Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/26

8 THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE [chap. In other respects classic knowledge deflected or em- barrassed the development of Christian thought. In- consistent elements from pagan metaphysics entered Christian theology. And pagan ethics for a time held Christian ethics from their true principles. This ap- pears, for instance, in the ethical writings of so pro- found a Christian as Ambrose. On the other hand, the works of his younger contemporary, Augustine, show the casting aside of pagan ethical reasoning and the creation of a veritable Christian scheme. If pagan form and substance thus hampered the Christian development, it may be inferred that Chris- tian productions were ill suited to the preservation of antique elements unchanged and uncorrupted. An- tique form is soon distorted in Christian literature, while the substantial elements of antique ethics and philosophy are often changed by the mixture of what is foreign to them, or are distorted through their appli- cation in schemes and to purposes alien to their nature. The larger Christian Latin poems from the time of Commodian afford examples of the distortion of an- tique form. Many of them, whatever may be their purpose or their topic, make an indiscriminate use of the hexameter or the elegiac metre, and disregard literary unity and pertinency at will. Examples of the misapplication of pagan substance may be found in the use of Stoical methods of reasoning as a frame for Christian ethics ; also in the use of Greek philoso- phy for the formulation of Christian dogma, or in the manner of employing certain parts of Aristotle in the early Middle Ages. And yet the somewhat distorted manner in which classical elements were used in Chris-