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Early Christian Education

This Rock Volume 19, Number 3   March 2008     Reasons for Hope By Cherie Peacock   Letters   Are the Gospels Myth? By Carl E. Olson   Further Reading   Baptism Saves You By Fr. Dwight Longenecker   Is the Education of Women a Modern Idea? By Catherine Brown Tkacz   Early Christian Education   Co-Ed Religion: the Double Monastery   Visual Reminders of Feminine Wisdom   Further Reading   The Sin of Greed: When We Worship the Golden God By Christopher Kaczor   Greed Leads to Other Sins   Lottery Winners Come Down to Earth   The Angelic Doctor on the Virtue of Liberality   Further Reading   Damascus Road The Fall, Revisited By Deacon Bill Turrentine   By the Book The Divinity of the Holy Spirit By Tim Staples   Eyes to See Everyone's a Critic By Michael Schrauzer   Truth be Told Convent Horror Stories By Robert P. Lockwood   Quick Questions   Last Writes By Karl Keating    Subscribe    Permissions

The study of Scripture and of biblical commentary was the pinnacle of Christian education in the early and medieval Church. The "liberal arts" (liberales artes) that constituted a classical education in ancient Rome were literally the areas of knowledge that "free people" (liberi) had the opportunity to study. In contrast, slaves and poor people could not afford to hire tutors. Traditionally, the liberal arts are seven: grammar, rhetoric, and logic to prepare one for further study, and then one might go on to study the disciplines of geometry, arithmetic, music, and astronomy. Learning grammar and rhetoric involved reading and analyzing literature and historical texts, and for Christians either the Bible with scriptural commentary was added to this as the most important of all or was substituted entirely for pagan texts.

Christianity expanded educational opportunities for the faithful. Previously, one had to be born into a family with sufficient wealth to afford tutors. Under Christianity, however, if one were admitted to a religious community, there one might be educated. Also, children were brought to both Greek and Latin monasteries for education, and parents having their children educated at home wrote to theologians for advice. St. Basil the Great set out a curriculum and method for teaching children. He used a great deal of persuasion and attractive methods, rather than relying on compulsion to force the children to work.