Re-envisioning Christian Humanism :

education and the restoration of

humanity 1st Edition Zimmermann
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://textbookfull.com/product/re-envisioning-christian-humanism-education-and-the
-restoration-of-humanity-1st-edition-zimmermann/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

Re-Visioning Education in Africa: Ubuntu-Inspired

Education for Humanity 1st Edition Emefa J. Takyi-
Amoako

https://textbookfull.com/product/re-visioning-education-in-
africa-ubuntu-inspired-education-for-humanity-1st-edition-emefa-
j-takyi-amoako/

Re Engineering Humanity Brett Frischmann

https://textbookfull.com/product/re-engineering-humanity-brett-
frischmann/

Re-envisioning Theoretical Psychology: Diverging Ideas

and Practices Thomas Teo

https://textbookfull.com/product/re-envisioning-theoretical-
psychology-diverging-ideas-and-practices-thomas-teo/

The Year of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism in an Age

of Crisis Alan Jacobs

https://textbookfull.com/product/the-year-of-our-
lord-1943-christian-humanism-in-an-age-of-crisis-alan-jacobs/
The Poetics and Politics of Alzheimer’s Disease Life-
Writing 1st Edition Martina Zimmermann (Auth.)

https://textbookfull.com/product/the-poetics-and-politics-of-
alzheimers-disease-life-writing-1st-edition-martina-zimmermann-
auth/

Female Islamic Education Movements The Re

Democratisation of Islamic Knowledge Masooda Bano

https://textbookfull.com/product/female-islamic-education-
movements-the-re-democratisation-of-islamic-knowledge-masooda-
bano/

The Christian Academic in Higher Education: The

Consecration of Learning 1st Edition John Sullivan
(Auth.)

https://textbookfull.com/product/the-christian-academic-in-
higher-education-the-consecration-of-learning-1st-edition-john-
sullivan-auth/

Pedagogy for Restoration Addressing Social and

Ecological Degradation Through Education 2nd Edition
Krzesni

https://textbookfull.com/product/pedagogy-for-restoration-
addressing-social-and-ecological-degradation-through-
education-2nd-edition-krzesni/

Wolf War The Twilight of Humanity 1st Edition Morris

https://textbookfull.com/product/wolf-war-the-twilight-of-
humanity-1st-edition-morris/
RE-ENVISIONING CHRISTIAN HUMANISM
Re-Envisioning Christian
Humanism
Education and the Restoration of Humanity

Edited by
JENS ZIMMERMANN

1
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 17/10/2016, SPi

3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
© Oxford University Press 2017
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted
First Edition published in 2017
Impression: 1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics
rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above
You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016941468
ISBN 978–0–19–877878–3
Printed in Great Britain by
Clays Ltd, St Ives plc
Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and
for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials
contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
 This book is dedicated to Brett Foster († 2015), whose love
for learning and capacity for friendship reflected better than
any written word the spirit of Christian humanism.
εἶ ἐπιστολὴ Χριστοῦ […] ἐγγεγραμμένη οὐ μέλανι
ἀλλὰ πνεύματι θεοῦ ζῶντος
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 17/10/2016, SPi

Contents

List of Contributors ix

Introduction 1
Jens Zimmermann

PART I. CHRISTIAN HUMANISM: THEOLOGICAL ROOTS

AND THEIR ENDURING SIGNIFICANCE
1. Patristic Humanism: The Beginning of Christian Paideia 19
John Behr
2. The Church Fathers and the Humanities in the Renaissance
and the Reformation 33
Irena Backus
3. Marsilio Ficino and Christian Humanism 55
James Hankins

PART II. CHRISTIAN HUMANISM IN THE

RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION
4. The Christian Humanism of John Calvin 77
Nicholas Wolterstorff
5. Erasmian Humanism and the Elizabethan Hermeneutics of
the Eucharist 95
Torrance Kirby
6. Erasmus, Christian Humanism, and Spiritual Warfare 119
Darren M. Provost

PART III. CHRISTIAN HUMANISM, EDUCATION,

AND THE ARTS
7. The Cultural Context for Re-Envisioning Christian Humanism 137
Jens Zimmermann
8. Scripture in the Studium and the Rise of the Humanities 161
David Lyle Jeffrey
9. Fiery Tongues and Minds Afire: Christian Humanism’s
Legacy in Renaissance Poetry 173
Brett Foster
viii Contents

PART IV. CHRISTIAN HUMANISM AND MODERNITY

10. The Formation of a Catholic Concept of Christian Humanism
and of Inclusive Secularity 197
Martin Schlag
11. Ignaz von Döllinger and the University: Examining a German
Christian Humanist of the Nineteenth Century 221
Thomas Albert Howard
12. From Institutions to Anthropology: The Christian Humanism
of John Paul II and the Crisis of Modern Times 239
F. Russell Hittinger

Select Bibliography 253

Name Index 277
Subject Index 279
 List of Contributors

Irena Backus is Professor Emeritus of Reformation History and Ecclesiastical

Latin at the Institute of Reformation History at the University of Geneva.
Fr. John Behr is Dean of St Vladimir’s Seminary and Professor of Patristics
and also Distinguished Lecturer in Patristics at Fordham University.
† Brett Foster was Associate Professor of English at Wheaton College.
James Hankins is Professor of History at Harvard University.
F. Russell Hittinger is Warren Chair of Catholic Studies at the University
of Tulsa.
Thomas Albert Howard is Professor of History and Humanities and holder of
the Phyllis and Richard Duesenberg Chair in Christian Ethics at Valparaiso
University.
David Lyle Jeffrey is Distinguished Professor of Literature and Humanities at
Baylor University. He is also Professor Emeritus of English Literature at the
University of Ottawa, Guest Professor at Peking University (Beijing), and
Honorary Professor at the University of International Business and Economics
(Beijing).
Torrance Kirby is Professor of Ecclesiastical History at McGill University.
Darren M. Provost is Assistant Professor of History at Trinity Western
University in Langley, British Columbia.
Martin Schlag is Professor of Social Moral Theology at the Pontifical Univer-
sity of the Holy Cross and is Director of MCE Research Center.
Nicholas Wolterstorff is Noah Porter Professor (Emeritus) for Philosophical
Theology at Yale Divinity School and Religious Studies.
Jens Zimmermann is Canada Research Chair of Interpretation, Religion, and
Culture in the Humanities Department at Trinity Western University in
Langley, British Columbia and visiting Professor for Philosophy, Literature,
and Theology at Regent College, Vancouver, Canada.
 Introduction
Jens Zimmermann

Christ is the Logos, in whom the whole human race has a portion, and all
who have lived according to this Logos are Christians, even though, like
Socrates and Heraclitus among the Greeks, they are accounted godless.
(Justin Martyr, Apologia I.46).

OUR HUMANIST HERITAGE

What is Christian humanism and why should anyone care? A simple, albeit
insufficient, answer to this question is cultural literacy. Secular humanism and
its religious antecedents comprise a vital root of Western culture. Religious
ideas about human nature, especially Christian ones, and their further devel-
opment through the process of secularization are deeply embedded in our
cultural narrative, and have shaped our collective understanding of human
dignity, human rights, and social responsibility. Hence, one important reason
for reflecting on the idea of humanism in general, and on Christian humanism
in particular, is the need for self-understanding. Christian humanism is
intrinsic to how we see ourselves, and the essays in this volume should make
readers aware of how much humanism shapes our implicitly held assumptions
about what it means to be human.
At the same time, the plethora of ideas within our culture that identify
themselves as humanistic indicates the elusiveness of this term. What does
humanism mean? Almost any intellectual movement of note in the Western
cultural narrative has been labelled as ‘humanism’: the literature mentions
patristic humanism, scholastic humanism, Renaissance humanism, and the
German educational humanism of (Friedrich Immanuel) Niethammer, Hegel,
Schleiermacher, Alexander von Humboldt, and Wilhelm Dilthey (which define
our idea of the university to this day). In addition, we find Marxist humanism,
2 Jens Zimmermann

Catholic integral humanism (from Maurice Blondel and Cardinal Newman

to Jacques Maritain), atheistic-secular humanism, and Sartre’s existentialist
humanism. Furthermore, Edmund Husserl posited phenomenology as the
foundation for the human sciences, and Gadamer offered philosophical her-
meneutics in defence of humanistic education. We may add to the humanist
roster Levinas’s ethical ‘humanism of the other’, Islamic humanism, and even
postmodern anti-humanism, evolutionary humanism, and futuristic transhu-
manism. The term humanism thus embraces many important intellectual
currents, but this very inclusivity also indicates that a simple definition of
humanism is impossible.
Moreover, narrow definitions that focus on the emergence of the label
‘humanism’ often occlude more than they reveal about the rich intellec-
tual heritage undergirding the term ‘humanism’. For example, to note
F. J. Niethammer’s first using the term to designate an educational ideal, or
German historian Karl Hagen’s describing the Renaissance as a humanism,
tells us little about the actual intellectual and spiritual ethos that gave rise to
the designation ‘humanism’.1 Moreover, the common but mistaken equation
of humanism with agnosticism or even atheism—a twentieth-century trend
started by the likes of Bertrand Russell—equally obscures the religious heritage
of humanism. As my own chapter in this volume aims to show, the traditional
opposition of secular to religious humanism, which rests in turn on the
dichotomy of faith and reason, has more to do with the legacy of modernity
and an outmoded conception of scientific knowledge than with any intrinsic
animosity between religion and humanism. The truth of this claim is proven at
least in part by the existence of an atheism that is not a secular humanism.
Strongly influenced by Martin Heidegger, French thinkers such as Alexandre
Kojève, Jean-Paul Sartre, and George Bataille rejected the foundationalist and
idealist metaphysics of traditional secular humanism. What emerged was an
atheism that was also sometimes labelled ‘anti-humanism’ because it rejected
any anthropocentrism out of hand.2
In his remarkable, recent attempt to provide a conceptual history of the term
humanism, Florian Baab categorizes humanisms in a broader way that takes
us beyond a simplistic opposition of religion to secular humanisms. He first
identifies the ‘hard humanisms’ of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,
which espoused ‘the central value of the human collective. Assuming a concrete
ideal of what constitutes a human being one projects an ideal society—or at
least an educational ideal, which criticizes certain existing conditions.’3

1
See Lewis W. Spitz, ‘Humanismus und Humanismusforschung’, in Theologische Realenzyk-
lopädie, xv (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1986), 639.
2
For a thorough history of this non-humanist atheism see Stefan Geroulanos, An Atheism
That Is Not Humanist Emerges in French Thought (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010).
3
Florian Baab, Was ist Humanismus? Geschichte des Begriffes, Gegenkonzepte, säkulare
Humanismen heute (Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, 2013), 26.
 Introduction 3

Teleological conceptions of reality reminiscent of Hellenistic education, as

well as socialism and communism, were the utopian systems arising from this
attitude. In the later twentieth century, the postmodern criticism of rational-
ism and scientific objectivism gave rise to what Baab calls ‘soft humanisms’.4
Heeding Jean-Francois Lyotard’s and Foucault’s critiques of modernist
‘grand-récits’ and the ‘whore’ of totalizing rationality,5 soft humanists reject
any transcendent human nature or meta-narratives concerning a common
human telos, and postulate a transitory human being, bereft of transcendence,
and conditioned solely by natural and social environments.6 The rejection of
any dogmatic claims about what constitutes human being or purpose explains
the many different conceptions ‘soft humanisms’ display regarding human
freedom, dignity, and nature, resulting in a broad spectrum that includes
evolutionary-naturalistic schemes and some forms of anti-humanism.7 For
most such postmodern humanisms, the pursuit of systemic social change is
illusory, leaving only the option of temporary, particular coping strategies.
More astute critics of traditional humanism seek a path between hard or
soft humanism by criticizing the subjective starting point of both options.
Martin Heidegger, for example, criticizes traditional humanism for the an-
thropocentrism that marks modernity as a whole. If man is the creator of his
own values, then no objective moral laws exist, and we may as well give over
talk about human dignity, because we are never absolutely bound by moral
precepts that we invent ourselves.8 Heidegger insists that ‘the assignment of
those directions that must become law and rule for human beings’ must come
‘from Being itself ’.9 As Emmanuel Levinas pointed out, this Heideggerian
alternative to humanism may not offer very fertile soil for ethics, because by
becoming defined through their relation to the impersonal ‘neuter’ of Being,
human beings lose their intrinsic dignity.10 Heidegger does, however, depart
decisively from the Cartesian starting point of traditional secular atheism and
the rationalist and idealist philosophies on which it depends. From very differ-
ent perspectives, the philosophers Helmuth Plessner and Peter Sloterdijk have also
criticized man-made visions of humanity.11 In their criticism of anthropocentrism,

4
Baab, Was ist Humanismus?, 275.
5
Michel Foucault and Jeremy R. Carrette, Religion and Culture (New York: Routledge, 1999), 99.
6
Foucault and Carrette, Religion and Culture, 275.
7
Baab, Was ist Humanismus?, 276.
8
Martin Heidegger, ‘Letter on Humanism’, in Martin Heidegger: Basic Writings, ed. David
Ferrell Krell (New York: HarperCollins, 1977; repr. 1993), 239.
9
Heidegger, ‘Letter on Humanism’, 238.
10
Emanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority (Dordrecht, Boston, and
London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1961), 88.
11
Helmuth Plessner, Grenzen der Gemeinschaft: Eine Kritik des sozialen Radikalismus (Franfkurt
a.M: Suhrkamp, 2002), 17; Peter Sloterdijk, Regeln für den Menschenpark: Ein Antwortschreiben zu
Heideggers Brief über den Humanismus (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1999), 17.
4 Jens Zimmermann

these secular critics of humanism come close to the theological critiques of

‘hard humanisms’ put forward by such Catholic thinkers as Robert Spaemann
and Karl Rahner, opening the possibility of meaningful dialogue between
secular and Christian humanisms.
This new opportunity for dialogue between religions and secular human-
isms is another reason that we should pay attention to Christian humanism in
our day because we can now recover the full spectrum of humanism’s rich
religious past. Contrary to the false equation of humanism with secular
humanism (atheism, for short), a broader focus naturally combines Christian
and secular interests on the question of our humanity and the good life. For as
soon as we utter the word ‘humanism’, we evoke a vast and profound legacy
reaching back to antiquity, on the question of what it means to be human. This
legacy encompasses ancient Greco-Roman thought, its Judeo-Christian adop-
tion and transformation, together with the further developments of these
ideals through the Renaissance into modern times. The term humanism
derives from the Latin humanitas, and even Niethammer, in coining the
term Humanismus for nineteenth-century humanistic education, was con-
scious of the Roman statesman, orator, and philosopher Cicero’s first use of
the term humaniora or humanistic studies, in which philosophers and poets
transmitted to students insights into human nature. Cicero’s own view of
education borrowed heavily from Greek culture, which the historian Henri
Irénée Marrou (1904–77) had famously labelled a ‘civilization of paideia’, that
is, ‘an educational effort, pursued beyond the years of schooling and lasting
throughout the whole of life, to realize ever more perfectly the human ideal’.12
In light of our modern obsession with professional training and educational
pragmatism, it is worth noting that ancient Greek paideia centred on litera-
ture, and the poetry of Homer particularly, to such a degree that the word
paideia came to mean literature. Apparently, ancient Greek educators had a
higher view of literature and its social function than we do today. It was
precisely this literary focus that later allowed early Christian theologians to
transform Greek into Christian paideia by placing biblical literature at the
moral centre of education.13
The ancient Greek concept of paideia was taken up into Roman Stoic phil-
osophy and became, in the formulation of the pre-Christian Stoic philosopher
Cicero, the studia humanitatis, an educational programme for the formation of
a noble and balanced soul. Latin culture bequeathed to us another name
for essentially the same programme, long before Renaissance humanists took
up this term: the artes liberales, a humanistic course of studies modelled on

12
H. I. Marrou, A History of Education in Antiquity, trans. George Lamb (Madison, WI:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1956), 98.
13
Werner Jaeger, Early Christianity and Greek Paideia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1961), 91–2.
 Introduction 5

Greek paideia, designed to prepare the Roman upper class or the free men
(liberales) for running their estates and governing society. We can see, then,
that from their very beginning humanistic or liberal studies were associated with
literary, rhetorical, and philosophical training rather than with trades or profes-
sions. Classical humanistic education as conceived by Greco-Roman ideals did
not demean specialized training, but ‘the main thing was to become a person of
intelligence, someone with insight and good judgment, in order to frame prac-
tical and political life’.14 For classical humanistic education, ‘no form of govern-
ment, no branch of knowledge, no technique, should ever become an end in
itself: since they are created by man, and supposed to serve man, they should
always, no matter what their results, be subordinated in the way they are used to
one supreme value: humanity.’15
In his classic study Early Christianity and Greek Paideia, the classicist
Werner Jaeger (1888–1961) has shown how the legacy of Hellenistic education
was taken up and transformed by early Christian theologians into an ‘ancient
Christian humanism’, without which classical humanist ideals would not have
survived well into the early twentieth century.16 The church fathers first
revitalized the classic heritage, and their effort was renewed by medieval
theologians and Renaissance humanists.17 The belief that God had become a
human being to redeem humanity filled the old wineskin of classical culture
and education with new life. The key idea in this transformation was deifica-
tion. In early Christian theology, deification describes the glorious hope
brought into the world by Christ for the transformation of human beings
into their full Christlikeness, their true humanity in the image of God. Patristic
writers from Irenaeus, to Clement of Alexandria, Athanasius, and beyond
marvelled at God’s becoming human for the sake of healing and transforming
humanity. Augustine sums up the central teaching of this Christian humanist
tradition when he tells his congregation that ‘the Son of God became the Son
of Man, so as to make the sons of men into sons of God’.18
The historian of Christian doctrine Henri de Lubac grasped the heart of
patristic theology when he referred to the ‘comprehensive humanism’ of the
church fathers.19 Recognizing the central importance of deification or theosis

14 15
Marrou, History of Education, 225. Marrou, History of Education, 225.
16
Jaeger, Early Christianity, 102.
17
Werner Jaeger, Humanism and Theology (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press,
1943), 24–6. See also Charles Trinkaus, ‘The Religious Thought of the Italian Humanists and
the Reformers: Anticipation or Autonomy?’, in Charles Trinkaus with Heiko Obermann (eds),
The Pursuit of Holiness in Late Medieval And Renaissance Religion (Leiden: Brill, 1974),
358–61.
18
Augustine, Homilies on the Gospel of John, ed. Allan Fitzgerald, trans. Edmund Hill, The
Works of St. Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, iii/12 (Hyde Park, NY: New City
Press, 2009), 372.
19
Henri de Lubac, Catholicism: Christ and the Common Destiny of Man, trans. Lancelot
Sheppherd and Elizabeth Englund (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1988), 321.
6 Jens Zimmermann

for Christian anthropology allows us to correct the often exaggerated contrast

between Christian theocentrism with pagan and later secular forms of
anthropocentrism. The simplistic opposition of human-centred world views
to a God-centred outlook may be effective for Christian apologetics, but this
rhetorical clarity obscures the divine focus on humanity established by God
himself. If the incarnation shows God’s own anthropocentrism, his love for
human beings to the point of becoming himself human, then one should
perhaps speak of a theo-anthropocentrism in Christian theology,20 on the
basis of which Christians transformed Greek paideia into the paideia tou
theou, the divine education that through union with God aimed at making
us truly human.21 When Clement of Rome extols the ‘paideia of God’, and
Basil of Caesarea links divine education to the new social order of Christ’s
‘politeia’,22 we see the Christian transformation of two crucial Greek concepts,
namely humanistic education and the city state as community. In their
Christian adaptation, education and civic responsibility become Christian
education for the sake of the new humanity existing in embryonic form in
the church, the assembly or ekklesia of the new unified race, marked, accord-
ing to the apostle Paul, by unity and peace. It was this Christian anthropology
of deification that transformed the culture of antiquity and inspired Western
ideals of higher education.23
The incarnation at the heart of Christian anthropology also made possible
the correlation of faith and reason that gave birth to the universities and, more
generally, to an openness towards all sources of truth. From early on, many
Christian theologians believed in a universal divine pedagogy, whereby God
works through human cultures permitting their highest achievements to
become the genuine expression of divine truth. Thus, the best cultural achieve-
ments of other cultures were taken as God-given insights. The recurring trope
of Israel’s plundering the treasures of Egypt captures this basic humanist
attitude. Thus, to return to our citation by Justin Martyr, ideally (if not always
in practice), in the conviction that God is at work in everything true and noble,
Christian humanists have always drawn freely on every available learning in
their pursuit of human flourishing.
Moreover, Christian humanism laid the groundwork for many modern
ideas we now take for granted. Humanistic ideals of a common humanity,
universal reason, freedom, personhood, human rights, human emancipation
and progress, and indeed the very notion of secularity (describing the present

20
Emil Brunner, Christianity and Civilization, vol. 1: Foundations (New York: C. Scribner’s
Sons, 1948), 90.
21
Jaeger, Early Christianity, 25.
22
Basil the Great, Letters 59–185, trans. Roy J. Deferrari, LCL, Basil 2 (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1928), 361.
23
For a more detailed account of this development see Jens Zimmermann, Humanism and
Religion: A Call for the Renewal of Western Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).
 Introduction 7

saeculum preserved by God until Christ’s return) are literally unthinkable

without their Christian humanistic roots. Perhaps few others have so passion-
ately argued for the Christian inspiration of Western cultures and of liberal
democracy as has the Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain (1882–1973),
who loved to quote his teacher Henri Bergson’s statement that insofar as it
is based on the fundamental equality of every human being, ‘democracy is
evangelical in essence’.24 On this cultural heritage, even non-Christians often
agree, as indicated by the judgement of atheist historian, philosopher, and
statesman Benedetto Croce (1866–1952), who admits that ‘in our moral life
and thought we feel ourselves literally the children of Christianity’.25

THE CONTIN UING RELEVAN CE

O F C H R I S T I A N H UM A N I S M

Granted that Christian humanism plays a foundational role in the formation

of Western cultures, we still have to address the question why one ought to
reflect on this legacy now in the twenty-first century. It is no coincidence that
the Christian roots of Western cultures have historically been affirmed when
dehumanizing forces appeared on the stage of Western history. Interest in the
idea of Christian humanism arose particularly during and after World War II,
when many argued that human moral failure on such a grand scale required a
recovery of the Judeo-Christian anthropology that had shaped and shored up
humane values in Western civilizations.26 Croce (the atheist) and Maritain

24
Henri Bergson, The Two Swords of Morality and Religion, 243; quoted in Jacques Maritain,
Christianity and Democracy; and, The Rights of Man and Natural Law, trans. Doris C. Anson
(San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2011), 36. Maritain cites Bergson after offering his own
passionate summary of Christianity’s spirit: ‘To keep faith in the forward march of humanity
despite all the temptations to despair of man that are furnished by history, and particularly
contemporary history; to have faith in the dignity of the person and of common humanity, in
human rights and in justice—that is, in essentially spiritual values; to have, not in formulas but in
reality, the sense and respect for the dignity of the people, which is a spiritual dignity and is
revealed to whoever knows how to love it; to sustain and revive the sense of equality without
sinking into a leveling equalitarianism; to respect authority, knowing that its wielders are only
men, like those they rule, and derive their trust from the consent of the will of the people whose
vicars or representatives they are; to believe in the sanctity of law and in the efficacious virtue—
efficacious at long range—of political justice in the face of the scandalous triumphs of falsehood
and violence; to have faith in liberty and in fraternity, an heroical inspiration and heroical belief
are needed which fortify and vivify reason, and which none other than Jesus of Nazareth brought
forth into the world’ (Christianity and Democracy, 36).
25
Benedetto Croce, My Philosophy and Other Essays on the Moral and Political Problems of
Our Time (London: Allen & Unwin, 1949), 46.
26
For the argument that Nazism was fundamentally due to a change in anthropological
values, see Helmut Thielicke, Being Human—Becoming Human: An Essay in Christian Anthro-
pology (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984).
8 Jens Zimmermann

(the Catholic) recalled the West’s Christian roots to protest against fascism
and to rebuild Europe on humane political foundations. For the same reasons,
T. S. Eliot (1880–1965) argued in 1939 that ‘It is in Christianity that our arts
have developed; it is in Christianity that the laws of Europe have—until
recently—been rooted. It is against a background of Christianity that all our
thought has significance.’27 The same conviction drove German Nazi resisters
to emphasize Christian values as the moral foundation for a new, secular post-
war constitution.28
Recalling this moment of cultural crisis shows us at least one reason for the
contemporary importance of thinking about Christian humanism. Many
believe that we are currently experiencing, although in a different way, a
similar cultural crisis, a similar uncertainty about the ultimate purpose of
culture and its institutions. In some ways, our current cultural crisis is more
profound because it is more subtle. The West is not immediately threatened by
war and obvious deprivation. To be sure, acts of terror by radical Islamists are
changing Western nation’s cultural climate in profound ways, yet it would be
absurd to compare this situation to the kind of warlike climate and depriv-
ations experienced by many other countries in the Middle East and elsewhere.
And yet even in the midst of affluence, indeed perhaps because of it, we have
lost a sense of higher ends for our cultural activities. Our culture suffers from
the separation of what we do from an ultimate reality that lends our activities
purpose—beyond merely eating, getting along, and being entertained. Alasdair
MacIntyre’s analysis from over three decades ago still holds true: the
culture of modernity that forms our mental habits and moral horizon has
lost a shared vision of a common good towards which human nature tends.
Humanistic ideals, at least as they arose within the classical cultures of
antiquity, were wholly dependent on a discernible telos intrinsic to human
being. We have lost this vision because we no longer believe that ‘human
beings have an end towards which they are directed by reason of their specific
nature’.29
From the ancient world up to the late medieval period, by contrast, people
had a strong sense that proper thinking and acting were based on the natural
moral order of the cosmos. Religion, science, and moral reasoning in the
ancient world operated on the premise of an intrinsic link between mind

27
T. S. Eliot, Christianity and Culture: The Idea of a Christian Society and Notes towards the
Definition of Culture (New York: Harcourt, 1968), 200.
28
‘The state declares the Christian faith to be the most important moral and ethical
foundation of its orders’ and, for this reason, the state supports ‘the practice in all its dimensions
of the Christian faith in public’ (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Werke, vol. 16:
Konspiration und Haft 1940–1945, ed. Jørgen Glenthøj, Ulrich Kabitz, and Wolf Krötke
(Gütersloh: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1996), 596–7.
29
Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 3rd edn (Notre Dame, IN:
University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), x–xi.
 Introduction 9

and world. For example, this is how the Roman statesman and Stoic philoso-
pher Marcus Aurelius summed up the natural order of the universe: ‘For there
is one Universe out of all, one God through all, one substance and one law,
one common Reason of all intelligent creatures and one truth.’30 Platonic
philosophers challenged the materialist pantheism of Stoic philosophy and
introduced the idea that the virtuous life meant the assimilation of the human
soul to the world soul, which was in turn the reflection of higher eternal
principles beyond the created order. Thus, where the Stoics say ‘live according
to nature’, Platonists encouraged their followers to assimilate to the divine
image inherent in both the cosmos and themselves.31 Later Christian thinkers,
such as the apostle Paul and the church fathers, could and did build on the
pagan language of assimilation to the divine image, even if they transformed it
radically based on their belief in Christ as the true image of God.32
In contrast to our modern cultural mindset, premodern Christians and
non-Christians articulated the purpose of human existence, of society, and
of education on the basis of a participatory, basically religious, framework.
Embedded in a meaningful cosmos, human consciousness participated in a
larger natural rational order and moral law that provided common refer-
ence points for the questions who we are, why we live, and what we live
for. This correlation between mind and intelligible being, specifically in its
later Christian configuration, gave direction and purpose to Western cultural
institutions, such as our universities, courts, and hospitals. The loss of this
configuration is the main reason for our current arguments about the legit-
imacy and intellectual credibility of the Judeo-Christian tradition as the soul of
Western values.
Given the inevitability of some philosophical framework, and some vision of
humanity to orient social life and political decisions, the only way to avoid
arbitrary decisions or pragmatic ones masking sheer instrumentality governed

30
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.9, trans. A. S. L. Farquharson, Everyman’s Library (New York:
Knopf, 1994), 45 (caps in original).
31
So, for example, in this remarkable passage from the Timaeus: ‘For the divine part within
us, the congenial motions are the intellections and revolutions of the Universe. These each one
of us should follow, rectifying the revolutions within our head, which were distorted at our
birth, by learning the harmonies and revolutions of the Universe, and thereby making the part
that thinks like I (ἐξομοισαι) unto the object of this thought, in accordance with its original
nature, and having achieved this assimilation (όμοιωσαντα) attain finally to that goal of life
which is set before men by the gods as the most good both for the present and for the time to
come’ (Timaeus 90c–d; quoted in George H. van Kooten, Paul’s Anthropology in Context: The
Image of God, Assimilation to God, and Tripartite Man in Ancient Judaism, Ancient Philosophy
and Early Christianity, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament (Tübingen:
Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 94.
32
In his Gifford Lectures (1947–8), Emil Brunner, for example, argues that the anthropology
of Christian humanism differs sharply from Greek anthropology by grounding the individual in
the electing call of God, and thus in the divine–human personal encounter that posits community
and individuality as the very ground of being. See Christianity and Civilization, vol. 1, 100.
10 Jens Zimmermann

by motives of power and profit is creatively to appropriate the Christian

humanist tradition. For this reason, Christian humanism is a central idea
in Emil Brunner’s Gifford Lectures of 1947–8,33 and, as Jürgen Moltmann
has argued, a Christian vision of humanity is vital for our industrial society.
Theological anthropology remains important in light of our increased scien-
tific ability to intervene in human reproduction and other modern social
issues.34
From the Catholic side, Vatican II has provided an important push for the
idea of Christian humanism by recovering the incarnation as the theological
centre of theology. During the last decades, a number of official Catholic
documents have stressed the importance of ‘Christian humanism’ as a vehicle
of Christian social teaching and, indeed, as ‘a Christian philosophy of cul-
ture’.35 Fundamentally, humanism wishes to explore what it means to be
human and what the grounds are for human flourishing. The brief history
of humanism above has shown us that contrary to a common, prevailing
misconception, the words ‘Christian’ and ‘humanism’ are not essentially
contradictory. They only continue to appear so because in popular culture
humanism remains associated with secularism, especially because Western
culture is still heavily influenced by what Charles Taylor has dubbed the
‘subtraction narrative’ of secularization, according to which human progress
and flourishing require the diminishing of religion. While the ideology of
secularism driving this narrative has contributed to our collective modern
social imaginary, Taylor carefully distinguishes secularism as an ideology from
the more general secular cultural framework or ‘immanent frame’ that marks
our current secular age.36
The immanent frame designates the de facto conditions under which
arguments for transcendent, i.e. religious sources of human flourishing have
to be made in a secular age. Religions can no longer simply assume that most
people believe in the supernatural. The immanent frame, in short, describes
the dominant social imaginary or cultural climate within which we have to
argue metaphysical and religious claims. For Taylor, the decision whether this
immanent frame is wholly closed or remains open to transcendence differen-
tiates secularism from secularity. Among secularists, at least, the prevailing

33
See Emil Brunner, Christianity and Civilization, 2 vols, The Gifford Lectures 1947–8
(New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1948–9).
34
See Jürgen Moltmann, ‘Humanism in the Industrial Society’, in Man: Christian Anthro-
pology in the Conflicts of the Present, trans. John Sturdy (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1974),
22–41.
35
For instance Paul VI, Populorum progressio, §42; the ‘Compendium of the Social Doctrine
of the Church’ gives its introduction the title ‘an integral and solidary humanism’, defining the
social teaching of the Catholic Church as such; Benedict XVI, Caritas in veritate, §16.
36
Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), 539ff.;
see also Craig Calhoun, Mark Juergensmeyer, and Jonathan Van Antwerpen (eds), Introduction
in Rethinking Secularism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 10.
 Introduction 11

conviction characterizing our secular age is that the world as a whole, or at

least all of it that really matters, can be described in purely immanent
terms, and human flourishing accomplished by worldly means, without
appeal to a religious creed or supernatural influences. Taylor refers to this
kind of thinking as ‘exclusive or self-sufficient humanism’.37 For adherents
to this view, the expression ‘Christian humanism’ appears contradictory.
Secular, exclusive, and self-sufficient humanists consequently call their belief
simply ‘humanism’.38
Christian humanists argue on the contrary that full human flourishing is
possible only through faith in God and requires divine help. As Martin
Schlag points out in chapter 10 of this volume, many Christians themselves
have forgotten, however, that an essential aim of Christianity is full personal
development in a universal sense that concerns not only one’s relationship
to God but also one’s happiness on earth. Human flourishing is not limited
to wealth, prosperity, honours, and power, and not even to mere joy or
cheerfulness in a superficial emotional sense; rather, flourishing includes and
arises from the deepest layers of contentment that give meaning and sense
to human existence. Christian humanism thus affirms the transcendent
mental and spiritual dimensions that lend purpose to human life, work, society,
and culture.
Christian humanism shares its concern for all these things with other forms
of humanism, and more often than not joins forces with them to protect
common values, but it differs from them in finding their motivation in the
central beliefs of the Christian faith. Indeed, as Justin Martyr’s quotation
above indicates, on the very basis of their faith in one common Logos—the
eternal word and wisdom of God—genuine Christian humanism is generous
by nature, interested in all sources that contribute to human flourishing. This
interest, however, derives its motivating power from the belief, reflected in this
volume’s subtitle, that education and social engagement are subservient to the
restoration of our full humanity as intended by God.
Because of its allegiance to many secular endeavours that promote human
well-being, Christian humanism is a long-standing feature of intellectual
history without being well-defined or structured. Not simply reducible to a
set of principles, Christian humanism is rather a certain attitude or impulse
that quickens human awareness in different historical circumstances. Martin
Marty has fittingly referred to Christian humanism as ‘a fluid rather than a

37
Taylor, A Secular Age, 18.
38
Paradoxically, in 1961 the US Supreme Court recognized non-religious humanism as a
religion. Its main tenets of scientistic faith are contained in the Humanist Manifestos of 1933 and
1973: human beings are at the centre of the universe, nature is all that exists, happiness and
enrichment of human life now are all that we should aim at, scientific reason is all that is
necessary, and religions are a hindrance rather than a help in this endeavour. See J. I. Packer and
Thomas Howard, Christianity: The True Humanism (Waco, TX: Word Publishing, 1985), 18.
12 Jens Zimmermann

fixed element in Western culture’.39 It harbours no theocratic yearnings, but

‘conserves’, as Lee Oser puts it, ‘the radical middle between secularism and
theocracy’.40 Christian humanism, then, is not identifiable with any concrete
political programme41 but relies on the indirect effect of Christian revelation
and grace. At the same time, however, the transforming humane influence of
grace is salvific in the full sense of Christian redemption and therefore does
have an intrinsic political dimension. Living out the eschatological promise of
a new creation at some point requires public social and political involvement.
Christian redemption, as the essays in this volume make clear, is not mere
inner piety or adherence to a belief system, but the transformation of body and
soul into true humanity. This transformation has always been, and should be,
the ultimate telos of the Christian life and thus also of Christian civic respon-
sibility as reflected in all aspects of public life. Christian humanism is always
also politically involved civic humanism.
There are principally two reasons for reconsidering Christian humanism at
this particular point in time. For one, the ideological secularism that has
provided the interpretive framework for the academy and leading intellectuals
in Western societies is quickly losing credibility as the most plausible, com-
prehensive explanatory grid for human experience. Secularists adhere rather
dogmatically to the subtraction narrative that social improvement and know-
ledge advancement entail the eclipse of religion; but, as sociologists and
political theorists have come to realize, this story fails to account for recent
significant political and cultural changes across the globe.42 The ongoing collapse
of secularism in no way entails abandoning the ideas of democratic secular
societies and religious plurality, but these concepts will increasingly require
openness towards religious foundations and religious motivations for such
cultural models. Christian humanism provides important religious roots for
education, tolerance, fair economic practices, philanthropy, and humane politics.
The second reason for re-envisioning Christian humanism is the general
loss of purpose within Western society’s most important cultural institutions,
such as churches, universities, and hospitals. These institutions were born
from and nourished by Christian humanist incarnational anthropology.
The incarnation demonstrated, as the church fathers expressed it, God’s
‘philanthropy’, which inspired, neither universally nor instantaneously but
nonetheless truly, concern for the well-being of other creatures. To be sure, the

39
Martin Marty, ‘Foreword’, in Joseph M. Shaw, R. W. Franklin, Harris Kaasa, and Charles
W. Buzicky (eds), Readings in Christian Humanism (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing
House, 1982), 17.
40
Lee Oser, The Return of Christian Humanism: Chesterton, Eliot, Tolkien, and the Romance
of History (Columbia, MO and London: University of Missouri Press, 2007), 5.
41
Shaw et al. (eds), Readings in Christian Humanism, 203.
42
See, for example, Calhoun, Juergensmeyer, and Van Antwerpen (eds), Rethinking
Secularism.
 Introduction 13

Christian church’s succumbing to the temptations of political power through-

out history provides a powerful antidote to any romanticized views about
Christianity as the only wholesome formative social influence. And yet, our
modern ideas of philanthropy and human dignity were inspired by Christian
views of humanity as made in Christ’s image; moreover, the church, especially
the Eucharistic rite, served as a powerful image of love, solidarity, and hope.
Modern churches can learn much from this ‘Eucharistic’ element of Christian
humanism. As the essay by Torrance Kirby in this volume demonstrates,
developments of Eucharistic doctrine within English Protestantism contrib-
uted to the formation of a public sphere within which religious claims had to
be argued for rather than simply asserted.
That not only secular humanists but also many Christians (particularly those
in evangelical and Reformed denominations) instinctively oppose humanism
and Christianity indicates how sorely we need to recover the incarnational
impulse for solidarity and social justice at the heart of the gospel. The essays
collected in this volume respond to our current cultural climate and its chal-
lenges by reintroducing the reader to the broad and foundational presence of a
Christian vision of humanity in our culture. More than that, these contributions
aim to re-envision Christian humanism as an important resource for addressing
cultural problems resulting from the forgetfulness of our common humanist
inheritance. This volume is meant to convince readers that Christian humanism
is arguably the best expression for a Christian philosophy of culture. By the end
of this series, the reader should regard the label ‘Christian humanism’ as a viable
description of how a Christian, and not least a Christian educator, lives authen-
tically in the modern world.
The chapters of this volume are structured both chronologically and topic-
ally. The first three chapters introduce the theological origins of Christian
humanism as education into true humanity (John Behr), the importance of
patristic teaching for the Reformation (Irena Backus), and the importance of
Christian Platonism in Renaissance humanism (James Hankins). In chapter 1,
John Behr traces the intrinsic connection between suffering and learning
that marked patristic paideia, along with a synthesis of reason and faith.
The second chapter by Irena Backus delineates the authoritative role of
the church fathers in Renaissance humanism. She shows that in their pursuit
of humanistic learning, Renaissance and Reformation scholars drew exten-
sively on patristic authors for their understanding of pagan antiquity. In the
third chapter, James Hankins’ study of Ficino demonstrates the broadly
Christian spirit of Renaissance humanists, and their creative appropriation
of ancient philosophical sources, which transformed Christianity into a
more inclusive creed.
The next set of three chapters continues with Renaissance humanism
during and after the Reformation. Chapters 4 and 6 portray two eminent
humanists. Nicholas Wolterstorff introduces us to John Calvin’s Christian
14 Jens Zimmermann

humanism as comprised by the three aspects of Renaissance humanism, social

humanism, and anthropological humanism. Darren Provost portrays the
prince of humanists, Erasmus, whose Philosophia Christiani Provost unfolds
through a close reading of the Encheridion, showing that Erasmus’s literary
and educational efforts are ultimately in service of the Christian struggle to
attain Christlikeness. The fifth chapter by Torrance Kirby connects both
portraits by pointing to the source of humanistic energies shared by both
thinkers, namely participation in the divine through union with God. Kirby
shows how the sacramental hermeneutics of reformers in the Church of
England promoted a vigorous ‘culture of persuasion’, which in turn fostered
the emergence of an early instance of ‘public sphere’ of discourse as the
mediating conduit between individuals and community and even between
subject and rulers.
The next set of contributions, chapters 7 to 9, provide contextual descrip-
tions of humanistic education. Reminding us of the abiding importance of
the theological roots that gave rise to liberal arts education, Zimmermann
proposes that with the diminishing credibility of scientism and secularism,
embracing a hermeneutic view of truth allows a re-envisioning of Christian
humanism together with the renewal of the humanities. In chapter 8, David
Lyle Jeffrey complements Zimmermann’s account by showing the biblical
influence on humanities education in Western intellectual history. Jeffrey
makes the convincing case that the rich tradition of liberal learning in the
West is profoundly indebted to Christian humanism. Athens, as it turns out,
has a lot to do with Jerusalem. Brett Foster concludes this section by describing
the freedom and creativity with which Renaissance poets drew on classic
literary learning in order to express and embody their Christian educational
ideals. According to Foster, syncretism with pagan sources, their imitation
(i.e. appropriation), and collaboration with other humanists throughout his-
tory were central elements in the communal vision of the Christian life for
which education through literature and poetry was to prepare the way.
The book ends with three important chapters on modern Christian
humanism as it emerged in the church’s theological struggle fruitfully to engage
modernity. Chapter 10 offers the reader a Roman Catholic perspective on
Christian humanism. Martin Schlag explores the impact of Christian human-
ism on the modern and, in the West, increasingly secularized world. He argues
that, despite its shortcomings, the Catholic Church has preserved the tradition
of Christian humanism, especially with Vatican II and its major inspiration by
the ‘nouvelle’ theologians Yves Congar, Henri de Lubac, and also through the
work of the philosopher Jacques Maritain. The chapter concludes with a
discussion of Christian humanism’s importance for economics and politics.
In chapter 11, Thomas Howard introduces the reader to the nineteenth-
century humanist Ignaz von Döllinger, who sought to appropriate the Chris-
tian humanist tradition for the modern university. Howard shows us that
 Introduction 15
Döllinger’s attempt at mediating between humanistic concerns and Roman
Catholic ecclesial interests in defining the purpose of higher education holds
important lessons for our day.
Chapter 12 concludes the volume with Russell Hittinger’s analysis of Jean
Paul II’s humanistic theology, which affirms the importance of Christian
humanist ideals for modern society. Pope John Paul’s essential humanist
convictions, his Christological anthropology, and reason–faith synthesis
played a key role in diagnosing the central malaise of modernity, namely a
distorted view of humanity’s nature and purpose. Building on John Paul’s
analysis, Hittinger argues that only Christian anthropology is able to redirect
and ameliorate the distorted humanism of modernity.
As the different confessional affiliations of our authors indicate, the
re-envisioning of Christian humanism intended with this book is conducted
ecumenically, drawing on Eastern-Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Anglican,
Reformed, and more broadly evangelical perspectives, to demonstrate that
Christian humanism is the common expression of Christianity in all of its
various manifestations. Aside from the contributors to this volume, a number
of agencies and individuals have helped in the production of this work.
My thanks go to my faculty colleagues at Trinity Western University for
their support of the original lecture series behind this book, which would
have been impossible without the financial support of the Canadian Research
Council via the Canada Research Chair for Interpretation, Religion, and
Culture. Thanks are due also to my research assistant Natalie Boldt for her
tireless help with this volume, to Stephen Dunning for improving its quality,
and to my editors Tom Perridge and Karen Raith at Oxford University Press
for their efforts in seeing it published.
 Part I
Christian Humanism: Theological
Roots and Their Enduring Significance
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 The Project Gutenberg eBook of Balloon
observation, and instructions on the subject of
work in the basket
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Balloon observation, and instructions on the subject of work in

the basket

Author: United States. War Department. Division of Military

Aeronautics

Release date: October 23, 2023 [eBook #71934]

Language: English

Original publication: Washington: Government Printing Office, 1918

Credits: Aaron Adrignola and the Online Distributed Proofreading

Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BALLOON

OBSERVATION, AND INSTRUCTIONS ON THE SUBJECT OF
WORK IN THE BASKET ***
 Transcriber’s Note
Larger versions of most illustrations may be seen by right-
clicking them and selecting an option to view them separately,
or by double-tapping and/or stretching them.
BALLOON OBSERVATION
and INSTRUCTIONS
on the subject of

WORK IN THE BASKET

❦
Issued by the
Division of Military Aeronautics
U.S. Army
¶ A free translation of the French booklet
“Instructions au sujet du Travail en Nacelle,”
and an added discourse on Balloon
Observations

WASHINGTON
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
AUGUST, 1918
 PART I.

BALLOON OBSERVATION.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
In this pamphlet will be laid down the general principles and also
the limitations which govern observation from balloons. Balloon
observation includes more than actual artillery observation. (See
“Employment of Balloons.”)
The details of cooperation between balloons and artillery are
issued from time to time by the General Staff in the form of
pamphlets. Whatever the system ordered at the time, there are
certain principles which do not change.
In artillery observation it can not be emphasized too strongly that
success depends both on—
1. The efficiency of the balloon observers, including an intimate
knowledge of the ground within view.
2. An intimate knowledge by artillery commanders of the
possibilities and limitations of balloon observation.
The limitations of balloon observation are—
1. Distance from the target.
2. Height of observer.
3. Visibility.
 Distance from the target is inevitable, but can be lessened by
advanced positions and winch tracks. During active operation it has
sometimes been possible to approach balloons within 4,500 meters
(4,921 yards) of the line.
The low height of the balloon compared with an aeroplane is a
drawback, as it brings a question of dead ground and exaggerated
perspective.
Visibility is the determining factor of the balloon’s usefulness. In
very high winds, very misty or cloudy weather, observation is
impossible, and owing to its stationary nature the balloon can not, by
any special effort on the part of its observers, overcome unfavorable
conditions in the same way as is possible in the case of aeroplane
observation.
On the other hand, a balloon flying at a height of 1,500 meters
(1,640 yards) and 7,000 meters (7,651 yards) from the line, under
favorable weather conditions, combines in a marked degree many of
the advantages of air and ground observation.
In the first place, glasses can be used. Secondly, the balloon
observer can converse direct with the battery commander by
telephone. Apart, therefore, from ease and certainty in reporting
observations, the telephone system enables an elastic program of
work to be drawn up and admits of personal conversation between
the battery commander and the observer, often permitting mistakes
or misunderstandings to be cleared up during shoot instead of
afterwards.
Finally, owing to the continuous nature of his observation from
the same spot, the balloon observer is able to learn his country in the
greatest detail and can keep a close watch on suspected roads or
areas of country.

LIAISON BETWEEN BALLOONS AND

ARTILLERY
 The work of balloons is principally with the artillery, and close
liaison between these two branches is indispensable if the best
results are to be obtained. This close liaison should be promoted on
the following lines:
(a) Balloon companies should each, as far as possible, be
allotted specific artillery organizations. This facilitates telephone
communication, prevents duplication of liaison work, and leads to a
far more intimate and personal liaison than does any other method.
(b) Balloon observers must visit batteries frequently, and
sometimes be attached for short periods. Shoots should be
discussed, especially if unsuccessful. Observers should prepare and
take with them when visiting batteries a list of targets which are
clearly visible from the balloon and on which they can observe
effectively. Similarly, artillery commanders should let balloon
observers know of any further targets which they especially wish to
engage, as work previously prepared on the ground saves time and
gives better results.
(c) Artillery officers should visit the balloon and make ascents.
They will thus become acquainted with the extent of view from the
balloon and the ability and difficulties of the observers.

EMPLOYMENT OF BALLOONS.
In view of the above, the work most suitable for balloons is as
follows:

GENERAL SURVEYANCE OF ENEMY’S ACTIVITIES.

(a) Reporting modifications of enemy defensive organization;

detecting movements of convoys and trains. Their importance and
itineraries, locating infantry signals, and all other activities such as
revealed by fires, smokes, dust, trails, etc.
 (b) Spotting active hostile batteries and reporting hostile shelling.
Reporting hostile shelling is a duty for which balloons are especially
suitable, as they are favorably situated to observe both the flash of
the gun and the fall of the shell. From this information it is possible to
direct not only neutralizing fire on the hostile battery, but often also to
establish the caliber of the guns and the arc of fire of the battery.

RANGING AND ADJUSTING OF FIRE.

(a) Observing fire for destruction on all targets, counterbattery, or

bombardment.
(b) Reporting fleeting targets and observing fire on them.
(c) Observing for registration fire.
(d) Observing fire on the enemy’s communications.
(e) Cooperation with aeroplanes.
 PART II.

WORK IN THE BASKET.

[Translation of French document, “Instructions au sujet du Travail en Nacelle,” a
publication of French G. Q. G., 1918, by Lieut. Kellogg.]
The rapidity and precision of the work in the basket depend not
only on the natural gifts of the observer, but also very largely on his
methods of work.
The object of the following instructions is to tell the student
observers the general methods they should follow and to explain the
use of these methods.
The principal operations which they must be able to execute
rapidly are as follows:
1. Orientation and general reconnaissance of the terrain.
2. Spotting points on the ground seen on the map and points on
the map seen on the ground.
3. Observation of fire.
 Chapter 1.
ORIENTATION AND GENERAL
RECONNAISSANCE OF THE TERRAIN.

This is the operation which the observer executes on his first

ascension in a new sector; this is how it should be conducted.
1. Rapidly look over the terrain around the ascensional point in
order to orient the map.
This is done by finding in some direction from the ascensional
point a line giving an easily identified direction (a road, an edge of
woods, etc.). Orient the map so as to make this line on the map
parallel to the line on the ground.
The map can also be oriented by means of the compass.
2. Locate the horizontal projection of the balloon.
The observer may know already the winch position, but the
balloon is carried off horizontally from the winch sometimes as much
as 400 or 500 meters (436 to 545 yards). Thus it is essential not to
confuse the winch position with the horizontal projection of the
balloon. If this is done, errors will be made in the operations which
we are going to discuss later, where we make use of this known
point.
It is pretty hard to materialize definitely the vertical line passing
through the basket. The effect of the wind and the movements of the
balloon make it impossible to use a plumb line. The observer has to
find his projection on the ground by leaning first from one side of the
basket and then from the other in order to diminish the chances of
error. An approximation of 25 or 50 meters is sufficiently accurate for
the general reconnaissance which it is necessary to make.
 3. Leaving the region beneath the balloon, acquaint yourself,
step by step, with the most prominent points in different directions—
masses of woods, villages, etc.
There are two methods—by the process of cheminement or
tracing landmarks and by the process of direct alignment.
The process of “cheminement” or tracing consists in following
outlines, such as roads, streams, or hedges, identifying as you go
along details of the terrain which these lines pass through or near.
On account of the deformations due to the effect of perspective and
to the unevenness of the ground, and particularly on account of the
deformation of angles, if it is a winding road, this method often leads
to errors; it should be employed only in certain cases defined below:
The process of “direct alignment” consists of studying the
terrain by following successive directions from the balloon position.
We call the “alignment” of a point the trace, on the terrain, of the
vertical plane passing through this point and through the eye of the
observer; in perspective vision, when the observer determines the
point in question, this alignment would appear to him a vertical line.
On the map it is nothing more than the straight line joining the point
under consideration to the vertical projection of the balloon.
The method of alignment, then, consists in first identifying the
most prominent points near the balloon and finding, by cheminement
or tracing, the lines running from these points. A point found
directly by cheminement should not be considered as definitely
determined until its alignment has been verified.
This first reconnaissance is not to study the terrain in all its
details, but only to fix in the memory a certain number of prominent
points scattered throughout the sector in order to facilitate later work.
These points should be very distinct, visible to the naked eye,
and of characteristic forms, so that there will be no danger of
confusing them with others—masses of woods, important villages,
etc. Roads with borders of trees, large paths for hauling supplies,
when taken together, are very valuable for quickly finding others.
 Chapter II.
SPOTTING OF POINTS.

Generalities.—In all spotting operations, whether working from

the map to the terrain or vice versa, the difficulty is due to the fact
that the situation of the point has to be found on a two-dimension
surface.
The best method of work will be, then, that which suppresses as
quickly as possible one of these dimensions and to conduct the
research on a straight line.
Any point can be placed on the terrain or on the map if you know
the following elements:
1. Its “direction” or alignment.
2. Its situation on this alignment—that is, its “range.”
In oblique vision, a digression in direction is always much more
apparent than a digression of the same size in range. Thus the
direction of a point can be identified with more facility and
precision than its range. For these reasons, the following methods
consider two distinct phases in all spotting operations:
1. Investigation of direction.
2. Investigation of range.
The investigation in direction always comes first, as it is
easier, and its result makes the investigation for range easier.
 LOCATING ON THE GROUND AN OBJECT
SEEN ON THE MAPS.
If it is a question of a very visible point (cross-roads, an isolated
house, a corner of woods, etc.), the spotting can be done almost
immediately, it was found in the general reconnaissance of the
terrain, which was discussed in chapter 1.
If, on the contrary, the point under consideration is difficult to find
(a piece of trench in a confused and cut-up region, a battery
emplacement, etc.), we must have recourse to a precise method.

1. RESEARCH IN DIRECTION.

Join on the map the projection of the balloon and the center of
the objective. Identify this direction on the terrain by finding on the
alignment a prominent point. This line can be drawn in the basket. It
is a good thing to draw the alignment on a vertical photograph
of the objective also, in order to have a greater number of
reference points than the map could give.

2. INVESTIGATION OF RANGE.

Identify on the map (or photo) two points, one situated over and
one short of the objective. Narrow down this bracket step by step
until the object is recognized.
As this investigation of the range is the more difficult, observers
must be warned against certain methods which are to be absolutely
avoided—
1. Never identify the range of a point by comparing it with
that of a near-by point situated on a different alignment.
If these two points are not at exactly the same height, the
deformations due to oblique vision can falsify their apparent relative
range. The point farthest away can even seem nearer, and the
nearest point farther away.
 Fig. 1 Fig. 2

Example (fig. 1).—Suppose there are two trees, A and B, A

being nearer the balloon and higher than B. It can happen that, in
oblique vision (fig. 2), B having its image B´ and A its image A´, the
depression of the image B´ is more than that of A´. In this case, the
observer will be tempted to believe that the tree B is nearer him than
the tree A.
2. All oblique alignment in investigating the range must be
absolutely avoided.
Oblique alignment means a line connecting two points on the
map and not passing through the horizontal projection of the balloon.
You might be tempted to use an alignment to find the range of an
objective after having determined the direction. The process would
consist in finding on the map two points so placed that the straight
line between them passes through the objective, visualizing this line
on the terrain, and placing the objective at the intersection of this
visualized line and the direct alignment. This result, which would be
accurate if the ground were absolutely flat, is made erroneous by the
unevenness of the terrain. On account of this, the oblique alignment
does not pass, in oblique vision, through the same points as its
horizontal projection on the map.

Fig. 3

Example (fig. 3).—On the map C is the objective, A and B two

points so situated that the line AB passes through C, and EF the
direct alignment, or the line balloon objective. The line AB coincided
on the terrain, with the trace of the vertical plane passing through A
and B. In oblique vision (fig. 4) it is different. The line A′C′B′ is a
curve which follows the irregularities of the ground, and the point C′
is not on the oblique alignment A′B′.
 Fig. 4

LOCATING ON THE MAP AN OBJECT SEEN

ON THE GROUND.
1. Determine first on the map the approximate region where the
objective is seen.
A result which you can obtain very quickly, thanks to the points
which you had found in your first reconnaissance of the terrain.
2. Investigation of direction.
This operation consists in determining the alignment of the
objective. As this alignment is a straight line, you only have to know
two points. One of them could be the horizontal projection of the
balloon; but you must realize that this position is always changing a
little, and it is hard to determine it with absolute precision. It is better
to carry on the operation independent of this position, which means
applying the following method:
Choose on the alignment of the center of the objective two
points, one over and one short, and easily identifiable on the
map. Draw with a pencil in the region of the objective the
alignment thus obtained. These points should be, as far as
possible, precise details of the terrain, such as a corner of woods, an
angle of a house, a place where roads or trenches cross, an isolated
tree, etc. When the alignment of the objective does not pass through
any such points, the difficulty can be overcome by determining in
what proportions it cuts a known element, such as an edge of woods
or a hedge, provided this element is plainly perpendicular to the
direction of observation.
This direction can be approximated to the extent of the thickness
of the pencil mark. On its accuracy the final result depends. The
difficulty lies in materializing the alignment—that is, the vertical line
through the center of the objective—in order to lessen the chances
for mistakes. Student observers should have frequent practice in this
exercise.
When the point to be found is near the edge of the map it is
sometimes necessary to take both reference points between the
balloon and the objective; this should be avoided as much as
possible, because it is apt to be less exact than when the objective is
bracketed by its reference points.
Thus (fig. 5), two reference points A and B determine the
alignment AB, O, the objective, is situated at some point between A
and B. An error AA′ in the spotting of one of these points leads to a
smaller error in the position of the objective OO′—that is, smaller
than AA′.