From Paideia to High Culture. Imelda Chlodna-Blach

and causes; temperance as a rational-minded ability to remain unaffected by passions and feelings; justice, namely, as the cooperation of all citizens for the benefit of common good and restraint in applying penalties.²²⁰ Cicero emphasized that all these virtues were based on reason, enabling one to discern the causes and effects of one’s actions, expand the activities and deepen social relations. Due to reason man acquires independence and courage, which are indispensable to face the life’s difficulties. Without reason and virtues humanitas would be extremely shallow and even meaningless.

      All the skills and studies facilitating the achievement of the fullness of humanity are called artes humanitatis propriae. Even though at a first glance it ←62 | 63→resembles the Greek ideal of comprehensive encyclopaedic education (énkýklos paidéia), in Cicero the particular emphasis was placed on the skills connected with speech – poetry and rhetoric. They constituted a certain core of the Ciceronian humanitas and proper studia humanitatis.²²¹ Speech was treated by him as a discipline integrating all sciences and skills and constituting their finial. In this way, humanitas became primarily the ideal and the aim of upbringing and education (Bildungsideal), covering a large spectrum of ethical, intellectual, aesthetic and civic values expressed by Cicero and his followers through such terms as: “mansuetudo, cultus, doctrina, dignitas, fides, pietas, honestas, iustitia, gravitas, virtus, integritas, lepos, facetiae, elegantia, eruditio, urbanitas, hilaritas, iocositas, festivitas, sapientia, moderatio, modestia, aequitas, magnanimitas, comitas, benignitas, clementia, misericordia, benevolentia, facilitas, mollitudo, liberalitas, munificentia.”²²²

      Cicero’s humanitas should be treated not only as an educational programme. As Pawlak indicates, it absolutely deserves the title of an anthropological project, extremely attractive for future generations²²³. The indicated project is described as a “qualified humanity.” It consists of two dimensions – both the humanitas, and the litterae – the refined education.²²⁴

      As Wolfgang Schadewaldt’s work, Humanitas Romana, reads: “The essence of the Roman humanitas is that it is one of the aspects of an ordered set of different, demanding values which were included in the Roman citizen code of conduct from the beginning and are in fact untranslatable into Greek: Latin pietas (which differs from the Greek eusébeia), Latin mores (which do not fully coincide with ethos), Latin dignitas, gravitas, integritas, and so on. The idea of humanitas encompasses all the indicated values […] and simultaneously, blurs the differences between them, making them less rigid and more universal.’²²⁵ In turn, in one of the German encyclopaedias, where the term humanitas occurs, ←63 | 64→the author explains: “Humanitas covers, in the full meaning of the word, the development and the activity of these spiritual (broadly understood) qualities, which characterize and distinguish man as man, and which, in the opinion of the representatives of this ideal, are not given to man by nature, but are only assigned.’²²⁶

      Thus, humanitas expressed the possibilities determining the value of man: magnanimity and fidelity, among other things, as well as refinement, intelligence and development in the field of arts. Pietas constituted the basis of humanitas and it denoted modesty, due to which man could properly measure the relations with all people and things, with friends, a spouse, parents or children, with different peoples and the state which had to conquer the world and then enable all people’s participation in the just rule of law. At the same time humanitas meant that man transcended what was too human in him through what constituted the essence of his humanity – through reason given to him by the nature itself, designing the divine and human law. Additionally, humanitas denoted liberating from a daily labour. That is why studying the great works of literature was treated as the most human and the most liberating mental entertainment, whereas people who had been shaped by that true art of humanity, should be regarded as the ones who realized the fullness of humanity.

      Both the Greek idea of paidéa and the Roman idea of humanitas found their places within the culture called Hellenism. Partial identification of the two terms occurred there and they became the synonyms of the entire Greek-Roman civilization, juxtaposed with the barbarian world. Isocrates explained the meaning of the word Hellenes in the following words: “The word Hellenes has taken on the meaning that no longer denotes origin but rather a way of thinking, so the term Hellenes refers rather to those who participate in our education rather than to people of common origin.’²²⁷ In addition, the concepts of paidéia and humanitas were extended and deepened within the indicated civilization and were applied to all people. The recognition of the existence of an all-encompassing interpersonal relationship was something new in the ancient thought. Its advocates were the Roman aristocrat Seneca and the Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius. However, one may observe a tendency to associate humanitas with the concepts close to the Greek philanthropy in the works of Seneca. As is observed by W. Pawlak: “[…] additionally, the humanitas of Seneca can, in the Platonic spirit, denote a persistent idea of mankind by which unsustainable ←64 | 65→human beings are formed.’²²⁸ Pliny the Elder, on the other hand, pointed to the relationship between humanitas and doctrina, and thus, like Cicero, applied the term humanitas to an intellectual or literary formation. Pliny the Younger was the closest to the Ciceronian understanding of humanitas. With reference to Cicero, more than a century later, he defined humanitas as the ability to develop lower feelings without disturbing the higher ones.²²⁹ Like Cicero, he pointed out that both the concept and the idea of humanitas originated in ancient Greece.²³⁰

      Over time, the concept of humanitas started to be identified with ordinary kindness. It was indicated by Quintilian, who under the influence of Cicero emphasized the special role of education in the formation of a person.²³¹ An oversimplification of the concept of humanitas was objected to by the Roman poet Gellius who, in the second century AD stressed the ethical and also the intellectual (educational) aspect of both this concept and the concept of idea. He wished to restore its original meaning close to the Greek paidéa: “Those who created the Latin words and used them appropriately, gave a different meaning to the word humanitas than the common people expected and which was expressed by the Greek word φιλανθρωπία [philanthrôpía], denoting some kindness and friendliness towards all people without distinction, however humanitas denoted more or less the same as the Greek παιδεία [paidéia] or what we call education and assimilation of noble skills. Those who truly desire them and strive for them are to the greatest extent humanissimi.²³² Gellius was of the opinion that the only true Latin equivalent of the word humanitas was animi cultura.

      The above considerations show that the meaning of the Roman humanitas was very broad. The idea involved various factors namely, universal human duties, broadly understood love and affection, the improvement of living conditions, the pleasure of experiencing literature, art, contemplation, learning, rational action improved by virtues. All of this was supposed to increase the good of both the individual and the whole community.

      ←65 | 66→

2.2. THE MEETING OF CHRISTIANITY WITH THE GREEK PAIDÉIA AND THE ROMAN HUMANITAS

2.2.1. Does a Christian need paidéa?

      The Greek ancient culture, whose ideals were concentrated in the term paidéia, had a significant impact on the thought and culture of the early Christianity, developed in the context of Hellenism.²³³ Christianity took over the foundations of the Greek culture as indispensable for the formation of man, although the anthropocentric perspective was replaced by the theocentric one. Christianity aimed not so much at the perfection of man on his own but at his openness to God in the perspective of the ultimate goal of the human life, the salvation.