LATIN LITERATURE
BY
J. W. MACKAIL
III
THE EMPIRE.
VI.
EARLY LATIN CHRISTIANITY: MINUCIUS FELIX, TERTULLIAN, LACTANTIUS.
Next Section - Tertullian
The new religion was long in adapting itself to literary form; and if,
between the era of the Antonines and that of Diocletian, a century passes
in which all the important literature is Christian, this is rather due to
the general decay of art and letters, than to any high literary quality
in the earlier patristic writing. Christianity began among the lower
classes, and in the Greek-speaking provinces of the Empire; after it
reached Rome, and was diffused through the Western provinces, it remained
for a long time a somewhat obscure sect, confined, in the first instance,
to the small Jewish or Graeco-Asiatic colonies which were to be found in
all centres of commerce, and spreading from them among the uneducated
urban populations. The persecution of Nero was directed against obscure
people, vaguely known as a sort of Jews, and the martyrdom of the two
great apostles was an incident that passed without remark and almost
without notice. Tacitus dismisses the Christians in a few careless words,
and evidently classes the new religion with other base Oriental
superstitions as hardly worth serious mention. The well-known
correspondence between Pliny and Trajan, on the subject of the repressive
measures to be taken against the Christians of Bithynia, indicates that
Christianity had, by the beginning of the second century, taken a large
and firm footing in the Eastern provinces; but it is not till a good many
years later that we have any certain indication of its obtaining a hold
on the educated classes. The legend of the conversion of Statius seems to
be of purely mediaeval origin. Flavius Clemens, the cousin of the Emperor
Domitian, executed on the ground of "atheism" during the year of his
consulship, is claimed, though without certainty, as the earliest
Christian martyr of high rank. Even in the middle of the second century,
the Church of Rome mainly consisted of people who could barely speak or
write Latin. The Muratorian fragment, the earliest Latin Christian
document, which general opinion dates within a few years of the death of
Marcus Aurelius, and which is part of an extremely important official
list of canonical writings issued by the authority of the Roman Church,
is barbarous in construction and diction. It is in the reign of Commodus,
amid the wreck of all other literature, that we come on the first
Christian authors. Victor, Bishop of Rome from the year 186, is mentioned
by Jerome as the first author of theological treatises in Latin; taken
together with his attempt to excommunicate the Asiatic Churches on the
question, already a burning one, of the proper date of keeping Easter,
this shows that the Latin Church was now gaining independent force and
vitality.
Two main streams may be traced in the Christian literature which begins
with the reign of Commodus. On the one hand, there is what may be called
the African school, writing in the new Latin; on the other, the Italian
school, which attempted to mould classical Latin to Christian use. The
former bears a close affinity in style to Apuleius, or, rather, to the
movement of which Apuleius was the most remarkable product; the latter
succeeds to Quintilian and his contemporaries as the second impulse of
Ciceronianism. The two opposing methods appear at their sharpest contrast
in the earliest authors of each, Tertullian and Minucius Felix. The vast
preponderance of the former, alike in volume of production and fire of
eloquence, offers a suggestive parallel to the comparative importance of
the two schools in the history of ecclesiastical Latin. Throughout the
third and fourth centuries the African school continues to predominate,
but it takes upon itself more of the classical finish, and tames the
first ferocity of its early manner. Cyprian inclines more to the style of
Tertullian; Lactantius, "the Christian Cicero," reverts strongly towards
the classical forms: and finally, towards the end of the fourth century,
the two languages are combined by Augustine, in proportions which,
throughout the Middle Ages, form the accepted type of the language of
Latin Christianity.
In a fine passage at the opening of the fifth book of his "Institutes of
Divinity," Lactantius regrets the imperfect literary support given to
Christianity by his two eminent predecessors. The obscurity and harshness
of Tertullian, he says (and to this may be added his Montanism, which
fluctuated on the edge of heresy), prevent him from being read or
esteemed as widely as his great literary power deserves; while Minucius,
in his single treatise, the "Octavius," gave a brilliant specimen of his
grace and power as a Christian apologist, but did not carry out the task
to its full scope. This last treatise is, indeed, of unique interest, not
only as a fine, if partial, vindication of the new religion, but as the
single writing of the age, Christian or pagan, which in style and diction
follows the classical tradition, and almost reaches the classical
standard. As to the life of its author, nothing is known beyond the
scanty indications given in the treatise itself. Even his date is not
wholly certain, and, while the reign of Commodus is his most probable
period, Jerome appears to allude to him as later than Tertullian, and
some modern critics incline to place the work in the reign of Alexander
Severus. The "Octavius" is a dialogue in the Ciceronian manner, showing
especially a close study of the "De Natura Deorum". A brief and graceful
introduction gives an account of the scene of the dialogue. The narrator,
with his two friends, Octavius and Caecilius, the former a Christian, the
latter a somewhat wavering adherent of the old faith, are taking a walk
on the beach near Ostia on a beautiful autumn morning, watching the
little waves lapping on the sand, and boys playing duck-and-drake with
pieces of tile, when Caecilius kisses his hand, in the ordinary pagan
usage, to an image of Serapis which they pass. The incident draws them on
to a theological discussion. Caecilius sets forth the argument against
Christianity in detail, and Octavius replies to him point by point; at
the end, Caecilius professes himself overcome, and declares his adhesion
to the faith of his friend. Both in the attack and in the defence it is
only the rational side of the new doctrine which is at issue. The unity
of God, the resurrection of the body, and retribution in a future state,
make up the sum of Christianity as it is presented. The name of Christ is
not once mentioned, nor is his divinity directly asserted. There is no
allusion to the sacraments, or to the doctrine of the Redemption; and
Octavius neither quotes from nor refers to the writings of either Old or
New Testament. Among early Christian writings, this method of treatment
is unexampled elsewhere. The work is an attempt to present the new
religion to educated opinion as a reasonable philosophic system; as we
read it, we might be in the middle of the eighteenth century. With this
temperate rationalism is combined a clearness and purity of diction,
founded on the Ciceronian style, but without Cicero's sumptuousness of
structure, that recalls the best prose of the Silver Age.
The author of the "Octavius" was a lawyer, who practised in the Roman
courts. The literary influence of Quintilian no doubt lasted longer among
the legal profession, for whose guidance he primarily wrote, than among
the grammarians and journalists, who represent in this age the general
tendency of the world of letters. But even in the legal profession the
new Latin had established itself, and, except in the capital, seems to
have almost driven out the classical manner. Its most remarkable exponent
among Christian writers was, up to the time of his conversion, a pleader
in the Carthaginian law-courts.
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