Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/28

 / 10 THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE [chap. Martianus Capella and the De Consolatione of Boe- thius. These pagan refashionings of the antique were not complicated by the introduction of anything foreign / to paganism. But a great mass of pagan culture and philosophy passed over into the Middle Ages modified or transformed in the works of Christians of the tran- sition centuries. In these Christian writings pagan and Christian thoughts sometimes are crudely mingled, as in the poems of Synesius. Again, the pagan and Christian elements are more closely united; instead of a mechanical mixture, as it were, there is a chemi- cal compound, the ingredients of which are altered by their union. The writings of Pseudo-Dionysius are an example : although their inspiration was Christian, their constructive principles were drawn from Neo- platonism. Greek philosophy likewise supplied the principles for the formulation of Christian dogma, and thus passed into Christianity and on into the Middle Ages. It was afterward to have a new career, when in scholasticism it was applied to prove and systematize dogmatic Christianity. Pagan philosophy was the mediaeval storehouse of reason. Finally, ele- ments of paganism survive, sometimes as vague and sometimes as definite influences in predominantly Christian works ; as, for example, the writings of the Church Fathers. Pagan literary form survived in early Christian prose literature; but here again the transition from pagan to Christian and mediaeval form is noticeable. Equally interesting is the passage of the antique forms from pagan into Christian poetry ; and then most strik-