Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/240

 222 THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE [chap. work of the transition period, and one that gave the form for mediseval conceptions of ancient history. Other Christians had written history before Orosius ; as, for instance, Lactantius, also with apologetic aims, adversum paganos. The Greek church historian, Euse- bius, had composed a history, to show the dignity and antiquity of the Jewish race and the Mosaic teaching, as compared with heathen culture. Jerome trans- lated this, and continued it to his own time. Such writings were narrative arguments for Christianity and its sacred prefigurement in Judaism. With some* what similar purpose, Jerome wrote his De Viris Illus- trihuSy or short accounts of illustrious Christians, in order to show the pagans that the Church was not unlettered, but had its philosophers and scholars. The strain of narrative glorification of the Christian Church is taken up by Jerome's friend and enemy, Rufinus, the diligent translator of Greek Christian writings. His Historia ecdesiastica was an abbrevi- ated rendering of Eusebius' Church History ; while a more original compilation was his Vitae Patrum or Historia eremita, which he wrote to commemorate the wonders of ascetic piety seen by him in Egypt. Sulpicius Severus is another historian of the early part of the fifth century. His classic elegance of language contrasts strangely with the transitional and mediaeval character of the substance of his work. His CJironica, or Historia sacra, a chronological history of Christians and of the Jews regarded as their forerun- ners, does not appear to have been popular ; but his Vita Sancti Martini was to be one of the most widely read books in the Middle Ages. Its style was easy,