Latin Literature in Early Christianity

The Latin language was not at first the literary and official
organ of the Christian Church in the West. The Gospel was
announced by preachers whose language was Greek, and these
continued to use Greek, if not in their discourses, at least in
their most important acts. Irenaeus, at Lyons, preached in Latin,
or perhaps in the Celtic vernacular, but he refuted heresies in
Greek. The Letter of the Church of Lyons concerning its martyrs is
written in Greek; so at Rome, a century earlier, is that of
Clement to the Corinthians. In both cases the language of those to
whom the letters were addressed may have been designedly chosen;
nevertheless, a document that may be called a domestic product of
the Roman Church, the "Shepherd" of Hermas, was written in Greek.
At Rome in the middle of the second century, Justin, a Palestinian
philosopher, opened his school, and suffered martyrdom; Tatian
wrote his "Apologia" in Greek at Rome in the third century;
Hippolytus compiled his numerous works in Greek. And Greek is not
only the language of books, but also of the Roman Christian
inscriptions, the greater number of which, down to the third
century were written in Greek. The most ancient Latin document
emanating from the Roman Church is the correspondence of its
clergy with Carthage during the vacancy of the Apostolic See
following on the death of Pope Fabian (20 January, 250). One of
the letters is the work of Novatian, the first Christian writer to
use the Latin language at Rome. But even at this epoch, Greek is
still the official language: the original epitaphs of the popes
are still composed in Greek. We have those of Anterus, of Fabian,
of Lucius, of Gaius, and the series brings us down to 296. That of
Cornelius, which is in Latin, seems to be later than the third
century. In Africa Latin was always the literary language of
Christianity, although Punic was still used for preaching in the
time of St. Augustine, and some even preached in the Berber
language. These latter, however, had no literature; cultivated
persons, as well as the cosmopolitan population of the seaports
used Greek. The oldest Christian document of Africa, the Acts of
the Scillitan Martyrs, was translated into Greek, as were some of
the works of Tertullian, perhaps by the author himself, and
certainly with the object of securing for them a wider diffusion.
The Acts of Sts. Perpetua and Felicitas, originally written in
Latin, were translated into Greek. In Spain all the known
documents are written in Latin, but they appear very late. The
Acts of St. Fructuosus, a martyr under Valerian, are attributed by
some critics to the third century. The first Latin Christian
document to which a quite certain date can be assigned is a
collection of the canons of the Council of Elvira, about 300.

Side by side with literary works, the Church produced writings
necessary to her life. In this category must be placed the most
ancient Christian documents written in Latin, the translations of
the Bible made either in Africa or in Italy. Beginning with the
second century, Latin translations of technical works written in
Greek became numerous treatises on medicine, botany, mathematics,
etc. These translations served a practical purpose, and were made
by professionals; consequently they had no literary merit and
aimed at an almost servile exactitude resulting in the retention
of many peculiarities of the original. Hellenisms, a very
questionable feature in the literary works of preceding centuries,
were frequent in these translations. The early Latin versions of
the Bible had the characteristics common to all texts of this
group; Hellenisms abounded in them and even Semitisms filtered in
through the Greek. In the fourth century, when St. Jerome made his
new Latin version of the Scriptures, the partisans of the older
versions to justify their opposition praised loudly the harsh
fidelity of these inelegant translations (Augustine, "De doct.
christ.", II, xv, in P. L., XXXIV 46). These versions no doubt
exercised great influence upon the imagination and the style of
Christian writers, but it was an influence rather of invention and
inspiration than of expression. The incorrectness and barbarism of
the Fathers have been much exaggerated: profounder knowledge of
the Latin language and its history has shown that they used the
language of their time, and that in this respect there is no
difference worth mentioning between them and their pagan
contemporaries. No doubt some of them were men of defective
education, writers of incorrect prose and popular verse, but there
have been such in every age; the author of the "Bellum Hispaniae",
the historian Justinus, Vitruvius, are profane authors who cared
little for purity or elegance of style. Tertullian, the Christian
author most frequently accused of barbarism, for his time, is by
no means incorrect. He possesses strong creative power, and his
freedom is mostly in the matter of vocabulary; he either invents
new words or uses old ones in very novel ways. His style is bold;
his imagination and his passion light it up with figures at times
incoherent and in bad taste; but his syntax contains, it may be
said almost no innovations. He multiplies constructions as yet
rare and adds new constructions, but he always respects the genius
of the language. His work contains no Semitisms, and the
Hellenisms which his critics have pointed out in it are neither
frequent nor without warrant in the usage of his day. This, of
course, does not apply to his express or implicit citations from
the Bible. At the other extreme, chronologically, of Latin
Christian literary development, a pope like Gelasius gives
evidence of considerable classical culture; his language is novel
chiefly in its choice of words, but many of these neoterisms were
in his time no longer new and had their origin in the technical
usage of the Church and the Roman law.

In the historical development of Christian Latin literature three
periods may be distinguished:

�  that of the Apologists, lasting until the fourth century,

�  that of the Fathers of the Church (the fourth century); and

�  the Gallo-Roman period.

The first period is characterized by its dominant tone of apology,
or defence of the Christian religion. In fact, most of the
earliest Christian writers wrote apologies, e. g. Minucius Felix,
Tertullian, Arnobius, Lactantius. In face of paganism and the
Roman State they plead the cause of Christianity, and they do it
each according to his character. and each with his own line of
arguments. Minucius Felix represents, in a way, the transition
from the traditional philosopher of the cultured classes to the
popular preaching of Christianity and in this approaches closely
to some of the Greek apologists converts from philosophy to
Christianity, e. g. Justin, seeking at the same time to harmonize
their inherited mental culture with their faith. Even the dialogue
form they use is meant to retain the reader in that philosophic
world with which Plato and Cicero had familiarized him.
Tertullian, perhaps identical with the jurisconsult mentioned in
the "Digest" of Justinian lifts out boldest arguments of a legal
order and examines the juridical bases of the persecution.
Arnobius, rhetorician and philosopher, is first and foremost a
product of the school; he exhibits the resources of amplification
and displays the erudition of a scholiast. Lactantius philosopher,
only more profoundly penetrated by Christianity than were the
earlier apologists. He is also very particular about the
maintenance of social order, good government, and the State. His
writings are well adapted to a society that has recently been
shaken by a long period of anarchy and is in process of
reconstruction. In this way the early Christian Latin literature
presents all the varieties of apology. There are here mentioned
only those apologies which formally present themselves as such, to
them should be added some of St. Cyprian's works -- the treatise
on idols, and "Ad Donatum", the letter to Demetrianus, works which
attack special weaknesses of polytheism, the vices of pagan
society, or discuss the calamities of Rome.

These writers do not confine their activity to controversy with
the pagans. The extent and variety of the works of Tertullian and
St. Cyprian are well known. At Rome, Novatian touches, in his
treatises, on questions which more particularly interest the
faithful, their religious life or their beliefs. Victorinus of
Pettau, in the mountains of Styria, introduced biblical exegesis
into Latin literature, and began that series of commentaries on
the Apocalypse which so influenced the imagination, and echoed so
powerfully among the artists and writers, of the Middle Ages. The
same visions were embodied in the verses of Commodianus, the first
Christian poet, but in a second work he took his place among the
apologists and combatted paganism. In their other works St.
Cyprian and Tertullian kept always in view the apologetic
interest; indeed, this is the most noteworthy trait of the early
Christian Latin literature. We may call attention here to another
characteristic: many Latin writers of this time, Minucius Felix,
Tertullian, Cyprian, Arnobius, perhaps Commodianus, were Africans,
for which peculiarity two causes may be assigned. On the one hand,
Gaul and Italy had long employed the Greek Language, while Spain
was backward, and Christianity developed there but feebly at this
period. On the other hand, Africa had become a centre of profane
literature; Apuleius, the greatest profane writer of the age, was
an African; Carthage possessed a celebrated school which is called
in one inscription by the same name, studium, which was afterwards
applied to the medieval universities. There is no doubt the second
was the more potent cause.

The second period of Christian literature covers broadly speaking,
the fourth century -- i.e. from the Edict of Milan (313) to the
death of St. Jerome (420). It was then that the great writers of
the Church flourished, those known permanently as "the Fathers",
both West and East. Though the term patristic belongs to the whole
period here under consideration, as contrasted with the term
scholastic applied to the Middle Ages, it may nevertheless be
restricted to the period we are now describing. Literary
productiveness was no longer the almost exclusive privilege of one
country; it was spread throughout all the Roman West.
Notwithstanding this diffusion, all the Latin writers are closely
related; there are no national schools, the writers and their
works are all caught up in the general current of church history.
There is truly a Christian West, all parts of which possess nearly
the same importance, and are closely united in spite of
differences of climate and temperament. And this West is beginning
to stand off from the Greek East, which tends to follow its own
particular path. The causes of Western cohesion were various but
it was principally rooted in community of interests and the
similarity of questions arising immediately after the peace of the
Church. At the beginning of the fourth century Christological
problems agitated the Church. The West came to the aid of the
orthodox communities of the East, but knew little of Arianism
until the Teutonic invasions. When the conflict concerning the use
of the basilicas at Milan arose, the Arians do not appear as the
people of Milan: they are Goths (Ambrose Ep. xii. 12, in P. L.,
XVI., 997). In the fourth century the great personages of the West
are champions of the faith of Nicaea: Hilary of Poitiers, Lucifer
of Cagliari, Phoebadius of Agen, Ambrose, Augustine. Nevertheless
the West has errors of its own:

�  Novatianism, a legacy from the preceding age;

�  Donatism in Africa;

�  Manichaeism, which came from the East, but developed chiefly in
Africa and Gaul;

�  Priscillianism. akin to Manichaeism, and the firstfruits of
Spanish mysticism.

Manichaeism has a complex character, and, in truth, appears to be
a distinct religion. All other errors of the West have a bearing
on discipline or morals, on practical life and do not arise from
intellectual speculation. Even in the Manichaean controversy moral
questions occupy a large place. Moreover, the characteristic and
most important heresy of the Latin countries bears upon a problem
of Christian psychology and life the reconciliation of human
liberty with the action of Divine grace. This problem, raised by
Pelagius, was solved by Augustine. Another characteristic of this
period is the universality of the gifts and the activity displayed
by its greatest writers: Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine are in
turn moralists, historians, and orators; Ambrose and Augustine are
poets; Augustine is the universal genius, not only of his own time
but of the Latin Church -- one of the greatest men of antiquity,
to whom Harnack, without exaggeration, has found none comparable
in ancient history except Plato. In him Christianity reached one
of the highest peaks of human thought.

This second period may be again subdivided into three generations.

�  First, the reign of Constantine after the peace of the Church
(313-37), when Juvencus composed the Gospel History (Historia
Evangelica) in verse; from the preceding period he had inherited
the influence of Hosius of Cordova.

�  Second, the time between the death of Constantine and the
accession of Theodosius (337-79). In this generation apologetic
assumes an aggressive tone with Firmicus Maternus and appeals to
the secular arm against paganism; Christianity, by many held
responsible for the gathering misfortunes of the empire, is
defended by Augustine in "The City of God"; Ambrose and Prudentius
protest against the retention of paganism in official ceremonies;
great bishops like Hilary of Poitiers, Zeno of Verona, Optatus of
Mileve, Lucifer of Cagliari, Eusebius of Vercelli, take part in
the controversies of the day; Marius Victorinus combines the
erudition of a philologian with the subtlety of a theologian.

�  The third generation was that of St. Jerome, under Theodosius
and his son (380-420), a generation rich in intellect -- Ambrose,
Prudentius, Sulpicius Severus, Rufinus, Jerome, Paulinus of Nola,
Augustine, the secondary poets Proba, Damasus, Cyprian; the
Spanish theologians Pacianus and Gregory of Elvira; Philastrius of
Brescia and Phoebadius of Agen. The long-lived Augustine
overlapped this period, at the same time by the sheer force of
genius he is both the last great thinker of antiquity in the West
and the great thinker of the Middle Ages.

Early Christian literature in the West may be regarded as ending
with the accession of Theodoric (408). Thenceforth until the
Carlovingian renascence there arises in the various barbarian
kingdoms a literature which has for its chief object- the
education of the new-comers and the transmission of some of the
ancient culture into their new civilization. This brings us to the
last of our three periods? which may conveniently be called the
Gallo-Roman, and comprises about two generations, from 420 to 493.
It is dominated by one school, that of Lerins, but already the
splintering of the old social and political unity is at hand in
the new barbarian nationalities rooted on provincial soil. In
Augustine's old age, and after his death, a few disciples and
partisans of his teachings remain: Orosius, a Spaniard; Prosper of
Aquitaine, a Gallo-Roman; Marius Mercator, an African. Later
Victor Vitensis tells the story of the Vandal persecution, in him
Roman Africa, overrun by barbarians furnishes almost the only
writer of the second half of the century. To the list of African
authors must be added the names of two bishops of Mauretania
mentioned by Gennadius--Victor and Voconius. In Gaul a pleiad of
writers and theologians develops at Lerins or within the radius of
that monastery's influence -- Cassian, Honoratus, Eucherius of
Lyons, Vincent of Lerins, Hilary of Arles, Valerian of Cemelium,
Salvianus, Faustus of Riez, Gennadius. Here we might mention
Arnobius the Younger, and the author of the "Praedestinatus". No
literary movement in the West, before Charlemagne, was so
important or so prolonged. Gaul was then truly the scene of
manifold intellectual activity; in addition to the writers of
Lerins. that country reckons one polygrapher, Sidonius
Apollinaris, one philosopher, Claudian Mamertus, several poets,
Claudius Marius Victor, Prosper, Orientius. Paulinus of Pella,
Paulinus of xxxx, perhaps also Caelius Sedulius. Against this
array Italy can offer only two preachers, St. Peter Chrysologus
and Maximus of Turin, and one great pope, Leo I, still greater by
his deeds than by his writings, whose name recalls a new influence
of the Church of Rome on the intellectual movement of the time,
but a juridical rather than a literary influence. Early in the
fifth century Innocent I appears to have been occupied with a
first compilation of the canon law. He and his successors
intervene in ecclesiastical affairs with letters, some of which
have the size and scope of veritable treatises. Spain is still
poorer than Italy, even counting Orosius (already mentioned among
the disciples of Augustine) and the chronicler Hydatius. The
island peoples, which in the preceding period had produced the
heresiarch Pelagius, deserve mention at this date also for the
works attributed to St. Patrick.

A first general characteristic of Christian literature, common to
both East and West, is the space it devotes to bibliographical
questions, and the importance they assume. This fact is explained
by the very origins of Christianity: it is a religion not of one
book but of a collection of books, the date, source, authenticity,
and canonicity of which are matters which it is important to
determine. In Eusebius's "History of the Church" it is obvious
with what care he pursues the inquiry as to the books of Scripture
cited and recognized by his Christian predecessors. In this way
there grows up a habit of classifying documents and references,
and of describing in prefaces the nature of the several books. The
Bible is not the only object of these minute studies; every
important and complex work attracts the attention of editors. Let
it suffice to recall the formation of the collection of St.
Cyprian's letters and treatises, a more or less official catalogue
of which, the "Cheltenham Catalogue ", was drawn up in 359, after
a lengthy elaboration, the successive stages of which are still
traceable in several manuscripts. Questions of authenticity play a
large part in the dissensions of St. Jerome and Rufinus.
Apocryphal writings, fabricated in the interest of heresy,
engendered controversies between the Church and the heretical
sects. Another illustration of the same literary interest is to be
found in the inquiry, instituted at the end of the fourth century
as to the Canons of Sardica, called Canons of Nicaea. The
"Retractationes" of St. Augustine is a work unique in the history
of ancient bibliography, not to speak of its psychological
interest, a peculiar quality of all Christian literature in the
West.

In part, therefore, Christian Latin literature naturally assumes a
character of immediate utility. Catalogues are drawn up, lists of
bishops, lists of martyrs (Depositiones episcoporum et martyrum),
catalogues of cemeteries, later on church inventories,
"Provinciales", or lists of dioceses according to countries.
Besides these archive documents, in which we recognise an
imitation of Roman bureaucratic customs, certain literary genres
bear the same stamp. The accounts of pilgrimages have as much of
the guide-book as of the narrative in them. History had already
been reduced to a number of stereotyped scenes by the profane
masters, and had been incorporated, at Alexandria, in that
elementary literature which condensed all knowledge into a minimum
of dry formula. The "Chronicle" of St. Jerome, really only a
continuation of that of Eusebius, is in turn continued by a series
of special writers, and even a Sulpicius Severus betrays the
influence of the new form of chronicle. While in these departments
of literature the West but imitates the East, it follows at the
same time its own practical tendencies. Indeed, the Latin writers
make no pretence to originality, they take their materials from
their Eastern brethren. Five of them, Hilary, Jerome Ruffinus,
Cassian and Marius Mercator, have been described as hellenizing
Westerns. St. Ambrose is generally considered an authentic
representative of the Latin mind, and this is true of the bent of
his genius and of his exercise of authority as the head of a
Church; but no one, perhaps, translated more frequently from the
Greek writers, or did it with more spirit or more care. It is an
acknowledged fact that his exegesis is taken from St. Basil's
"Hexaemeron" and from a series of treatises on Genesis by Philo.
The same holds good in respect to his dogmatic or mystical
treatises: the "De mysteriis", written in his last years, before
397, is largely taken from Cyril of Jerusalem and a treatise of
Didymus of Alexandria published a little before 381, while the "De
Spiritu Sancto", written before Easter, 381, is a compilation from
Athanasius, Basil, Didymus, and Epiphanius, from a recension of
the "Catechesis" of Cyril made after 360, and from some
theological discourses which had been delivered by Gregory of
Nazianzus less than a twelvemonth previously (380). St. Augustine
is less erudite; his learning, if not his philosophy, is more
Latin than Greek. But it is the strength of his genius which makes
him the most original of the Latin Fathers.

One influence, however, no Christian writer in the West escaped,
that of the literary school and the literary tradition From the
beginning similarities of style with Fronto and Apuleius appear
numerous and distinctly perceptible in Minucius Felix, Tertullian
and Zeno of Verona; owing, perhaps, to the fact that all writers,
sacred and profane, adopted then the same fashions, particularly
imitation of the old Latin writers. To its traditional character
also, early Christian Latin literature owes two characteristics
more peculiarly its own: it is oratorical, and it is moral. From
remote antiquity there had existed a moral literature, more
exactly a preaching, which brought certain truths within the reach
of the masses, and by the character of its audience was compelled
to employ certain modes of expression. On this common ground the
Cynic and the Stoic philosophies had met since the third century
before Christ. From the still extant remains of Teles and Bion of
Borysthenes we can form some idea of this style of preaching. From
this source the satire of Horace borrows some of its themes. This
Cynico-Stoic morality finds expression also in the Greek of
Musonius, Epictetus, and some of Plutarch's treatises, likewise in
the Latin of Seneca's letters and opuscula. Its decidedly
oratorical character it owes to the fact that with the beginning
of the Christian era rhetoric became the sole form of literary
culture and of teaching. This tradition was perpetuated by the
Fathers. It furnished them the forms most needed for their work of
instruction: the letter, developed into a brief treati se or
reasoned exposition of opinion in the correspondence of Seneca
with Lucilius; the treatise in the shape of a discourse or as
Seneca again calls it a dialogus; lastly, the sermon itself, in
all its varieties of conference, funeral oration, and homily.
Indeed, homily (homilia) is a technical term of the Cynic and
Stoic moralists. And the aforesaid literary tradition not only
dominates the method of exposition, but also furnished some of the
themes developed, commonplaces of popular morality modified and
adapted, but still recognizable. Without repudiating this
indebtedness of Christian literature to pagan literary form, one
cannot help seeing in it a double character, oratorical and moral,
the peculiar stamp of Roman genius. This explains the constant
tone of exhortation which makes most works of ecclesiastical
writers so monotonous and tiresome. Exegesis borrows from Greek
and Jewish literature the system of allegory, but it lends to
these parables a moralizing and edifying turn. Hagiography finds
its models in biographies like those of Plutarch, but always
accentuates their panegyrical and moral tone. Some compensation is
to be found in the autobiographical writings, the personal
letters, memoirs, and confessions. In the "Confessions" of St.
Augustine we have a work the value of which is unique in the
literature of all time.

Although its oratorical methods are chosen with an eye to the
character of its public, there is nothing popular in the form of
Christian Latin literature, nothing even corresponding to the
freedom of the primitive translations of the Bible. In prose, the
work of Lucifer of Cagliari stands almost alone, and reveals the
aforesaid rhetorical influence almost as much as it does the
writer's incorrectness. The Christian poets might have wandered
somewhat more freely from the beaten path; nevertheless, they were
content to imitate classical poetry in an age when prosody owing
to the changes in pronunciation, had ceased to be a living thing.
Juvencus was more typical than Prudentius. The verses of the
Christian poets are as artificial as those of good scholars in our
own time. Commodianus, out of sheer ignorance, supplies the
defects of prosody with the tonic accent. Indeed, a new type of
rhythm, based on accent, was about to develop from the new
pronunciation; St. Augustine gives an example of it in his
"psalmus abecedarius." It may therefore be said that from the
point of view of literary history the work of the Latin Christian
writers is little more than a survival and a prolongation of the
early profane literature of Rome. It counts among its celebrities
some gifted writers and one of the noblest geniuses that humanity
has produced, St. Augustine.

PAUL LEJAY
Transcribed by Michael C. Tinkler


From the Catholic Encyclopedia, copyright � 1913 by the
Encyclopedia Press, Inc. Electronic version copyright � 1996 by
New Advent, Inc.

Taken from the New Advent Web Page (www.knight.org/advent).

This article is part of the Catholic Encyclopedia Project, an
effort aimed at placing the  entire Catholic Encyclopedia 1913
edition on the World Wide Web. The coordinator is Kevin Knight,
editor of the New Advent Catholic Website. If you would like to
contribute to this  worthwhile project, you can contact him by e-
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