vm] CHRISTIAN PROSE 211 Fathers. They do not fall within any one literary category, but reflect the activities of the leaders of the Christian world. They include polemic writings and doctrinal treatises, and all manner of epistles called forth by the situation of the Church at large, or of some particular community, or of the writer or recipient. They compare with the letters of pagans of the same period as Christian literature in general compares with the last centuries of pagan literature ; the one has novel substance, the substance of the other is exhausted. Christian letters discuss matters vitally affecting Christian communities, or disclose the actual situation of affairs ; pagan letters are apt to be empty and formal, like the letters of Symmachus, for example, telling little about anything. The careers and characters of the Latin Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries are disclosed in their correspondence. For example, the scope of Augustine's activities appears as, in his letters from Hippo, he writes polemics, answers questions, informs, instructs, and admonishes. Some two hundred and fifty of them still exist, covering the years from 387 to 429. They are of several classes, official letters, sometimes written in the name of a synod, letters upon topics of Christian exegesis and theology, letters of pastoral exhortation, |)ersonal letters of an intimate and confi- dential character, which are least numerous of all. But the best Christian letter- writer was Jerome, whose letters from Palestine were a power making for monasticism, and a power in all matters of Chris- tian learning. His letters, like Cicero's, are real letters, reflecting his personality and his mood as
