Classical Latin Literature in the Church
I. Early Period
This article deals only with the relations of the classical
literature, chiefly Latin, to the Catholic Church. When
Christianity at first appeared in Rome the instruction of youth
was largely confined to the study of poets and historians, chief
among whom at a very early date appear Horace and Virgil. Until
the peace of the Church, early in the fourth century, the value
and use of classical studies were, of course, not even questioned.
The new converts to Christianity brought with them such mental
cultivation as they had received while pagans. Their knowledge of
mythology and ancient traditions they used as a means of attacking
paganism; their acquirements as orators and writers were placed at
the service of their new Faith. They could not conceive how a
thorough education could be obtained under conditions other than
those under which they had grown up. Tertullian forbade Christians
to teach, but admitted that school attendance by Christian pupils
was unavoidable (De idol., 10). In fact, his rigorous views were
not carried out even so far as the prohibition of teaching is
concerned. Arnobius taught rhetoric, and was very proud of having
numerous Christian colleagues (Adv. nat., II, 4). One of his
disciples was Lactantius, himself a rhetorician and imperial
professor at Nicomedia. Among the martyrs, we meet with school
teachers like Cassianus (Prudent., "Perist.", 9) whom his pupils
stabbed to death with a stylus; Gorgonis, another humble teacher,
whose epitaph in the Roman catacombs dates from the third century
(De Rossi, "Roma Sotterranea", II, 810). During the fourth century
however, there sprang up an opposition between profane literature
and the Bible. This opposition is condensed in the accepted
translation, dating from St. Jerome, of Psalm lxx, 15-16, "Quoniam
non cognovi litteraturam, introibo in potentias Domini; Domine
memorabor justitiae tuae solius". One of the variants of the Greek
text (grammatias for pragmatias) was perpetuated in this
translation. The opposition between Divine justice, i.e., the Law
and literature became gradually an accepted Christian idea.
The persecution of Julian led Christian writers to express more
definitely their views on the subject. It produced little effect
in the West. However, Marius Victorinus, one of the most
distinguished professors in Rome, chose "to give up the idle talk
of the school rather than dens the Word of God" (Augustine
"Conf.", VIII, 5). Thenceforth, Christians studied more closely
and more appreciatively their own literature, i.e., the Biblical
writings. St Jerome discovers therein a Horace, a Catullus, an
Alcaeus (Epist. 30). In his "De doctrina christiana" St. Augustine
shows how the Scriptures could be turned to account for the study
of eloquence; he analyses periods of the Prophet Amos, of St.
Paul, and shows excellent examples of rhetorical figures in the
Pauline Epistles (Doctr. chr., IV, 6-7). The Church, therefore, it
seemed ought to have given up the study of pagan literature. She
did not do so. St. Augustine suggested his method only to those
who wished to become priests, and even for these he did mean to
make it obligatory. Men of less marked ability were to use the
ordinary method of instruction. The "De doctrina christiana" was
written in the year 427, at which time his advancing age and the
increasing strictness of monastic life might have inclined
Augustine to a rigorous solution. St. Jerome's scruples and the
dream he relates in one of his letters are quite well known. In
this dream he saw angels scourging him and saying: "Thou art not a
Christian, thou art a Ciceronian" (Epist. 25). He finds fault with
ecclesiastics who find too keen a pleasure in the reading of
Virgil; he adds, nevertheless, that youths are indeed compelled to
study him (Epist. 21). In his quarrel with Rufinus he declares
that he has not read the profane authors since he left school,
"but I admit that I read them while there. Must I then drink the
waters of Lethe that I may forget?" (Adv. Ruf., I, 30).
In defending himself the first figure that occurs to him is taken
from mythology. What these eminent men desired was not so much the
separation but the combination of the treasures of profane
literature and of Christian truth. St. Jerome recalls the precept
of Deuteronomy: "If you desire to marry a captive, you must first
shave her head and eyebrows, shave the hair on her body and cut
her nails, so must it be done with profane literature, after
having removed all that was earthly and idolatrous, unite with her
and make her fruitful for the Lord" (Epist. 83). St. Augustine
uses another Biblical allegory. For him, the Christian who seeks
his knowledge in the pagan authors resembles the Israelites who
despoil the Egyptians of their treasures in order to build the
tabernacle of God. As to St. Ambrose, he has no doubts whatever.
He quotes quite freely from Seneca, Virgil, and the "Consolatio"
of Servius Sulpicius. He accepts the earlier view handed down from
the Hebrew apologists to their Christian successors, viz., that
whatever is good in the literature of antiquity comes from the
Sacred Books. Pythagoras was a Jew or, at least, had read Moses.
The pagan poets owe their flashes of wisdom to David and Job.
Tatian, following earlier Jews had learnedly confirmed this view,
and it recurs, more or less developed, in the other Christian
apologists. In the West Minucius Felix gathered carefully into his
"Octavius" whatever seemed to show harmony by tween the new
doctrine and ancient learning. This was a convenient argument and
served more than one purpose.
But this concession presupposed that pagan studies were
subordinate to Christian truth, the "Hebraica veritas". In the
second book of his "De doctrina christiana", St. Augustine
explains how pagan classics lead to a more perfect apprehension of
the Scriptures, and are indeed an introduction to them. In this
sense St. Jerome, in a letter to Magnus, professor of eloquence at
Rome, recommends the use of profane authors; profane literature is
a captive (Epist. 85). Indeed, men neither dared nor were able to
do without classical teaching. Rhetoric continued to inspire a
kind of timid reverence. The panegyrists, for example, do not
trouble themselves about the emperor's religion, but addressed him
as pagans would a pagan and draw their literary embellishments
from mythology. Theodosius himself did not dare to exclude pagan
authors from the school. A professor like Ausonius pursued the
same methods as his pagan predecessors. Ennodius, deacon of Milan
under Theodoric and later Bishop of Pavia, inveighed against the
impious person who carried a statue of Minerva to a disorderly
house, and himself under pretext of an "epithalamium" wrote light
and trivial verses. It is true that Christian society at the time
of the barbarian invasions repudiated mythology and ancient
culture, but it did not venture to completely banish them. In the
meantime the public schools of antiquity were gradually closed.
Private teaching took their place but even that formed its pupils,
e.g. Sidonius Apollinaris, according to the traditional method.
Christian asceticism, however, developed a strong feeling against
secular studies. As early as the fourth century St. Martin of
Tours finds that men have better things to do than study. There
are lettered monks at Lerins, but their scholarship is a relic of
their early education, not acquired after their monastic
profession. The Rule of St. Benedict prescribes reading, it is
true, but only sacred reading. Gregory the Great condemns the
study of literature so far as bishops are concerned. Isidore of
Seville condenes all ancient culture into a few data gathered into
his withered herbarium known as the "Origines", just enough to
prevent all further study in the original sources. Cassiodorus
alone shows a far wider range and makes possible a deeper and
broader study of letters. His encyclopedic grasp of human
knowledge links him with the best literary tradition of pagan
antiquity. He planned a close union of secular and sacred science
whence ought to issue a complete and truly Christian method of
teaching. Unfortunately the invasions of the barbarians followed
and the Institutiones of Cassiodorus remained a mere project.
II. Medieval Period
At this period, i.e. about the middle of the sixth century, the
first indication of classical culture were seen in Britain and a
little later, towards the close of the century, in Ireland.
Thenceforth a growing literary movement appears in these islands.
The Irish, at first scholars and then teachers, create a culture
which the Anglo-Saxons develop. This culture places profane
literature and science at the service of theology and exegesis.
They seem to have devoted themselves chiefly to grammar, rhetoric,
and dialectics. Whence did the Irish monks draw the material of
their learning? It is quite unlikely that manuscripts had been
brought to the island between 350 and 450, to bring about very
much later a literary renaissance. The small ecclesiastical
schools almost everywhere preserved elementary teaching, reading
and writing. But Irish scholarship went far beyond that. During
the sixth and seventh centuries, manuscripts were still being
copied in continental Europe. The writing of this period is uncial
or semi-uncial. Even after eliminating fifth- century manuscripts
there still remains a fair number of manuscripts in this style of
writing. We find among these profane works practically useful
writings, glossaries, treatises on land-surveying, medicine, the
veterinary art, juridical commentaries. On the other hand, the
numerous ecclesiastical manuscripts prove the persistence of
certain scholarly traditions. The continuations of sacred studies
sufficed to bring about the Carlovingian revival. It was likewise
a purely ecclesiastical culture which in their turn the Irish
brought back to the continent in the sixth and seventh centuries.
The chief aim of these Irish monks was to preserve and develop
religious life; for literature as such they did nothing. When we
examine closely the scattered items of information, especially the
hagiological indications, their importance is peculiarly lessened,
for we find that the teaching in gouestion generally concerns
Scripture or theology. Even St. Columbanus does not seem to have
organized literary studies in his monasteries. The Irish monks had
a personal culture which they did not make any effort to diffuse,
for which remarkable fact two general reasons may be given. The
times were too barbarous and the Church of Gaul had too long a
road to travel to meet the Church of Ireland. Moreover, the
disciples of the Irish were men enamoured of ascetic
mortification, who shunned an evil world and sought a life of
prayer and penance. For such minds, beauty of language and verbal
rhythm were frivolous attractions. Then, too, the material
equipment of the Irish religious establishments in Gaul scarcely
admitted any other study than that of the Scriptures. Generally
these establishments were but a group of huts surrounding a small
chapel.
Thus, until Charlemagne and Alcuin, intellectual life was confined
to Great Britain and Ireland. It revised in Gaul with the eighth
century, when the classic Latin literature was again studied with
ardour This is not the place to treat of the Carlovingian
renaissance nor to attempt the history of the schools and studies
of the Middle Ages. It sill be sufficient to point out a few
facts. The study of classical texts for their own sake was at that
period very uncommon. The pagan authors were read as secondary to
Scripture and theology. Even towards the close of his life, Alcuin
forbade his monks to read Virgil. Statius is the favourite poet,
and, ere long, Ovid whose licentiousness is glossed over by
allegorical interpretation. Mediocre abstracts and compilations,
products of academic decadence, appear among the books frequently
read, e.g. Homerus latinus (Ilias latina), Dictys, Dares, the
distichs ascribed to Cato. Cicero is almost overlooked, and two
distinct personages are made of Tullius and Cicero. However, until
the thirteenth century the authors read and known are not a few in
number. At the close of the twelfth century, in the early years of
the University of Paris, the principal known authors are: Statius,
Virgil, Lucian, Juvenal, Horace Ovid (with exception of the erotic
poems and the satires), Sallust, Cicero, Martial, Petronius
(judged as combining useful information and dangerous passages)
Symmachus, Solinus, Sidonius Suetonius, Quintus Curtius, Justin
(known as Trogus Pompeius), Livy, the two Senecas (including the
tragedies), Donatus Priscian, Boethius, Quintilian, Euclid,
Ptolemy. In the thirteenth century the influence of Aristotle
restricted the field of reading.
There are, however, a few real Humanists among the medieval
writers. Einhard (770-840), Rabanus Maurus (776-856), the ablest
scholar of his time, and Walafrid Strabo (809-849) are men of
extensive and disinterested learning. Servatus Lupus, Abbot of
Ferri�res (805-862), in his quest for Latin manuscripts labours as
zealously as any scholar of the fifteenth century. At a later
period Latin literature is more or less felicitously represented
by such men as Remigius of Auxerre (d. 908), Gerbert (later Pope
Sylvester II d. 1003), Liutprand of Cremona (d. about 972), John
of Salisbury (1110-1180), Vincent of Beauvais (d. 1264), Roger
Bacon (d. 1294) . Naturally enough medieval Latin poetry drew its
inspiration from Latin poetry. Among the imitations must be
mentioned the works of Hroswitha (or Roswitha), Abbess of
Gandersheim (close of the tenth century), whom Virgil, Prudentius,
and Sedulius inspired to celebrate the acts of Otho the Great. She
is of particular interest in the history of the survival of Latin
literature, because of her comedies after the manner of Terence.
It has been said that she wished to cause the pagan author to be
totally forgotten, but so base a purpose is not reconcilable with
her known simplicity of character. A certain facility in the
dialogue and clearness of style do not offset the lack of ideas in
her writings, they exhibit only too clearly the fate of classical
culture in the Middle Ages. Hroswitha imitates Terence, indeed but
without understanding him, and in a ridiculous manner. The poems
on actual life of Hugh of Orleans known as "Primas" or
"Archipoeta" are far superior and betray genuine talent as well as
an intelligent grasp of Horace.
During the Middle Ages the Church preserved secular literature by
harboring and copying its works in monasteries, where valuable
libraries existed as early as the ninth century:
� in Italy, at Monte Casino (founded in 529), and at Bobbio
founded in 612 by Columbanus);
� in Germany at Saint Gall (614), Reichenau (794), Fulda (744),
Lorsch (763), Hersfeld (768), Corvey (822), Hirschau (8430);
� in France at St. Martin's of Tours (founded in 372, but later
restored), Fleury or Saint-Beno�t-sur-Loire (620), Ferri�res
(630), Corbie (662), Cluny (910).
The reforms of Cluny and later of Clairvaux were not favourable to
studies, as the chief aim of the reformers was to combat the
secular spirit and re-establish strict religious observances. This
influence is in harmony with the tendencies of scholasticism.
Consequently, from the twelfth century and especially the
thirteenth, the copying of manuscripts became a secular business,
a source of gain. The following is a list of the most ancient or
most useful manuscripts of the Latin classics for the Middle Ages:
� Eighth-ninth centuries: Cicero's Orations, Horace, the
philosopher Seneca, Martial.
� Ninth century: Terence, Lucretius, Cicero, Sallust, Livy, Ovid,
Lucan, Valerius-Maximus, Columella, Persius, Lucan, the
philosopher Seneca, Pliny the Elder, Quintus Curtius, the Thebaid
of Statius, Silius Italicus, Pliny the Younger, Juvenal, Tacitus,
Suetonius, Florus, Claudian.
� Ninth-Tenth centuries: Persius, Quintus Curtius, Caesar,
Cicero, Horace, Livy, Phaedrus, Persius, Lucan, the philosopher
Seneca, Valerius Flaccus, Martial, Justin, Ammianus Marcellinus.
� Tenth century: Caesar Catullus, Cicero, Sallust, Lio, Ovid,
Lucan, Persius, Quintus Curtius, Pliny the Elder, Quintilian
Statius, Juvenal.
� Eleventh century: Caesar, Sallust Livy, Ovid, Tacitus,
Apuleius.
� Thirteenth century: Cornelius Nepos, Propertius, Varro, "De
lingua latina".
This list, however, furnishes only incomplete information. An
author like Quintus Curtius is represented by numerous manuscripts
in every century; another, like Lucretius, was not copied anew
between the ninth century and the Renaissance. Moreover, it was
customary to compile manuscripts of epitomes and anthologies, some
of which have preserved the only extant fragments of ancient
authors. The teaching of grammar was very deficient; this may,
perhaps account for the backwardness of philological science in
the Middle Ages. Latin grammar is reduced to an abridgment of
Donatius, supplemented by the meagre commentaries of the teacher,
and replaced since the thirteenth century by the "Doctrinale" of
Alexander de Villedieu (de Villa Dei).
III. The Renaissance
The Renaissance brought to light the hidden treasures of the
Middle Ages. Prior to this period classical culture had been an
individual, isolated fact. From the fourteenth century on it
became collective and social. The attitude of the Church toward
this movement is too important to be treated within the brief
limits of this article (see HUMANISM; RENAISSANCE; LEO X; PIUS II;
etc). As to Latin studies, in particular, the Church continued to
influence very actively their development At the beginning of the
modern era Latin was the court language of sovereigns, notably of
the Italian chanceries. The Roman curia ranks with Florence and
Naples, among the first for the eminence, fame, and grace of its
Latinists. Poggio was a papal secretary. Bembo and Sadoleto became
cardinals. Schools and universities son yielded to the influence
of the Humanists. (see HUMANISM). In France, the Netherlands, and
Germany the study of the ancient classics was more or less openly
influenced by tendencies hostile to the Church and Christianity.
But the Jesuits soon made Latin the basis of their teaching,
organized the same in a systematic way and introduced compulsory
and daily construing of Cicero. The newly founded Louvain
University (1426) became a centre of Latin studies owing chiefly
to the Ecole du I,is founded in 1437 and especially to the Ecole
des Trois Langues (Greek Latin, Hebrew), opened in 1517. It was at
the Ecole du Lis that Jan van Pauteran (Despauterius) taught, the
author of a Latin grammar destined to survive two centuries, but
unfortunately too clearly dependent on Alexander de Villedieu's
above-mentioned "Doctrinale". In the seventeenth century Port
Royal introduced a few reforms in the method of teaching,
substituted French for Latin in the recitations, and added to the
programme of studies. But the general lines of education remained
the same.
In the nineteenth century, classical philology revived as a
historical science. The men who brought about this progress were
mainly Germans, Dutch, and English. The Catholic Church had no
share in this labour until towards the close of the century. In
the middle of the nineteenth century sprang up in France a
controversy of a pedagogical nature, concerning the use of the
Latin classics in Christian schools. Abbe Gaume insisted that
Christians, especially future priests, should obtain their
literary training from the reading and interpretation of the
Fathers of the Church, and he went so far as to call classical
education the canker-worm (ver rongeur) of modern society.
Dupanloup, superior of the Paris seminary of Notre Dame des
Champs, later Bishop of Orleans, took up the defence of the
classical authors whereupon there broke out a long polemical
controversy which belongs to the history of Catholic Liberalism.
Louis Veuillot answered Dupanloup, but the Holy See was silent and
the French bishops did not alter the curriculum of their "petits
seminaires" or preparatory schools for the clergy. Veuillot
withdrew from the discussion in 1852. D�bner edited a collection
of patristic texts graded as to serve all Christian schools from
the elementary to the upper classes. Less positive attempts were
made to introduce selections from the principal ecclesiastical
writers of Christian antiquity (Nourisson, for the state lycees
and colleges; Monier for the Catholic colleges). In Belgium
Guillaume urged the simultaneous comparative study of a Christian
and a pagan author. Both in Belgium and France the traditional use
of the pagan authors has held its own in most educational houses,
in this respect, the Jesuit schools and the government
institutions do not differ. In recent times attacks have been
aimed, not merely at pagan authors, but in general at all mental
training in Latin. The leaders of this new opposition are on the
one hand the so-called "practical" men, i. e., representatives of
the natural and applied sciences, and on the other declared
adversaries of the Catholic Church, many of whom hold the opinion
that the study of Latin makes men more ready to receive the
teachings of Faith. Once again therefore, the destinies of the
Church and of the Latin classics are brought into connection. On
this subject see the various articles of THE CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA
concerning schools, studies, education, the history of philology,
etc.
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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