Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/242

 224 THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE [chap. were at last formulated by the Eastern Church, and therefrom translated rudely to the Latin of the West. There was a kind of actually spoken Christian litera- ture, the growth of which was due to the inspiration of Christian teaching and Christian needs. This was the sermon, the Homily, that spoken combination of instruction and exhortation. The Christian themes were more real and living than the productions of pagan rhetoric ; but rhetoric gave the form in which Christian orators spoke. The great Greek preachers, Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, Chrysostom, were trained rhetoricians, who employed all the resources of rhet- oric in their florid sermons, which, however, con- tained much matter and were adapted to the situation and the needs of the congregation.^ The sermons of the great Latin preachers, Ambrose and Augustine, were less florid and more direct and practical.^ Yet they contain like rhetorical devices, or rather bear witness to a like rhetorical education of their authors. For example, antithesis with a rhyming ending to the contrasted parallels is a characteristic of Cyprian's sermons and of Augustine's. The great Western preachers did not spare pathetic appeals to the emo- tions of their hearers in a style and language depart- ing from the antique. The writings already noticed were by well-known men of dignified position in the Church. There re- mains to be mentioned another sort of prose literature 1 As, for example, Chrysostom's sermons to the people of Anti- och on the destruction of the emperor's images. 2 The practical moralizing of sermons of Pope Leo I in the middle of the fifth century is noticeable.