Academic Departments Classical and Early Christian Studies Greek and Roman literature preserve the wisdom of the ancients, the noble heritage that is the thought of the peoples of antiquity. We should regard it as the first traces of the coming dawn of Gospel truth that the Son of God, the Master and Teacher of the life of grace, the Enlightener and Guide of the human race, announced on earth. In this, the indisputably pre-eminent legacy bequeathed from antiquity, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church recognized that hearts were being prepared to receive the heavenly riches of which Christ Jesus made mortals sharers in His plan realized in the fullness of time. The clear consequence of this is that nothing true, nothing positive, nothing noble, nothing beautiful that past ages had produced was in any way lost in the renewed order of Christendom. John XXIII, Apostolic Constitution Veterum Sapientia 1
Classical and Early Christian Studies has two major focuses. The first is to have the student increase his knowledge of the literature, history, and mores of Graeco-Roman civilization even as he develops his grammatical, lexical, and rhetorical command of Greek, Latin, and–to a lesser degree–Hebrew. The second is to have the student appreciate how that civilization was transformed into Christendom beginning from the Apostolic Age through late antiquity and into the Middle Ages. Greek, Latin, and Hebrew were the three languages in which Christ the King was acclaimed on the Holy Cross; Greek, Latin, and Hebrew are the languages in which Sacred Scripture and the pure doctrine of the Fathers of the Church were written. The Church has, therefore, always considered the study of these three tongues a field of special importance for the intellectual formation of Christian scholars. As John XXIII expressed it, the Church fosters the Greek and Latin languages and literature “because they have had no small role in the advancement of the human race.” As recently as 2006, Benedict XVI underscored the significance that Latin, and by inference classical studies, continues to hold, “Our Predecessors have quite rightly considered knowledge of Latin of great importance for those who deal with ecclesiastical and liberal studies to be able to make fully their own these disciplines’ tremendously rich teaching. Therefore, we urge those scholars zealously to endeavor that as many as possible have access to this treasure and obtain the excellent knowledge that it has to bestow.” (General Address of February 22, 2006)
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