke arrives in there will make it a center of the renaissance. Halle, where he will serve as Protestant Reformation. professor of Greek and Hebrew. — Early 800s The word trivium begins to be used for the three — 1694 The University of Halle “lower” liberal arts—grammar, officially opens. —MUSÉE DU LOUVRE, PARIS / [PUBLIC DOMAIN] WIKIMEDIA logic, and rhetoric. 1474 — 170 1 Yale is founded. — 10 88 The University of — 1725 Giambattista Vico Bologna is founded. writes a compendium — c. 1096 The University of of the humanities called Oxford begins. New Science. — c. 1150 The University of — 1787 A revival breaks out Paris begins. Peter Lombard Wycliffe and Hus, at Hampden-Sydney College compiles the Sentences, the at the Church of Dalhelm (20th c.) in Virginia that will ultimately standard medieval theology seed the Second Great textbook. Awakening. GOTLAND-DALHEM KYRKA CHORGESTÜHL, REFORMATORENBILDER - WYCLIF UND HUS—WOLFGANG SAUBER / [CC BY-SA ILLUMINATED MINIATURE OF HUMPHREY, DUKE GLOUCESTER AND ELEANOR, DUCHESS GLOUCESTER, LIBER BENEFACTORUM ST ALBANS BY THOMAS WALSINGHAM, 1431, COTTON MS NERO D VII, BRITISH LIBRARY— [PUBLIC DOMAIN] WIKIMEDIA JUSTUS VAN GENT, ST AUGUSTINE OIL ON WOOD C.

30 C H Christians through the centuries have wrestled with how to educate moral and virtuous people. Here are some milestones along the way.

— 1791 French revolutionaries close —194 5 Lewis publishes the University of Paris. That Hideous Strength, set in part at a college. He will later — 179 8 Immanuel Kant writes address the topic of education Conflict of the Faculties. in his Narnian works. — 18 0 2 A famous revival begins — 1947 Dorothy L. Sayers at Yale. publishes “The Lost Tools — 18 0 6 Napoleon reopens Paris as of Learning.” the University of France. — 19 55 The Wheaton Philosophy — 18 0 9 The University of Berlin is Conference begins. founded under a new approach — 19 64 Princeton stops requiring that makes universities centers chapel attendance, the last for professionalized research. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Ivy League school to do so. (c. 1809), by Gerhard von — 1817 Halle and Wittenberg Kügelgen; Goethe was a famed — 19 65 Clyde Kilby founds the merge. Leipzig alumnus. Wade Center at Wheaton. — 18 28 The Yale Report reaffirms — 1970 A famous revival erupts at the value of classical education — 18 6 0 Jonathan Blanchard Asbury College in Kentucky; the and Christian civilization. founds Wheaton as an University of Paris is closed and abolitionist college. — 1833 Oberlin College is founded. divided into 13 separate schools.

DE] WIKIMEDIA — 18 65 Cornell, the youngest Ivy

2.0 — 1976 38 evangelical colleges League school, is founded. found the Council for Christian — 1871 In the Universities Test Act, Colleges and Universities the U.K. Parliament removes the (CCCU). qualification that students and

—TARTU UNIVERSITY LIBRARY / [PUBLIC DOMAIN] WIKIMEDIA — 1978 The Society of Christian professors at Oxford, Cambridge, Philosophers is founded. and the University of Durham

1808–1809 must belong to the Church — 19 94 Mark Noll publishes The of England. Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. — 1870s Oberlin begins to require

TH C.—GERMAN BAROQUE GALLERY / [CC BY segregation of the races on 17 Still Life with Lucas Cranach’s campus. Melanchthon, by Sébastien — 18 8 6 College students begin the Stoskopff (17th c.); Melanch- Student Volunteer Movement. —[PUBLIC DOMAIN] WIKIMEDIA thon taught at Wittenberg.

1801 — 1919 Charles Blanchard, president of Wheaton, drafts — 1834 The abolitionist “Lane the doctrinal statement for the Rebels” merge with Oberlin. World’s Christian Fundamental That same year Oberlin begins Association. admitting Black students on the same basis as Whites. — 1920s Yale begins the Religion in Higher Education Program. — 183 5 Charles Finney comes to Oberlin as a professor; he will — 193 5 Dorothy L. Sayers become president in 1852. publishes Gaudy Night. Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1801), — 18 52 John Henry Newman — 1943 C. S. Lewis publishes by Friedrich Bury; writes The Idea of a University. The Abolition of Man. Fichte helped found Berlin. SEBASTIAN STOSKOPFF, STILL LIFE WITH LUCAS CRANACH’S MELANCHTHON GERHARD VON KÜGELGEN, PORTRAIT OF JOHANN WOLFGANG GOETHE OIL ON CANVAS, FRIEDRICH BURY, JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE DRAWING,

I 31 Even more schools of note

Berea College — a n

Founded: 1855 a ndi Located: United I nd,

States—Kentucky a a pl U

Famous for: Founded , y imedi it k by a Christian aboli- s

tionist as the first coed- ] Wi niver 4.0 ucational and racially U integrated college in lor King’s College, London Tay the South; charges no ll, a H

tuition s gutful / [CC BY-SA a

Founded: 1829 Famous professors and orri M rr

Located: England alumni: Julia Britton Fa muel

Berea College .C— Famous for: Founded as an Anglican alternative Hooks, Mary E. Brit- a D • S

(though non-Anglicans could attend) to the explicitly ton, Carter Woodson a

secular University College London; largest center in ington, imedi k

Europe today for graduate medical study Founded: 1887 ash in] Wi a Famous professors and alumni: F. D. Maurice, Flor- Located: United in W ca

ence Nightingale, Desmond Tutu States—Wash- dom c li

ington, DC b u P of Ameri y Famous for: / [ it sh Only Catholic s ngli E institution in the niver U t

a United States c oli h pret t founded by L a — y

bishops; only it ll, C s US university a niver ell H U Catholic University with a school w ld a of America of canon law; lor ay • C explicitly estab- a on, B s Baylor University lished as a university for all US Catholics; intention- imedi k

ally interracial ] Wi 2.0

Founded: 1845 Famous professors and alumni: Fulton J. Sheen, C. Burle s

Located: United States—Texas Joseph Bernardin, Timothy Dolan, Francis George, ufu Famous for: R

Oldest university in Texas (chartered Thea Bowman, Avery Dulles a

while Texas was a republic); one of the largest CCCU tue of imedi a k College / [CC BY

schools; strong humanities programs a • St a in] Wi

Famous professors and alumni: J. Frank Norris, Dallas a CBere imedi IM

Willard, Chip and Joanna Gaines, David Crowder k dom c ] Wi li b u 2.0 Founded: 1846 P e / [ s

Located: United o per Building— b a u r D -

States—Indiana D OM

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oldest schools founded — College, w a by Methodists, now ie V

the oldest nondenomi- Africa University College s mpu r • Bere national college in the a ck - C li y F

Founded e, King’ CCCU; has a renowned : 1992 it s s Taylor University C. S. Lewis collection Located: Zimbabwe niver et Hou U rringer /

Famous professors Famous for: Pan-African university with extensive s ca and alumni: Samuel Morris, Harold Ockenga, Geoff professional training programs Ga © Jim • Afri Moore Famous professors and alumni: John W. Z. Kurewa • Somer

32 Christian History a in] Wikimedi a dom c ubli P let / [ a v a n ar usée C

M From Paris to Berlin —

1799 The University’s post-Enlightenment transformation to

1789 Thomas Albert Howard

espotism It was a moment when everything seemed to be down with kings The painting Liberty, Equality, and D changing. The Revolution that took aim at France’s aris- Civilization Push Back Despotism captures the spirit of the tocracy wound up unseating another monarch of sorts: Revolutionary age. epelling r theology, the traditional “queen of sciences” (see CH tion

a 134). Long enthroned by Europe’s intellectual giants the nineteenth century, the study of theology would and celebrated in the university, she now faced chal- no longer be called on to support understandings of lengers to her reign as the Enlightenment challenged human flourishing mediated by the church, but now nd Civiliz a tradition, and the French Revolution and Napoleonic rather to operate as “one science among many,” whose lity a era (1789–1815) ushered in momentous changes. answers to human questions must compete in a larger qu E “We see the old forms collapsing everywhere,” marketplace of ideas. ty, r church historian Ferdinand Christian Baur wrote in ibe L the later nineteenth century, thinking of the French the most holy faculty y: r Revolution’s end in 1799. “It is as though a mighty storm During the Revolution, France’s medieval universi- blew across the whole of Europe, bringing down every- ties came under fire. Government decree suppressed y Allego thing lacking the power to withstand it.” The Swiss his- them; the Revolutionary government nationalized ar torian Jacob Burckhardt quipped that the nineteenth cen- their endowments. The radicalization of the Revolution tury began with a “tabula rasa in relation to everything.” after 1792 brought about waves of dechristianization, Theology increasingly was cut loose from medi- the erasure of the Christian calendar, iconoclasm, epi- eval churchly moorings and reshaped to academic sodic violence against clergy, and the short-lived turn- research agendas—even as the institution of the uni- ing of the Cathedral of Notre Dame into the Temple to

Anonymous, Revolution versity itself became more secularized. By the end of the Goddess Reason. And this is to say nothing of the

Issue 139 33 a ] Wikimedi 0 ksmuseum / [CC j —Ri usées

guillotining of King Louis XVI, the regal protector of Drowsy scholars M

IN WITH THE NEW, OUT WITH THE OLD 1805 listen to a Kantian philosopher lecture (left); the chapel is Catholic France, a country traditionally seen as “the to Par ]

of the Sorbonne (above) collapsed around 1800, though 0

first daughter of the Church.” 1800 it was later restored. The Sorbonne—a key college of the University of nds, a l

Paris since 1253—was unceremoniously shuttered on r useum / [CC M

September 17, 1791. This seat of “the most holy theologi- exceptions to the new trends. Not as directly affected ethe N let

cal faculty” had been a symbol of theological learning by the Revolution, England’s and Scotland’s medieval a v a hing, n

of the highest order in the medieval scheme of things universities experienced less turbulence in the early c ar

(see pp. 12–15), but now, quite suddenly, it was no more. nineteenth century, although various modernizing —C ed et r

The building once housing theology students served as reforms stood in the offing, including those destined 1800 . olo c c

quarters for an artists’ colony before being reclaimed to dilute the universities’ Christian ties and revise the s a nd a for French higher education in 1821. nature of theological inquiry. nv And it wasn’t just the Sorbonne. The political The handful of colleges in North America at this ca il on

upheavals of the Revolution and Napoleonic Wars time were still quite small and for the most part O ve a

devastated and transformed the entire university religiously determined (see pp. 39–41); but they too ing audience h landscape in Europe. In 1789 the continent could underwent fundamental changes in the course of the p psed n boast of 143 universities; in 1815, only 83 remained. nineteenth century, as did Latin American universi- a oll

Major centers of theology, such as Ingolstadt, Halle ties that had been modeled on the venerable Spanish c eech to a slee

(see pp. 26–28), and Luther’s Wittenberg (see pp. universities of Salamanca and Alcalá. p 23–25), closed their doors, at least temporarily. Others ult of the moved or merged with other institutions. enter the german model a Under Napoleon a new University of France arose If the closing of the Sorbonne in the 1790s repre-

in 1808, but it was a university in name only; it was, sented the end of one theological era, the founding ith the v w in reality, a highly centralized, professionally focused of the University of Berlin in 1809–1810 marked the bonne

network of schools under the Ministry of National beginning of another (see p. 37). Under the able direc- r o mmanuel Kant] delivers a s I Education. A few locations reconstituted theological tion of the Prussian minister of education and neo- S her [

faculties, but French bishops tended not to trust them humanist scholar Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835), p given tight state supervision, and Catholic theology the new university came into existence during the pel of the a

largely migrated to church-run seminaries. Prussian Reform Era (1806–1819), a period of major h c us, Philoso he

The upheaval in France spilled over in varying political change and reorganization precipitated by T t, Marc measures to other Catholic countries. The Flemish Napoleon’s decisive military victories over Prussia. A r

University of Louvain (see p. 29), shut down in 1797 product of the modernizing bureaucratic nation-state, nst Er t Robe and revived after 1815, and the short-lived Catholic the University of Berlin bore the imprimatur of nei- r ob ube ac H University of Ireland (see p. 42) stand out as notable ther pope nor emperor. J

34 Christian History two visions King’s College, London, was founded (right) as an explicitly Christian school; Humboldt (below) still presides over the Berlin campus today.

It also lacked a pronounced confessional identity besides a generic Protestantism, due to both the monarchy’s preference and the Kantian-influenced idealist philosophy then popular—which exalted “religion” and “ethics” in general terms as profound, ennobling features of humankind. Momentously, the new institution also bore witness to the emergence of a novel ethos and ideology of scholarship, Wissenschaftsideologie. Wissenschaft is the German term for rigorous scholarly inquiry. Faculty felt impelled not simply to teach, comment on, and transmit established knowledge—the hallmark of the premodern university—but to create new and better knowledge through rigorous inquiry, documentation of sources and methods, and publication. The professoriate, as Humboldt put it in a memorandum, must be “continually carrying out research.” Berlin set the stage for disciplinary specialization and the rise of the modern research university. Classical philology (the study of languages) led the way with respect to what today we would designate as “the humanities,” but other disciplines followed suit. Officials in Prussia’s Ministry of Culture avidly supported Berlin’s research imperative in policies of hiring and preferment, and saw that it spread a to other Prussian and German universities. In the course of the nineteenth century, the “Berlin model” ] Wikimedi or “German model” became internationally synony- 4.0

BY mous with research and learning of the highest order. It was widely emulated on both sides of the a

ges / [CC Atlantic. For many non-German scholars, even a brief a m I stint at a German university could make a career. ] Wikimedi ome

c Discipline-based professional societies, networking, 3.0 A

S conferences, and specialized journals all received a - —Well BY massive boost from the research imperative radiating

1838 outward from German-speaking central Europe. lin / [CC r ving, e B ra

W, theology in a new climate OTF

ed eng This new university landscape carried immense — r 6 implications for academic theology. In the premodern

inden scheme of knowledge, theology was considered one L of the three higher faculties, along with medicine and was twofold—part preservationist, part innovative. den ondon Colou r L law. Beneath these three stood the lower philosoph- Rejecting a more radical blueprint proposed by the nte U ical or arts faculty, the function of which was largely idealist philosopher J. G. Fichte (1762–1814), which vir- preparatory. To be sure many figures in the European tually eliminated theology, Humboldt leaned heavily

umboldt, Enlightenment had championed philosophy’s libera- on a plan for reform and organization penned by lib- ing’s College, H K tion from any form of intellectual servitude, not least eral theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834). of r theology, arguing that humans should dare to know Unlike Fichte, who would also have been glad te ar things without deferring to traditional authorities. But to scrap the medieval-sounding word “university,” Berlin would set this in stone for the modern university. Schleiermacher argued for the preservation of many mith, Ch S

tue of Wilhelm von At Berlin Christian theology fully crossed the medieval structures and even for retaining the four- . a D . t H S Rubicon into modernity. The nature of its passage faculty designation of theology, law, medicine, and

Issue 139 35 centuries of culture The University of Tübingen (pictured historically at left and today above) became another seedbed of modernizing influence for Protestant and Catholic theology.

unify “the scholarly spirit with the religious sense.” To a younger colleague, he defined the covenant between faith and independent science as one “by the terms of which science is not hindered and faith not excluded.” Schleiermacher passed away after the University of Berlin had been in operation for

over two decades. A day after his death, his col- hoto P k

league on the faculty, church historian August c to Neander (1789–1850), told students that “from S my a him [Schleiermacher] a new period in the his- a tory of the Church will one day take its origins.” ges / Al a While this accolade was not uttered with- ] Wikimedi m I

3.0

c out good reason, the origins and shaping of i r BY modern Christian academic theology cannot isto H

be reduced to a single institution or individ- — ing / [CC K

philosophy. But, he added, “new life needs to be ual; Schleiermacher and Berlin epitomized and insti- 1877 elix F

breathed into its Gothic forms.” tutionalized more pervasive historical forces. These ving — With respect to theology, this meant at least three forces would become more pronounced in the course ra 1912 things. First, following Kant (p. 37), Schleiermacher of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. They also ood eng

held that arts and sciences should gain primacy over provoked strong reactions and generated other sites of w übingen T

theology in the new institution. Second, the univer- influence, notably the University of Tübingen (see p. 29). y,

sity should be animated by what he called “the modern But as a whole, the abiding, multifaceted reality in rar übingen, T ib spirit of science.” Theologians should not be tolerated which Berlin stood foremost shaped compelling and L sity

as pastoral dilettantes and frumpy churchmen; they consequential conversations in Christian thought r sity of r

must become Wissenschaftler, serious scholars, even and higher education in the modern era. It did this in nive U nive u U

while charged to prepare young men for church lead- ways perhaps not dissimilar to those the University a tzb

ership and service, which Schleiermacher also valued. of Paris had once used. But the storm had blown a on y of the Finally, theology should labor to make the Christian through, the bridge had been crossed, and, though B ar t), s c faith intellectually respectable, especially to its “cul- now dethroned, theology had persisted. C H r

tured despisers.” These were modern elites whom hite nnive a Schleiermacher had addressed in his famous Speeches Thomas Albert Howard is professor of humanities and his- arc th tz ( a on Religion (1799)—the landmark work that had first tory and holds the Duesenberg Chair in Christian Ethics 400 on B

established his reputation. The task of modern theol- at Valparaiso University. He is the author of The Faiths of the r ul o Pa ogy, Schleiermacher wrote in a memorandum, is to Others: A History of Interreligious Dialogue. F

36 Christian History Theology on trial: Berlin and the modern research university

n October 6, 1810, the University of Berlin opened its doors. Europe’s first university founded under O purely national, secular control, serving neither pope nor emperor, Berlin became the standard of higher education, revered and imitated around the world. Professors who embodied the “Berlin model” produced original, critical scholarship unprecedented in scope and specialization. Their century, the nineteenth, went down as the age of German footnotes. But an important question remained unanswered. Could theology, that erstwhile queen of the sciences (see pp. 6–10), be taught and studied in the modern research university? Moreover should it be? Far from being hypo- thetical, these issues came under intense debate. ia d In 1806 Napoleon Bonaparte had defeated Prussia in the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt—and closed Prussia’s flagship school, the University of Halle (see pp. 26–28), model berlin The University of Berlin still looks much as it did in 1905, minus the

omain] Wikime to boot. Prussian administrators used the political crisis d horses (above); Schleiermacher (right) c to rebuild what had been lost. Their initiative attracted was instrumental in creating its new proposals from great German intellectuals—F. A. Wolf, approach. J. G. Fichte, F. W. J. Schelling, Friedrich Schleiermacher, tion / [Publi c Wilhelm von Humboldt—to install a modern university in the Prussian capitol of Berlin. traditional structure inherited from the A medieval creation, the institution of the univer- Middle Ages. Along with Schelling (1775– sity seemed outdated. Recent innovations, scientific 1854), also a philosopher, he identified mages I

hrom Print Colle and philosophical, were arriving from outside univer- theology, law, and medicine as contributing to c

geman sities: England’s Royal Society, France’s grandes écoles human flourishing because they are practical. Theology d ri

B (a new kind of higher education institution similar to exists, he argued, because the church needs clarity modern liberal arts colleges), and other Enlightenment- about doctrine and practice. Theology belongs in the era academies. university because the public has an interest that this Even before Immanuel Kant’s Conflict of the Faculties be done well—just as it wants physicians with good unstverlag / K

c (1798) drove a wedge between theology and other disci- medical educations and judges with proper understand- lan ibrary of Congress, Photo B

L plines, critics had lamented universities’ close ties to the ings of law. — church, expressed through special privileges accorded to But theology also needed to engage with 1905 h their theology faculties. Wissenschaft. In Schleiermacher’s scheme profes- p Z Photo / S sors would be appointed on scientific, not confessional, what do we do with theology? grounds. If they did not contribute to philosophy, then they th C.—©

19 Philosopher Fichte (1762–1814) entertained the most deserved to be excluded from the university. He there- radical vision: eliminating three of the four traditional fore proposed two relationships for theology: practical, ermany Photogra G faculties. He argued that the “higher” faculties—theol- training for church leadership; and academic, redefin-

olour litho, ogy, law, and medicine—existed only because the state ing theology’s methods along scientific lines. erlin, c B needed trained priests, lawyers, and medics. Only the Ultimately Schleiermacher won and secured for her c “lower” faculty, philosophy, dedicated to the cultivation Berlin the continued presence of a theology faculty.

niversity, of pure knowledge—Wissenschaft in German—should The influence of his work was remarkable. But posterity U hleierma he remain. He believed that if theologians study anything also revealed tensions in his arrangement: theology’s T Sc legitimately based on reason, not revelation, then those purported scientific character could (and did) bring it rnst

E topics could be reassigned to disciplines such as history into conflict with the church. This sparked new chal- or philology. lenges, as theology found itself torn, once again, as

h Daniel Like Fichte, theologian Schleiermacher (1768–1834) Tertullian had said, between Jerusalem and Athens. c ri

d identified philosophy as the heart of the university. —Zachary Purvis, author of Theology and the University rie F Detroit Publishing Co., But Schleiermacher argued for largely retaining the in Nineteenth-Century Germany

Issue 139 37 Do faith and the marketplace mix?

EXPLORE ORIGINAL RESEARCH AND PUBLICATIONS THAT REFLECT ON THE ROLE OF CHRISTIAN FAITH IN THE MARKETPLACE.

The Center for Faith & Innovation at Wheaton College exists to develop Christian marketplace leaders through theology and liberal arts research to create innovative solutions for business.

Connect today to learn more about the vision, mission, and resources of CFI. Also consider partnering with CFI on academic research, innovations projects, and practical training. wheaton.edu/cfi Fruits of the ivy vine The Ivy league schools aimed for the common good of a new nation Benjamin P. Leavitt

Yale was dedicated to the upraising of spiritual leaders. We betray our trust if we fail to explore the various ways in which the youth who come to us may learn to appreciate spiritual values, whether by the example of our own lives or through the cogency of our philosophi- ikimedia

W cal arguments. The simple and direct way is through the maintenance and upbuilding of the Christian religion as a vital part of university life. atabase / D —Yale president Charles Seymour, 1937 mages I The prestigious schools now called the igital

D “Ivy League”—Harvard, Yale, the University of Penn- sylvania, Princeton, Columbia, Brown, Dartmouth,

rchives and Cornell—once had deep links to Christianity. The A Ivies began and long persisted as distinctively Chris- tian training grounds for America’s leaders—first for clergy and then for leaders of all types. At what point, anuscripts &

M and why, did we get to the secular, ivory-tower image of the Ivies of today? niversity U Foundings: By Clergy, For Clergy ale Y The Puritans who founded Harvard in 1636 intended to train clergy primarily and civil servants second- arily. Ministers led colonial Harvard and made daily prayer and study of classical languages and texts central, including the Old and New Testaments in their original languages. Yet, within 70 years, some New owen from a woodcut— B England Congregationalists had serious questions about the orthodoxy of Harvard and founded the Col- aniel D legiate School (Yale) in 1701 as an orthodox alternative. by Clergy led both institutions and in turn produced the 1786 new clergy deemed necessary for the maintenance of a godly society. Call to worship The chapel at Yale features prominently in this 1786 lithograph. en, printed Beginning in the 1730s, the British colonies expe-

Hav rienced the tumultuous revivals of the First Great ew-

N Awakening; heated debates over whether ministers instrumental at the University of Pennsylvania, while

pel, and professors were actually converted roiled congre- Dartmouth began as Moor’s Charity School, a New a gations and campuses. Yale expelled future mission- Light Congregationalist venture to educate and evan- ary David Brainerd (1718–1747) for suggesting that gelize Native Americans. one of his tutors had “no more grace than the chair I Colonial colleges practiced not only Christian am leaning upon.” study but also Christian worship. In 1774 Yale’s code nd the College Ch a Conflicts between the “New Lights” who of conduct mandated that “The President . . . shall embraced revivalistic religion and the more formal constantly pray in the Chapel every Morning and “Old Light” antirevivalists soon prompted the cre- Evening, and read a Chapter, or some suitable Portion le-College, a ation of more colleges. In the decades prior to inde- of Scripture.” Daily chapel services were a central part Y f pendence, Presbyterians, Anglicans, and Baptists of colonial higher education. Columbia had services founded schools of their own: the College of New similar to Yale’s but liturgically Anglican; the college Jersey (Princeton), King’s College (Columbia), and also gathered at the chapel in times of grief. Beyond

A Front View o Rhode Island College (Brown). Anglicans were also regular services Brown’s students all too frequently

Issue 139 39 EDUCATIONAL Penn began as a a downtown com- muter school before moving to West Philadelphia in the 1870s (and building College Hall, above).

providential The Harvard charter (left) attri- butes the school’s founding to the “good hand of God.”

used their college chapel to eulogize classmates who helped ensure that American undergraduate educa- had succumbed to fevers or other illnesses. Many tion would remain substantively Christian for well Brown eulogies survive, bearing witness not only to over a century after the nation’s founding. the precarious nature of early modern life but also to Second, the Ivies supplied educators to the hun- the pervasive religiosity of colonial colleges. dreds of denominational colleges soon dotting the American countryside. Both Yale and Princeton Ivies Spread Their Vines have been called the “mother of colleges” for edu- Even during the eighteenth century, the mission of cating the founding presidents of other institutions. the Ivies was already broadening; they found them- For instance a Yale graduate was the first president selves catering less to aspir- of Dartmouth, a Dartmouth graduate the first pres- School Founded ing ministers and more to ident of Bowdoin College in Maine (est. 1794), and Harvard (MA) 1636 aspiring men of culture. The a Bowdoin graduate the first president of Grinnell Yale (CT) 1701 educational field also wid- College in Iowa (est. 1846)—a Congregationalist edu- Pennsylvania 1740 ened; after the Revolution, cational vine that traces back to Ivy roots. the Ivies became simply the Wherever Ivy League graduates went, they repro- Princeton (NJ) 1746 oldest and most prestigious duced the form and religiosity of the colleges in which ikimedia

Columbia (NY) 1754 colleges among many. None- they had been trained. A college on the frontier may W

Brown (RI) 1764 ikimedia

theless, from the nineteenth have had fewer financial or physical resources, but its W ] (NH) century on, the Ivies played curriculum still mirrored those back East. 0 Dartmouth 1769 CC

at least three influential roles Third, through their theological seminaries, some ublic domain]

Cornell (NY) 1865 P

in spreading Christianity and Ivies did even more direct service to the faith. Harvard, —[

Christian higher education. Yale, and Princeton came to have standalone divin- 1650 mallbones / [ First, though their emphasis on ministerial educa- ity schools, while Columbia affiliated with Union S ollege,

tion had diminished, they still provided a Christian Theological Seminary in New York. The Ivies thus C education to society’s future leaders. Ministers con- continued to train ministers. They also supported ennsylvania— tinued to lead them even into the late nineteenth cen- the concept of Christian higher education well into arvard P H tury, and they maintained their old (and explicitly the twentieth century. Notably, from the 1920s to the Christian) curricula, including compulsory chapel 1960s, Yale Divinity School was home to a prominent harter of

attendance and coursework on the classics and the- Religion in Higher Education program led by profes- C niversity of ology. The famed Yale Report of 1828 reaffirmed the sors Luther Weigle (1880–1976), Clarence Shedd (1887– U all, udley, H

value of a classical education in forming the charac- 1973), and J. Edward Dirks (1919–1981). It produced the D ter of young men and linked such an education to the groundbreaking Yale Studies in Religious Education, ollege homas C well-being of a Christian society. Together the Ivies researching topics such as college student religious T

40 Christian History ancient faith Cornell’s chapel (right) was built in 1875 with the stipulation that it would always be nondenominational and never require attendance.

modern knowledge The 1893 graduat- ing class at Columbia processes at their 25- year reunion in 1918 (below); Brown Universi- ty had grown substantially by 1900 (bottom).

life, religion in historically Black colleges and universities, and changing relations between American colleges and Christian churches.

After a Golden Age? But from the nineteenth century to the 1960s, almost imperceptible changes began moving the Ivies first

ongress toward liberal Protestantism and then toward plu- C ralism (the belief that colleges should not privilege one religious perspective over others). After the Civil ibrary of

L War, Ivy League educators gradually began distin- guishing between “religious” and “scientific” forms of knowledge (see p. 37). For both practical and ideo- logical reasons, they put religious ways of knowing ublic domain] P outside the bounds of academic study. As Christianity ceased to form the core of their ivision / [

D mission, Ivy League educators replaced it with other, more “universal” ideals such as science and beauty. Even as their shared identity as elite schools housed

hotographs in stately, ivy-covered buildings coalesced in the P early twentieth century, the schools began to move

ikimedia from their foundations. W rints and

P Though more organic than intentional, the process — nonetheless transformed these schools; 1918 within a generation of Seymour’s speech at ublic domain]

P Yale, the Ivies no longer considered Chris- tianity “a vital part of university life.” Brown and Princeton, the last two Ivies to require chapel attendance, stopped doing so in 1959 and 1964. Thus ended what some considered a golden age in Christian commencement, photograph higher education. 1918 But golden ages are not always as they in ikimedia W

] appear. With some notable exceptions, the 1893 2.0 “Christian” Ivies had long refused to edu- BY cate both racial minorities and women. Princeton, diversity were a part. Today Yale aims for “improv- CC

ampus, hand colored wood-engraving, 1900—[ the last to start awarding undergraduate degrees ing the world” through “free exchange of ideas in an C lex / [ A to African Americans, did not do so until 1947. And ethical, interdependent, and diverse community.” niversity class of

U only the youngest Ivy, Cornell (founded in 1865), Cornell hopes to “enhance . . . lives and livelihoods”; niversity

U was coeducational at the beginning. It would be a Brown prepares students “to discharge the offices of niversity— U

olumbia century before the rest admitted men and women life with usefulness and reputation.” While they no rown C B equally, with Yale and Princeton leading the way in longer adhere to their founding faith, their versions ornell C 1968 and 1969. of the common good serve as dim reflections of their ervice, S ummell,

R In faith’s absence the Ivies struggled to find new Christian pasts. C H hapel, ews C N foundational principles; most struck on some gen- ichard ain age B R S eral concept of social good of which inclusion and Benjamin P. Leavitt is a doctoral student at Baylor University.

Issue 139 41 cardinal directions Newman (left) served at the new Catholic University of Ireland until 1857; its seal reads “Seat of Wisdom, pray for us” (below).

Queen’s University of Ireland, which imposed no religious test for admis- sion and offered no religious instruction of any kind. Throughout the nineteenth century, old universities such as Oxford opened their doors to non-Anglicans, and new universities such as University College London (see p. 32) were founded on explicitly secular and utilitarian premises. From the root of these dueling views of university education grew the questions: What to do with theology? Is it a branch of knowledge, the subject of a science, and therefore worthy of inclusion in a university curriculum? Or is it simply a taste, a matter of opinion, a mere sentiment that disrupts the smooth work of research and development?

a circle of science In response to these debates, Idea simultaneously addressed three audiences. First, it aimed to convince the Irish hierarchy that a university and a liberal education are goods in themselves. Newman needed the Eternal views: bishops to understand that he would not head a mere seminary. Second, Newman rebutted the view that s John Henry Newman’s theology should be excluded from university educa- e ag

tion. Third, he confronted utilitarian arguments that Im

the old model of liberal arts education, now useless, an

The Idea of a University em ought to be replaced by educating students in more hat is the point of a university? What do stu- practical ways. )—Bridg dia

dents gain from a liberal arts education? The Idea first laid out a vision of the whole pe 1881 iki

John Henry Newman had pointed words “circle of sciences, [where] one [science] corrects W

W anvas, about those controversial questions in the 1800s. another.” Theology enters this circle both as one sci- c land / e

“One of the chief evils of the day,” he wrote in his ence among many and as the ground holding all the r I 1852 preface to The Idea of a University, is the idea sciences together. But adjudicating between one sci- ) (oil on that “an intellectual man, as the world now conceives ence and another is the province of “philosophical or 1890 rsity of – him, is one who is full of ‘views’ on all subjects of liberal education.” This formed the Idea’s second con- e 1801 Univ

philosophy, on all matters of the day.” (Today, we cern: the influence of the sciences and a collegiate c an ( m

might call this a “hot take.”) Against this “viewiness,” atmosphere on the individual mind. An education can w Newman proposed in his famous book “a philosoph- only be truly liberal if it occurs amid other people Ne ical habit of mind,” or a rightly ordered intellect: pursuing similar ends. land—© Catholi

formed by a liberal education, attuned to theologi- Newman believed the mission of a university is e r cal truth, conscious of the achievements and limits not to advance knowledge or facilitate research; I of the various sciences and methods. the university exists to cultivate intellectual virtues rsity of The Idea began as a series of lectures to an audi- within its students and professors—men and women e

ence in Dublin in 1852, shortly after church officials who perceive the interconnection of all knowledge Univ c invited Newman to be the founder and rector of a new because they understand the world itself to be tt Millais, Portrait of Cardinal e r

Catholic university in Ireland. This Catholic University created. e of Ireland was the Irish Catholic hierarchy’s response —Austin Walker, assistant director, The Lumen Christi al of Catholi Se to the 1845 establishment of the intentionally secular Institute John Ev

42 Christian History “God will bless us in doing right” Oberlin College and Christian social reform Christina Hitchcock

On September 13, 1858, a group of about 600 people Jailed for love Those who helped save fugitive John gathered together in the small town of Oberlin, Ohio, Price were called the “Rescuers;” several were imprisoned. and traveled—some even on foot—to the nearby town of Wellington to save a neighbor. The day before, John Price had been arrested as a fugitive slave and was “peculiar in that which is good.” The members of Oberlin being held at a hotel in Wellington. Colony, a mixture of New England Congregationalists The crowd, which included professors and stu- and revivalist Presbyterians, believed a school that dents from Oberlin College, converged on the Wads- would promote “earnest and living piety among the stu- worth House hotel and helped Price escape through a dents” would help students grow in holiness and spread window. They took him back to Oberlin and hid him social reform ideals. In the fall of 1833, the Oberlin in the house of James H. Fairchild (1817–1902), a pro- Collegiate Institute published its vision: fessor and future president of Oberlin College. The grand (but not exclusive) objects of the Several months later Price was escorted to freedom Oberlin Institute, are the education of Gospel llege Archives

Co in Canada. Of the 600 people who helped rescue Price ministers and pious school teachers. . . . The sys- in defiance of the Fugitive Slave Law, 37 were arrested, tem of education in this Institute will provide for indicted, and jailed—including Oberlin College’s pro- the body and heart as well as the intellect; for it f Oberlin o fessor of ethics and the Oberlin Sunday School super- aims at the best education of the whole man. intendent. The jailed men started an abolitionist news- At the heart of the Oberlin Institute was the belief urtesy

Co paper called The Rescuer, which they published during that authentic Christianity is not only a set of beliefs — the three months of their incarceration. but a commitment to action. As a result, from the 1859 beginning, the institute committed to social reform as peculiar good the true expression of the gospel. Evangelist Charles escuers,

R The town of Oberlin had been founded by John Jay Finney (1792–1875) served as a professor at Oberlin Shipherd (1802–1844) and Philo P. Stewart (1798–1868) from 1835 on and as president from 1851 to 1866. His

Oberlin who bought land in Ohio to establish a utopian society thinking, regularly expressed in the Oberlin Evangelist,

Issue 139 43 articulated the institute’s understanding of the driving out iniquity Lewis Tappan (left), Charles

church’s vocation in the world: Finney (center, in a 20th-c. woodcut), and James Fair- llege Archives The Christian church was designed to . . . lift up her child (right) all strove to combine personal piety and Co social activism at Oberlin. voice and put forth her energies against iniquity in f Oberlin

high and low places—to reform individuals, com- o munities, and governments, and never rest until the this, the Tappans encouraged Finney to join the faculty

kingdom and the greatness of the kingdom under of Oberlin’s theological department. urtesy Co

the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the —

saints of the most High God—until every form of “a matter of great interest” 1830

iniquity shall be driven from the earth. All of this support hinged on Oberlin agreeing to admit r , c. a Oberlin Institute leaders tried to create a space Black students. Those invested in Oberlin (students, fac- where future Christian leaders could practice holi- ulty, trustees, and townspeople) were divided over this, e Civil W Th ness and piety individually and communally so that but Shipherd used his typical blend of revivalism and h when they went out into the world they could produce pragmatism to convince the trustees to vote in favor of roug

the “greatest amount of moral influence.” As a result it, writing, Th

they championed various social reform movements This should be passed because it is right principle; tion (coeducation, advocacy for Native Americans, the and God will bless us in doing right. Also because a ound peace movement, temperance, and dietary reforms) but thus doing right we gain the confidence of benev- F ts I are perhaps most well known for an early and serious olent and able men who probably will furnish us llege Archives Co rom

commitment to abolition, a position that solidified fol- some thousands. F lowing an uprising at another Ohio school. In February 1835 the Oberlin trustees passed the fol- f Oberlin

Lane Seminary in Cincinnati, founded by Presby lowing resolution by a majority of one vote: o terians in 1829, envisioned itself a “great central theo- That the education of the people of color is a matter berlin College urtesy logical institution” in the West. But when in 1834 the of great interest and should be encouraged & sus- O Co

school tried to stop students from abolitionist activities, tained in this Institution. — 1992

the bulk of the student body resigned en masse. These Oberlin immediately began admitting Black students llege Archives

students, along with professors John Morgan and along with White students. According to Oberlin’s lead- Co rint, p m A History of

trustee Asa Mahan, became known as the Lane Rebels. ers, this was a distinctive decision in the fight for racial o cut n fr

They had financial support from wealthy New York equality. They believed that segregation itself, not simply f Oberlin o businessmen Arthur (1786–1865) and Lewis Tappan lack of education, disadvantaged Black Americans while ood Tappa (1788–1863), but no school to call their home. simultaneously allowing White Americans to remain inney w urtesy ewis F L Co n

Shipherd, sensing an opportunity, invited the undisturbed in their racism. Oberlin professor and pres- f o it o is a

group to join the Oberlin Institute, and they agreed. ident James Fairchild wrote that the goal of Oberlin for d n rtr a wing r o a

The arrival of these students and their advocates, with the Black student was G —P their commitment to abolition and equality, had an to the extent of its influence, to break down the bar- d rles rn, Dr a o

immediate and long-lasting influence on the school’s rier of caste, and to elevate him to a common plat- h irchil C , Fa d

ethos. John Morgan was invited to become a professor form of intellectual, social, and religious life. This l o . Princeh rris

at Oberlin Institute, Asa Mahan (1799–1889) became the result it aims to secure, by admitting him, with- E Ha . Arn institute’s first president, and the Tappan brothers gave out any reservation or distinction, to all the advan- B ul mes a a J Arthur their financial assistance to the institute. In addition to tages of a school, having a fair standing among the P

44 Christian History But Oberlin’s commitment to racial equality faded following Reconstruction. Gone was the generation of the Rescuers and those they influenced. Oberlin graduate Mary Church Terrell sent her daughters to Oberlin in the early 1900s “unchristian, unjust, and unkind” Mary Church only to discover they were now required to live in all- Terrell, an Oberlin alum, published this anti-segregation Black housing. In 1913 she wrote to the dean of women, speech (above) in 1914. I do not believe in segregation of any group of stu- llege Archives

Co providing for body and heart Oberlin has trans- dents on account of race or color or anything else formed greatly (top) since this 1835 bill for room and for which they are not responsible. I do not want board (at right) was issued.

f Oberlin my daughters segregated in Oberlin College. I llege Archives o Co believe segregation is unchristian, unjust and colleges of the land. Such a work, a distinctively col- unkind. . . . When I attended Oberlin College, no one urtesy

Co ored school could not effect. could have made me believe that the day would ever — llege From 1834 to 1875, Oberlin fully admitted Black come, when colored students would be segregated. 1914 Co urtesy Oberlin students into classes, room and board, college work Co rum, — o

Fo programs, and scholarships. Perhaps one of the most “losing our faith” ll f Oberlin scandalous aspects at the time was room and board: Oberlin recommitted to racial equality in the twentieth o Ha

r Black students both lived and ate with White students. century, but Oberlin’s belief that Christian revival was llege, Ohi Fo Co urtesy When White students complained about eating at the key to social reform faded and then disappeared. m,” Co Ha

— the same table as Black students, the faculty agreed Oberlin president William Stevenson (1946–1960) was f o 2009

, Oberlin that the complainers could sit at a table designated the last president to call for social justice on the basis of ns So iew, 1835 only for them. This separate table was designed to Christianity. In his 1947 inaugural address, he said, “‘So V l ls, the a display their prejudices to the whole school and put long as we condone or permit racial or any type of intol- a d n a ent them in what Finney called “an awkward position.” It erance we run the risk of losing our faith.’” Oberlin’s d m Sa nci

I wasn’t long before the table was no longer requested. focus on “a sustainable and just society” (as today’s

d llege, Aeri n ncle

a Although throughout the nineteenth century the mission statement phrases it) was reawakened and Co

U d

r number of Black students at Oberlin rarely exceeded redirected in the years after World War II, but the basis

Boa 5 percent of the student body (it hit its high point at for such work became secular, rather than Christian, r errell, “ o T about 8 percent in the 10 years after the Civil War), ideals. C H ill f B by 1899 Oberlin had graduated 128 Black students. Of hurch C rly other White-majority northern schools, the next closest Christina Hitchcock is professor of theology at the University Ea ry hn Petersen, Oberlin o Ma An J was the University of Kansas with 16 Black graduates. of Sioux Falls and author of The Significance of Singleness.

Issue 139 45 Delicate balance Fundamentalist heritage and the evangelical mind at Wheaton College George M. Marsden

In 1994 history professor Mark A. Noll (b. hearkening back Blanchard Hall, finished in 1853, was 1946) published a famous lament, The Scandal of the intended to resemble the University of Oxford. Evangelical Mind. The problem, he said bluntly, “is that ] Wikimedia

there is not much of an evangelical mind.” He and oth- Charles Blanchard (1848–1925) succeeded his 2.0

ers wondered: how can American evangelicals relate to father as president of Wheaton in 1882 and took the SA higher education? How can evangelical schools navi- school’s radicalism in a new direction. Active in BY- CC gate between constituencies suspicious of change, and Chicago evangelical circles shaped by evangelist faculty and students trying to refine the bounds of their Dwight L. Moody (1837–1899), he was alarmed at what llinois / [ traditions and sometimes overstepping them? Whea- he saw as the apostasy and degeneration of modern I ton College has tried to navigate this delicate balancing civilization. The dispensational premillennialism he act in its 160 years of educating young evangelicals. espoused (see CH #128) expected Christ’s return and the final judgment at any moment. Christ is coming back By the twentieth century, Blanchard often looked

In its early years, Wheaton was an outlier largely for for evidence of true Christianity in the things that a eemu008 from Palatine, T being too progressive in the eyes of the era’s conser- believer stood against, including card playing, danc- vative Christians. Jonathan Blanchard (1811–1892), the ing, theater attendance, smoking, and drinking. He ollege— school’s 1860 founder, was a militant biblicist, but also was at the center of the emerging fundamentalist C out of step with most of the country in being a radical movement, drafting the 1919 doctrinal statement for abolitionist. Early Wheaton looked a lot like Oberlin the World’s Christian Fundamental Association.

(see pp. 43–45); both schools welcomed women and After Charles Blanchard died, 31-year-old J. Oliver all, Wheaton H Black students. Blanchard also opposed Freemasonry Buswell (1895–1977) succeeded him. Buswell established as a false religion—a stance at odds with many of central principles that would characterize Wheaton for

America’s elite. most of the twentieth century. He valued the intellectual Blanchard

46 Christian History head and heart Billy Gra- ham (far left) may be Whea- ton’s most famous alum, but the presidencies of Charles Blanchard (middle), John Blanchard (above), and Edman (left) also exerted great influence.

life and took advantage of Wheaton’s strongest smaller side that valued academic asset: its heritage as a classic liberal intellectual rigor. The story ollege

C arts college. While preserving strict funda- of the Wheaton philosophy mentalist restrictions, he also saw to it that the program illustrates this. school was accredited, with academic programs In 1936 Buswell and requirements much like more secular peers. hired fellow separatist of Wheaton y Buswell was also a Presbyterian of the Presbyterian and fol- strictest sort. After famous scholar J. Gresham lower of Machen, Gordon ourtes ollege C C Machen (1881–1937) led a conservative revolt H. Clark (1902–1985), a against mainline Presbyterians, Buswell fol- rigorous young philoso-

ollege lowed suit in 1936. But Buswell, premillennialist and pher. Clark helped inspire intellectual revival, one part C ollections / of Wheaton C y ollege ardently anti-alcohol, went further. When Machen died of a 1940s and 1950s “new evangelical” renewal. C in 1937, Buswell joined Carl McIntire (1906–2002; see Among his students were Carl F. H. Henry (who ecial Sp ourtes

y CH #138) to form the strictly fundamentalist Bible later founded Christianity Today), Baptist theologian of Wheaton y

rar Presbyterian Church. Wheaton trustees, fearing that Edward J. Carnell, Paul Jewett (later a Fuller professor), b i L Buswell was drawing the school too much into the sep- Harold Lindsell (one of Fuller’s founders and author ourtes ell C rchives, Wheaton w A

ollections / aratist Presbyterian movement and alienating other of The Battle for the Bible), and Orthodox Presbyterian C fundamentalists, terminated his presidency in 1940. theologian Edmund Clowney. Even Billy Graham took raham ecial G

a course with Clark. Clark also frequently bred contro- Sp y

ollections / y C new evangelicals versy, a trait that led to his forced resignation in 1943. Bill rar y ook cover—Bus b b i

Buswell’s replacement, V. Raymond Edman (1900–1967), The college then placed philosophy under the Bible L ecial t Sp

ell was almost the polar opposite. The child of Swedish Department. Carl Henry later lamented the replace- y ourtes w C

rar immigrants, he had served as a missionary to Ecuador ment of required courses on ethics and theism with n— b he Secre i t L w a and a Christian and Missionary Alliance pastor. Neither those on scriptural memorization and soul winning. L ell

w Reformed nor intellectual, he welcomed a wide range of In 1950 Wheaton hired Arthur Holmes (1924– fundamentalist traditions and helped build Wheaton’s 2011), a British émigré who had just earned a Wheaton image. At the same time, he showed little concern for BA in Bible, to teach philosophy. Holmes, who even-

dman, They Found strengthening the college’s intellectual mission. tually earned his PhD, was an inspiring teacher and E Buswell and Edman exemplify Wheaton’s tensions soon restored philosophy’s popularity at Wheaton. raham on Blanchard mond G

y y

a between piety and intellect. Piety was vastly the more Nonetheless, not until 1967, after a painful strug- R harles Blanchard—Bus . Bill C V Jonathan Blanchard Portrait—Bus popular emphasis, but the school always had a much gle and a threat to resign, did he succeed in getting

Issue 139 47 wrestling with truth Holmes (far left) and Mixter (near left) pushed the bounds of academic inquiry at Wheaton.

develop distinctly Christian philosophical outlooks that earned respect even in the academic mainstream. Philosophy provided an important foundation for a new outlook emphasizing “the integration of faith and learning,” which began spreading throughout the network of evangelical schools of which Wheaton was the leading model. Soon it wasn’t just philosophers; every major discipline had a philosophy reestablished as a separate society of Christian (meaning department. evangelical) adherents. In 1976, Meanwhile, many on the faculty were 38 evangelical colleges founded quietly resisting the strictest fundamentalist teachings. the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities English professor Clyde Kilby (1902–1986), for instance, (CCCU, now with over 180 member institutions). celebrated C. S. Lewis as the era’s leading traditional Despite its role near the center of this rebirth, Christian apologist. Lewis smoked, drank, and rejected Wheaton’s balancing act continued, as exemplified fundamentalist essentials, such as biblical inerrancy by Noll’s famous book. Rigorous college education and young-earth creationism. Nonetheless, Kilby made had been spreading for decades in evangelical circles, Wheaton a center for Lewis studies, founding the Wade and students from evangelical schools were crowd- ollege

Center to promote Lewis scholarship. ing into respected graduate programs. CCCU schools C Wheaton scientists, however, did not receive the could choose among excellent faculty candidates and same indulgence. Russell Mixter (1906–2007), a zoolo- were no longer the poor relations in American higher

gist, cautiously advocated a very conservative version education. In Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind (2011), of Wheaton y of theistic evolution he called “progressive creation- Noll documented hopeful evidences of academic

ism.” That was too much for yet another major force in recovery. But he also observed that tensions between ourtes C Wheaton’s history—the trustees. In 1961 they added scholarship and conservative Christian anti-

an addendum to the doctrinal standards stating that intellectualism remained strong. ollege C Adam and Eve were “created by a direct act of God In 1945 famed theologian Reinhold Niebuhr (1892– ollections / and not from previously existing forms of life.” 1971) had written, “Culturally obscurantist versions C

of the Protestant faith are so irrelevant to religion in ecial of Wheaton Sp y

all truth is god’s truth higher education that no policy in the academic pro- y

During the 1960s, guided by faculty members, an gram can hope to overcome the irrelevance.” At that rar b i ourtes L impressive number of students were also engaging with time Wheaton was the leading fundamentalist college. C ell

promising intellectual trends in the broader evangeli- By the twenty-first century, evangelical academia had w cal world. In 1955 Holmes started an annual Wheaton achieved a degree of cultural relevance Niebuhr had ollections /

Philosophy Conference (an early precursor of the Society thought impossible. Yet it was still struggling to nego- C ollege—Bus

of Christian Philosophers) that brought interaction with tiate tensions between populist piety and dedication C ecial Sp Calvin College’s inspiring philosopher, William Harry to careful intellectual inquiry as one essential dimen- y Jellema (1893–1982), and his protégés, Alvin Plantinga (b. sion of the larger evangelical enterprise. C H rar b i 1932) and Nicholas Wolterstorff (b. 1932), founders of a L ell

new school of thought known as Reformed epistemol- George M. Marsden is professor emeritus at the Univer- w ogy. Holmes became a leading promoter of this outlook sity of Notre Dame and author of Fundamentalism and in readable books: All Truth Is God’s Truth (1977), Contours American Culture, Jonathan Edwards: A Life, and The ixter—Bus olmes teaching at Wheaton M

of a World View (1983), and Fact, Value and God (1997). He Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship. This article H also trained over a hundred students who went on to is adapted from The Soul of the American University ussell rthur

earn doctorates, train their own students, and further Revisited: From Protestant to Postsecular. A R

48 Christian History “ The great plan of Jesus Christ”: College revivals

t started with a disturbance of the peace. In a dorm room at Hampden-Sydney College, Ifour young men prayed together. But this was no ordinary prayer. It was 1787, four years after the Revolutionary War, and these students were experiencing a revolution of their own. A deep new experience of God had driven them to seek him, which they did together regularly in the woods beyond campus. That day a rainstorm had forced them inside, but the weather did not dampen their fervency. In fact the noise of their prayers grew so distract- ing that the president of the college himself, John Blair Smith (1756–1799), called a school assembly in response! When Smith discovered the source of the controversy, however, he invited the new converts revive us again Revivals erupted at Asbury College to pray in his parlor. Soon the parlor was too small in Kentucky in 1905, 1908, 1921, 1950, 1958, 1970 to hold everyone who wanted to join, and the wave (above), 1992, and 2006. of revival that became the Second Great Awakening swept beyond Virginia and washed over the nation. Christian settings. By all accounts Yale was going Stories of revival, renewal, and the spread of mis- through a period of “infidelity and immorality,” as an sion movements often seem to start in this way: with a early twentieth-century historian put it, just before a small group of college students, praying for God to act revival swept the campus in 1802. on their campuses. College is often a time when students At the Mount Hermon revival that launched the are exposed to new ideas, trying to find their place in the Student Volunteer Movement, the preaching of Moody— world and set a path for their lives. Spiritual renewal on though inspiring—was not the turning point. Instead, campus has frequently helped them find that path—and the renewal fervor arose from the actions of Robert forge a path for others. Wilder (1863–1938), who gathered a few other students For example, a thunderstorm at Williams College in in the afternoon to pray for missions and sign a pledge: 1806 drove a meeting of missions-minded students to We, the undersigned, declare ourselves will- chives

Ar take cover under a haystack. That meeting was crucial in ing and desirous, God permitting, to go to the sity

r the founding of the American Board of Commissioners unevangelized portions of the world.

nive for Foreign Missions. A few became 10, then 20; soon those who had U y

r Eighty years later an impromptu college-student- signed the pledge were speaking of it to other students

sbu led evening prayer service at a D. L. Moody revival at everywhere, and Wilder—already an experienced mis- A his college prep school, Mount Hermon, brought the sions speaker—convinced Moody to include a missions Student Volunteer Movement into being and launched talk on the revival program. tesy of r the career of John R. Mott (1865–1955), one of the Years later, Mott, deeply changed by that missions h cou

p greatest ecumenical and missionary advocates of the talk, wrote in a memoir: a r twentieth century. In a 1905 revival at Yale, undergrad- We went out of that meeting not discussing uate Kenneth Scott Latourette (1884–1968) rose to the speeches. Everybody was quiet. We scat- leadership, eventually becoming a renowned missionary tered among the groves. . . . I know many men who sity—Photog

r and church historian. Testimonies in 1970 at a revival prayed on into the late watches of the night. The

nive at Asbury College helped spread a “Jesus movement” to grove back there on the ridge was the scene that U y

r churches and schools around the country. night of battles. Men surrendered themselves

sbu to the great plan of Jesus Christ [for] this whole A praying through the night world and . . . His Kingdom. Hundreds of other revivals great and small across More often than not, the great plan of Jesus Christ

Revival at the United States involved students and college cam- has started on a college campus.—Jennifer Woodruff

1970 puses. Nor did these revivals only occur in explicitly Tait, managing editor, Christian History

Issue 139 49 Seeking and teaching virtue CHRISTIAN BEARERS OF THE LIBERAL ARTS TRAdITION FROM THE MIddLE AgES TO THE PRESENT Jennifer A. Boardman

Boethius (c. 477–524) Born into a prominent political family, Boethius was truth In 1680 artist Mattia Pretti imagined Boethius in otheby’s

raised by his adoptive father who taught him Greek, a dialogue with Philosophy even as his jailers watched. S

rarity for Romans at the time. A great scholar, Boethius ain] m became a senator at 25, quickly rising through the England, a center of learning; the pupil soon became ranks to hold important government offices. a teacher at the school and later the headmaster. But In 520 Boethius became the head of all govern- when Alcuin met Charlemagne in Italy in 781, the great mental and court services under Theodoric the Great. ruler persuaded Alcuin to join his court in Aachen. In addition he attempted to heal divisions between There Alcuin oversaw the education of Charlemagne , Malta—[Public do the church in Rome and in Constantinople. His plan and his sons—teaching the liberal arts, organizing the 1680 backfired, however, and he was charged with treason; curriculum, and raising standards. By doing this for in jail he drafted his masterpiece, The Consolation of the most influential leader of the Western world, Alcuin Philosophy (c. 524). In it Philosophy reminds him that helped elevate both literacy and scholarship through- fame and wealth are empty, while virtue and the mind out Europe. Alcuin also used liberal arts education to hy oil on canvas, c. are the “one true good.” In Consolation Boethius also further spiritual development. He believed the purpose p promoted classical education, believing that students of prudence, justice, courage, and temperance is not just need to learn Plato and Aristotle for the advancement to improve one’s rhetoric but to improve one’s life. of Western culture. Despite Boethius’s claim of inno- The aging Alcuin eventually requested leave from cence, he was executed in 524. His book lives on, one of court. Charlemagne put him in charge of Marmoutier the most-read works of the entire Middle Ages. Abbey where he served until his death in 804.

Alcuin (c. 735–804) Peter Lombard (c. 1096–1160)

Alcuin was educated at the cathedral church of York, Lombard excelled in his studies, eventually Mattia Preti, Boethius and Philoso

50 Christian History becoming a professor at the cathedral school of selfie An edition of Lombard’s Sentences Notre Dame. He rose from subdeacon all the way depicts the writer himself (above) in an illu- to bishop of Paris in 1159, a position he held for only minated initial. one year. Yet he is perhaps best remembered for his obedience Alcuin kneels before Charlemagne masterpiece, Four Books of Sentences (c. 1150), the pri- in this 20th-c. relief (left) from a church in mary theological textbook from the twelfth century Gentilly, France. edia m to the Reformation. prayer This mosaic of Herrad (right) sur- Lombard’s book collected biblical texts and com-

] Wiki vives at her former convent, now called 3.0 mentaries from church fathers and served as a medi- Mont-Sainte-Odile. SA - eval university textbook for centuries. Sentences held BY - edia m CC such sway because of Lombard’s genius in assembling wisdom of the centuries in one book, ready to be

tock Photo Erasmus (1469–1536) S edia / [ p ain] Wiki y pored over by students thirsty for knowledge. Illegitimate son of a Dutch priest and m m la

A orphaned by the plague, Erasmus entered a / g Herrad of Landsberg (c. 1130–1195) monastery as a teen. He was ordained in ens.Mi/Wiki g Born in modern-day France, Herrad grew up at 1492 and went to Paris to study theology. Hohenburg Abbey. Well-funded and supported by the His main goal was to learn from the best —© Jör royes / [Public do g T lcuin—Godon Holy Roman emperor, the abbey offered her the best theologians and concentrate on his love of A education a woman could obtain in twelfth-century classical learning. In England he studied ale at ne & p andsber g L a Europe. Noted for erudition and wisdom, she man- with John Colet, who encouraged him to f m aged governance and education of the other nuns and become a “primitive theologian” by study- harle C

errad o was elected abbess in 1167. ing Scripture in a manner closer to the f H

f Even before this, Herrad had begun her best- church fathers than to the scholastics. Erasmus dedi-

ibliotheque Munici known work, Garden of Delights (finished in 1185). cated himself to the Greek language and in 1516 pub- B tatues o S

r— In it she collected knowledge of the day about lished a Greek New Testament. 1 . f

, the liberal arts for young novices to use in moral, Erasmus valued his intellectual freedom and lsace, detail o A 900

S theological, and biblical studies. The manuscript remained an independent scholar—writing prolifically dile, oeur church included poetry, music, stories, and numerous illu- to stay financially stable. By the 1530s between 10 and O C minations, and incorporated Christian, classical, 20 percent of all books printed in Europe were writ- acrž- S ententiae M

S and Arab sources. It tragically burned in a library ten by Erasmus! Among his books is On the Teaching of fire in 1870, but miniature copies still exist, and a Boys (1529), which urges teachers to instill the classics ears, Mount T bard,

f m replica was republished in the nineteenth century. and the church fathers into young minds. Renaissance o L el o

p A heroic piece of work, it is considered the first humanism, the movement he helped spearhead, would ha Peter C Gentilly, France encyclopedia written by a woman. transform university education and society.

Issue 139 51 es

Giambattista Vico (1668–1744) g a

Vico was a professor of rhetoric at the Uni- Im an m

versity of Naples during the Age of Enlight- e g

enment who urged people to keep sight of what classi- Study Dorothy L. Sayers (left) sits for an official portrait rid B cal antiquity could teach humanity. In his New Science by famed British portrait painter William Hutchison. es / g

(1725), he argued that over-reliance on new scientific a thought Giambattista Vico (middle) broods over the m knowledge would sacrifice the art of rhetoric—but that Parco Nazionale del Cilento in Italy. uboi using the best of both old and new would make stu- C dents “exact in science, clever in practical matters, flu- adventure This statue of Erasmus (above) fell off a ent in eloquence, imaginative in understanding poetry Dutch ship in the 1500s and wound up in Japan centu-

ries later! io Giannotti/ f

or painting, and strong in memorizing what they have l A learned in their legal studies.” Against Enlightenment ondon scientific methods, he argued that truth is verified Protestant family: “Books in the study, books in the L through creation, not observation. dining room, books in the cloakroom, books (two taly—Photo © deep) in the great bookcase on the landing,” he wrote. I From an early age, he immersed himself in them. By Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957) ania, mp

Daughter of an Anglican priest, Sayers earned a 1917 he was a student at Oxford and, aside from a a C scholarship to Somerville College, Oxford, and later stint as a soldier in World War I, lived there the rest m

became an advertising copywriter in London. Famous of his life. Around 1930 he famously converted from ational Portrait Gallery, alerno, N for her Lord Peter Wimsey detective novels, Sayers atheism, first to theism and then to Christianity. S —© ational Museu became a Christian apologist and authored The Mind For many years Lewis served as a tutor in Oxford’s iano, N D 1950 of the Maker (1941), Begin Here (1942), and Creed or Chaos English faculty and then became chair of medieval and okyo T (1947). She called T. S. Eliot, Charles Williams, and Renaissance literature at Cambridge. In addition he is allo di V C. S. Lewis friends. largely regarded as the twentieth century’s most cele- inal)— Questions of vocation, including how education brated apologist and one of its great fantasy authors. In g ilento e develops vocation, animated Sayers’s writing. While academic works, apologetics, and fiction, he expressed C utch ori ayers, oil on canvas, c. D

the medieval trivium had shaped university education, deep concerns about contemporary education, attack- S . C

Sayers almost single-handedly revived it for use in ele- ing modern university trends directly in That Hideous th 16 azionale del

N orothy mentary and secondary schools and homeschooling Strength (1945). Yet even though an intellectual giant, f D with her essay “The Lost Tools of Learning” (1947). And Lewis didn’t consider the intellectual pathway the only one of her famous mystery novels, Gaudy Night (1935), is road to God: “We find it to be a road, and it may be the utchison, roduction o as much about whether university education prepares appointed road for us.” C H H p people to flourish as it is about the romance between hant ico statue, Parco p V

Wimsey and Harriet Vane. Read more about Lewis in our next issue, #140! li O

tatue (re m Jennifer A. Boardman is a freelance writer and editor. She S us attista B C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) holds a master of theological studies from Bethel Seminary m ras ir Willia Gian E Lewis was born in Northern Ireland to a bookish with a concentration in Christian history. S

52 Christian History Humility, truth, mentoring, love Is something missing from the modern university?

ia We talked to four educators about their visions for theology reigns This painting by Raphael on the d e m the common good as practiced by Christians in higher educa- Vatican ceiling is part of a set of mosaics honoring the iki liberal arts. W tion today, asking them two questions: how would you define 3.0] human flourishing in the context of higher education, and, SA - Y if you had the power to do so, how would you modify higher in reaction to the communal approach of medieval fig- B

CC education as it currently stands to bring greater flourishing? ures like Aquinas and Bonaventure and Augustine. This idea of autonomous individualism denies our Craig A. Boyd is professor of philosophy and humanities at creatureliness and dependency on others. It gives us a Saint Louis University and author of numerous books on eth- false sense of our value being based on autonomy. To be ics and moral philosophy. in a community, it’s critical that you practice humility. nsight—Darafsh / [ I

d Aquinas says it’s the precursor to all the other virtues Craig A. Boyd: Flourishing is always a communal because it clears away the rubble upon which you need initiy an v project. You can’t flourish on your own; you can only to build the foundation of faith, hope, and love. do so with the support of a community that shares Christian higher education, like much of higher edu- your understanding and commitment to the common cation today, focuses more on technique and less on vir- good. We are always dependent upon the grace and tue; but virtues help sustain the community and help heology with Di

T compassion and goodness of other people. We’re fragile us persevere. We treat virtues as a value-added aspect. and we’re not really autonomous. But they should be central. Forgiveness, repentance, and This flies in the face of much of political thought humility are important things intellectually. Intellectual that shapes North American ideas of who we are—a virtues and skills should all be practiced within the

Vatican Mosaic, self-sufficient political individualism from John Locke, greater context of moral virtues. Of course you don’t

Issue 139 53 ia d e m iki

have to go to college or university to develop HIT THE BOOKS We see aspects of education W moral virtues, and there are also vices that have endured in this book of hours rto / that are particularly unique to intellec- picturing Augustine lecturing in medi- O eval style (above left) and the library tuals—excessive curiosity, pride. at Merton College in Oxford (above). anni Dall’

It’s difficult to develop virtues v io ia

teacher and pupil On a 15th-c. G at the university unless you have d e

coin (left) minted by Cardinal Gri- m

communities within it. At Saint iki

ies program where we have Jesuit SA - Y B priests who are solid people trying to useu m inculcate this. It’s hard to have a com- That has to do with my theory of CC ani m

munity of 10,000 people. For 10,000 peo- knowledge: you don’t really know ri G ple, you need laws. Aquinas says laws are something unless it’s personal knowledge. ia d lierstaart / [ e S

there to prevent the worst kinds of evils. But laws You can’t just memorize the eight components m iki

don’t say anything about our inward dispositions. to Anselm’s argument for the existence of God and W ani, Palazzo ] eleine m d 3.0 ri If money and time and accrediting agencies were not spew them back on a test, and feel like you’ve learned G SA -

in play, I would build in an ethics element to contem- something. Y B enico rary—Ma porary education. Not just because I’m an ethicist; you The interaction back and forth between a so-called CC m b i / [ L need moral continuity going throughout the entire cur- teacher and a so-called student—I’ve actually learned a II lic b hy V inal Do p

riculum, not bouncing around from course to course lot from my students—is often a restricted relationship. d

with different colleagues and instructors. I think you Teachers restrict office hours. They don’t have students Mur m o

would want to have cohorts, working together through- in their homes. They don’t engage with them in class. T al of car — d r, Bruges, Pu e out their four years, meeting together with a guide, And that really doesn’t cause flourishing to hap- UK m 22

thinking about developing virtues in community. pen, because when flourishing happens, it’s when a f. 106 ersity,

student has so engaged with the material that they can v ni U Drew Trotter is former executive director of the Consortium ask questions and have opinions about it; it grabs hold d of Christian Study Centers and has written on film and pop- of them so much that they want to talk about it in the ack face of the xfor b ular culture as well as publishing a commentary on Hebrews. hallways and in the evenings. Some students are like O hy, that now, but they are few and far between. The uni- p

Drew Trotter: Human flourishing in a higher versity’s responsibility is to try to help all students to hiloso rary hall, p education context first has to involve a rigorous life of become like that. b the mind. I have a strong affinity with the notion of a To think of knowledge as existing for the good of ollege li

university being a place where knowledge is commu- society, the good of others, is also a part of human flour- C Vrelant, Augustine with pupils , Ms. nicated. But human flourishing in a university context ishing. Again the university is bad about this, implying m ille heology teaches T W also needs to have a deep kind of heart component. that the student is king: “We are here for you. You need Merton

54 Christian History ages Im an m ge d d rary Boar b i L hantilly / Bri C é, d ancient paths This map (above) shows England, Scot- I would have a student-faculty ratio of ten to one. on C land, and Wales around the time Cambridge was founded.

1259 climbing learning’s ladder The Hill of Knowledge of society the teaching role and make it much more

to (right) emphasizes the hard work of mastering the liberal what it used to be. Far too many professors don’t think

1250 arts to study theology. of themselves as people who are building other human , rance—© Musée d F beings. They think of themselves as communicators of

nglan information for as little time as they can spare so that E

hantilly, to grow. You need to learn. You need to. . . .” This teaches they can get back to their research. C ans, b e, l d A the student me, me, me, me, me and doesn’t ever get them t. on S

C into a world of sharing and loving others. Luke Bobo is director of strategic partnerships for Made to , v 5 If universities now were as they were originally, Flourish with a background in engineering and was executive , f. II V ., Musee they would have no problem with understanding that director of the Francis Schaeffer Institute at Covenant Semi- C C

14 15

we need to ask: How does this glorify God? How does nary, where he now serves as visiting professor. S it praise God? How does it make us give thanks to God? oyal M How does it help us to think about what God might be Luke Bobo: My definition of human flourishing R lorence, , F

III doing in the world? For obvious reasons, secular uni- would be very simply “self-shalom”: a progression versities do not ask those questions at all. In fact they toward personal wholeness. The Fall caused disintegra- , Part a reject their usefulness, sometimes even their legality. tion. Human flourishing is taking progressive steps jor a If I could design my perfect university, it would be toward wholeness physically, emotionally, economi- m ca Cambridge staffed by a wonderful group of sanctified cally, mentally, spiritually, and existentially. l Arts , oil on Panel, a Christians. I like the system Cambridge uses. Lectures I’m interested in what actually begins before a stu- iber L are not part of the grading system. You choose which dent steps foot on the campus. I want to partner with lectures you attend, even across disciplines. You meet churches in making sure that a student should actually with your tutor and write on subjects the tutor asks attend higher ed, because I think too often young peo- Anglorum, Chroni a you to write about. Being eloquent is a by-product of ple follow the American Christian script: graduate

istori having to think things through by writing them down. from high school, go to college, get married, graduate, H If there’s something the university’s supposed to do get a house in the suburbs with a white picket fence, get ntonio, Allegory of the A

’ besides give you a huge database of facts for the future, a dog named Spot, have two-and-a-half kids. I used to d it is to teach you how to manage that database of facts tell my students that some of you have been sold a bag Matthew Paris, Biagio well to make new things for the good of society. of goods; some of you should not be in college. Some of

Issue 139 55 words of wisdom A student studies alchemy (once considered a science) with a tutor.

A teacher who understands the classroom and practices and leads with compassion can be used for the sake of human flourishing.

Margarita A. Mooney is a sociologist of religion and associate professor of congregational studies at Princeton Seminary, and founder and executive director of the Scala Foundation. This is adapted from her book The Love of Learning: Seven Dialogues on the Liberal Arts.

Margarita A. Mooney: Humans have an insatiable desire for meaning and for knowledge. How we use knowledge is intimately tied to serving others and loving God. A liberal arts model of education is crucial to personal freedom and the common good. A liberal arts education should be both contemplative and practical, educating the whole person—mind, body, and soul. Christians believe humans are created for greatness, fallen in sin, and redeemed through grace. Education promotes intellectual virtues that, with the help of God’s grace, strengthen moral virtues. A great books curriculum that studies the classics can open students to the fundamental questions of Christianity, but prayer, worship, and liturgy are also central to integral you are quite capable of working in the trades. Some of human formation. you are wasting someone’s money. Humans care deeply about asking why things are If I would make one modification to Christian as they are, not just how things work. A proper under- higher ed, it would be to focus on practical theology. standing of education for the common good allows ia d

We graduate too many people from Christian schools teachers and students to put aside—for a time—politi- e m

with big heads and small hearts. We need a semester in cal questions and form authentic friendships aimed at iki W class and then a semester in the field—a workplace sit- shared pursuit of the truth. A holistic view of educa- ain] m o

uation, or working in the ‘hood or the ghetto or an tion encompasses an openness to mystery and wonder d

urban context, or a church in a suburban context. at the natural world; the ability to constantly cultivate lic b I’d encourage students to pursue, as James K. A. wonder organically gives rise to social order. —[Pu Smith talks about in his book You Are What You Love, In particular the liberal arts tradition is holistic in 10302

“being” over “doing” (ontological over functional). its acknowledgment that experiences of beauty shape S That will put things in better perspective; they will our capacity for attention to all of reality. An approach M Add understand that their primary vocation is to be good to reason that is open to God, to mystery, to wonder, , 1477 ,

students. I’d encourage Christian teachers to be content is not the opposite of scientific reason, but integral to d experts and do that well, but I want them to lead first comprehending the full significance of reality and to nglan with compassion because every student has a story. recover the love of learning. E My ethics professor said God has designed three Educating the whole person can never be simply a institutions for the sake of human flourishing: the scientific or social experiment. Each person is unique church, civil government, and the family. I would add and irreplaceable and has an inherent dignity and hymy , Bristol, a fourth, the workplace. Teachers have the responsibil- personal vocation. Education needs to create an envi- c ity of creating a classroom environment conducive to ronment that models leisure and friendship as intrin- ll of Al human flourishing in all of these areas. That means sic human goods, inspiring the lifelong love of learn- a rdin

treating students with dignity and respect. ing and the pursuit of truth and beauty in community. O he

This reminds me of a sister on Twitter. One of her The true end of education is forming the whole person T students was consistent in attendance, then suddenly to seek the truth with passion and desire. The heart of orton,

began missing classes, coming late, being lethargic. a liberal arts education is perhaps best expressed in N as

She finally sat down and asked the student, “What’s Augustine’s Confessions: “seeking the truth in a way m ho

wrong?” And the student said, “I just buried my mom.“ that is humble yet confident that truth exists.” C H T

56 Christian History Questions for reflection: Christians in higher education

These questions are meant to help you think more lofty goals Yale University’s seal deeply about this issue and apply it to your own life still maintains the Latin for “Light and setting. Ponder them on your own, or discuss and Truth” and Hebrew reference to the Urim and Thummim (Leviti- them in Sunday school or in a study group. cus 8:8) that first appeared on it in 1749. 1. Describe your family and/or church views of higher education. the Reformation have been 2. Did your educational experience prepare different without it? you for life intellectually and spiritually? What would you have changed about it? 12. Review the guidelines for professors Christian Thomasius 3. In your own words, share what you see as the wrote for Halle (pp. 26–28). Look goal of higher education. Now answer the same up a job posting for a modern pro- question for “Christian higher education.” How fessorship. Compare the two. have your answers changed? 13. Where do you see effects of Enlightenment 4 Has reading this issue changed your perspec- changes in higher education (pp. 33–36) in tive? How? today’s colleges and universities?

5. Some see higher education as a tool to bet- 14. How did the University of Berlin (p. 37) alter ter the individual; others see a path to bettering theology’s role in higher education? society at large. Which movements profiled in this issue are examples of each? 15. Did it surprise you that many Ivy League schools (pp. 39–41) were recognizably Christian 6. Theology was once the bedrock of all educa- into the twentieth century? How would you tion. Describe how this view changed through- describe their vision of the common good then out the eras we’ve covered. and now?

7. Define Christian humanism (pp. 6–11). Does 16. Do you agree with Newman’s views on edu- this seem like a good foundation for a univer- cation (p. 42)? Why or why not? sity education? Why or why not? 17. How were Oberlin educators’ policies 8. As you review the University of Paris article (pp. 43–45) on educating women and African Amer- (pp. 12–15), can you name the seven disciplines icans shaped by their views of the common good? included in the “liberal arts”? Compare this to how they are defined today. 18. How did the Wheaton vision (pp. 46–48) of the common good change over the years? Why? blic domain] Wikimedia u 9. How would you have responded to attending / [P y Oxford and Cambridge (pp. 16–19)? 19. If you could attend or teach at any school we’ve covered in this issue, which would it be? Why? 10. What caused the conflict at the University of Prague (pp. 20–22) that created the University 20. Which story in this issue most stands out of Leipzig? How have you seen similar conflicts to you? hield—Yale Universit

S handled today? y 21. If you personally had resources and influ- 11. Wittenberg University (pp. 23–25) was cen- ence to help begin a new movement in higher tral to the Protestant Reformation. How would education, what would be your focus? Yale Universit

Issue 139 57 Recommended resourcesresources Learn more about Christianity and higher education with these resources selected by Christian History’s authors and editors.

Books Introduce yourself to the topic with George Mars- (2018). For Oxford and Cambridge, look at The Uni- den, The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship (1997); versity of Cambridge: A New History (2004) and The Uni- Arthur Holmes, Building the Christian Academy (2001); versity of Oxford: A New History (2010) by G. R. Evans. C. John Sommerville, The Decline of the Secular Uni- Not much is available on Prague and Leipzig in Eng- versity (2006); Mark Noll and James Turner, edited by lish except for A History of Charles University (2001) by Thomas Albert Howard, The Future of Christian Learn- František Kavka, translated from Czech. ing: An Evangelical and Catholic Dialogue (2008); James Axtell, Wisdom’s Workshop (2016); George Williams, Wil- For higher education in Europe from the Reforma- derness and Paradise in Christian Thought (2nd ed., 2016); tion onward (including Wittenberg), consult Hilde M. J. Toswell, Today’s Medieval University (2017); Jens De Ridder-Symoens, Universities in Early Modern Zimmerman, ed., Re-Envisioning Christian Humanism Europe (1996); Helga Robinson-Hammerstein, Euro- (2017); and Margarita Mooney, Love of Learning (2021). pean Universities in the Age of Reformation and Counter Reformation (1998); Paul Grendler, The Universities of For more on medieval universities, consult Hilde De the Italian Renaissance (2002); Thomas Albert How- Ridder-Symoens, Universities in the Middle Ages (1992); ard, Protestant Theology and the Making of the Modern R. W. Southern, Scholastic Humanism and the Unification German University (2006); and Zachary Purvis, Theol- of Europe (1995, 2001); David B. Priest, Jürgen Miethke, ogy and the University in Nineteenth-Century Germany and William J. Courtenay, eds., Universities and School- (2016). Read more on Halle in Douglas Shantz, An ing in Medieval Society (2000); and Joseph Koterski and Introduction to German Pietism (2013) and his edited Ronald Begley, eds., Medieval Education (2005). volume, A Companion to German Pietism, 1660–1800 (2015), as well as in Thomas Ahnert, Religion and the Among the few English books on the University of Origins of the German Enlightenment (2006) and Rich- Paris are Ian Wei’s Intellectual Culture in Medieval Paris ard Gawthrop, Pietism and the Making of Eighteenth- (2012) and William Courtenay’s Rituals for the Dead Century Prussia (2006).

58 Christian History For more on the story of higher education in Amer- Videos from Vision Video ica, look at Julie Reuben, The Making of the Modern Videos on this issue’s topic include God’s Glory, Neigh- University (1996); Jon Roberts and James Turner, The bor’s Good; History of Christianity (especially parts 2 and Sacred and the Secular University (2000); Andrea Tur- 3); How Shall We Then Live?; In the Footsteps of Martin pin, A New Moral Vision (2016); and George Marsden, Luther; John Hus; Opening the Door to Luther; People of The Soul of the American University Revisited (2021) and, Faith; Truth Prevails; and Where Luther Walked. These are edited with Bradley J. Longfield, The Secularization of also available to stream at RedeemTV.com. the Academy (1992). To understand religion and the Ivy League in particular, some useful books are Conrad Cherry’s Hurrying Toward Zion (1995) and Paul Keme- ny’s Princeton in the Nation’s Service (1998).

Read more about John Henry Newman’s views on education in A. Dwight Cuyller, The Imperial Intellect (1955). You can also read The Idea of a University in a modern critical edition (1976) edited by Ian Ker.

For more on Oberlin, consult John Barnard, From Websites Evangelicalism to Progressivism at Oberlin College, 1866– Many universities discussed in this issue still oper- 1917 (1969); Roland M. Baumann, Constructing Black ate today, and you can visit their websites and Education at Oberlin College (2010); and J. Brent Morris, browse. Most have fairly extensive sections detail- Oberlin, Hotbed of Abolitionism (2014). To learn more ing their institutional histories. If you want to dig about Wheaton, consult W. W. Willard, Fire on the Prai- deeper into some of the historical figures and terms rie (1950) and David Maas, Marching to the Drumbeat of discussed, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Abolitionism (2010). is one place to start. Read pre-twentieth-century figures in their own words at the Christian Clas- Finally, for more on college campus revivals, look sics Ethereal Library and Post-Reformation Digital at J. Edwin Orr, Campus Aflame (1971); Timothy K. Library (the PRDL also has a marvelous set of links Beougher and Lyle W. Dorsett, eds., Accounts of a Cam- to other sites with primary sources), as well as the pus Revival (1995); Michael Gleason, When God Walked Internet Medieval Sourcebook and the Internet Mod- on Campus (2002); and Robert Coleman, One Divine ern History Sourcebook. Moment (2nd ed., 2013). The Cardinal Newman Society has quite a bit on modern education as well as Newman’s educational Christian History issues ideals. The Council on Christian Colleges and Uni- versities is a network of explicitly Christian schools, and the Consortium of Christian Study Centers is a network of study centers exploring questions of faith at schools both religious and secular. C H

Read past issues on our website—some are still available for purchase: 10: Pietism 13: Jan Amos Comenius 41: American Puritans 34, 39, and 115: Martin Luther 68: Jan Hus 108: Charlemagne 113: Seven Literary Sages 116: 25 Writings that Changed the Church and the World 134: Science and Technology

Issue 139 59

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HOW CAN WE BEGIN TO GRASP THE HOW CAN WE BEGIN TO GRASP THE COMPLEXITY OF THE CHURCH’S STORY? COMPLEXITY OF THE CHURCH’S STORY? In this brief primer, historian Jennifer Woodruff Tait In this brief primer, historian Jennifer Woodruff Tait uses seven sentences to introduce readers to the uses seven sentences to introduce readers to the sweeping scope of church history. sweeping scope of church history.

JENNIFER WOODRUFF TAIT JENNIFER WOODRUFF TAIT (PhD, Duke University) is the managing (PhD, Duke University) is the managing editor of Christian History magazine, editor of Christian History magazine, the author of The Poisoned Chalice, the author of The Poisoned Chalice, and a priest in the Episcopal Church. and a priest in the Episcopal Church.

“This is a clear, fair-minded, and reliable introduction“This is a clear, to the fair-minded, most important and reliable subject youintroduction have yet toto understand.” the most important subject you have yet to understand.” DOUGLAS A. SWEENEY, BeesonDOUGLAS Divinity A. School, SWEENEY, Samford University Beeson Divinity School, Samford University

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