This essay discusses to what extent the culture, perception of reality, and vision developed by the Greeks and the Romans were perpetuated in the Middle Ages and glorified in the Renaissance. It will consider in general terms how and why classical writings were preserved in the medieval monasteries, and how they were received and studied by the Renaissance scholars.
There is sometimes a lot of silly talk by nonreligious people about how the writings of the classical world were purposely destroyed by the Christians, who thought them evil. Such talk is ignorant and wrongheaded. In actual fact, almost everything we have in writing from the ancient world exists now only because Christians made great efforts to preserve it (aside from things, like Aristotle, preserved at first by the Moslems).
Ancient writings existed only in handwritten copies on papyrus scrolls or sometimes parchment. Such copies could survive for centuries if buried in the totally dry sands of Egypt, but elsewhere would rot away naturally within about a century. The only way information in such a copy could survive was if someone handwrote a new copy of it before the old one fell apart. The people who carried out this task in Europe were the monks and nuns in Christian monasteries and convents. The fact that many Pagan writings that contradict Christian beliefs and teachings did survive demonstrates that the committed Christians who copied them respected literary values and serious thought, whether they agreed with it or not.
However, there never was a simple opposition between Christian doctrine and Pagan philosophy. Jewish and Christian missionaries alike, in trying to explain their faith to the Pagan world, were forced to use language that was comprehensible to their audience, which means that they were forced to try to explain Jewish concepts in the language of Plato, since PlatoÆs philosophy provided a universal system of discourse in the ancient w...