Jerusalem
Faith
Man is made for God.
Revelation, covenant, worship, moral law, mercy, prophecy, and the Christian claim that history has a center.
The Pillars
Faith. Reason. Law. Virtue. Beauty. Learning. Memory.
Athens
Reason
Truth can be known.
Philosophy, logic, metaphysics, virtue ethics, political reflection, and the disciplined search for truth.
Rome
Law
Justice is higher than power.
Roman law, citizenship, offices, duties, public order, constitutional inheritance, and the idea that civilization must be built in durable forms.
Classical and Christian moral tradition
Virtue
Freedom requires formation.
The cardinal and theological virtues, moral formation, courage, temperance, prudence, justice, magnanimity, humility, and charity.
Cathedral, icon, poem, chant, and city
Beauty
The soul is educated by what it loves.
Cathedrals, sacred art, architecture, music, poetry, proportion, form, liturgy, and the visible splendor of truth.
Monastery, school, university, and library
Learning
Civilization is handed down through disciplined study.
Monasteries, scriptoria, universities, the trivium and quadrivium, translation, commentary, apprenticeship, and the Great Books.
Tradition and inheritance
Memory
A people without memory cannot remain a people.
History, tradition, canon, genealogy of ideas, saints and heroes, civilizational amnesia, and the duty to hand on what we have received.