Krey—John of Salisbury and the Classics. 981 
was not to preach a new doctrine, but to defend a principle 
which had become thoroughly ingrained in his very being. 
That “feeling for the Greek” is a rather vague term, John 
appreciated the fact that Greek philosophers were the source 
of all philosophy. It was on this account that he had John 
the Saracen translating Greek philosophy for him. He loved 
Virgil and considered the Aeneid the hook of life hut he did 
not forget to state that the ideas of this work were but an 
adaptation of a greater poet, Homer. If the feeling for Greek 
means an abandonment to pure aesthetic interests, then John 
was not a humanist. 
John was an Englishman and a practical man. In him the 
purely aesthetic was distinctly subordinated to the ethical. 
The classics were primarily of use for the “informationem veri- 
tatis et virtutis.” They must serve some useful end for his own 
time, hut in using them he proceeded far ahead of his own 
time. He saw that even the Scriptures could be clarified by 
an appeal to antecedent philosophy and life, and he used them 
for this purpose as much as he did the writings of the Fathers. 
The truth must be found at the source of things, and it was to 
the sources that he was going when he had a Greek philos¬ 
opher translated for him. 
There was another side to his love for the classics. His 
“otium sine litteris mors est” is indeed a revelation. How 
much appreciation—True appreciation—does this imply ? That 
he appreciated style in a writer, his comment on the writing of 
Bernard of Chartres and his own pure style hear witness. But 
did he find enjoyment in the study of the classics? This ques¬ 
tion can only he answered by another—why did he so stren¬ 
uously advocate them as an occupation for leisure ? Why “non 
ejusdem hominis est carnalibus vitiis et litteris inservire” and 
why does he urge the people to a study of the classic letters ? 
Petrarch, “'the great and first humanist,” was content, accord¬ 
ing to tradition, to die with a copy of Homer, of which he 
understood hardly a word, at his head. If John had had a 
copy of Homer, he might have had it well translated and let 
the beautiful teachings of this work become general. His in¬ 
terests were primarily philosophical and his most busy moments 
