This article concerns the persistent preoccupation with the boundaries between inquiry and faith, as they appear in the context of the liberal arts (artes liberals) in the high and in the later Middle Ages. Since Late Antiquity the liberal arts represented the basic learning in Christian schools, where they served as a prerequisite for biblical studies. Before one considers their role on the borderline of religious and secular inquiry, a short outline of their development in the Christian world is necessary.

Christian authors such as St Augustine and St Jerome adopted the concept of the liberal arts from Greek and Roman models. In the first century CE Philon of Alexandria had defined the arts a ‘circle’ or ‘chorus’ of preliminary sophistic studies, which included grammar, rhetoric, geometry, music, but also arithmetic, dialectic and astronomy. These subjects had the inferior rank of ‘intermediate learning’. For Philon the circle of studies was represented by Abraham’s maid Hagar, who gave birth to Ishmael, but who was repudiated by Abraham together with her son (Gen. 16 and 21). On the other hand, Abraham’s spouse Sarah, the mother of the legitimate son Isaac, was interpreted as the figure of philosophy, virtue and wisdom.