“The man who is slow to grasp things but who really tries hard is rewarded; equally he who does not cultivate his God-given in­tellectual ability is condemned for despising his gifts and sin­ning by sloth.” — St. Isidore of Seville

There is a clear distinction between three types of people in the Church:

1. Those who are well read as a matter of habit
2. Those who read occasionally
3. Those who actively choose not to read (sometimes we call this third group illiterates).

Yet I feel this is unfair to people who are truly illiterate because ignorance and illiteracy are not the same thing.

Ignorant means “lacking knowledge,” “uninformed,” “unaware.”  Therefore, ignorance is something like a willed unawareness due to lack of care.

Illiterate means can mean one out of two things: first, “unable to read and write,” and second, “having very little or no education.”  I think the first definition is the best one.

The difference between ignorance and illiteracy is subtle but essential.  Ignorance has the added state of being uninformed and unaware.

The Sermon on the Mount (1896)

by Károly Ferenczy

The role of the laity in theology

So while we see a clear distinction between three types of people in the Church, the heritage of the Church has been passed down by both the illiterate and the intellectuals.

What?!

Yes, that’s true and I’ll go one step further: it is something we should celebrate.  Now, I should clarify, you probably have never dealt with illiterates in your churches, but only the ignorant.  I am not saying we should celebrate lack of awareness, but the illiterates are not unaware.  Why?  Because an illiterate allows himself to understand even though they can’t read.

The ignorant are unlike the illiterate because they are unaware about the purpose of our faith, our worship, and our way of being.  The illiterate are often aware of the purposes of these things.

To give an example of the ignorant, take the attitude of today’s laity who asks what the faith can offer them.  They have centered everything on their own desires (which hopefully all of us by now know are faulty).  The ignorant treat Christianity as if it is a business transaction or a certification program instead of understanding that it is the entering into the mystical family of God.  If someone approached a family with the mentality of “What’s in it for me?” that person would be labelled as a jerk because they center everything on themselves whereas a place in a family is self-sacrificial.  And in that self-sacrifice, we experience meaningful fellowship, friendship, and communion.

Now consider the literature that came out of the early Church.  If you have heard about some of the topics covered or even read some for yourself, then you will know that this literature is deep in a variety of ways whether it is philosophy, poetry, or piety.

I think of such instances like St. Gregory the Theologian and his spiritual daughter St. Olympia.  When St. Olympia was about to get married, St. Gregory was sick and knew he would not be able to travel to her wedding, so he wrote her a poem instead (which to my knowledge has unfortunately never been translated into English).

Also, when we look at the letters the early Christians wrote to one another, we see such depth and care.

Nobody does these things anymore: writing poetry or letters to one another.  We have become fragments of humans.  But it is this true membership in the mystical family of God centered on our Lord Jesus Christ that transforms us.  It makes us fully human.

We should thank God for the unnamed early Christian lay people (including the illiterates) in our prayers as much as we praise the Church Fathers because had it not been for the authentic Christian living of the laity and their true reaching out for Christ, we would not have received the rich spiritual and literary treasures of the early Church that we have.

How is this so?

It is because the regard for the audience shapes the author’s way of speaking and the topics the author discusses.

But more than all this, there have been many saints who were illiterate who have left a lasting impact on the Church.

Examples of the Illiterate in the Early Church

St. Anthony the First Monk

St. Anthony the Great was illiterate.  All the people who knew him, wrote about him, and praised him said so.  But he was not uniformed or unaware.  If you read the letters he dictated or his biography by St. Athanasius, it is clear that he had a strong grasp of theology and spirituality.  St. Athanasius (who is the greatest Church Father because of his unique talent in distilling the essentials of Christian doctrine and making them super clear in his writings without watering them down) wrote the biography of an illiterate monk.

This biography in turn had an impact on St. Augustine’s conversion to Christianity, and St. Augustine was a very highly educated man, and continued to be so.  He grew in his learning as he entered into the life of Christ and reflected upon all sorts of aspects of reality and being in the light of Christ.  But St. Augustine was deeply affected to the point of conversion by the life of this illiterate monk.

Here we see the synergy between the intellectuals and the illiterate in the journey of the life of the Church.  Our Lord Jesus Christ did not come to raise everyone to the same intellectual level, or to make Nobel Prize winners, but He came to redeem humanity.  We see how the redemption is worked out in a way that defies comprehension in such a synergy between the illiterates and the intellectuals.

I might also note that it was monks, who took up the example of St. Anthony, who overwhelmingly preserved the writings of the ancient world (both pagan and Christian).

Our Lord came to heal us, which means to make us fully human.  What makes people human is how we live in a family, in a community, and how we raise up the next generation.  We see such in the early Church.

Origen of Alexandria

A century before the three saints mentioned above, there lived the undoubtedly greatest mind among all the Church Fathers, Origen of Alexandria.  I heard it once said by the professor Maged S.A. Mikhail that all who came after Origen were either building upon his work or reacting against it, and that even those who reacted against his teachings used his own ways of reading the Bible and teaching the faith.

With such a towering intellect, it is fitting to see how he treated those who can be labelled as iliiterate.  In the book Neoplatonism in Relation to Christianity, Charles Elsee compares Origen to Plotinus, a pagan philosopher from the same time: “It may of course be said that Origen’s philosophy is as essentially a philosophy of the few as that of Plotinus himself.  That is in a sense true, for the inner circle to whom his mystical teaching is addressed can never have been large.  At the same time there is a difference between Origen and Plotinus, for whereas the latter addresses himself solely to philosophers, Origen never entirely loses sight of the needs of the ordinary Christian.  He usually inserts a simple exposition of each text for the benefit of the ‘man in the congregation’ before entering upon the more imaginative speculation which he considers necessary for the full interpretation of scripture” (Elsee, Neoplatonism in Relation to Christianity, 103).  That is, he never lost sight of those who were Christ’s, regardless of intellectual level.

The Audience of St. Basil’s Sermons on the Hexaemeron

Now back to the 4^th century, St. Basil the Great’s best-known work, his nine sermons on Genesis 1, called The Hexaemeron, was preached to an audience that was illiterate, but they were not ignorant.  We know this by the passing references he makes to his listeners such as that they were manual laborers and craftsmen; these people were illiterate in that time period.

We often give all of our attention in reading the ancient texts to the authors, but the audience is very important too because it gives us insight into the receptiveness, the attentive engagement of the listeners, and the care of the community.  Knowing the audience also explains how the author shaped his text, chose his words, and the ideas discussed in the text.  Often, a text is misinterpreted because of not taking into account the audience for whom it was written.

The Hexaemeron is not a difficult text, but it is certainly not lacking in content especially in observations about the natural world.  As I was reading it, I found that I had to look several things up such as the Nightingale’s song, Sea Silk, and the horns of the moon and weather prognostications.  I live in the 21^stCentury; St. Basil lived in the 4^th.  I have Google; he didn’t, yet his sermons caused me to look up and learn so many things that I did not previously know.

Now think about his audience.  They did not come for one sermon or two sermons, but for nine sermons day after day.

Here we see the interaction between the illiterate and intellectuals in the Church that leads to spiritual development.

The Poor Man’s Bible

Now modern Western Churches operate on the assumption that everyone knows how to read well.  As a reading teacher, I can tell you that nothing about reading can be further from the truth.  Only 34% of the population reads well.  Year after year, I have had several students begin secondary school not able to sound out syllables, yes syllables, yes, here in America, not a village in a third world country.

Now the idea of quiet time as generally practiced in Modern Western Churches, which is to read a passage of Scripture on a topic and reflect upon it, is a privilege available only to those who can read well.  Such an assumption that informs practice cuts off those who can’t read from being able to have a robust spiritual life.

Yet, the early Church took this into account because the majority of society was illiterate, and these were the people to which our Lord Jesus Christ called us to preach the Gospel.  The Church was not slow to fulfill this call.  Church Art served as a way to teach the faith to those who did not know how to read.  But it also directly satisfied the longing for beauty that humans have.  And in portraying the content of the faith in art, it fulfilled this longing meaningfully.

In the early Modern Period, church art was referred to as “The Poor Man’s Bible” because it presented the Biblical text in visual form to those who could not read, who were usually poor.

A student

Moving on to our time, years ago, I had a student who really struggled to learn.  This student’s ability was very low, even though this student was attentive, well behaved, and participated in the classwork without interruption.  During one of our parent and teacher meetings, one of this student’s parents shared that the student was in catechism at their church preparing for confirmation, and the student was having difficulty understanding what was being taught.  The parent shared that the catechism instructor made a comment along the lines that the student was stupid because the student was not getting the material.  When the parent shared that piece of information, the student cried.  I realized those tears showed that the student had clear understanding of what was truly important in life.  The student was aware of how important confirmation was.  The catechism instructor, who made the comment, was not.  For the catechism instructor, catechism was just paperwork to clear off the desk.  Apart from this, this student was also one of the kindest and most considerate students I have ever had.

A friend

On that same wavelength, I have a friend who was born with a condition that limits his academic ability.  I think he is one of the few people in this world who shows us what angels are like.  He is unusually kind, caring, and hardworking, and he does his work with cheerfulness.  When I first befriended him, on a few occasions I heard him reflecting on the Bible in discussions.  While I did not understand the significance of that so many years ago, once I became a teacher, I understood the significance of what was going on.  Reflection shows true understanding.  He wasn’t conditioned by upbringing to give these answers (or put another way, these weren’t “Sunday School answers”), but he showed true understanding.  I have also seen how he prays during liturgy, and he does so with reverence.  I also have seen year by year the teenagers at our church who are “gifted,” and they have no reverence, nor do they understand what’s going on in the liturgy for that matter, nor have they reflected on this experience.  But it is clear that it is he who understandswhat is going on, while the others don’t.

Back to the 4^th Century

Ancient pagan philosophy came to an end in the face of Christianity.

Charles Elsee in his book says, “Neoplatonism even in its highest and purest form, was incapable of answering all the questions which man seeks to solve.  It dealt exclusively with abstract Principles.  It spoke of a supreme Being, but never of a personal God.  It told of beauty and goodness, but never of love.  And therefore it failed to claim the allegiance of the whole man.  It was in fact throughout an intellectual system, and it could never satisfy the cravings of the human heart” (Elsee, Neoplatonism in Relation to Christianity, 139).

Christianity, on the other hand, did satisfy the cravings of both the heart and the mind.

The End of the Matter

The illiterates of the early Church wrote the Scriptures on their hearts; they knew where they were coming from and the main ideas of the books of the Bible.  We, who call ourselves educated in modern times, don’t even know that certain quotes we think are in the Bible are not in the Bible.  Here are two that I have personally heard directly from people around me.  Please note that none of these are in the Bible:

“In the Bible it says, ‘Spare the rod, spoil the child.’”

“Jesus said, ‘Give a man fish, you feed him for one day. Teach a man to fish, and he will never go hungry the rest of his life.’”

Additionally, I have seen people who can’t remember whether the Gospel of John is in the Old Testament or in the New Testament.

We pull out our phones to search for verses not even knowing where they come from, or in what context they were said.  The illiterate Christians often knew where they came from and in what context they were said, and still do.  I have met all but illiterate Christians who have a better grasp of the faith than many educated people do.  But as I defined illiterate above, most of us have probably not met a true illiterate Christian, but only ignorant ones.

We moderners have the illusion that we are not ignorant, that we are smart, but the reality is, it is an illusion.  True education is of the mind and heart.  The early Christian illiterates had the education of the mind and heart; we don’t.

Moderners who advocate for simplicity of faith are really advocating for ignorance, and ignorance only leads to fanaticism.

The heritage of the Church is a synergy between the illiterates and the intellectuals.  And the result is that it has delivered to us a tradition inundated with beauty, goodness, and the truth of the Gospel.  Such could have only come as a result of living the life that Christ came to give to us; it could never have been reached by simply thinking, or planning, or musing intellectually apart from living that life.  The intellectual tradition of Christianity is simply a reflecting on the life of Christ in us.

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