Using Paganism to Christianize the Pagans | Episode LXXXVI
04/15/25 • 52 min
In his lifetime, John Chrysostom witnessed the true beginning of Christendom: the Emperor Theodosius confirmed the public standing of Christianity over that of paganism and delivered a final knockout blow to Arian heresy in favor of Nicene orthodoxy. But a religion on the upswing can attract opportunistic and ill-informed converts. Jonathan and Ryan look at Chrysostom's advice on the bringing-up of children, and the ways in which the Greek Father uses pagan tropes - Greco-Roman hero cults, wrestling, statuary - to cajole new converts into dropping their pagan habits.
Richard M. Gamble's The Great Tradition: https://amzn.to/3Q4lRnO
Jaspreet Singh Boparai's The Man Who Translated the Bible Into Latin: https://antigonejournal.com/2021/10/saint-jerome/
New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/
Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.
Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
In his lifetime, John Chrysostom witnessed the true beginning of Christendom: the Emperor Theodosius confirmed the public standing of Christianity over that of paganism and delivered a final knockout blow to Arian heresy in favor of Nicene orthodoxy. But a religion on the upswing can attract opportunistic and ill-informed converts. Jonathan and Ryan look at Chrysostom's advice on the bringing-up of children, and the ways in which the Greek Father uses pagan tropes - Greco-Roman hero cults, wrestling, statuary - to cajole new converts into dropping their pagan habits.
Richard M. Gamble's The Great Tradition: https://amzn.to/3Q4lRnO
Jaspreet Singh Boparai's The Man Who Translated the Bible Into Latin: https://antigonejournal.com/2021/10/saint-jerome/
New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/
Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.
Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
Previous Episode
The Hieronymus Option | Episode LXXXV
Can Christians read and appreciate pagan literature? The vexed relationship between the Church and a world that hates it has generated many different responses. The most popular recent proposal is Rod Dreher's "Benedict option" - Dreher counsels Christian retrenchment and quasi-monastic self-sufficiency. But the great saint of late antiquity and compiler of the Vulgate, Jerome (aka Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus), proposes a different option, drawn from the Mosaic Law. Jonathan and Ryan look at three different letters from Jerome's voluminous correspondence, each taking a different angle on literature and learning.
Richard M. Gamble's The Great Tradition: https://amzn.to/3Q4lRnO
Recommended edition of the Vulgate: https://amzn.to/3FFjqaR
Athanasius' On the Incarnation: https://amzn.to/42h3ww9
Apuleius' Metamorphoses: https://amzn.to/4429DWz
Rod Dreher's The Benedict Option: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780735213302
Passion of Perpetua and Felicity: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0324.htm
New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/
Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.
Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
Next Episode
Replacing Machiavelli with Francesco Patrizi, feat. James Hankins | Episode LXXXVII
Niccolo Machiavelli is often held up as the paradigmatic political philosopher of the Italian Renaissance. But as James Hankins argued in an earlier book, Virtue Politics, Machiavelli in fact repudiates the framework common to many of the humanists of the Renaissance. Machiavelli is an outlier. Who then can replace him as the Renaissance's paradigmatic political philosopher? In his new book, Political Meritocracy in Renaissance Italy, Hankins proposes the little-known Francesco Patrizi, friend and protege of Pope Pius II, as Machiavelli's replacement. Hankins joins the show to make his case for Patrizi as emblematic of Renaissance political philosophy and to explain some aspects of Patrizi's life and thought.
James Hankins's Political Meritocracy in Renaissance Italy: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780674274709
James Hankins's Virtue Politics: https://amzn.to/4d0f0bu
Adrian Wooldridge's Aristocracy of Talent: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781510775558
The Patrizi Project: https://patrizisiena.hsites.harvard.edu/
Nate Fischer's Meritocracy Must Not Be Our Goal: https://americanmind.org/salvo/meritocracy-must-not-be-our-goal/
James Hankins and Allen Guelzo's The Golden Thread: https://www.amazon.com/Golden-Thread-Ancient-World-Christendom/dp/1641773995
New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/
Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.
Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
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