Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/266

 248 THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE [chaf. continually increasing volume of Christian story, or would consist of the sentiments and emotions which were deepening from generation to generation in Chris- tian souls. Holy Scripture could not be moulded anew to suit the needs of creative poetry in the way that the Greek and Roman poets recast the tales of pagan mythology. The canonical narratives remained indu- bitable facts authoritatively stated. Although they were interpreted both allegorically and literally, no one changed them. Original narrative Christian poetry was not written until the heroism of martyrs furnished material which the imaginative Christian memory might cherish reverently and hand on through that univer- salizing process which raises fact to poetry. The po- etic intention still would be to tell the truth, but the poet was not hampered in his truth-telling by sacred narrative.^ Somewhat analogous conditions affected and perhaps retarded the composition of Christian lyric poetry. The fundamental, as it were, theistic, emotional atti- tude of the Christian soul was already authoritatively 1 The first Christian narrative poems, which were creations and not paraphrases, were in Latin, the ballads of Prudentius upon the heroic careers of martyrs, composing his Peristephanon. To these we might add two hymns from his Cathemerinon ; IX, Hymnus omnis horae, and XII, Hymnus Epiphaniae, which are lyrical nar- rative poems with Biblical subjects. It was after his time that A Vitus wrote a veritable poem on the Fall of Man. This is the piece of Biblical narrative that has been most successfully treated in narrative poetry ; the brief Biblical account is suited to dramatic and narrative expansion. The subject-matter of the Old and New Testament narratives has lent itself more frequently to great art than to great poetry ; for the sacred story came down authorita- tively told, but not authoritatively illustrated.