Culture

The word philosophy comes from the Greek philo-sophia, 'the love of wisdom.' Wisdom is not the same as having facts or being clever. A clever person can win an argument; a wise person knows what is truly good and orders his life toward it. Wisdom sees things as they really are, in light of their ultimate purpose and their Maker. Its opposite vice is folly, the foolishness of someone who knows much but lives badly, or who chases lesser goods while ignoring the highest. The Greek philosophers, Socrates above all, taught that the beginning of wisdom is humility: 'I know that I know nothing.' Scripture goes further: 'The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom' (Proverbs 9:10), meaning that true wisdom starts with reverence for God, the source of all truth. The Greeks reached high with reason alone; the Christian seeks wisdom that crowns reason with faith. This is why St. Justin could be both a philosopher and a saint.

While Virginia chased profit, New England was settled for faith. The Pilgrims were Separatists, English Protestants who had given up on reforming the Church of England and wanted to worship apart from it. In 1620 about 100 of them sailed on the Mayflower, aiming for Virginia but landing far north at Cape Cod. Before going ashore, the men signed the Mayflower Compact, agreeing to make and obey 'just and equal laws' for the good of all, an early act of self-government. They founded Plymouth Colony. Roughly half died that first brutal winter. The next autumn, helped by the Wampanoag (and Tisquantum, or Squanto), they gathered a harvest feast remembered as the first Thanksgiving.

A much larger group, the Puritans, wanted to 'purify' the Church of England from within. Beginning in 1630, around a thousand of them founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony under Governor John Winthrop, who urged them to build a model Christian community, 'a city upon a hill,' watched by the world. Massachusetts grew quickly, ran town meetings, and prized education, founding Harvard in 1636.

The Puritans, however, allowed little religious disagreement. Roger Williams, who argued for separating church and state and dealing fairly with Native peoples, was banished and founded Rhode Island (1636) as a haven of religious liberty. Anne Hutchinson, who taught that salvation came by God's grace alone and questioned the ministers, was put on trial and expelled. Their stories show both the deep faith and the intolerance of early New England.

Key facts: - Pilgrims (Separatists): Mayflower, 1620; Plymouth Colony - Mayflower Compact (1620): an early self-governing agreement - Wampanoag and Squanto; the first Thanksgiving (1621) - Puritans: Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1630; John Winthrop, 'a city upon a hill' - Roger Williams: banished, founds Rhode Island (1636); church-state separation - Anne Hutchinson: tried and expelled for her teaching

Greek sculpture reached two great peaks. The High Classical period (c. 450-400 BC) sought ideal beauty: balanced, calm, and harmonious. Myron's Discobolus (the Discus Thrower) freezes an athlete at the coiled instant before release, perfectly balanced, his face serene even in exertion, because the Greeks believed a noble soul stays composed. Polykleitos even wrote a treatise, the Canon, on the perfect proportions of the human body. Then came the conquests of Alexander, and Greek culture spread across a vast new world. In the Hellenistic period (c. 323-31 BC) art grew more dramatic, emotional, and realistic. Sculptors now portrayed old age, pain, and motion. The Venus de Milo (Aphrodite) shows graceful, sensuous beauty; the Laocoon Group writhes in agony as serpents crush a Trojan priest and his sons, every muscle straining; the Pergamon Altar's frieze shows gods battling giants in violent, swirling chaos. Compare the two periods and you see a whole worldview shift: from the serene, balanced confidence of the polis to the grand emotion and individual feeling of a larger, more uncertain world. Both peaks would feed later European art, the calm of the Classical and the drama of the Hellenistic resurface in the Renaissance and the Baroque.

Add today's vocabulary to your glossary. Write one sentence: 'How does the change from Classical to Hellenistic art match the change from the small polis to Alexander's huge world?'