Determining the Greek Point of View

Louise Ropes Loomis, The Greek Renaissance in Italy:

“Thus even in philosophy the influences from antiquity which helped to shape fifteenth-century thought were derived more directly from the Empire than from Hellas. A knowledge of the Greek tongue remained in the main an accomplishment for professional men of letters, elegant and to that degree desirable. Through the recommendations of Quintilian the study of Greek was introduced into two or three of the best Italian schools and the argument was brought forward that one could understand and appreciate the Latin tongue far better by the help of some knowledge of Greek. But there was no serious effort to determine the Greek point of view, which was supposed as a matter of course to have been the same as the Roman, nor to utilize Greek literature save as a storehouse of pedantic quotations and ethical examples. The practical value of Greek in exposing errors of Scriptural interpretation and in waging theological controversy was realized only after the knowledge of it had been carried into northern Europe. Such writing as was produced in Italy, comparable at all in straight-forward originality and acumen to the Greek, was prompted by the stress and stir of contemporary life and except in surface embellishments shows little effect of the Greek Renaissance.”