Church History (Vol.1-3). J. H. Kurtz
Χριστὸς πάσχων, perhaps wrongly bearing his name, modelled on the tragedies of Euripides and in great part made up of Euripidean verses, is not without interest as the first Christian passion-play, and contains some beautiful passages; e.g. the lament of Mary; but it is on the whole insipid and confused. Nonnus of Panopolis, about A.D. 400, wrote a Παράφρασις ἐπικὴ τοῦ Εὐαγγ. κατὰ Ἰωάννην, somewhat more useful for textual criticism and archaeology, than likely to afford enjoyment as poetry. Of the poetical works of the Empress Eudocia, wife of Theodosius II., daughter of the pagan rhetorician Leontius of Athens, hence called Athenais (she died about the year 460), only fragments of their renderings in the Cyprian legends have come down to us. The loss of her Homero-centoes celebrated by Photius, i.e. reproductions of the biblical books of the New Testament in pure Homeric words and verses, is not perhaps to be very sorely lamented. On the other hand, the poetic description of the church of Sophia, built by Justinian I. and of the ambo of that church which Paulus Silentiarius left behind him, is not only of archaeological value, but also is not without poetic merit.
§ 48.6. Christian Latin Poetry reached its highest excellence in the composition of hymns (§ 59, 4). But also in the more ambitious forms of epic, didactic, panegyric, and hortatory poems, it has respectable representatives, especially in Spain and Gaul, whose excellence of workmanship during such a period of restlessness and confusion is truly wonderful. To the fourth century belongs the Spaniard Juvencus, about A.D. 330. His Hist. evangelica in 4 books, is the first Christian epic; a work of sublime simplicity, free of all bombast or rhetorical rant, which obtained for him the name of “the Christian Virgil.” His Liber in Genesin versifies in a similar manner the Mosaic history of the patriarchs. His countryman Prudentius, who died about A.D. 410, was a poet of the first rank, distinguished for depth of sensibility, glowing enthusiasm, high lyrical flow, and singular skill in versification. His Liber Cathemerinon consists of 12 hymns, for the 12 hours of the day, and his Liber Peristephanon, 14 hymns on the same number of saints who had won the martyr’s crown; his Apotheosis is an Anti-Arian glorification of Christ; the Hamartigenia treats of the origin of sin; the Psychomachia describes the conflict of the virtues and vices of the human soul; and his 2 bks. Contra Symmachum combat the views of Symmachus, referred to in § 42, 4.—In the fifth century flourished: Paulinus, bishop of Nola in Campania, who died in A.D. 431. He left behind him 30 poems, of which 13 celebrate in noble, enthusiastic language, the life of Felix of Nola, martyr during the Decian persecution. Coelius Sedulius, an Irishman (?), composed in smooth dignified verse the Life of Jesus, and the Mirabilia divina s. Opus paschale, so called from 1 Cor. v. 7 in 5 bks.; and a Collatio V. et N.T. in elegiac verse. The De libero arbitrio c. ingratos of the Gaul Prosper Aquitanicus lashes with poetic fury the thankless despisers of grace (§ 53, 5).—The most important poet of the sixth century was Venantius Fortunatus, bishop of Poitiers, Vita Martini, hymns, elegies, etc.
§ 48.7. In the National Syrian Church, the first place as a poet belongs to Ephraem [Ephraim], the Propheta Syrorum. In poetic endowment, lyrical flow, depth and intensity of feeling, he leaves all later writers far behind. Next to him stands Cyrillonas, about A.D. 400, a poet whose very name, until quite recently, was unknown, of whose poems six are extant, two being metrical homilies. Of Rabulas of Edessa, who died in A.D. 435, the notorious partisan of Cyril of Alexandria (§ 53, 3), and of Baläus, about A.D. 430, we possess only a number of liturgical odes, which are not altogether destitute of poetic merit. This cannot, however, be said of the poetic works of Isaac of Antioch, who died about A.D. 460, filled with frigid polemics against Nestorius and Eutyches, of which their Catholic editor (Opp. ed. G. Bickell, Giess., 1873 f.) has to confess they are thoroughly “insipid, flat and wearisome, and move backwards and forwards in endless tautologies.” Less empty and tiresome are the poetic effusions of the famous Jacob of Sarug, who died in A.D. 521; biblical stories, metrical homilies, hymns, etc. Most of the numerous liturgical odes are the compositions of unknown authors.
§ 48.8. The Legendary History of Cyprian.—At the basis of the poetic rendering of this legend in 3 bks. by the Empress Eudocia, about A.D. 440, lay three little works in prose, still extant in the Greek original and in various translations. In early youth Cyprian, impelled by an insatiable craving after knowledge, power and enjoyment, seeks to obtain all the wisdom of the Greeks, all the mysteries of the East, and for this purpose travels through Greece, Egypt, and Chaldæa. But when he gets all this he is not satisfied; he makes a compact with the devil, to whom he unreservedly surrenders himself, who in turn places at his disposal now a great multitude of demons, and promises to make him hereafter one of his chief princes. Then comes he to Antioch. There Aglaidas, an eminent heathen sophist, who in vain abandoned all to win the love of a maiden named Justina, who had taken vows of perpetual virginity, calls in his magical arts, in order thereby to gain the end so ardently desired. Cyprian enters into the affair all the more eagerly since he himself also meanwhile has entertained a strong passion for the fair maiden. But the demons sent by him, at last the devil himself, are forced to flee from her, through her calling on the name of Jesus and making the sign of the cross, and are obliged to own their powerlessness before the Christians’ God. Now Cyprian repents, repudiates his covenant with the devil, lays before an assembly of Antiochean Christians a confession inspired by the most profound despairing sorrow of the innumerable mischiefs wrought by him with the help of the demons, is comforted by the Christians present by means of consolatory words of scripture, receives baptism, enters the ranks of the clergy as reader, passes quickly through the various clerical offices, and suffers the death of a martyr as bishop of Antioch, along with Justina, under the Emperor Claudius II.—Gregory Nazianzen too in a discourse delivered at Constantinople in A.D. 379, “on the day of the holy martyr and bishop Cyprian,” treated of the legend, in which without more ado he identifies the converted Antiochean sorcerer with the famous Carthaginian bishop of that name, and makes him suffer martyrdom under Decius (?).—The romance may have borrowed the name of its hero from an old wizard; but his type of character is certainly to be looked for in the philosophico-theurgical efforts of the Syrio-Neoplatonic school of Iamblichus (§ 24, 2), in which the then expiring heathenism gathered up its last energies for conflict with victorious Christianity. The conception of the heroine on the other hand, is with slight modifications borrowed from the Thecla legend (§ 32, 6). By the Legenda aurea (§ 104, 8), which is just an adaptation of this earlier one, the legend of Cyprian was carried down even beyond the time of the Reformation. Calderon’s “Wonder-working Magician” presents a Spanish-Catholic, as the Faustus legend of the 16th century presents a German Protestant construction, which latter, however, in direct opposition to the tendency of the early Christian legend, allows the magician to drop into hell because his repentance came too late. The Romish Church, however, still maintains the historical genuineness of the old legend, and celebrates both of the supposed saints on one day, 25th September.
IV. DOCTRINAL CONTROVERSIES AND HERESIES.
§ 49. The Development of Doctrine Generally.
When a considerable fulness of Christian doctrine had already in previous periods found subjective and therefore variously diversified development, it had now, besides being required by the altered condition of things, become necessary that the church should sift and confirm what was already developed or was still in the course of development. The endeavour after universal scientific comprehension and accurate definition became stronger every day. The lively intercourse between the churches, which prevented the various doctrinal types from being restricted to particular countries, brought opposite views into contact and conflict with one another. The court, the people, the monks took parts, and so the church became the scene of passionate and distracting struggles, which led to the issuing of a canon of orthodoxy recognised by the whole Catholic church of the West and of