Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/219

 viii] CHRISTIANIZED STYLE 201 Epistles, the Apocalypse, are as un-Hellenic as any- thing could be and be written in Greek.^ Formlessness and absence of the rhetorician's art do not characterize Christian literature so markedly after the middle of the second century. Educated men were joining the circles of believers; and education meant primarily the study of rhetoric. These men did not lay aside their education. Moreover, the necessity of writing in a style that would appeal to the educated pagan world was tacitly recognized in prac- tice, however vehemently Christians disavowed the tricks of rhetoric* From the fourth century onward, the Church writers frequently insist that all matters pertaining to the faith and to the edification of the faithful should be set forth in simple style without rhetoric or grammatical fastidiousness. It was never- theless asserted that, as against heretics and other falsifiers of truth, the champion of the faith should not be unskilled in the use of his weapons, but avail him- self of all resources at his command.^ 1 Cf. generally, Norden, Antike Kunstprosa, pp. 479-512. 2 The manner and form of the rhetorician's productions were part of the time. Christians might, without conscious imitation, cast their thoughts in like forms. For example, there has been found a likeness (Hatch, op. cit., p. 90) between the Life of Apollonius and the Clementine Recognitions, a production probably of the third century, in which the pseudo-Roman Clement tells of his accom- panying the Apostle Peter on his journeyings, and of Peter's teach- ings, and especially of the mighty contests, waged in public, between Peter and the arch-deceiver Simon Magus, whom the Apostle pursues from city to city. and others insisting upon a simple open style (e.g., Basil, Ep. 339; Migne, Patr. Or., 32, col. 10^; Jerome, Ep. 21, 42, Ad Damasum ;
 * See Augustine, De doctrina Christiana, IV, 2, 3. This passage,