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Samuel Gregg

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Samuel Gregg is currently reading

Lavinia

by Ursula K. Le Guin

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Feb 02, 2026 12:34PM

Samuel Gregg is currently reading

The Aeneid

by Virgil

bookshelves: war-lit, 2022-3-school-year, maritime-lit, 2025-6-school-year, currently-reading

Reading for the 3rd time

read in July 2022

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Feb 01, 2023 10:17PM

Samuel Gregg is currently reading

Christians Reading Classics: An Introduction to Greco-Roman Classics from Homer to Boethius

by Nadya Williams (Goodreads Author)

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Samuel Gregg said: " Each short chapter of this new book reflects on a different classic text or pairing of texts, many of which I teach to high school students at a Classical Christian school. The style is approachable, even conversational at times, despite the author h Each short chapter of this new book reflects on a different classic text or pairing of texts, many of which I teach to high school students at a Classical Christian school. The style is approachable, even conversational at times, despite the author holding a Ph.D. in classics from Princeton U. Williams describes the content and context of the work while showing how pre-Christian Greeks and Romans wrestled with the great questions of living as a human in this world. The propositional truth of Christianity fulfills these innate longings. As an example, here’s how Williams reflects on Plato’s Symposium:
“When Christians talk about love, such a conversation should begin with recognizing the unfathomable love of God for us—something unthinkable in any other religion. And so, as we read the Symposium we see all the more clearly the importance of Socrates’s general practice of asking questions while simultaneously also seeing the shortcomings of such a practice if it is separated from belief in God. What is love? How can we talk about love without acknowledging that ‘God so loved the world that he gave his one and lonely Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.’ Such a love offers a foundation for who we are as citizens and political beings. No less significant is the search for the missing half [a reference to on of the dinner-guests’ theories about love]—we all do feel that we’re missing something. We feel that yearning that we cannot articulate and which so often ends up being described as romantic love. But as Augustine will write eight centuries after Plato, our souls are restless when apart from God. It is God alone who completes us, not other people.”
Although I am already sold on reading the classics as a Christian, and despite having expected closer readings of the selected texts, I have been quite pleased with this book. (As a note, Williams organizes her book into five parts, each containing four chapters; they are ordered chronologically as well as being thematically united. Despite this neat sequencing, it is possible to read the chapters out of order, if you want to use the book as a reference on particular works.)
Perhaps the most exciting thing to me about Williams's book is the publisher. There have been many good books in the last 20+ years advocating a return to the classics, but it thrills me to see the movement gaining more traction with a bigger, broader publishing house like Zondervan!
I am recommending this book to the parents of my students, as I believe it is accessible, broad in coverage, and could extend the great conversation beyond the classroom and into the home. It also makes a subtle case for Classical Christian Education without feeling like propaganda. ...more "

Nov 08, 2025 04:32PM · see review

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