Admissions

Aeterna is preparing a course of study for people who want to read the Great Books and learn Latin and Greek.

What you would study

The course of study has six parts. Like the stones of an arch, they are set one at a time, from both sides.

Stone I
Latin
Taught as a language people speak and write, so that Cicero and Virgil can be read in the original.
Stone II
Ancient Greek
Taught the same way, from the Greek of Homer to the Attic of Plato and the Koine of the Gospels.
Stone III
The Trivium
Grammar, logic, and rhetoric: the three arts of language, used as working methods for reading and argument.
Stone IV
The Quadrivium
Arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy: the four arts of number, from Euclid’s Elements to Plato’s Timaeus.
Stone V
The Great Books
The center of study, where each book is read in full and discussed in seminar.
Stone VI
The Socratic dialectic
In seminar a claim is tested by questions, until the group reaches a better account than the one it started with.
Keystone
Your question
An arch stands only when its keystone is set. Tell us the question that brings you to these books.
Write to admissions

Roma non uno die aedificata est.

Rome was not built in a day.

Medieval proverb

We will reply with what we know so far. An inquiry is not an application and commits neither you nor the Institute to anything.

Tell us what you hope to study and what draws you to Aeterna.