Journeys of the Mind Quotes

“So I had to explain myself by becoming a historian of myself”
― Peter Brown, Journeys of the Mind: A Life in History

“no room for supernatural rewards and punishments. On this issue, an entire world separated Greek paideia from the fear of Hell that was supposed to motivate both the good Muslim and the good Christian. In the blunt words of John Chrysostom, deportment alone was not enough. There was only so much that the grooming of paideia could do: “How shall we tie down this wild beast [adolescent sexual urges]? How shall we place a bridle upon it? I know none, save only the restraint of hell-fire.”6”
― Peter Brown, Journeys of the Mind: A Life in History

“Adab carried a weight in the Islamic world similar to that of paideia in the Greco-Roman world. It represented a peak of human achievement, and insisted that this peak could be reached by the privileged few—through education and through following exacting codes of deportment modeled on the behavior of exemplary persons. In the words of my Berkeley colleague Barbara Metcalf, adab was based on “the concept of the well-constructed life.”2 The notion of the “well-constructed life” had come to hold a particular fascination for me when I dealt with the moralists of the Roman Empire and their elite readers. These moralists challenged members of the elites to put their lives in order by self-discipline and by recourse to trusted mentors. I wondered how a similar system of moral grooming worked in another major civilization, that of Islam.”
― Peter Brown, Journeys of the Mind: A Life in History

“in pagan circles in the age of the Antonines, took on a new valence among Christians. He showed how Christian writings of the third and fourth centuries expressed new forms of experience not to be found among pagans. Most scholars saw Christian advocacy of virginity as no more than the end result of a progressive tightening of the screws of prohibitions on sexual activity, with total rejection of sex as the ultimate form of repression. Foucault did not see it this way. He pointed out how the idea and practice of virginity appeared in a new light in Christian circles, freighted with significantly different, emancipatory meanings.9”
― Peter Brown, Journeys of the Mind: A Life in History

“In Veyne’s opinion, the emergence of this austere morality was the “great unnoticed event” that separated the freewheeling sexual mores of classical Greeks and Romans from the hard-bitten, ascetically inclined moralists of the second and third centuries. Far from being easygoing gentlemen (as they had usually been portrayed, with more than a hint of approval), the Romans of the Antonine Age were a somber lot. They passed on to the Christian church icy views on sex and marriage that would last in Europe until modern times.”
― Peter Brown, Journeys of the Mind: A Life in History

“The series was known as Sources chrétiennes. It had begun in Lyons in dire times—in 1942. Under the direction of Cardinal Jean Daniélou, Henri de Lubac (1896–1983), and Claude Mondésert (1906–1990), and with the warm encouragement of Henri-Irénée Marrou (who edited the Paidagôgos of Clement of Alexandria for the series), the Sources chrétiennes became both the symbol and the spearhead of the movement of ressourcement—of a return to the sources. Though we two came at it from very different angles, Foucault and I were the beneficiaries of that remarkable moment in French Catholic scholarship.”
― Peter Brown, Journeys of the Mind: A Life in History

“world was not merely a gallery of theories. It drove serious endeavors at self-amendment. But from then on they differed. Foucault’s notion of the “self” was more narrow than that of Hadot. It lacked the cosmic dimension that the ancient sages took for granted. In his critique of Foucault, Hadot insisted that, for ancient philosophers, “care of the self” was never an end in itself. Simply to enjoy the pleasure of having established a carefully constructed lifestyle was not enough: that was mere dandyism—the creation of an eccentric persona. Rather, the soul was groomed so as to go beyond itself, to experience the leap of joy that came with realizing that it was somehow part of the supreme order and beauty of the universe.”
― Peter Brown, Journeys of the Mind: A Life in History

“had been absent in his earlier writings.”
― Peter Brown, Journeys of the Mind: A Life in History

“It struck me, even at the time, that the basic hope of the conference was a very scholarly one. Many of the contributions and lectures were motivated by a touching faith in the collective memory of Christianity. They believed that the writings of the age of the Fathers could be sifted by scholars in such a way as to bring healing to the present. Understanding the Patristic age was like a remedium (to use a late Roman Latin term). A remedium was a homeopathic poultice—like a modern medical patch—which was thought to work slowly, and with almost occult power, to heal: to redress deep-seated imbalances; to fortify good humors; to smooth away the cramps and to soften the hard constrictions that wracked the body. It was hoped that a remedium could be concocted, from our renewed and ever-deeper knowledge of Patristic Christianity, that could be pressed against the fevered body of the church in our own times.”
― Peter Brown, Journeys of the Mind: A Life in History

“To gain a first was to receive a passkey that was supposed to open doors at the top — especially in the Civil Service, in the Diplomatic Service, and in similar public careers. Historical research was only one of those many doors, and by no means the most important one. Here, the English preference for the talented all-rounder — the adaptable and gentlemanly member of a ruling class — made itself plain. Most holders of firsts did not expect to stay in Oxford or in other centers of research and teaching. They made their way to the wider world.

Nor was the final examination itself — and the undergraduate teaching that prepared for it — designed to foster any special skills in research. The essays that were written for tutors every week were usually read out to them at the beginning of the tutorial. They were twenty minutes to half an hour long and were expected to be successful rhetorical performances. They were trial runs for the answers that were expected in the final examination. One was encouraged to "think on ones feet" — to give quick (even entertaining) answers to complex questions, even if these answers bordered on the flip and the facile. These were the virtues of civil servants and journalists.”
― Peter Brown, Journeys of the Mind: A Life in History

“Lack of instruction is not necessarily the way to true originality. A graduate training often gives the students an ability to stand on their own feet that they would not have enjoyed if they had been left entirely to themselves.”
― Peter Brown, Journeys of the Mind: A Life in History

“But glory lives in the mouth of others.”
― Peter Brown, Journeys of the Mind: A Life in History