[2] V. Catalogues in Becker; James (M. R.); Bateson; Surtees
Soc., vii.; etc.
And classical literature was received into the fold for a
like purpose. From the earliest days of Christendom
prejudice against the classics was widespread among
Christians. Such books, it was urged, had no connexion
with the Church or the Gospel; Ciceronianism was not the
road to God; Plato and Aristotle could not show the way
to happiness; Ovid, above all, was to be avoided.[1] In
dreams the poets took the form of demons; they must be
exorcised, for the soul did not profit by them. The precepts
--and for these the Christian sought--in the poems were
like serpents, born of the evil one; the characters, devils.
Some Christians sighed as they thrust the tempting books
away. Jerome frankly confesses he cared little for the
homely Latin of the Psalms, and much for Plautus and
Cicero. For a time he renounced them with other vanities
of the world; yet when going through the catacombs at
Rome, where the Apostles and Martyrs had their graves, a
fine line of Virgil thrills him; and later he instructed boys
at Bethlehem in Plautus, Terence, and Virgil, much to the
horror of Rufinus.
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