Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/74

56 THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE [chap. which tyrants are exiles — haec patria est mihi ! * And, finally, the writer argues that blessedness and God are the summum bonum and are one and the same ; man gets blessedness by gaining divinitas. A Chris- tian heart might feel in this the emotion of the open- ing of Augustine's Confessions : " Thou hast made us towards thee, and unquiet are our hearts till they find rest in thee." All of these reasons conduced to give the Consolor Hon its great future. It presented the spirit of pagan ethics to the Middle Ages : and its office may be com- pared with that of the Imitatio Christi. That work also, in more beautiful and simple language, was a com- pendium, and likewise had its unity, its selfhood, in the author's intense feeling, which fused the thoughts and emotions of the saintly past into a devotional outpour of one Christian soul. II. Transmission of the Roman Law The passage of the Roman law over into the Mid- dle Ages, the modifications and corruptions suffered by it, and the manner of its appropriation by the Cel- tic and Germanic peoples, present analogies with the fortunes of other elements of classic culture. These races came in touch with Roman law when the great periods of its development were past. In the provinces 1 Lib. rv, metre 1. Lib. Ill, metre 12, sings the lyric tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, to teach that he who once sees the bright fount {fontem lucidum) and looks back, is lost, — a pagan story, but having its analogy with him who, putting his hand to the plough and looking back, is not fit for the kingdom of heaven.