Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/221

vm] CHRISTIANIZED STYLE 203 The changes in Latin style and diction between Cicero and Augustine were not entirely due to Chris- tian writers. Apuleius and Petronius had broken with the classical tradition, as preserved by Quin- tilian. So had at least one pagan poem, the Pervi- gilium Veneris. The language was loosening from its classic balance and stately self-control; it was becoming flexible in a way pointing to the later Christian changes. These innovations within the field of pagan literature were due to the writers who had something living to express. It is the well-bred emptiness of a Symmachus that at the very end is found preserving the old form.^ In the conflict between the classical style and the innovations, not all Christian writers were on the same side. The division is marked in the two earli- est Latin Christian authors : Minucius Felix skil- fully maintains classical form ; Tertullian forcefully develops a Christian style. The former introduces no novel idiom ; the latter was the first creator of a Christian Latin diction. He translated Greek words into new-coined Latin words, and made over Greek phrases into strange Latin equivalents.^ Even more largely and more fruitfully he drew from the spoken Latin of the people, the Sermo Plebeius. The lan- guage of literature, fashioned under Greek influ- ence, was artificial, and had but cramped powers of Antiquistlma SpeetUum Per/ectUmis, V, 81, and Vin, 96, 96, ed. Sabatier (1898). ^ On Symmachus, see Teoffel-Schwabe, Oetch. des R6tn. Lit., $425. 3 Cf. Norden, Antike Kurutproia, 59S-S9B, 606-615.