The West
A Tribute to Ideas that Make Us
Bach to Thankfulness: Why We Study the West’s Greatest Music
By JARROD RICHEY The year was 1824 when then 15-year-old Felix Mendelssohn was given by his grandmother a copy of the score of Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. Little did he know that five years later that same gift would introduce a more lasting global...
Luther’s Transformation of Western Civilization
"EVERYONE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS OWN FAITH, AND HE MUST SEE TO IT FOR HIMSELF THAT HE BELIEVES RIGHTLY.” --Martin Luther Literacy in the West From the start of the reformation in 1519, literacy rates across the West skyrocketed. See the interactive literacy rate chart...
The Formation of the First “University”
By ANTHONY M. ESOLEN The first time I visited the Sistine Chapel, I didn’t know much about Christian painting. I did know a lot about the faith, though now I see that I was just starting on that journey. I remember there were crowded lines down the stairs, and...
Christ, the Crux of Human History
By DR. BRIAN A. WILLIAMS “Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? … For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and...
IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD—A REVOLUTIONARY IDEA LOST
By LOUIS MARKOS Plato's Idea of Standards “Behold,” wrote the ancient Greek philosopher Plato some 2400 years ago, “we are deceived about the very nature of the world in which we live. We are like men who have been imprisoned since birth in the deep belly of a cave....
First University
Google the question, “What is the oldest university,” and a small but emphatic contingent will name the University of Al-Quaraouiyine in Fez, Morocco. Does the term “university” apply to this school? According to many websites, Al-Qarawiyyin itself didn’t...
Nicene Creed
Shown above: Icon depicting the Emperor Constantine, accompanied by the bishops of the First Council of Nicaea (325), holding the Niceno–Constantinopolitan Creed of 381. Required memory work at many classical Christian schools, this statement of faith was...
Transcendent: The Not-So-Obvious Idea About God
By DOUGLAS WILSON If you are willing to indulge me for a moment, picture two different whales. One of the whales inhabits an ocean that we might call “reality,” or “all that exists.” He is the biggest and strongest resident of that ocean, but he is nevertheless...
Further
The ideas of the West are central to much of the way we live and perceive the world. The Summer 2019 Special Issue of The Classical Difference provides several unique perspectives on these important ideas. Want to dig deeper? The Classical Difference: "The West"...
WEST vs. EAST LIVE FROM LONDON WITH TOM VELASCO
London embodies the ancient and the modern in its skyline from St. Paul’s Cathedral to the new jagged Shard skyscraper. It is equally diverse in its people and beliefs, but London was for centuries leading Western thought. How are our loves for God and the world best...
Trivium Art
View LargerThe sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing … to find the place where all the beauty came from.—C.S. Lewis, Till We Have FacesLiberal Arts in the Hortus Deliciarum In the late 1100s Herrad of Landsberg, a nun at the Hohenburg Abbey, put together...
