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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SHARK" data-source="post: 4652492" data-attributes="member: 1131">Greetings!Brilliant commentary my friend! A Classicist? OH YEAH! Some of my professors were Classicists, too, naturally. Damn. I love it all.<img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/laugh.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing    :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" />Well, I would say that the Medieval Christian Church did in fact preserve and transmit the knowledge of the Classical world--but it did so Fragmentally, and Individually. Hnece, the long absence of real progress and achievement--and the pervasive hostility towards Classical knowledge. St. Augustine, et. al, often proclaimed the classical philosophers, thinkers, and learning of Antiquity as being essentially pagan, evil, and of only modest value at best--and at worst, should be consigned to the flames and discarded, deemed unfit and unseemly for the devout Christian, who needed only the pure faith of Christ. In addition, much of Classical ideas and learning was judged to be heretical, and dangerous to the eternal faith and salvation of the Christian faithful.Indeed, against such a general attitude, there were isolated monks and clerics throughout Ireland and Britain in particular, as well as occasionally in the French and Italian countrysides, that sought to preserve and maintain any Classical knowledge that they came across--but such was often fragmentary, and often had to be pursued with one eye cast over their shoulder to hide such activities from their more zealous and "pure" ecclessiastical brethren, who would likely confiscate and destroy such knowledge.And, while my professors made the explicit point that it was Islamic scholars throughout the Muslim Empires and also into India that we can thank for preserving much Classical knowledge that Europe was later to embrace and reaquaint themselves with again--Islam also took upon itself to destroy and censor various local elements of knowledge as well. Islamic scholars of the day were better in their temperment to preserve Classical knowledge, but they did not seem to embrace a total attitude of respect and preservation for all of it, either.I suppose I could acede the fact that the Christian Church did seek to preserve and transmit Classical knowledge--but I would sadly have to admit that it also seems true that for every instance where they preserved something--there were six, or eight, or ten other instances where they wilfully destroyed such knowledge, or casually or ignorantly ignored such knowledge while others destroyed it--or simply did not value its existence, and allowed it to be torn apart and used for other building materials, copied over for something else, or otherwise discarded or used by others in the immediate community.Of course, that more medieval condition occured much later than the period of Later Antiquity, where the ascendant Church organized or permitted others to gather in mobs and burn pagan libraries, kill pagan philosophers and thinkers, and destroy all such equipment, books, scrolls, and temples that they came across throughout Mediteranean communities.Certainly, it seems to me as I noted, that there were other factors--like the barbarian hordes burning and ravaging everything in sight!<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />--but when combined with official Church policies and common attitudes and reactions of various clerics, priests and monks, that the Church's impact on the preservation and transmition of Classical knowledge while periodically salient and thankfully crucial--was more often destructive, hostile, and negligent.<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />So there!<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> What do you think of that, my friend?(S'mon, I am thrilled that you are a Classicist! WHOO-HOO! Damn you!<img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/laugh.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing    :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" /> Excellent points, my friend!)Semper Fidelis,SHARK</blockquote>

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