Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/25

 r i] INTRODUCTION 7 conscious, — a conflict between the new spirit of Chris- tianity, with its inspirations, its infinite reaches and its requirements of expression, and the antique culture, its tastes and aversions, and its definite literary and artistic rules and forms. In the fourth and fifth centuries great works of Christian theology and polemics were produced, as well as writings more properly literary, both poetry and prose, and also works of art. The Christian authors had renounced the pagan religion, they condemned its idolatry, some of them disapproved pagan literature. But one and all were educated in standards of artistic taste and principles of literary composition which were the fruit of pagan culture. They knew no other can- ons to follow when they tried for literary excellence. Therefore they could not but endeavor to give their Christian writings the excellences which had distin- guished the antique pagan literature and art. But these classic rules were profoundly irreconcilable with the spirit and demands of the new Christian matter, as may be readily seen in Christian poetry ; antique form and metre were not suited to Christian feeling, and the Christian soul did not reach full poetic expres- sion until it abandoned classic forms and created new ones. As for Christian art, the technical skill and principles of composition inherited from the antique were its foundations and its first source of excellence ; these aided vastly more than they retarded. Never- theless in architecture, sculpture, and painting, the Christian spirit reaches its full expression only in the Middle Ages when the classic heritage has been for- gotten or abandoned.