Humanitas
Encyclopedia
The word humanitas was used by Cicero
to describe the formation of an ideal speaker (orator) who he believed should be educated to possess a collection of virtues of character suitable for an active life of public service; these would include a fund of learning acquired from the study of bonae litterae ("good letters", i.e., classical literature, especially poetry), which would also be a source of continuing cultivation and pleasure in leisure and retirement, youth and old age, and good and bad fortune.
Pliny the Younger
defined humanitas as the capacity to win the affections of lesser folk without impinging on greater (Ep. IX, 5)
The concept was of great importance during the re-discovery of Classical Antiquity
during the age of the Renaissance
by the Italian umanisti
, beginning with the illustrious Italian poet Petrarch
, who revived Cicero's injunction to cultivate the humanities
, understood during the Renaissance as: grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history, and moral philosophy.
In 1333, in Liège
, France
, Petrarch had found and copied out in his own hand a manuscript of Cicero's speech, Pro Archia
, which contained a famous passage in defense of poetry and litterae (letters):
Petrarch liked this quotation. He referred to it often, and where Cicero used the phrase "litterarum lumen", "the light of literature", Petrarch in the margin wrote lumen litterarum alongside and drew a sketch of a lamp or candle. The Liège manuscript is lost and so is Petrarch's copy, but Petrarch's copy "can be shown to be behind all but one of the later manuscripts" and preserve Petrarch's marginal annotations. Petrarch regretted that Cicero had not been a Christian and believed that he certainly would have been one had not died before the birth of Jesus. But four hundred years later, according to historian Peter Gay
, in the anticlerical atmosphere of the Enlightenment
, the eighteenth-century philosophes found Cicero's eclectic, Stoic
-tinged paganism congenial:
During the Aufklarung (or German version of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment
), the term "Humanität was used to designate the intellectual, physical, and moral formation of "a better human being" (or Humanism
) through immersion in the highest artistic and literary achievements of ancient Greece. It is used, for example, by Johann Gottfried Herder
in his Briefe zur Beförderung der Humanität and by Friedrich Schiller
.
Humanitas, as benevolence, is a cornerstone of the credo of freemasonry
. Some orders of freemasonry are called "Humanitas".
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
to describe the formation of an ideal speaker (orator) who he believed should be educated to possess a collection of virtues of character suitable for an active life of public service; these would include a fund of learning acquired from the study of bonae litterae ("good letters", i.e., classical literature, especially poetry), which would also be a source of continuing cultivation and pleasure in leisure and retirement, youth and old age, and good and bad fortune.
Pliny the Younger
Pliny the Younger
Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, born Gaius Caecilius or Gaius Caecilius Cilo , better known as Pliny the Younger, was a lawyer, author, and magistrate of Ancient Rome. Pliny's uncle, Pliny the Elder, helped raise and educate him...
defined humanitas as the capacity to win the affections of lesser folk without impinging on greater (Ep. IX, 5)
The concept was of great importance during the re-discovery of Classical Antiquity
Classical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
during the age of the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
by the Italian umanisti
Renaissance humanism
Renaissance humanism was an activity of cultural and educational reform engaged by scholars, writers, and civic leaders who are today known as Renaissance humanists. It developed during the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth centuries, and was a response to the challenge of Mediæval...
, beginning with the illustrious Italian poet Petrarch
Petrarch
Francesco Petrarca , known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar, poet and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch is often called the "Father of Humanism"...
, who revived Cicero's injunction to cultivate the humanities
Humanities
The humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....
, understood during the Renaissance as: grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history, and moral philosophy.
In 1333, in Liège
Liège
Liège is a major city and municipality of Belgium located in the province of Liège, of which it is the economic capital, in Wallonia, the French-speaking region of Belgium....
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Petrarch had found and copied out in his own hand a manuscript of Cicero's speech, Pro Archia
Pro Archia Poeta
Pro Archia Poeta is Marcus Tullius Cicero's oration in the defense of Aulus Licinius Archias, a poet accused of not being a Roman citizen. This accusation is believed to have been a political move against Lucullus through Archias. The poet was originally Greek but had been living in Rome for an...
, which contained a famous passage in defense of poetry and litterae (letters):
Haec studia adolescentiam alunt, senectutem oblectant, secundas res ornant, adversis perfugium ac solacium praebent, delectant domi, non impediunt foris, pernoctant nobiscum, peregrinantur, rusticantur. (Translation: "These studies sustain youth and entertain old age, they enhance prosperity, and offer a refuge and solace in adversity; they delight us when we are at home without hindering us in the wider world, and are with us at night, when we travel and when we visit the countryside").
Petrarch liked this quotation. He referred to it often, and where Cicero used the phrase "litterarum lumen", "the light of literature", Petrarch in the margin wrote lumen litterarum alongside and drew a sketch of a lamp or candle. The Liège manuscript is lost and so is Petrarch's copy, but Petrarch's copy "can be shown to be behind all but one of the later manuscripts" and preserve Petrarch's marginal annotations. Petrarch regretted that Cicero had not been a Christian and believed that he certainly would have been one had not died before the birth of Jesus. But four hundred years later, according to historian Peter Gay
Peter Gay
Peter Gay is Sterling Professor of History Emeritus at Yale University and former director of the New York Public Library's Center for Scholars and Writers . Gay received the American Historical Association's Award for Scholarly Distinction in 2004...
, in the anticlerical atmosphere of the Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
, the eighteenth-century philosophes found Cicero's eclectic, Stoic
STOIC
STOIC was a variant of Forth.It started out at the MIT and Harvard Biomedical Engineering Centre in Boston, and was written in the mid 1970s by Jonathan Sachs...
-tinged paganism congenial:
The ideal of humanitas was first brought to Rome by the philosophic circle around Scipio and further developed by Cicero. For Cicero, humanitas was a style of thought, not a formal doctrine. It asserted man’s importance as a cultivated being, in control of his moral universe. The man who practiced humanitas was confident of his worth, courteous to others, decent in his social conduct, and active in his political role. He was a man, moreover, who faced life with courageous skepticism: he knows that the consolations of popular religion are far more credulous beings than himself, that life is uncertain, and that sturdy pessimism is superior to self-deceptive optimism. Man becomes man as he refines himself; he even becomes godlike: “Deus est mortali iuvare mortalem,” wrote Pliny, translating a Greek Stoic, “To help man is man’s true God.” Finally, the man who practiced humanitas cultivated his aesthetic sensibilities as he listened to his reason: Cum musis,” wrote Cicero, “id est, cum humanitate et doctrina habere commercium. Virtue, Cicero insisted, is nothing but nature perfected and developed to its highest point, and there is therefore a resemblance between man and God: Est autem virtus nihil aliud quam in se perfecta et ad summo perducta natura; est igitur homini cum deo similitudio.
Cicero’s humanitas . . . reappeared in the first century in SenecaSeneca the YoungerLucius Annaeus Seneca was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature. He was tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero...
’s claim – made in the midst of a lament over Roman bestiality – that man is a sacred thing to man: “homo res sacra homini”; and reappeared once more in the eighteenth century in KantImmanuel KantImmanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....
’s call for human autonomy and in VoltaireVoltaireFrançois-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
’s stern injunction: “Remember your dignity as a man.” In the beginning of his MeditationsMeditationsMeditations is a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor 161–180 CE, setting forth his ideas on Stoic philosophy....
, the Emperor Marcus Aurelius elaborated a veritable catalog of qualities which, all together, made up the virtues which Cicero had called humanitas and which the philosophes hoped they possessed in good measure: modesty, self-control, manliness, beneficence, practicality, generosity, rationality, tolerance, and obedience to the dictates of nature.
During the Aufklarung (or German version of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
), the term "Humanität was used to designate the intellectual, physical, and moral formation of "a better human being" (or Humanism
Humanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
) through immersion in the highest artistic and literary achievements of ancient Greece. It is used, for example, by Johann Gottfried Herder
Johann Gottfried Herder
Johann Gottfried von Herder was a German philosopher, theologian, poet, and literary critic. He is associated with the periods of Enlightenment, Sturm und Drang, and Weimar Classicism.-Biography:...
in his Briefe zur Beförderung der Humanität and by Friedrich Schiller
Friedrich Schiller
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life , Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe...
.
Humanitas, as benevolence, is a cornerstone of the credo of freemasonry
Freemasonry
Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
. Some orders of freemasonry are called "Humanitas".