The Place of Cicero within the Church's Intellectual Tradition

[Austere]

Hello my friends,
I was wondering if you could help me discern the place of Cicero and his effect on the intellectual tradition of the Church. I know from reading his treatise De Officiis or ‘On Obligations/Duties’ that the text would have a great influence on the development of Christian ethics and that St. Augustine I believe referred to him or the work in his writings, but beyond this I was wondering if anyone would be able to explain the depth of his influence on the Church’s intellectual tradition.

Thank you very much for reading.
Gob bless you.
:thankyou:

 

[landon13]

I believe that Cicero did influence many of the saints and philosophies of the Church especially with the likes of St. Augustine and contemporaries. However, I do not believe that Cicero has any place within the Church’s intellectual tradition by any means for the fact that he was not Christian or Jewish, but pagan. Therefore, he has no place within the Church’s tradition.

 

[Greekrhetoric]

I think St. Thomas quotes him in the Summa.

 

[gilliam]

One could say that Cicero was less a Pagan than a follower of reason and oratory. He defended law an order over the whims of kings and tyrants (as did Thomas Aquinas.) Cicero was an influence on any classically educated person, including Thomas Aquinas. But having said that, I wouldn’t put too much weight on Cicero’s philosophy influencing Christendom. Cicero was not someone we today would emulate, for example he rated oratory in a court of law above the evidence of witnesses. If an advocate labored for a week to come up with a day long speech that would get a murderer off, he felt it was a job well done, even if there were witnesses who saw the person do it. But Cicero spoke well, and those who were learning Latin often had to read what Cicero wrote.