Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/125

 CHAPTER VI THB IDEAXS OF KNOWLEDGE, BEAUTY, LOYB The genius of Greece evolved and gave the world two principles of life, the love of knowledge and the love of beauty. They appear in Homer ; they were perfected in the classic Greek age. Through the Alex- andrian and later Hellenistic periods of mingled de- cadence and spiritual growth, these principles were active ; and then they were as leaven to the Latin race, though always changing with the times. The Chris- tian Fathers, with other classically educated men, rec- ognized them. And the manner in which they were modified in great Christian personalities, especially in those of the transition epoch, is of importance in trac- ing the juncture of antiquity with the Middle Ages. In the transition from the antique to the mediajval, the changes in the ideals of beauty, love, and knowl- edge are involved in the religious change from pagan- ism to Christianity. No sharp lines can be drawn between the degrees of modification undergone by various elements of antique culture in their passage to the Middle Ages, or between the transmission of pagan elements and the partial or complete substitution of Christian principles. Yet the preceding chapters have been gradually passing from the considera- tion of pagan elements subsisting scarcely modified 107