What Positive Value can Medieval Philosophy Offer to Us in the Contemporary Scene? Fourth Lecture (1-31-17)

What we can expect from today’s lecture and what we should be focusing on especially.  Today I have a thesis that I would like to state.  Originally in the syllabus, the title was The Tale of Two Cities for this lecture, borrowing from Dickens.  But I would like to add another, even more-focused title.   And the title is What Positive Value can Medieval Philosophy Offer to Us in the Contemporary Scene.  What of value can medieval philosophy offer to us concerning the 21^st century?   So we’ll be looking at some examples of medieval philosophy today and, in particular, how they may be of use to us, the value that they would have for us today in terms of our thinking, in terms of our grasping of human being, understanding, truth.  I’m looking for the starting point here.  

The positive value of the middle ages and medieval philosophy for the 21^st century that is for us.  What does it give us to think?  What does it give us of positive value to think about?  

My thesis today is that the legacy of medieval philosophy is that it provides a coherent view of the human being within the cosmos. Ironically, this value can only be seen when the enchantment of modernity and its technological progress has been called into question, to some extent overcome.  As long as we still believe in this enchantment of a modern time with progress in technological equipment and improvement, we do not see the value of the medieval philosophy.  But it seems to be the case right now that we’re starting to see beyond that fascination, that enchantment with modern philosophy and its technological accoutrements.  Therefore, the medieval philosophy now becomes more clear, it offers itself, its positive value and what it has to offer to us.   So my thesis is that by looking at the philosophies that I am going to be presenting today, that we will get a clue as to some positive value from the medieval philosophy, what it has to offer us to think about. Essential thinking.  Nothing has changed. We’re still engaged in the same undertaking that has been described in the first three lectures.  That essential understanding of ourselves, our being in the world, grasping for truth.  Trying to come up with a coherent grasp of who we really are.  

By the way, I have decided that there is just so much material in the medieval philosophy that I want to present, I have decided that this week I want to do things a little bit differently, and I want to split this lecture up into two parts and on Thursday continue with this lecture.  So that this gives me a freedom that I know today I will be able to cut off short and not be so pressed for time. Then on Thursday I will have additional time.  I also want to interact more with the class as far as question-answer because I think it is important.  

[Audience:  We’re presenting on Thursday.] 

Oh, you’re presenting on Thursday. Okay.  That’s not going to take the whole class though.  I may use half of the class for the second part of this lecture, but I will let you present first.  Okay.  

[Audience:  Would you like two lecture notes then, one to do for Thursday and then one for the next?]

No.  Just one lecture note this week, please. 

[Audience: Do you want the lecture note for the re-write of the last lecture that we just did or this one?]

Well, I would like this lecture note fresh on Thursday and then the re-write as well on Thursday.  And the re-write, by the way, is an option you have.  You can take your grade as it stands and not do anything.  

Again, I’m going to tweak my style of presenting.  I want to slow down.  I do have a cold, so I am slowed down somewhat.  

Our last lecture, as we use our memory a little bit, concluded with a look at the term dialectic.  The very last thing we were talking about, how the dialectic transformed and took on new meaning as it moved through the thinking of Socrates and Plato and Aristotle, the philosophical trinity.  During the period of the Anthropological and Systematic periods of ancient Greek philosophy, according to Windelband. 

Now, let’s turn to our little reading packet, and let me introduce some of the things here.  The very first page, and I’ve written the numbers there with my own hand.  Page 1.  This is where I get these periods.  If you look at the bottom of what in the text is Windelband page 21.  It’s the very first page of our text.  Look at the bottom of his page 21.  The Divisions and the History of Philosophy.  You’ll see here that this is where I have borrowed this material. So now you have it.  You have factual evidence of the periods that I have been presenting.  This is good.  You see the philosophy of the Greeks, which we have looked at.  We really are just going to touch on the Hellenistic Roman philosophy.  We are sort of in a sense moving beyond that when we jump into the Medieval philosophy.  But I will make a few remarks on that. That’s the death of Aristotle to the passing away of Neo-Platonism, about 322 BC to 500, according to Windelband.  Next comes Medieval philosophy, and he marks this from St. Augustine to Nicholas of Cusa, from the 5^th to the 15^th century.  Now when he says 5^th century, this actually means 400-1400 – 5^th century meaning the year 400 through to the year 500; 15^th century meaning 1400-1500.  

Now different historians come up with different initial marking points to mark the beginning of the Middle Age, and we are going to be looking at several of those today. We have Windelband, the millennial period from the 5^th to the 15^th centuries, but there are others, and we will be touching on it in just a moment.  We will take a close look at the timeline in our toolkit in just a moment.  

Today’s lecture will describe in very broad lines, broad brush – that’s all we can do. When we try to zoom in, we’ll hit some fine points, but broad brush for the most part.  But let’s first of all look at the timeline, and let’s look at the term ‘medieval’.  I want to show you how this timeline, it’s not going to be a single line, but I will create one line to demonstrate this.  Of divisions, and we’re going to look to Windelband‘s book, where he would map the Middle Age. We are going to also map De Corte’s.  So it’s Windelband, and Jos De Corte, the flemish philosopher who taught me Medieval philosophy in Louvain, and also the famous German scholar Josef Pieper.  And this also gives you a sense that there is no-strict agreement on the exact starting point of the Middle Age.  But there are milestones which are characteristically taken to mark the beginning point.  Again, we’ve seen here it helps to say  it is the 5^th to the 15^th century, in Windelband’s reckoning.  

Here are some important historical facts which were integrally linked to the beginning of Medieval philosophy.  In the year 529 in Athens, Plato’s Academy was closed.  The Academy officially closed.  This is a milestone.  One that’s much earlier, another milestone; 410, the sack of Rome by the northern barbarians.  Important philosopher.  Remember Windelband said that this period will take us from the philosophy of Augustine until Nicholas of Cusa. Augustine lived at this time of the sack of Rome. He was eyewitness of it, and he wrote about it in this famous work called The City of God.  I’ll keep populating this timeline as we move on here.  Aurelius Augustinus.  St. Augustine.  Here’s a Latin expression concerning Augustine: Maximus post apostolos ecclesiarum instructor.  Notice how we’re not looking at Greek words anymore, we’re looking at Latin words.  Augustine is the greatest teacher of the church, “instructor ecclesiarum”, after the apostles.  St. Augustine is the most authoritative philosophical voice in the Middle Ages. And he has the authority that is almost at the level of the apostles.  

Having placed the timeline here, and we’re looking at the period of time, a millennium, even more than a millennium. Actually from the death of Aristotle about 1700 years.  The value of Medieval philosophy rings clear. Christianity assimilates aspects of classical and Hellenistic Roman thought, thus safeguarding it until Europe could become cultivated. Cultivated meant this, and I’ll read a little passage from an American author John Herman Randall, Jr.  Let’s find that.  It’s page 5 in this handout that I’ve given you.  I got to spend a little time living in the south of France.  And what I lived and experienced there is a grape-based culture which was basically unchanged for thousands of years and close to the Mediterranean. This was civilized and cultured. This was all held in place, he’s going to tell us.  But as Europe grew, as the northern tribes who had sacked Rome and taken over and then were being tutored by the church, there were still a great deal of forests, of wilderness, of wild beasts and so forth that had not been brought to the level of the kind of civilization, the culture you would have seen in southern France.  Here’s what John Herman Randall, Jr, has to say:

“In Italy and Spain and southern France, there was probably little break in continuity with the ancient culture.” 

You can even find that today.  And that’s why I would recommend that you travel there.  I remember one of the interesting things. We were harvesting grapes for wine, and there was a discovery made of some archeological materials.  You know, when you’re digging up some of the fields.  They called the Ministry of Antiquities in Paris and said, “We found something that’s of value, an object from antiquity.”  They said, “You know what, just keep growing your grapes there, because that’s probably the safest way to keep those antiquities.  We have so many things we have to look into in France.”  Can you imagine if we found an antiquity in America that was 1000 or 2000 years ago or 2500 years ago out here.  Business would stop at Penn State. And that would be considered a very valuable thing.  But in Europe there is so much antiquity there, that they just said to go ahead and the safest thing would be to just keep growing your grapes to preserve antiquities that were archeologically discovered there, that are still buried there.  Although even here the economic basis suffered a period of decline, but in the north – and we’re thinking of  Germany here and what would become Holland and the northern countries – from the days of the first Roman conquest onward, the main problem was to build up an organized social life in a comparatively undeveloped region.  And to assimilate as rapidly as possible the culture of the Mediterranean world.  By the way, the Mediterranean is the most beautiful sea.  The color of the water there and to swim in it is the greatest thing, just so beautiful.  You can see straight down for 20-25 feet, crystal-clear blue water. 

[Audience: Is the Mediterranean assimilating to the Germans and the northern countries, or are the northern countries assimilating to them?]

It’s more a case of, it’s a gradual process of the church becoming more of the dominant political factor and providing its education and philosophy and thought, which would transform all of Europe including the Mediterranean.  

The influx of new barbarians who captured the government delayed a process that had advanced under roman rule.  So at time there is probably a distinct relapse.  We can form some idea of the situation by comparing to what prevailed in America in the beginning of the 19^th century, facing a wilderness that had to be cultivated from the most basic threats and challenges to provide any form of leisure where you could reflect.  If we were having to be struggling with the elements of the wilderness in any real sense, we wouldn’t have the capacity to even have these classes.   To have the freedom and peace of mind that would be required for us to be sitting here talking about this. This is called leisure. This is what leisure is.  By the way, here’s a term to add to your lexicon.  School is a Greek word from a Greek root ‘en schole’.  To be ‘en schole’ means leisure.  So the leisure that had been won through the ancient civilizations that allowed philosophy to ensue and pure thought and speculation was lost.  It was a new ballgame.  Rome collapsed. Greece was no more. The Greek language was almost completely forgotten. The people were struggling with survival issues and did not possess the liesure to pursue philosophical endeavors.

So this period has the task to safeguard what it can from the ancient period and, thank goodness that it did.  Because, as I said, we still have the transmission to some extent of Plato and Aristotle. We’re still able to talk about those ancient works. There is the possibility – I want you to consider this – that we won’t be able to preserve this works in the digital age.  And there have certainly been works of Plato and Aristotle that were lost. We know that Aristotle’s Dialogues were lost forever. We know that there were gospels from the Bible that have been lost.  So it’s not a guarantee that we would have had this transmission of thought and books and ideas.  And an aside, a little footnote, I think we’re facing the same challenge today. Despite the vast facility that the internet provides of collecting.  I can go and find all the works that are extant and available through the computer, through the worldwide web.  I don’t think this will be a stable container.  I think the digital medium is extremely unstable, and we may lose that continuity and what is called patrimony of the ancient works. Ancient thought could be lost, even irreparably.  I think that’s a danger of the 21^st century we have to face up to as libraries “dis-acquisition’ books and entire libraries are transferred to a very unstable digital space. 

Paradoxically, for example, with a great Medieval philosopher Thomas Aquinas all of his works at your fingertips.  Has anybody here every accessed the works of Aquinas on the internet?  Yes, we got one in this class.  So what I say is – and this is not an insult – but when we have the greatest facility of access to all the treasures of the ancient world at our fingertips, because you can just carry a little phone around and access – nobody is doing it.  We’re losing the human ability to grasp and understand and care about that patrimony, about that treasure, save for in assignments and things like that.  But I think you should be concerned about this as citizens, having nothing to do with the University. This is humanity, this is our own legacy, our background.  And remember I think it’s very valuable.  There may be clues in Medieval philosophy that are going to be extremely valuable for us in the 21^st century, precisely because we see the veil of delusion concerning progress and technology starting to come off. We’re seeing the mask starting to come off. That experience of the Wizard of Oz, seeing behind the screen and realizing it’s not hunky-dory.  Technology produces as many problems as it solves.  And maybe creates more.  And if it does that, then we can say that is something to think about. 

[Audience: I just wanted to agree with that.  When I wake up in the morning, I grab my phone, I look at it.  I go to the bathroom while I’m viewing my phone.  I walk to class while viewing my phone.] 

Thank you. Thanks for being so honest.  But do you want to change your behavior?  Can you change?

[Audience: I am trying.]

Let me encourage you, let me encourage everyone to change your behavior.  Some of the notes you would say, our culture is too focused on machines.   Speak for yourself.  He did that.  He just did that.  He said, “I do this.”  So I can say to him, “Do you want to change?”  He can change.  But if you are talking about our culture tends to do that, you’re not going to be able to focus.  You yourself are the one who has to become an agent of change. The me I see is the me I’ll be.  Does this class want to be part of the vanguard of the solution to how we’re going to live life in the 21^st century on this planet.  We’re not selling cheap ideas here, ‘paideia’ as Cornell West said.  It’s going to require you to personally, morally change your own way of being in the world. Anybody want to be part of that?  Jeffrey does.  Excellent. Thank you.  How can you say no?  Are you just going to let everything Anschluss?  It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there.  

At the upper limit of the Medieval Period we have already stated that this marks the beginning of the Renaissance.  Beautiful term – rebirth of classic antiquity.  Let’s focus on the term medieval.  When we’re focusing on a term, we’re doing definition, we’re doing etymology.  Both of these things and at the same time.  Medieval, and you’ll see it in British, English. It’s like this.  You’ll see mediaeval.  The term medieval comes from this expression, a Latin expression.  In medium (in between, in the middle of) aevum (ages).  In between age.  Medieval is the in-between age.  Pieper tells us that this term is an insult, it’s a put-down, it’s a term of opprobrium.    Here we have Alex and Katherine and in between. It’s kind of like.  Hegel said, “You know what, we should just skip this period and go right ahead to the researches of Descartes.”  The Medieval philosophy was prolix, wordy and didn’t have anything valuable to offer. This has been the characteristic view of Medieval philosophy.  It has been denigrated.  You’ve heard of the Dark Ages.  That’s what we’re talking about. The idea of a dark age, tends to obscure the positive light that we are trying to find.  My thesis is that we’re trying to discover what positive value the Medieval philosophy could have for us.  If we say that’s just a dark age, it doesn’t have any value for us. We’ve just more or less put it into the trashcan of history.  And that was the view that was taken for quite a long time.  Medieval philosophy was looked at as backward, as cloistered, as narrow-minded, parochial, under the service of theology, that it didn’t have it’s own autonomy.  

So this term, the very word itself that we use, has a kind of derogatory connotation, has a bad sense to it.  It’s “in-between,” not important enough to count as like the Classical Age or the Modern Age. Those are the important ones.  That’s the pathos, that’s the feeling of this lecture. The feeling that somehow this has not been given its fair chance.  Now good news was in the 19^th century, there was a kind of a revival of study of Medieval philosophy, and it grew somewhat in the 20^th century to now as we know.  Like I said, all the works of Aquinas, Augustine are available on the internet.  So everything has been, to a great extent, at least the physical materials of the books and thoughts and ideas of these philosophers, has been brought forward to us.  In fact, the school that I studied at in Belgium – I have some more show-and-tell materials I will bring on Thursday – KU Leuven, the university where I studied philosophy is the oldest Catholic university in the world, and it made a specific effort to try to rekindle Medieval thought and to try to bring a harmony between Medieval thought and modern sciences, so that there wouldn’t be this radical divide as we experience here.  For example, as you experienced in your own person.  If you’re an engineering student here at Penn State, you have probably almost no access to any knowledge of Medieval philosophy.  And therefore you’re very deprived, very impoverished, whether you realize it or not.  And we believe, remember part of my critique of our cultural contemporary era, that it does not adequately grasp the human person, it does not fundamentally grasp the truth about the human person, the philosophical anthropology.  Medieval philosophy does! What we need to do is humanize our sciences.  If we could humanize our sciences, bringing them in line with telos, the good, of Aristotle, I think we could produce meaningful scientific activities.  Is sending someone to the moon meaningful to human beings?  It looked really important at the time.  Now it looks like, “I don’t think so.”  Not very much. What did that really assist with anybody on this planet?  I don’t know.  

So many of our scientific discoveries today. What really at the end of the day does it do to help us to grasp what is good for the human being? Socrates’ question again.  And the answer is that there are just billions and trillions of dollars being spent in research that really has no direct relevance to our human life.  The quality of our life and whether we’re happy or not.  So it would behoove us to do that.  That was the attempt at the university where I studied. They were trying to bring those two lines of thought – the value of the human being which is characterized by Medieval thinking – with the more advances in science.  Do you still have a question?

[Audience:   So what was the exact time period of Medieval times?]

Well this is the point. What I want to say is that there are different views of it.  If you talk about Windelband, and we’ll go with Windelband as our historian, it’s from the 5^th century to the 15^th century. That’s it.  It’s a millennial period from 400-1400.  However, De Corte tells us that for historical purposes, he calls it a work-effective unit.  In other words, from historians it’s rather arbitrary.  Not purely arbitrary, but you could start with 400, you could start with 429, the collapse of the Academy.  You could start with St. Augustine and then you would roughly be talking about his lifetime which is 70-80 years.  We don’t have the capacity to precisely determine specific year date or beginning.  Because the beginning of a philosophical period and the end of it are not really necessarily somebody comes up and says, “Boo! Here’s the finish line.  You’ve just completed that.”  In fact, the renaissance thinkers, they didn’t call themselves “renaissance”.  Nobody of the Renaissance Period said, “We are renaissance philosophers.”  Nobody living today knows what we are today. The thinking of today will only be determined after the fact.  Ponder that for a minute.  The cultural thought era that we live in is really not grasped until it has been surpassed. 

Will future historians see this period that we’re living in as a period of instability?  On the precipice, on the edge of some sort of cultural collapse?  Or will they look back and say, “You know those doom-sayers and those critics of culture like Dr. Wolf that existed in 2017 were just lunatic conspiracy fanatics.”  Weigh it up.  You need to weigh this up in your own soul, in your own conscience, in your own way of thinking.  The youth has to be positive.  The youth – you guys – have to be somewhat optimistic.  You understand that.  I was once where you are now.  I was an undergraduate.  I was ambitious.  There were many things about the world that I still believed in. The government, for example, its integrity. The church, Roman Catholicism, to some extent. This is before all of these crises and collapses have been brought about in the ensuing years.  Now I’m 53 years old.  I’m a critic of culture.  To some extent you guys can’t afford to be.  Because if the youth today were actually to look at all the daunting challenges that they’re facing, you may lose your capacity to even act and be overwhelmed by the futility of the world system and its chaos and madness. Especially if you listen to NPR.  I mean, you feel like the end of the world is coming every day.  They just pile it on, crisis after crisis after crisis. The government is falling apart.  They want to impeach the President now, etc, etc, etc.  Are these real threats, challenges?  Is it worth something?  Or is this just all puffery and talk?  You have to decide that. But I’d like for my students, at least, to be a little bit informed to be able to think critically about yourself.   And I think that was Socrates’ goal when he said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”  You must examine your life. 

Adam you mentioned what you said earlier proves to me that you are examining your life, albeit kind of on the surface. But I want you, as much as you can, examine your own lives. As much as you’re capable of being courageous enough to face up to your own being in this world at this time as Adam has done.  

As Gandalf said in The Lord of the Rings to Frodo, “You don’t pick the times you’re living in.”  Frodo said, “I wish I didn’t have to do this (carry this ring).”  You don’t get to pick the times.  But the time that you have been given, which is this time, that’s what you have to work out to the best of your ability.  People could look at me like a fogey when I talk about how great life was in the 70s, here in State College.   Community life was simpler, slower. We didn’t have computers then.  Life was better.  I actually wrote a song, “Back in the Day”---  I remember counting clouds in the meadow where we lay/ playing games with Suzie back in the day/ life was better back in the day."  Students get upset when I tell them that.  You know why?  Because it’s an insult.  You’re saying each young youth group wants to think, “Our time is the best time.” You want to think that the time of your youth was the golden age.  Is every age a golden age?  Is every age of youth a golden age?  Growing up in Germany?  I don’t think so. I know a woman who was born in 1935, friend of mine.  So her first ten years were grown up under the nazi regime.  

Let’s continue here.  But at this end of our historical marker the Middle Age did one thing very, very well and that is that it carried forward, it protected, as it were like a vessel, ancient work from the classical world and brought it forth, so that when the printing press, which is just right here, that that work would be able to be distributed widely.   And now we have the internet which is the printing press squared, if you will.  Here are some of the milestones; the discovery of the American continent that marked the end of this period; the inauguration of the printing press; Martin Luther and the Reformation; the new science of Bacon; the infinitesimal calculus of Descartes. These are milestones that could have marked the waning or closing of the Middle Age and opening of a new era.  But I want to go back even further. 

So now having taken a brief look at those milestones that marked the close of the Middle Ages, let’s go back to the beginning, the opening.  What really characterizes the opening of the Middle Age is the split between ages, and you still reckon time this way –-- B.C.-A.D (anno Domini).  The year one, the birth of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. Even if you put it in politically correct terms which is common era (C.E.).  Did they teach that to you guys, that common era, in school?  Back in the day it was BC (before Christ) and AD (anno domini).  But political correctness came in and said, “We can’t talk like that. We have to talk about a common era,” whatever in the world that is!  So they made this up and they called it the CE and what was before that?  BCE.  That’s politically correct.  ‘Politicheski pravitel’nost’  to put it in Russian.  Political correctness.  It’s a Stalinist term.  

[Audience:]  Political correctness is the enemy of the good.

Yeah, it’s one of them.  It’s an example of trying to perfect.  The beauty of our language is not as perfection.  The beauty of our language is it is broken.  Hence why Dylan got the Nobel Prize.  He’s not a perfect poet, as clean and neat, but he actually has the authentic voice.  Our voice is broken. I can’t speak perfectly.  I’m saying things today that I hadn’t quite planned to say. I wish I could manage it more, but I can’t.  Perfect is the enemy of the good.  

So, the split between the ages, BC-AD, it still holds reign.  Even if the common era epithet is employed.  Because you still say something happened. Why is there common era, and why do you say BCE?  Because it’s the birth of Christ, it’s the birth of the Messiah that demarcates these ages. It’s a crucial transformative event.  Now watch. This is amazing.  Since He, like Socrates, wrote nothing, left no writings, and just as it fell to Plato to miniaturize and use Socrates as his interlocutor in 33 out of 36 dialogues, it falls to Saul of Tarsus (St. Paul) to publish and establish the teaching of Jesus Christ in his letters.  Note also we were looking at the generic shifts. Socrates just asking questions, his idea of dialectic was, “Hey, how do you define courage or temperance?”  Direct conversation.  In Plato it becomes enshrined in the dialogue.  In Aristotle, the dialectic is transformed into a dry, scientific, taxonomic treatise.  Guess what?  The dialect is going to be transformed one more time into letters (epistles)! The style of communication now will be letters.  Letters and epistles reveal an added dimension to dialectic.  Let’s look at examples. 

I have given you in your reading packet today an example of these letters of St. Paul. This is very important to what we’re looking at.  Because this is really what marks the distinguishing, if you say what is the real ingredient, what’s the novelty, what’s the new ingredient that was added to the ancient Greek thought that produced the philosophy of the Medieval Period.  It’s certainly transformed.  But what was the spark?  It goes clear back to the first century. So the beginning of the Middle Age, we stated, is about the 5^th century.  But still the crucial ingredient that was added to it was added in the 1^st century. That was the Gospel.  Moreover, not just the gospel, because the gospel was the word was spoken and written about the truth of an event that had to do with the cross.  A teacher who taught without any books.  

Let’s look at the column here “Corinthians,” page 3.  These are both from the New Testament, these readings.  What is the relationship – put this question foremost in your mind – what is the relationship between Christianity or Jesus Christ and philosophy?  Paul is addressing that in both of these passages that we’re going to be looking at. The letter to the Corinthians.  

“Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel and to do it without relying on the language of worldly wisdom.”

Sophia=wisdom.  But Paul is not relying on the language of worldly wisdom.  So that the fact of Christ on the cross might have its full weight.  Paul is telling us:

“I am not a philosopher.  I don’t have anything to do with that.  This doctrine of the cross is shear folly, madness, folly, to those on their way to ruin.  But us who are on their way to salvation, it’s the power of God.  Scripture says, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing the cleverness of the clever.’  Where is your wise man now?”

Where’s the philosopher?  he might say. You man of learning, you subtle debater, you dialectician.  He doesn’t say that though.  God has made the wisdom of this world foolish.  

Look at the other column from the “Acts of the  Apostles.”  Now this describes St. Paul when he arrives in Athens.  Paul himself now is coming to Athens 390 or 400 years after Aristotle died.  Maybe 65-70 AD.  Paul coming to Athens.  This is fascinating.  I want to look at this.  Paul was exasperated to see this town, Athens, so full of idols.  Of course, it’s ancient Greece.  Same with Rome.  Idols everywhere.  The civic religion demands the worship of idols.  So he argued in the synagogue with the Jews and Gentile worshippers and also in the city square every day.  It looks like Socrates again, but there’s a difference, and I want you to mark that difference.  He has talked with casual passers-by.  So he’s just out there dialoguing, practicing dialectic, but it’s a new kind of thing.  He’s not practicing the search for definitions as Socrates and later Aristotle was.  He’s promoting something he calls the gospel.   Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers joined issue with him, and some said, “What can this charlatan be trying to say?”  That was the philosopher’s view of Paul. He would appear to be a propagandist for foreign deities, just because he was preaching about Jesus and the resurrection.  They were trying to see what this guy is talking about.  They said, “You’re introducing ideas that are new and strange to us, and we should like to know what they mean.”  Fair enough.  

Then Paul stood up in the court of Areopagus and said:

“Men of Athens, I see that in everything that concerns religion, you are uncommonly scrupulous. For I was going around looking at the objects of your worship.  I noticed, among other things, an altar bearing the inscription: To an unknown god.  What you worship but do not know,  but this is what I now proclaim: the God who created the world and everything in it, Who is Lord of heaven and earth, Who does not live in shrines made by men.  It is not because he lacks anything that he accepts service at men’s hands, for he is himself the universal giver of life and breath and all else.  He created every race of man from one stalk to inhabit the whole earth’s surface.  He fixed the epics of our history and the limits of their territory.  They were to seek God, and it might be touch and find Him, though, indeed, He is not far from one of us, for in Him we live and move and have our being as one of your poets have said.”

“We are also His offspring.  As God’s offspring, we are not to suppose that a deity is like an image of gold or silver.  As for the times of ignorance, God has overlooked them.  Now he commands mankind, all man everywhere, repent because he fixed the day on which He will have the world judged and justly judged by a man of his choosing.”

Paul is presenting something new. This novelty, this specific fact of novelty – we will look at this more carefully as time allows us on Thursday – which marks this unique starting point fro medieval philosophy.  

I think we’re running out of time. Any questions though before you go, or do we even have time?  

          [aside] We’re doing Machiavelli of the Renaissance era, I was wondering if it would be worth doing a session on Machiavelli?

Yes.   But you know what?  Could you communicate this to the team, too?  If anyone has any specific concerns, they should email me so I can give you some consultation advice to give you guys a steady start.  Anything at all you need to know.  

Audience: To the rest of the group I actually started doing the notes that I have (surrounding noise).  I’ll start either doing the political aspects of Machiavelli’s years as a political figure.

Excellent!  It sounds like you’re digging into this.  I want you guys to have a strong confidence when you go in here on Thursday.  Let them know if they need to contact me, don’t hesitate.