Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/30

 12 THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE [chap. writings, both Greek and Latin, needed the recasting of the transition period to adapt them to mediaeval compre- hension. Justin Martyr, Minucius Felix, and the great Tertullian were not to the mediaeval taste. The works of the Alexandrians, Clement and Origen, never became intelligible to the Roman-minded West. Greek Chris- tian writers of the fourth century drew largely from and imaginative. It was actual in so far as the saint imitated the Biblical characters, and reproduced in his own life features of their careers; it was imaginative as his " legend " went beyond the fact in likening his life to theirs. The imaginative side of the process was largely occupied with the miracles which faithful tradition readily ascribed to its hero in making his life like that of Biblical persons. Otherwise, in this conformation of lives of saints to the prevalent conceptions of ancient types, it is difficult to distinguish the actual from the imaginative. The great mediaeval instance is the life of Francis of Assisi, which that sweetest of saints conformed so closely to the life of his master Christ, report and tradition adding further points of likeness. Similarly, Benedict fulfilled the precepts of Scripture, and conformed his life to his understanding of Biblical examples. Tradition carries out his endeavor for him, till the writer of his legend, Gregory, consciously finds in his hero's career a catholic inclusion of the deeds of scriptural saints. In the Dialogues, after Gregory has been telling the marvellous deeds of Benedict, his in- terlocutor, the Deacon Peter, answers and exclaims: "Wonderful and astonishing is what you relate. For in the water brought forth from the rock (i.e. by Benedict) I see Moses, in the iron which returned from the bottom of the lake I see Elisha (2 Kings vi. 7), in the running upon the water I see Peter, in the obedience of the raven I see Elijah (1 Kings xvii. 6), and in his grief for his dead enemy I see David (1 Kings i. 11). That man, as I consider him, was full of the spirit of all the just" (Gregorius Magnus, Dialogi, II, 8. Quoted and expanded by Odo of Cluny, Migne, Pair. Lat., 133, col. 724.) The rest of the second book contains other miracles like those told in the Bible. The life of a later saint may also follow earlier monastic types. Francis kisses the wounds of lepers, as Martin of Tours had done. See Sulpicius Severus, Vita S. Martini.