Building on the Greeks, Roman philosophers advocated an educational
programme that had as its ultimate goal not only individual character forma-
tion but also the welfare of the Roman state.^3 Cicero, the most formative and
prominent among them,first coined the termstudia humanitatisto describe
‘those subjects boys must study in order to develop their full potential as
human beings’.^4 Educating the human spirit, not least through literature and
poetry, even allowed for a new equality that transcended class distinctions
towards a‘spiritual aristocracy’of the educated humanists.^5 Therefore the
studia humanitatis would gain the central double value it was to keep
throughout its history as both a virtue for society and an ideal education for
an individual. Cicero asserted:‘Men are born for the sake of men, that they
may be able mutually to help one another.’^6 For this reason, all forms of
learning should serve humanity.^7 For Cicero, like Plato, the goal of humanistic
education is to become more fully human through soul formation. Greek and
Roman educational ideals would deeply influence early Christian thinkers,
who recognized the aspiration to ennoble human beings as a similar goal to
the promise of the Christian gospel.^8
In a Christian context, the ennobling of humanity occurs in and through
Christ. The apostle Paul refers to Christ in Colossians 1:15 as the‘image of the
invisible God’(KJV), and links the language of image and likeness to human
participation in God. In 1 Corinthians 15:49 Paul similarly writes:‘And just as
we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the
heavenly’(KJV).
The late second-century church father Irenaeus (d.c.202) understood Paul
to mean that humanity is not created in God’s image in a general sense but
specifically in the image of the Son, who is revealed in the incarnation.^9
Through the incarnation and crucifixion, fallen humanity has been reconciled
to God and is being healed and restored to its original glory. The redemptive
work of Christ, the archetypical image and perfect human being, restores to
humanity‘what we had lost in Adam—namely, to be renewed according to the
image and likeness of God’.^10 The theme of Christ’s saving work as inaugur-
ating the restoration of humanity to its godlikeness is echoed throughout the
(^3) These goals would be echoed in the late fourteenth and earlyfifteenth centuries by such
Florentine civic humanists as Leonardo Bruni and Coluccio Salutati. See Charles G. Nauert,
Humanism and the Culture of Renaissance Europe(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2006), 31–4.
(^4) Nauert,Humanism, 12. Nauert points out that thestudia humanitatis, as Cicero uses the term,
‘already contains in essence the program of Renaissance humanism’. Nauert,Humanism,12.
(^5) Nauert,Humanism, 13. (^6) Cicero,De officiis1.vii. (^7) Cicero,De officiis1.xliv.
(^8) Zimmermann,Religion and Humanism, citing Jaeger:‘[Christians] do not deny the value of
that [Greek] tradition, but they claim that their faith fulfils this paideutic mission of mankind to a
higher degree than had been achieved before’. Werner Jaeger,Early Christianity and Greek
Paideia(Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 60.
(^9) Irenaeus,Against Heresies5.16.2. (^10) Irenaeus,Against Heresies3.18.1.
120 Darren M. Provost