Difference between revisions of "Education"

<p> In early times there were no schools such as we know them today, and most children were educated at home. It was the responsibility of parents to teach their children the history and social customs of their nation, to instruct them in right living and to prepare them for adult life. This preparation involved teaching and training in reading, writing, crafts, trades and household work (Exodus 13:8; Exodus 13:14; Deuteronomy 4:9-10; Proverbs 1:8; Proverbs 4:1-9; Proverbs 31:1). In the case of Israelites, parents had a particular responsibility to teach their children the religion given them by [[God]] (Deuteronomy 6:6-9). [[Christian]] parents have a similar responsibility (Ephesians 6:4; 2 Timothy 1:5; 2 Timothy 3:15; see FAMILY). </p> <p> People of higher social status often received a more formal education through private instructors who were appointed as the children’s guardians (2 Kings 10:1; Acts 7:22; Galatians 3:24-25). Institutions known as wisdom schools were later established for the teaching and training of upper class people in philosophical thought (Ecclesiastes 12:9; Ecclesiastes 12:11; Jeremiah 18:18; see WISDOM LITERATURE). [[Prophets]] also had schools for the training of their disciples (2 Kings 2:3; 2 Kings 4:38; Isaiah 8:16; see PROPHET). </p> <p> For ordinary Israelites, the highest academic instruction they received was the teaching of the law of Moses. Originally the priests were the teachers, but by New [[Testament]] times the scribes had taken over most of the teaching activity (Deuteronomy 33:10; Ezra 7:6; Ezra 7:10; Nehemiah 8:1-4; Nehemiah 8:8; Matthew 23:2-3; see SCRIBES). The power of the scribes had developed along with the establishment of places known as synagogues, which became centres of instruction for [[Jewish]] people in general (Matthew 4:23; Luke 4:16-21; see SYNAGOGUE). </p> <p> Jewish men could, if they wished, receive a more thorough education in the Jewish law by becoming students of learned Jewish teachers (John 3:10; Acts 5:34; see RABBI). They usually sat at the feet of their teachers (Acts 22:3), and learnt by memorizing facts and having question-and-answer sessions with their teachers (Deuteronomy 31:19; Luke 2:46). These teachers often taught in the temple (Matthew 26:55; Luke 2:46; cf. Luke 19:47). (Concerning teachers in the church see TEACHER.) </p> <p> In addition to education in this traditional religious setting, education in a [[Greek]] philosophical setting was also common in New Testament times. This created difficulties for Christians, because of the conflicts between values taught in this kind of education and values taught in Christian homes and churches (1 Corinthians 1:20-25; Colossians 2:8). </p> <p> Such conflicts will always exist. [[Christians]] may consider that when a government accepts responsibility for the education of its citizens, it is fulfilling part of its God-given task. It is helping provide for society’s well-being (Romans 13:4). But this does not relieve Christian parents and church leaders of their responsibilities concerning the proper instruction, development and growth of those within their care (Ephesians 4:13-15; Ephesians 6:4; 2 Timothy 3:14-17; Hebrews 5:14; Hebrews 13:17; see also ETHICS). </p>

== Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament <ref name="term_55703" /> ==

<p> <b> 1. Jewish. </b> -The [[Jews]] from early times prized education in a measure beyond the nations around them. It was the key to the knowledge of their written Law, the observance of which was required by the whole people without respect of rank or class. They were the people of a Book, and wherever there is a written literature, and that religiously binding, elementary education, at least in the forms of reading and writing, is imperative and indispensable. The rise of the synagogue, and of the order of [[Scribes]] in connexion therewith, exercised a powerful influence upon the progress of education among the mass of the people. In the 4th cent. b.c. there was a synagogue in every town, and in the 2nd cent. in every considerable village as well. To the synagogues there were in all probability attached schools, both elementary and higher, and the <i> ḥazzân </i> (‘the attendant,’ Luke 4:20 Revised Version) may well have been the teacher. The value of education was understood among the Jews before the [[Christian]] era. In the <i> Testaments of the Twelve [[Patriarchs]] </i> we read: ‘Do ye also teach your children letters, that they may have understanding all their life, reading unceasingly the Law of God’ (‘Levi,’ xiii. 2). In the <i> Psalms of [[Solomon]] </i> the frequent use of παιδεύειν, παιδευτής, and παιδεία (with the significant addition of ῥάσδος, 7:8, and of μάδτιξ, 18:8) points to the existence of schools and of a professional class of teachers. By the [[Apostolic]] [[Age]] there is abundant evidence of the general diffusion of education among the people. ‘Our principal care of all,’ says [[Josephus]] ( <i> c. [[Ap]] </i> . i. 12), comparing the Jews with other nations, ‘is to educate our children well, and to observe the laws, and we think it to be the most necessary business of our whole life to keep this religion which has been handed down to us.’ Among the Jews every child had to learn to read; scarcely any [[Jewish]] children were to be found to whom reading of a written document was strange, and therefore were there so many poor Jewish parents ready to deny themselves the necessaries of life in order to let their children have instruction ( <i> c. Ap </i> . ii. 26; cf. B. Strassburger, <i> Gesch. der Erziehung bei den Israeliten </i> , 1885, p. 7). The result of instruction from the earliest years in the home, and of teaching received on the Sabbath, and on the frequent occasions of national festivals, is, according to the Jewish historian, ‘that if anybody do but ask any one of our people about our laws, he could more easily tell them all than he could tell his own name. For because of ear having learned them as soon as ever we became sensible of anything, we have them as it were engraven on our souls’ ( <i> c. Ap </i> . ii. 19). </p> <p> [[Education]] began, as Josephus says, ‘with the earliest infancy.’ [[Philo]] speaks of Jewish youth ‘being taught, so to speak, from their very swaddling clothes by parents and teachers and inspectors, even before they receive instruction in the holy laws and unwritten customs of their religion, to believe in [[God]] the one Father and [[Creator]] of the world’ ( <i> Legat. ad Gaium </i> , 16). ‘From a babe thou hast known the sacred writings,’ writes St. [[Paul]] to Timothy (2 Timothy 3:15), recalling his disciple’s early acquaintance with the OT Scriptures. At the age of six the Jewish boy would go to the elementary school ( <i> Bêth ha-Sçpher </i> ), but before this he would have received lessons in [[Scripture]] from his parents and have learned the <i> Shʿma‘ </i> and the <i> Hallçl </i> , From the sixth to the tenth year he would make a study of the Law, along with writing and arithmetic. At the age of ten he would be admitted to the higher school ( <i> Bêth ha-Midrâsh </i> ), where he would make the acquaintance of the oral Law, beginning with the Mishna, ‘repetition,’ the oral traditions of the Law. At the age of thirteen he would be acknowledged by a sort of rite of confirmation as a ‘Son of the Commandment’ ( <i> Bar-miṣvâh </i> ), and from this point his further studies would depend upon the career he was to follow in life. If he was to become a Rabbi, he would continue his studies in the Law, and, as [[Saul]] of [[Tarsus]] did, betake himself to some famous teacher and sit at his feet as a disciple. </p> <p> Although schools were thus in existence in connexion with the synagogues, it was not till comparatively late that schools, in the modern sense, for the education of children by themselves, seem to have been instituted (see article‘Education’ in <i> Hasting's Dictionary of the [[Bible]] (5 vols) </i> ). They are said to have been first established by [[Simon]] bên-Shetach in the 1st cent. b.c., but this is disputed. However this may be, schools were placed upon a satisfactory and permanent footing by Joshua bên-Gamaliel, who is said to have been high priest from a.d. 63 to 65, and who ordained that teachers of youth should be placed in every town and every village, and that children on arriving at school age should be sent to them for instruction. Of him it is said that if he had not lived, the Law would have perished from Israel. The love of sacred learning and the study of the Law in synagogue and school saved the Jewish people from extinction. When [[Jerusalem]] had been destroyed and the Jewish population had been scattered after the disastrous events of a.d. 70, the school accompanied the people into the lands of their dispersion. Jamnia, between [[Joppa]] and Ashdod, then became the headquarters of Jewish learning, and retained the position till the unhappy close of Bar Cochba’s rebellion. The learned circle then moved northwards to Galilee, and [[Tiberias]] and [[Sepphoris]] became seats of Rabbinical training. Wherever the Jews were settled, the family gathering of the Passover, the household instruction as to its origin and history, and the training in the knowledge of the Law, served to knit them together and to intensify their national feeling even in the midst of heathen surroundings. </p> <p> While the great subject of school instruction was the Law, the work of the elementary school embraced <i> reading, writing </i> , and <i> arithmetic </i> . To make the Jewish boy familiar with the [[Hebrew]] characters in every jot and tittle, and to make him able to produce them himself, was the business of the <i> Bêth ha-Sçpher </i> , ‘the House of the Book.’ [[Reading]] thus came to be a universal accomplishment among the Jewish people, and it was a necessary qualification where the sacred books were not the exclusive concern of a priestly caste, but were meant to be read and studied in the home as well as read aloud and expounded in the synagogue. The case of Timothy already referred to is evidence of this; and the [[Scriptures]] which the Jewish converts of Berœa ‘examined daily’ were no doubt the OT in [[Greek]] which they were trained to study for themselves. Writing may not have been so general an accomplishment, but it must also have been in considerable demand. This can be inferred from the numerous copies of the Scripture books which had to be produced; and from the prevalence of <i> tʿphillîn </i> (‘phylacteries’) and <i> mʿzûzôth </i> , little metal cases containing the <i> Shʿma‘ </i> , the name of God, and texts of Scripture, fastened to the ‘doorposts’ of Jewish houses, which were in use before the Apostolic Age. The simple rules of arithmetic would be wanted to calculate the weeks, months, and festivals of the Jewish year. </p> <p> In the higher school, <i> Bêth ha-Midrâsh </i> , ‘the House of Study,’ the contents of the Law and the Books of Scripture as a whole were expounded by the authorities. It is said to have been a rule of the Jewish schools not to allow all and sundry, without regard to age, to read all the books of [[Holy]] Scripture, but to give to the young all those portions of Scripture whose literal sense commanded universal acceptance, and only after they had attained the age of twenty-five to allow them to read the whole. [[Origen]] lefts of the scruples of the Jewish teachers in regard to the reading of the [[Song]] of Solomon by the young (Harnack, <i> Bible Reading in the [[Early]] [[Church]] </i> , 1912, p. 30f.). But there was no lack of materials for reading and exposition. In course of time there grew up the great and varied literature now contained in the Talmud-the <i> [[Mishna]] </i> , the <i> [[Gemara]] </i> , and the <i> Midrâshic </i> literature of all sorts-narrative, illustrative, proverbial, parabolic, and allegorical (see I. Abrahams, <i> Short History of Jewish Literature </i> , 1906, ch. iv.; Oesterley and Box, <i> [[Religion]] and [[Worship]] of the [[Synagogue]] </i> 2, 1911, ch. v.). </p> <p> In the school the children sat on the floor in a circle round the teacher, who occupied a chair or bench (Luke 2:46; Luke 10:39, Acts 22:3). The method of instruction was oral and catechetical. In the schools attached to the synagogues of [[Eastern]] [[Judaism]] to this day, committing to memory and learning by rote are the chief methods of instruction, and the clamour of infant and youthful voices is heard repeating verses and passages of Scripture the whole school day. This kind of oral repetition and committing to memory undoubtedly occupied a large place in the earliest Christian teaching, and had an important influence in the composition of the gospel narratives. The purpose of St. Luke in writing his [[Gospel]] was that [[Theophilus]] might know more fully the certainty of the things concerning [[Jesus]] wherein he had been instructed (κατηχήθης) (Luke 1:4). [[Apollos]] having been thus instructed in the way or the Lord (Acts 18:25) taught with accuracy the facts concerning Jesus. But whilst the method had great advantages, it had also great dangers, tending to crush out all originality and life, and to result in barren formalism. </p> <p> In the education of the Jewish boy, <i> punishment </i> , we may be sure, was not withheld. The directions of the [[Book]] of Proverbs, which is itself a treasury of sound educational principles, were carried out not only in the home but in the school (Proverbs 12:24; Proverbs 19:18; Proverbs 23:13). St. Paul, addressing a self-righteous Jew, exposes the inconsistency of the man who professes to be a guide of the blind (ὀδηγὸν τυφλῶν), a corrector of the foolish (παιδευτὴν ἀφρόνων), and a teacher of infants (διδάσκαλον νηπίων), and yet does not know the inwardness of the Law (Romans 2:19 f.). </p> <p> [[Games]] had some part in the life of Jewish schoolboys. One game consisted in imitating their elders at marriages and funerals (Matthew 11:16 f.). [[Riddles]] and guesses seem to have been common, and story-telling, music, and song were not wanting. But when, under the influence of [[Antiochus]] Epiphanes, a <i> gymnasion </i> for the athletic performances of the [[Greeks]] was set up in Jerusalem and the youth of the city were required to strip themselves of their clothing, it became a grievous cause of offence to the pious among the people (1 [[Maccabees]] 1:11 ff.). See art ‘Games’ in <i> Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) </i> . </p> <p> [[Whilst]] the education of Jewish youth on the theoretical side centred in the Law and was calculated to instil piety towards God, no instruction was complete without the knowledge of some trade or handicraft. To circumcise him, to teach him the Law, to give him a trade, were the primary obligations of a father towards his son. ‘He that teacheth not his son a trade doeth the same as if he taught him to be a thief,’ is a Jewish saying. Jesus Himself was the carpenter (Mark 6:3), and Saul of Tarsus, the scholar of Gamaliel, was a tent-maker (Acts 18:3). We hear of Rabbis who were needle-makers, tanners, and followed other occupations, and who, like St. Paul, made it their boast that their own hands ministered to their necessities and to them that accompanied them (Acts 20:34). </p> <p> The education of the Jewish youth began at home, and the parents were the first instructors. Of a noted teacher of the 2nd cent. a.d. it was said that he never broke his fast until he had first given a lesson to his son. But in due course the children were sent to school, in Rabbinic times apparently under the protection of a <i> pœdagogue </i> , better known, however, in Greek family life (Galatians 3:24). The teacher was required to be a man of unblemished character, of gentle and patient disposition, with aptness to teach. Only married men could be employed as teachers. [[Women]] and unmarried men were excluded from the office. The office itself was full of honour: ‘A city which neglects to appoint teachers ought to be destroyed,’ runs the saying. One teacher was to be employed where there were 25 scholars (with an assistant where the number exceeded 25), and two where they exceeded 40. In the 2nd and 3rd centuries of the Christian era teachers received salaries, but the remuneration was in respect of the more technical part of the instruction. Nothing was to be charged for the <i> Midrâsh </i> , the exposition of Scripture. </p> <p> The girls in Jewish families were not by any means left without instruction. The women of the household, like Eunice, the mother, and Lois, the grandmother, of Timothy (2 Timothy 1:5), who at least influenced the boys, would have a more active part in the instruction of the girls. This means that they were not themselves left without education. The example of Priscilla, the wife of Aquila, shows that a [[Jewess]] (who did not owe all her training to Christianity) might be possessed of high gifts and attainments (Acts 18:26). In the [[Talmud]] similar instances of gifted and accomplished women are to be found. One of the most notable features in what is known as the [[Reform]] movement in modern Judaism is the earnestness with which its adherents insist upon the mere general and the higher education of women. </p> <p> Literature.-Relevant articles in J. Hamburger, <i> Real-Encyclopädie für Bibel und Talmud </i> 2, 1884ff. S. S. Laurie, <i> Hist. Survey of pre-Christian Education </i> , 1895; ‘The Semitic Races’; A. Büchler, <i> The Economic [[Conditions]] of Judœa after the [[Destruction]] of the Second [[Temple]] </i> , 1912 article‘Education (Jewish)’ by Morris [[Joseph]] in <i> Encyclopaedia of Religion and [[Ethics]] </i> v. [1912] 194, and Literature there cited. </p> <p> <b> 2. Greek </b> .-Among the Greeks education was the affair of the State. Its purpose was to prepare the sons of free citizens for the duties awaiting them, first in the family and then in the State. Whilst among the Jews education was meant for all, without respect of rank or class, among the Greeks it was intended for the few-the wealthy and the well-born. [[Plutarch]] in his treatise on the education of children says: ‘Some one may object that I in undertaking to give prescriptions in the training of children of free citizens apparently neglect the training of the poor townsmen, and only think of instructing the rich-to which the obvious answer is that I should desire the training I prescribe to be attainable alike by all; but if any through want of private means cannot attain it, let them blame their fortune and not their adviser. Every effort, however, must be made even by the poor to train their children in the best possible way, and if this is beyond them to do it according to their means’ [ <i> de Lib. Educ </i> . ii.). Down to the [[Roman]] period at least, this educational exclusiveness was maintained, and only the sons of those who were full citizens were the subjects of education, although there were cases in which daughters rose to distinction in letters, and even examples of slaves, like the philosopher Epictetus, who burst the restraints of their position and showed themselves capable of rising to eminence in learning and virtue. We even read of bequests being made to provide free education to children of both sexes, but the rule was that women needed no more instruction than they were likely to receive at home. Being an affair of the State, education was under the control of officials appointed to superintend it. <i> Gymnastic </i> , for the training of the body, and <i> music </i> in the larger sense, including letters, for the training of the mind, were the subjects of instruction. These-athletics, literature, music-were regulated by a body of guardians of public instruction (παιδονόμοι.) We hear of an <i> Ephebarch </i> at the head of a college of ἔφηβοι, or youths who have entered the higher school, and of a <i> Gymnasiarch </i> who superintends the exercises of the παλαίστρα and pays the training-masters. </p> <p> The stages of education were practically the same in all the different branches of the wide-spread [[Grecian]] people. First, there was the stage of home education, extending from birth to the end of the seventh year, when the children were under parental supervision; second, the stage of school education, beginning with the eighth year and lasting to the sixteenth or eighteenth year; thirdly, there was the stage from the sixteenth or eighteenth to the twenty-first year, when the youths were ἔφηβοι, and were subjected to strict discipline and training. Before a youth was enrolled among the ἔφηβοι he had to undergo an examination (δοκιμασία) to make sure that he was the son of an [[Athenian]] citizen and that he had the physique for the duties now devolving upon him. This was really the university stage of his career, for he then attended the class of the rhetors and sophists who lectured in such institutions as the [[Lyceum]] and the Academy, and devoted himself to the study of rhetoric and philosophy (cf. Acts 19:9). On the completion of this course he was ready to enter upon the exercise of his duties towards the State. </p> <p> When the boy, at the age of seven, went to school-the grammar school and the gymnastic school-he was accompanied by a servant called a παιδαγωγός who carried his books and writing materials, his lyre and other instruments, and saw him to school and back (see Schoolmaster, Tutor). The school-rooms of ancient [[Athens]] seem to have been simple enough, containing little or no furniture-they were often nothing but porches open to wind and sun, where the children sat on the ground, or on low benches, and the teacher on a high chair. At first the child would be exercised in ‘the rudiments,’ τὰ στοιχεῖα (cf. Colossians 2:8 and Xen. <i> [[Mem]] </i> . II. i. 1). Great stress was laid upon reading, recitation, and singing. In particular, the memory was exercised upon the best literature, and cultivated to an extraordinary degree of retentiveness. The works of aesop and [[Theognis]] were much in use in the class-rooms. [[Homer]] was valued not merely as a poet but as an inspired moral teacher, and the <i> [[Iliad]] </i> and <i> [[Odyssey]] </i> were the Bible of the Greeks. Great pains were also taken with the art of writing. [[Tablets]] covered with wax formed the material to receive the writing, and the <i> stylus </i> was employed to trace the letters. By apostolic times papyrus or parchment was in use, written upon with pen (κάλαμος) and ink (μέλαν) (2 John 1:12, 3 John 1:13; cf. 2 Corinthians 3:3 and 2 Timothy 4:13). Sherds (ὄστρακα) were a common writing material-that used by the very poor in ancient Egypt. Exercises in writing and in grammar have been preserved to us in the soil of [[Egypt]] written on ostraca, on wooden tablets, on tablets smeared over with wax, and have now been recovered to let us see the performances of the school children of twenty centuries ago. Among them are school copies giving the letters of the alphabet, Syllables, common words and proper names, conjugation of verbs, pithy or proverbial sayings as headlines, and there are even exercises having the appearance of being school punishments (E. Ziebarth, <i> Aus der antiken Schule </i> , 1910, in Lietzmann’s <i> Kleine Texte </i> ). </p> <p> The mention of school punishments leads to the subject of school discipline. At home, at school, and in the palaestra, the rod and the lash were freely used. It is from school life, both Jewish and Greek, that St. Paul, as noted already, derives the imagery of a well-known passage in his [[Epistles]] (Romans 2:17-21). In the <i> Psalms of Solomon </i> , a Jewish book written under Greek influence, there is reference both to the rod (ῥάβδος, 7:8) and to the lash (μάστιξ, 18:8) as instruments of punishment; and ‘chastening,’ ‘correction’ (παιδεία), occurs again and again in this sense (Ephesians 6:4, 2 Timothy 3:16, Hebrews 12:11; cf. <i> [[Didache]] </i> , 4). </p> <p> ‘We are given over to grammar,’ says [[Sextus]] Empiricus ( <i> adv. [[Math]] </i> . i. 41), ‘from childhood, and almost from our baby-clothes.’ Grammar was succeeded by rhetoric, which had accomplished its purpose when the student had acquired the power of speaking offhand on any subject under discussion. In addition to these subjects, philosophy was also taught, its technical terms being mastered and its various schools discriminated. Arithmetic, geometry, astronomy belonged to the programme of secondary education, and from [[Plato]] and [[Aristotle]] there have come down to us the seven liberal arts-the <i> trivium </i> and the <i> quadrivium </i> of the [[Middle]] Ages. All the while gymnastic training went hand in hand with the training of the intellect. The <i> gymnasion </i> , where the youths of [[Greece]] exercised themselves naked, was enclosed by walls and fitted up with dressing-rooms, bath-rooms, and requisites for running, leaping, wrestling, boxing, and other athletic exercises, and there were seats round about the course for spectators, and porticoes where philosophers gathered. </p> <p> By the Apostolic Age it had become the practice for promising students to supplement their school education by seeking out and attending the lectures of eminent teachers in what we should call the great universities. Roman Emperors like [[Claudius]] and [[Nero]] had done much to encourage Greek culture and to introduce it into [[Rome]] itself, where the [[Athenaeum]] was a great centre of learning. At this epoch Athens and Rome had famous schools, but even they had to yield to Rhodes, Alexandria, and Tarsus; and Marseilles, which had been from the very early days of Greek history a centre of Greek influence, was in the time of [[Strabo]] more frequented than Athens. The idea that [[Barnabas]] of [[Cyprus]] and Saul of Tarsus had met in early life at the university of Tarsus is by no means fanciful, and it was to his education at Tarsus that St. Paul owed the power to ‘move in Hellenic [[Society]] at his ease’ (W. M. Ramsay, <i> Pictures of the Apostolic Church </i> , 1910, p. 346). That St. Luke had received a medical education and was familiar with the great medical writers of the Greek world is now almost universally admitted; his literary style and the frequent echoes of Greek authors, at least in the Acts of the Apostles, prove him to have been a well-educated and cultured Hellenist. Of the various philosophic schools then exercising an influence upon thought in the Greek world two are expressly mentioned in the Acts (17:18)-the [[Stoics]] and the Epicureans. St. Paul must have received Stoic teaching at Tarsus, where the school flourished, and he knew and quoted at least one Stoic poet (Acts 17:28). A century later [[Marcus]] Aurelius endowed the four great philosophical schools of Athens-the Academic, the Peripatetic, the Epicurean, and the Stoic. [[Justin]] Martyr, a little earlier, in the account he gives of his conversion to [[Christianity]] ( <i> Dial. cum Tryph </i> . 2ff.), shows how the representatives of the Stoic, the Peripatetic, the Pythagorean, and the Academic (Platonic) [[Schools]] in turn failed to satisfy his yearning after truth, and satisfaction came to him when he found Christianity to be the only philosophy sure and suited to the needs of man. Christianity, brought into contact with the society in which this philosophical habit of mind had established itself, modified, stimulated, and elevated it, and in turn was modified by the habit of mind of those who accepted it. ‘It was impossible for Greeks, educated as they were with an education which penetrated their whole nature, to receive or to retain Christianity in its primitive simplicity. Their own life had become complex and artificial: it had its fixed ideas and its permanent categories: it necessarily gave to Christianity something of its own form’ (E. Hatch, <i> [[Influence]] of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church </i> [ <i> Hibbert Lectures </i> , 1888], 1890, ch. ii. p. 48f.). </p> <p> Literature.-T. Davidson, <i> Aristotle </i> (in <i> Great Educators </i> ), 1892; S. S. Laurie, <i> Hist. Survey of Pre-Christian Education </i> , 1895: ‘The Hellenic Race’; J. P. Mahaffy, <i> The Greek [[World]] under Roman Sway </i> , 1890; article‘Education (Greek)’ by W. Murison in <i> Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics </i> v. 185 and Literature there cited. </p> <p> <b> 3. Christian </b> .-The sentiment which caused education to be so prized among the Jews must in course of time have caused it to be greatly desired among the followers of Christ. To the first Christians, as to the Lord and His apostles, the OT Scriptures were the Bible, and, outside the Holy Land at least, the Bible in the Septuaginttranslation. No doubt it was a roll of this translation which the [[Ethiopian]] eunuch was carrying back with him to his home far up the Nile, when [[Philip]] the [[Evangelist]] joined him in his chariot on the [[Gaza]] road (Acts 8:27 ff.). It was the same Scriptures wherein the youthful Timothy was instructed from infancy in the home of his Greek father, under the guidance of [[Eunice]] and [[Lois]] (2 Timothy 3:15). St. Paul, in the many quotations he makes from the OT, quotes from the Septuagintrather than from the Hebrew original. ‘The Septuagintwas to him as much “the Bible” as our English version is to us; and, as is the case with many Christian writers, he knew it so well that his sentences are constantly moulded by its rhythm, and his thoughts incessantly coloured by its expressions’ (Farrar, <i> St. Paul </i> , 1879, i. 47). It was not till the second half of the 2nd cent. that most of the NT books were recognized in the Church as the [[Oracles]] of God, and on the same level of authority as the books of the OT. ‘Among the Jewish Christians,’ as Harnack points out, ‘the private use of the Holy Scriptures simply continued; for the fact that they had become believers in the Messiahship of Jesus had absolutely no other effect than to increase this use, in so far as it was now necessary to study not only the Law but also the [[Prophets]] and the Kethubim, seeing that these afforded prophetic proofs of the Messiah-ship of Jesus, and in so far as the religious independence of the individual Christian was still greater than that of the ordinary Jew’ ( <i> Bible Reading in the Early Church </i> , p. 32). </p> <p> That the private study which had been devoted to the OT came in due course to be given to the books of the NT may be seen from the use of them in the writings of the Apostolic Fathers. The OT, the Gospels, and the Epistles of St. Paul had a wide circulation at an early period, in all the provinces of the early Church, and were perused and applied to their spiritual needs by multitudes of Christians, not clerical only, but lay; not men only, but women. ‘Ye know the Holy Scriptures,’ writes [[Clement]] of Rome to the [[Corinthian]] [[Christians]] (1 Clem. liii. 1), ‘Yea, your knowledge is laudable, and ye have deep insight into the Oracles of God.’ ‘What are these articles in your hand bag?’ asks the proconsul [[Saturninus]] when examining Speratus, one of the band of Scillitan martyrs in N. Africa. ‘The books and epistles of St. Paul,’ was the reply ( <i> Texts and Studies </i> i. 2 [1891], p. 114). The feeling grew and spread that it was at once a privilege and a duty thus to make acquaintance with the meaning and teaching of Holy Scripture. In [[Asia]] Minor and in Gaul, in [[Syria]] and Egypt, this feeling prevailed. Men like Justin Martyr, Tatian, Theophilus of Antioch, became Christians-such is their own acknowledgment-by reading the Scriptures for themselves. By and by wealthy Christians had Bibles copied at their own expense to be given or lent to their poorer brethren. Pamphilus, the friend of Eusebius, whose library at [[Caesarea]] was famous, had Bibles copied to keep in stock and to be given away as occasion demanded, ‘not only to men but also to women whom he saw devoted to the reading of Scripture’ (Jerome, <i> Apol. c. Rufin </i> . i. 9). </p> <p> All this intellectual activity devoted to the study of the Scriptures implies throughout the early Church a considerable level of educational attainment. That many of the poorest and least educated found in [[Christ]] and His teaching the satisfaction of their deepest needs is manifest from the NT itself (1 Corinthians 1:26 ff.), and [[Celsus]] sought to discredit the Christian system by aspersing the intellectual as well as the moral character of its adherents. Origen in answer points to the passages of the OT, especially in the Psalms, which the Christians also use, which inculcate wisdom and understanding, and declares that education, so far from being despised among the Christians, is the pathway to virtue and knowledge, the one stable and permanent reality ( <i> c. Cels </i> . iii. 49, 72). We must not suppose, however, that the Church of the first days took any steps to provide schools and an educational system of her own. [[Members]] of the Christian community had no alternative but to send their sons to the schools of their localities to receive instruction along with scholars who were heathen and accustomed to the usages and customs, the superstitions and fables, often corrupt and unclean, of paganism. Although the [[Fathers]] of the Church did not permit their youth to become instructors in pagan schools, they did not consider it wise to deny them the advantages of a liberal education, even though associated with falsehood and idolatry. If they had forbidden their attendance they would have justly incurred the charges made by Celsus of hostility to learning. Christian parents made a virtue of necessity, which Tertullian approves, only recommending Christian pupils to accept the good and reject the bad ( <i> de Idolatria </i> , x.). </p> <p> [[Scarcely]] less pressing and even more difficult was the question of the propriety of studying the productions of the great pagan writers. Among those who took the liberal view was Justin Martyr, who held that ‘those who lived with [[Logos]] are Christians, even if they were accounted atheists: of whom among Greeks were [[Socrates]] and Heraclitus’ ( <i> Apol </i> . i. 46). Clement of [[Alexandria]] was conspicuously broad in his Christian sympathies, and his quotations from classical writers have preserved to us fragments of authors whose works have otherwise perished. Others, like Cyprian, drew a sharp dividing line between pagan philosophy and Christian doctrine. </p> <p> But though the circumstances of the times rendered separate Christian elementary instruction impossible and inadvisable in the early Church, the Church was not indifferent to the Christian instruction of her members. [[Foremost]] among the members belonging to the [[Body]] of Christ are ‘teachers,’ mentioned along with ‘apostles’ and ‘prophets’ (1 Corinthians 12:28). [[Elsewhere]] they are classed with ‘pastors’ (Ephesians 4:11). Among the gifts that minister to the upbuilding of the social fabric of Christianity is ‘teaching’ (Romans 12:7). [[Power]] to teach was a qualification which Timothy was charged to look for in the bishops whom he should appoint (1 Timothy 3:2), and he was told that the servant of the Lord in any office must have aptness to teach (2 Timothy 2:24). The teacher as a separate functionary seems early to have disappeared from the Church, his functions being absorbed by the more official presbyter or bishop ( <i> q.v. [Note: quod vide, which see.] </i> ), who was always required to be able to teach (Charteris, <i> The Church of Christ </i> , p. 32). The need, however, for institutions for higher instruction in the things of Christ came to be felt early, Out of the training of the candidates for baptism grew the catechetical schools in great centres of pagan learning. The first and most notable of them was the catechetical school of Alexandria, of which [[Pantaenus]] was the founder, and Clement and Origen were the most distinguished ornaments. This was the counterpart of the pagan university, offering to philosophic pagans an academic and articulated view of the Christian system, and to earnest Christians of intellectual gifts and tastes training for the offices of preachers and teachers. [[Gregory]] Thaumaturgus commends Origen as having taught him philosophy, logic, mathematics, general literature, and ethics as the ground-work of theological training, after which he proceeded to the exposition of the sacred Scriptures. Under Clement and Origen the school was great and prosperous, and schools at Caesarea, Jerusalem, and elsewhere were founded upon its model. </p> <p> The share which woman had in the work of Christian education apart from her influence and work in the home is not made clear in the records of Church history. In the [[Syriac]] <i> Didascalia Apostolorum </i> , however, translated by Mrs. M. D. Gibson (1903), we have an official document of the 3rd cent. directing the deaconesses to assist in the baptism of women, to teach and educate them afterwards, and to visit and nurse the sick. </p> <p> Literature.-A. Harnack, <i> Bible Reading in the Early Church </i> , 1912; A. H. Charteris, <i> The Church of Christ </i> , 1905, under ‘Education’ and ‘Teachers’; P. Monroe, <i> Text-Book in the History of Education </i> , 1905; article‘Bible in the Church’ by E. von Dobschütz in <i> Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics </i> ii. 579. </p> <p> [[Thomas]] Nicol. </p>

<p> <strong> EDUCATION </strong> . In the importance which they attached to the education of the young, it may fairly be claimed that the Hebrews were <em> facile princeps </em> among the nations of antiquity. Indeed, if the ultimate aim of education be the formation of character, the [[Hebrew]] ideals and methods will bear comparison with the best even of modern times. In character Hebrew education was predominantly, one might almost say exclusively, religious and ethical. Its fundamental principle may be expressed in the familiar words: ‘The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge’ ( Proverbs 1:7 ). Yet it recognized that conduct was the true test of character; in the words of Simeon, the son of Gamaliel, that ‘not learning but doing is the chief thing.’ </p> <p> As to the educational attainments of the Hebrews before the conquest of Canaan, it is useless to speculate. On their settlement in Canaan, however, they were brought into contact with a civilization which for two thousand years or more had been under the influence of [[Babylonia]] and in a less degree of Egypt. The language of Babylonia, with its complicated system of wedge-writing, had for long been the medium of communication not only between the rulers of the petty states of [[Canaan]] and the great powers outside its borders, but even, as we now know from Sellin’s discoveries at Taanach, between these rulers themselves. This implies the existence of some provision for instruction in reading and writing the difficult [[Babylonian]] script. Although in this early period such accomplishments were probably confined to a limited number of high officials and professional scribes, the incident in Gideon’s experience, Judges 8:14 (where we must render with RVm [Note: Revised Version margin.] ‘wrote down’), warns us against unduly restricting the number of those able to read and write in the somewhat later period of the Judges. The more stable political conditions under the monarchy, and in particular the development of the administration and the growth of commerce under Solomon, must undoubtedly have furthered the spread of education among all classes. </p> <p> Of <strong> schools </strong> and schoolmasters, however, there is no evidence till after the Exile, for the expression ‘schools of the prophets’ has no [[Scripture]] warrant. Only once, indeed, is the word ‘school’ to be found even in NT ( Acts 19:9 ), and then only of the lecture-room of a [[Greek]] teacher in Ephesus. The explanation of this silence is found in the fact that the Hebrew child received his education in the home, with his parents as his only instructors. Although he grew up ignorant of much that ‘every school-boy’ knows to-day, he must not on that account be set down as uneducated. He had been instructed, first of all, in the truths of his ancestral religion (see Deuteronomy 6:20-25 and elsewhere); and in the ritual of the recurring festivals there was provided for him object-lessons in history and religion ( Exodus 12:26 f., Exodus 13:8; Exodus 13:14 ). In the traditions of his family and race some of which are still preserved in the older parts of OT he had a unique storehouse of the highest ideals of faith and conduct, and these after all are the things that matter. </p> <p> Descending the stream of history, we reach an epoch-making event in the history of education, not less than of religion, among the Jews, in the assembly convened by Ezra and Nehemiah (Nehemiah 8:1 ff.), at which the people pledged themselves to accept ‘the book of the law of Moses’ as the norm of their life in all its relations. [[Henceforward]] the [[Jews]] were pre-eminently, in Mohammed’s phrase, ‘the people of the Book.’ But if the [[Jewish]] community was henceforth to regulate its whole life, not according to the living word of priest and prophet, but according to the requirements of a written law, it was indispensable that provision should be made for the instruction of all classes in this law. To this practical necessity is due the origin of the <strong> synagogue </strong> (wh. see), which, from the Jewish point of view, was essentially a meeting-place for religious instruction, and, indeed, is expressly so named by Philo. In NT also the preacher or expounder in the synagogue is invariably said to ‘teach’ ( Matthew 4:23 , Mark 1:21 , and <em> passim </em> ), and the education of youth continues to the last to be associated with the synagogue (see below). The situation created by this new zeal for the Law has been admirably described by Wellhausen: ‘The [[Bible]] became the spelling-book, the community a school.… [[Piety]] and education were inseparable; whoever could not read was no true Jew. We may say that in this way were created the beginnings of popular education.’ </p> <p> This new educational movement was under the guidance of a body of students and teachers of the Law known as the <em> Sôpherim </em> (lit. ‘book-men’) or <strong> scribes </strong> , of whom Ezra is the typical example ( Ezra 7:6 ). Alongside these, if not identical with them, as many hold, we find an influential class of religious and moral teachers, known as the Sages or the Wise, whose activity culminates in the century preceding the fall of the [[Persian]] empire (b.c. 430 330). The arguments for the identity in all important respects of the early scribes and the sages are given by the present writer in Hastings’ <em> DB </em> <em> [Note: Dictionary of the Bible.] </em> i. 648; but even if the two classes were originally distinct, there can be no doubt that by the time of [[Jesus]] hen Sira, the author of [[Ecclesiasticus]] ( <em> cir </em> . b.c. 180 170), himself a scribe and the last of the sages, they had become merged in one. </p> <p> To appreciate the religious and ethical teaching of the sages, we have only to open the [[Book]] of Proverbs. Here life is pictured as a discipline, the Hebrew word for which is found thirty times in this book. ‘The whole of life,’ it has been said, ‘is here considered from the view-point of a pædagogic institution. [[God]] educates men, and men educate each other’ (O. Holtzmann). </p> <p> With the coming of the [[Greeks]] a new educational force in the shape of <strong> [[Hellenistic]] culture </strong> entered [[Palestine]] a force which made itself felt in many directions in the pre-Maccabean age. From a reference in [[Josephus]] ( <em> [[Ant]] </em> . XII. iv. 6) it may be inferred that schools on the Greek model had been established in [[Jerusalem]] itself before b.c. 220. It was somewhere in this period, too, that the preacher could say: ‘Of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh’ ( Ecclesiastes 12:12 ) reflexions which necessarily presuppose a wide-spread interest in intellectual pursuits. The edict of [[Antiochus]] [[Epiphanes]] at a later date ( 1Ma 1:57 ) equally implies a considerable circulation of the [[Torah]] among the people, with the ability to profit by its study. </p> <p> Passing now, as this brief sketch requires, to the period of Jewish history that lies between the triumph of the [[Maccabees]] and the end of the Jewish [[State]] in a.d. 70, we find a tradition there is no valid reason for rejecting it as untrustworthy which illustrates the extent to which elementary education, at least, was fostered under the later Maccabean princes. A famous scribe of the period ( <em> cir </em> . b.c. 75), [[Simon]] ben-Shetach, brother of [[Queen]] Alexandra, is said to have got a law passed ordaining that ‘the children shall attend the elementary school.’ This we understand on various grounds to mean, not that these schools were first instituted, but that attendance at them was henceforth to be compulsory. The elementary school, termed ‘the house of the Book’ ( <em> i.e. </em> Scripture), in opposition to ‘the house of study’ or college of the scribes (see below), was always closely associated with the synagogue. In the smaller places, indeed, the same building served for both. </p> <p> The elementary <strong> teachers </strong> , as we may call them, formed the lowest rank in the powerful guild of the scribes. They are ‘the doctors (lit. teachers) of the law,’ who, in our Lord’s day, were to be found in ‘every village of [[Galilee]] and Judæa’ ( Luke 5:17 RV [Note: Revised Version.] ), and who figure so frequently in the Gospels. [[Attendance]] at the elementary school began at the age of six. [[Already]] the boy had learned to repeat the <em> [[Shema]] </em> (‘Hear, O Israel,’ etc., Deuteronomy 6:4 ), selected proverbs and verses from the Psalms. He now began to learn to read. His only textbooks were the rolls of the sacred Scriptures, especially the roll of the Law, the opening chapters of Leviticus being usually the first to be taken in hand. After the letters were mastered, the teacher copied a verse which the child had already learned by heart, and taught him to identify the individual words. The chief feature of the teaching was learning by rote, and that audibly, for the Jewish teachers were thorough believers in the [[Latin]] maxim, <em> repetitio mater studiorum </em> . The pupils sat on the floor at the teacher’s feet, as did [[Saul]] at the feet of [[Gamaliel]] ( Acts 22:3 ). </p> <p> The subjects taught were ‘the three R [Note: Redactor.] ’s’ reading, writing, and arithmetic, the last in a very elementary form. The child’s first attempts at writing were probably done, as in the Greek schools of the period, on sherds of pottery; from these he would be promoted to a wax tablet (Luke 1:63 RV [Note: Revised Version.] ), on which he wrote ‘with a pointed style or metal instrument, very much as if one wrote on thickly buttered bread with a small stiletto.’ Only after considerable progress had been made would he finally reach the dignity of papyrus. </p> <p> For the mass of young Jews of the male sex, for whom alone public provision was made, the girls being still restricted to the tuition of the home, the teaching of the primary school sufficed. Those, however, who wished to be themselves teachers, or otherwise to devote themselves to the professional study of the Law, passed on to the higher schools or colleges above mentioned. At the beginning of our era the two most important of these colleges were taught by the famous ‘doctors of the law,’ [[Hillel]] and Shammai. It was a grandson of the former, Gamaliel I., who, thirty years later, numbered Saul of [[Tarsus]] among his students (Acts 22:3 ). In the <em> [[Beth]] hammidrash </em> (house of study) the exclusive subjects of study were the interpretation of the OT, and the art of applying the regulations of the Torah, by means of certain exegetical canons, to the minutest details of the life of the time. </p> <p> A. R. S. Kennedy. </p>

== Fausset's Bible Dictionary <ref name="term_35244" /> ==

<p> [[Chiefly]] in the law of [[God]] (Exodus 12:26; Exodus 13:8; Exodus 13:14; Deuteronomy 4:5; Deuteronomy 4:9-10; Deuteronomy 6:2; Deuteronomy 6:7; Deuteronomy 6:20; Deuteronomy 11:19; Deuteronomy 11:21; Acts 22:3; 2 Timothy 3:15). The [[Book]] of Proverbs inculcates on parents, as to their children, the duty of disciplinary instruction and training in the word of God. This was the ONE book of national education in the reformations undertaken by [[Jehoshaphat]] and [[Josiah]] (2 Chronicles 17:7-9; 2 Chronicles 34:30). The priests' and Levites' duty especially was to teach the people (2 Chronicles 15:3; Leviticus 10:11; Malachi 2:7; Nehemiah 8:2; Nehemiah 8:8-9; Nehemiah 8:13; Jeremiah 18:18). </p> <p> The [[Mishna]] says that parents ought to teach their children some trade, and he who did not virtually taught his child to steal. The prophets, or special public authoritative teachers, were trained in schools or colleges (Amos 7:14). "Writers," or musterers general, belonging to Zebulun, who enrolled recruits and wrote the names of those who went to war, are mentioned (Judges 5:14). "Scribes of the host" (Jeremiah 52:25) appear in the [[Assyrian]] bas-reliefs, writing down the various persons or objects brought to them, so that there is less exaggeration than in the [[Egyptian]] representations of battle. [[Seraiah]] was David's scribe or secretary, and Jehoshaphat, son of Ahilud, was "recorder" or writer of chronicles, historiographer (2 Samuel 8:16-17); Shebun was Hezekiah's scribe (2 Kings 18:37). </p> <p> The learned, according to the rabbis, were called "sons of the noble," and took precedence at table. [[Boys]] at five years of age, says the Mishna, were to begin reading Scripture, at ten they were to begin reading the Mishna, and at thirteen years of age they were subject to the whole law (Luke 2:46); at fifteen they entered study of the Gemara. The prophetic schools included females such as [[Huldah]] (2 Kings 22:14). The position and duties of females among the [[Jews]] were much higher than among other Orientals (Proverbs 31:10-31; Luke 8:2-3; Luke 10:38, etc.; Acts 13:50; 2 Timothy 1:5). </p>

<p> Education. There is little trace among the Hebrews in earlier times of education in any other subjects than the law. The wisdom, therefore, and instruction, of which so much is said in the book of Proverbs, are to be understood chiefly of moral and religious discipline, imparted, according to the direction of the law, by the teaching and under the example of parents. </p> <p> (But [[Solomon]] himself wrote treatises on several scientific subjects, which must have been studied in those days). In later times, the prophecies and comments on them, as well as on the earlier Scriptures, together with other subjects, were studied. [[Parents]] were required to teach their children some trade. </p> <p> (Girls also went to schools, and women generally among the [[Jews]] were treated with greater equality to men than in any other ancient nation). Previous to the captivity, the chief depositaries of learning were the schools or colleges, from which in most cases proceeded that succession of public teachers who at various times endeavored to reform the moral and religious conduct of both rulers and people. Besides the prophetical schools, instruction was given by the priests in the [[Temple]] and elsewhere. See [[Schools]]. </p>

<p> (n.) The act or process of educating; the result of educating, as determined by the knowledge skill, or discipline of character, acquired; also, the act or process of training by a prescribed or customary course of study or discipline; as, an education for the bar or the pulpit; he has finished his education. </p>

<p> As conceived of by Ruskin, and alone worthy of the name, "the leading human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them"; and attained, "not by telling a man what he knew not, but by making him what he was not." </p>

<ref name="term_55703"> [https://bibleportal.com/dictionary/hastings-dictionary-of-the-new-testament/education Education from Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament]</ref>

<ref name="term_35244"> [https://bibleportal.com/dictionary/fausset-s-bible-dictionary/education Education from Fausset's Bible Dictionary]</ref>