into that universal mass of matter which we call the world.[1]
Augustine's word and his example sufficiently attest the fact that the Christian Faith constituted the primary intellectual interest with the Fathers. While not annihilating other activities of the mind, this dominant interest lowered their dignity by forcing them into a common subservience. Exerting its manifold energies in defining and building out the Faith, in protecting it from open attack or insidious corruption, it drew to its exigencies the whole strength of its votaries. There resulted the perfected organization of the Catholic Church and the production of a vast doctrinal literature. The latter may be characterized as constructive of dogma, theoretically interpretative of Scripture, and polemically directed against pagans, Jews, heretics or schismatics, as the case might be.
It was constructive of dogma through the intellectual necessity of apprehending the Faith in concepts and modes of reasoning accepted as valid by the Graeco-Roman world. In the dogmatic treatises emanating from the Hellenic East, the concepts and modes of reasoning were those of the later phases of Greek philosophy. Prominent examples are the De principiis of Origen or the Orationes of Athanasius against the Arians. For the Latin West, Tertullian's Adversus Marcionem or the treatises of Hilary and Augustine upon the Trinity serve for examples. The Western writings are distinguished from their Eastern kin by the entry of the juristic element, filling them with a mass of conceptions from the Roman Law.[2] They also develop a more searching psychology. In both of these respects, Tertullian and Augustine were the great creators.
Secondly, this literature, at least in theory, was interpretative or expository of Scripture. Undoubtedly Origen and Athanasius and Augustine approached the Faith with ideas formed from philosophical study and their own reflections; and their metaphysical and allegorical treatment of Scripture texts elicited a significance different from the
