CHAPTER VIII CHRISTIAN PROSE I. Christianization of Style Christian literature from the second to the fifth century does not follow the lines of literary degener- acy which mark the course of pagan literature during the same period. For Christians had new matter, and new power to set it forth. There had come to them the gospel, which they had received according to their capacities and characters. This was new matter which Christian writers were to set forth as they un- derstood it. With the gospel, new elements of life had entered the natures of these men, renewing their powers, enlarging their personalities, giving them new points of view. A new message, a new faith, a new love, impelled them to exhort and instruct each other. Sometimes persecuted, usually despised and hated, they had constant need to justify before the world their faith and way of life. Thus, novel circumstances, a new message of ex- haustless import, a new manhood in those to whom the message had come, combined to create a new lit- erature. Its fulness and pertinency of contents con- trast strikingly with the emptiness and irrelevancy of contemporary pagan writings. From the second cen- 198
