Chapter VIII: Part III: Christian Education (1)

1. INTRODUCTORY: CHURCH AND STATE

We have seen how large the emperors loomed in the ideas and education of the fourth century, and what some of the evil effects of this were. As we pass into the fifth century we find a growing reaction. The balance is shifted, and the Church begins to receive from the emperors an authority which had previously been confined to the secular State.

At first the Church had been independent, unnoticed by the State; then, after the persecutions of the early Empire, it found imperial recognition with the accession of Constantine. But there was still a measure of independence of the State: the emperors did not interfere with Church dogma, and the bishops took no part in politics. They were, as yet, very humble and submissive, for they felt the need of imperial protection, having no sufficient organization of their own and no effective ecclesiastical government; though a considerable machinery had been created by the councils which had been meeting since the third century.

A third stage is reached when the bishops become haughty and imperious and begin to meddle with politics. The clergy have strengthened themselves by organization and training. The latent antagonism between Church and State becomes prominent, and the State sometimes comes off worse. And when the political framework goes under, the power of the Church grows and prospers.[878]

Now it is this growth of Church influence in the fifth century and its effect upon ideas and ideals that is important for our purpose. On the material side this growth is indicated by an increase of civil power. The Edict of Milan restored the confiscated buildings of the churches, and Constantine in 321[879] allowed the clergy to receive bequests. A vast amount of property was bequeathed to the Church in the fifth century, the administration of which was settled by the canons of the various synods. These canons gave rise to an ecclesiastical law which was later augmented by the decisions of the Popes, and played a great part in the Middle Ages. Civil jurisdiction largely passed into the hands of the bishops, and against their sentence, which was carried out by the civil authorities, there was no appeal. The entire administration of the widespread Church property and affairs was in the hands of the bishop. The State reserved criminal law for itself. Like the pagan ‘flamen’, the bishop sat on the ‘Curia’ of his city, where he exercised great authority.

More and more the State came to recognize the ecclesiastical society as a separate polity. Manumissions within the Church were sanctioned by the emperors.[880] The clergy are repeatedly excused from all public burdens whatsoever.[881] This cleavage between Church and State, which had been momentarily accentuated by Julian’s law of 362 forbidding Christians to teach, is further emphasized by the establishment of separate courts for ecclesiastical offenders. ‘The clergy’ (so ran the law of Honorius and Theodosius in 412) ‘may be tried only before an episcopal court.’[882]

More and more, therefore, the bishop came to be appealed to as a civil power,[883] and when the crisis came bishops like Sidonius defended the towns against the invaders.[884] A sense of the failing Empire made men turn to the Church for help against the oppression of imperial officials, and the ruin of invading barbarians.[885] Above all they turned to her for education.

For this position the Church had strengthened herself by increased organization during the fourth and fifth centuries. She assimilated the principles of imperial government and law, applied them in creating her bishoprics, and modelled on them her methods of administration. Thus law, the great contribution of the Roman Empire, passed into the Church, and so down the ages.

On the spiritual side this development of Christianity is marked by a greater kindliness (due also to the teaching of the pagan philosophers[886]) in the hard Roman world. Hints of a new attitude to slaves are to be found in the Theodosian Code. There are lengthy laws providing protection from enslavement—‘non erit impunita labefactatio atque oppugnatio libertatis’[887]—and steps are taken to enable people to rise out of slavery by placing legal means within their reach and making the assertion of liberty easier.[888] Moreover, the breaking up of slave families is forbidden, and the objection is stated from the moral point of view. ‘Quis enim ferat liberos a parentibus, a fratribus sorores ... segregari? Igitur qui dissociata in ius diversum mancipia traxerunt, in unum redigere eadem cogantur: ac si cui propter redintegrationem necessitudinum servi cesserint, vicaria per eum qui eosdem susceperit mancipia reddantur.’[889] But while we must grant to the philosophers and to Christianity an important share in the gradual disappearance of slavery, it must be remembered that the process was largely due to economic causes. It was found that it paid better to give a man some measure of personal freedom, and the economists tell us that the colonate which appeared at the beginning of the third century was a natural economic development of slavery. The absence of wars of conquest also contributed to this result.[890]

Moreover, liberation of body and spirit was aimed at by the attitude of the Church to the stage and the arena. Attendance was forbidden to Christians, and actors were not allowed to be baptized. The discredit thus cast upon these professions was emphasized by the emperors. A great many restrictions were introduced,[891] and games were forbidden on certain Christian feast-days.[892] It was enacted that actresses who had become Christians—‘quas melior vivendi usus vinculo naturalis condicionis evolvit’—should not be forced back into the profession.[893] Similarly, actors and actresses who had received the sacrament when thought to be dying must not be allowed to act again.[894]

Against the arena, too, a blow was struck. Constantine enacted in 325 that all those criminals who had previously been condemned to the arena should now be assigned to the mines. This did not mean the total abolition of gladiatorial contests, but it certainly meant a decrease in the victims of the ‘ludi gladiatorii’, and the moral lead it gave was valuable. ‘Cruenta spectacula’, he said, ‘in otio civili et domestica quiete non placent.’[895]

Later, he forbade soldiers to become gladiators,[896] and Valentinian exempted Christians from the punishment of the arena.[897] Gibbon gives the story of St. Telemachus to mark the final abolition of these contests by Honorius[898] in 404, though Bury points out that there is evidence of such shows some years later. As late as the fourth century we still find a man like Symmachus spending £80,000 on games for his son’s praetorship,[899] but, on the whole, the influence of the Christian ideal made for greater frugality and gentleness.

This influence was also seen in the increase of charities. The bishops, for example, often distributed corn among the people when times were bad.[900] That misuse was made of this spirit is seen from the strict law of Valentinian against mendicancy;[901] but the misuse is not so serious as the previous lack of charitable spirit.

The feeling of the Christians against slavery and the manual labour of the monks tended to destroy the aristocratic prejudice against practical work, and made for a simpler and more natural life. The artificial position in which the pagan world had placed women was to some extent remedied along the same line of the brotherhood of man. Jerome’s correspondence with Paula and Eustochium is an indication of this new attitude.[902] Naturalness also resulted from a reaction against the exaggerated centralization of the Empire, and was manifested in a development of individuality. The Western Church occasionally showed that it could stand up to the emperor.[903] When Constantius commanded that all the bishops assembled at the synod of Ariminum should be given their food (_annonae et cellaria_) the bishops of Gaul and Britain refused the gift, fearing the diplomacy of Constantius because ‘it did not seem fitting. They refused the imperial support and preferred to live at their own expense.’[904]

There was, therefore, a considerable and increasing independence on the part of the Church. Yet Church and State co-operated in many things. One of these points of co-operation, which was most important for education, was the holding of councils. First the Council of Arles (314), representing the Western Church, and then the Council of Nicea (325), representing the whole Church, was summoned by Constantine. And the influence of these councils in clearing away provincial prejudices and producing breadth of vision must have reacted very favourably on education, though the bishops of Gaul, owing to the larger extent of their bishoprics, did not have that close relation of teacher and pupil with their congregations which was the case in the East.

With all this in her favour the Church drew into her service men of the best blood and intellect. The nobility became the holders of the bishoprics, and the Christians consented. Indeed, they did more than consent. They sometimes demanded it, as in the case of Ambrose, feeling, no doubt, the value of having a man of high social rank to protect them in the political world. Men like Sidonius who had been living quite a ‘worldly’ life became bishops, moved, one is inclined to suspect, rather by the sense of power than the spirit of devotion. Thus aristocratic ideas were introduced into the Church and the bishop’s office was sometimes made hereditary, as in the case of Eucherius and his sons Salonius and Veranius. These aristocrats were at the same time the intellectuals of their time, and men like Lupus, Bishop of Troyes, who was consulted by all the writers of the South,[905] Arbogast of Trèves, afterwards Bishop of Chartres,[906] of whose learning, as of that of Auspicius, Sidonius thought much,[907] Patiens of Lyons,[908] Faustus of Riez,[909] Mamertus of Vienne,[910] Graecus of Marseilles,[911] Perpetuus of Tours,[912] and many others, all friends of Sidonius and therefore of culture, shifted the balance of intellect from the pagan to the Christian side of society.

And yet, in spite of these hopeful signs, this growth in the power of ideals, we feel that the Church in Gaul did not transform the Roman Empire. Power the Church obtained, but found it a perilous possession. For with power came the whole host of political corruptions which had found a home in the imperial system, and entered, unsuspected, along the paths which custom had made. In becoming, to some extent, the successor of the Empire, the Church exposed herself to imperial dangers. Politics tended to overshadow principles. At least one of the two invasions of which Montalembert speaks[913] was needed in order that the Church should save Society—that of the monks from the South.

2. THE PERSISTENCE OF RHETORIC: TRADITION AND REACTION

The development of Christianity, then, in the fourth and fifth centuries, largely takes the form of a struggle between the old and the new. Everywhere in the ecclesiastical society there are, inevitably, survivals, and they loom particularly large on account of two factors: the entry of Roman law into the Church, and the assumption of Church leadership by large numbers of the aristocracy.

It is natural, therefore, that we should find survivals in education too, and the extent to which we find them is evidence of the strength and the universality of the rhetorical tradition. And we need to see this tradition in its proper perspective before we can fully appreciate the significance of Gallic education in our period.

As we look back on the long line of rhetorical teachers, we can trace an increasing degree of narrowness and futility. The conditions of life in the city-state had made public speaking a practical and personal necessity. What Isocrates strove to do in his rôle as pamphleteer was to raise oratory from the personal to the national level, to connect education with statesmanship,[914] and to unify it by setting before it the ideal of a united Greece. The sphere of rhetoric in his view was wide and humane.[915] It is true that he himself was a theorist, unskilled in the practical issues of politics.[916] He was what Crito in the _Euthydemus_ called a ‘Boundary Stone’—one who tried to combine practical politics and philosophy, avoiding the extremes of each. His attempt was unpopular, though ultimately he succeeded, for his school became the university of Greece.[917] But the ideal which he put forward had a real inspiration, and had none of the cramping restrictions of later rhetoric. Moreover, he taught the unity of moral and intellectual education: ‘The more strongly a man desires to persuade his audience’ (the intellectual practice of the rhetorical school) ‘the more will he train himself in culture of mind and manners and in gaining the esteem of his fellow citizens.’[918] Speech is regarded as the instrument of Persuasion, from which all the blessings of human society proceed,[919] and its function is to advance civilization by educating the ignorant and testing the wise.

Such was the high educational ideal of Isocrates, and we find much of it reflected in Cicero, his admirer and his imitator. The breadth of view is not impaired. For Cicero maintains that the power of eloquence is such that it embraces the rise, the force, the vicissitudes of all affairs, virtues, and duties; of everything in nature—character, mind, life. It defines the moral code, the principles of law and right. It regulates the State, and on every subject and in all its relations its words are many and eloquent.[920] There is the same attempt to connect rhetoric with politics, the same insistence that intellectual issues (_doctrina bene dicendi_) cannot be separated from moral ones (_doctrina recte faciendi_).[921] Wide and all-round knowledge is required of the orator: ‘mea quidem sententia, nemo poterit esse omni laude cumulatus orator, nisi erit omnium rerum magnarum atque artium scientiam consecutus.’[922] Yet Cicero was a panegyrist, and he followed the artificial rules of the game in exactly the same way as the Gallic rhetoricians of the third and fourth centuries did; and when he warns against spending too much time on philosophy,[923] which may be lightly learned, he says, we feel that he is giving rein to a natural Roman tendency to discount thought, and that this tendency proved the bane of rhetoric.

Cicero’s attempt to make the oratorical education something of wide scope, and to make it bear upon practical politics, was doomed to failure. More and more the tyranny of rhetorical rules, co-operating with the restriction of liberty under the Empire, produced a narrow and formal result. The sciolists of the fourth century believed that philosophy could be so easily learned that they hardly troubled to make its acquaintance. A political connexion with oratory was kept up, but it consisted in the degenerate panegyric. More and more rhetorical education narrowed its range, and retired within the academical atmosphere of the school.[924] As for moral education, we must find in the criticisms of Tacitus and Juvenal an element of truth. The emperor set the fashion, and the subject did not always find an inspiring example.

The change that came over oratory was not entirely one of artificiality. This there had been in Isocrates, whose rules were just as artificial as those of the ‘Panegyrici Latini’. It was rather a question of ideal. Isocrates had a national ideal, which could give meaning and life to his utterances; Cicero had the interests of a party to inspire him; but the panegyrists of the fourth century were confined to the emperor; his birthday or his benefits are the sort of subjects that stimulate their oratory, and Pliny could praise with equal fervour the political reforms and the white horses of Trajan.

Thus the rhetorical tradition, the ideal of oratory as the goal of education, came down through the centuries to our period. It came to Gaul, and flourished exceedingly on account of the natural aptitude of the Gauls for eloquence. Lucian, in the _Herakles_,[925] gives a picture of the Gallic Hercules who drags all men after him by fine chains attached to his tongue and their ears, and they follow gladly though it is in their power to break away. Cerialis, in addressing the Treveri and Lingones, maintained that the Roman way of establishing justice was the sword, but that words had most influence with the Gauls.[926]

And Jerome said of the Gauls: ‘The fact that they are prolific of orators points not so much to the studious character of the country as to the noise made by the rhetors: especially as Aquitaine boasts of its Greek origin.’[927] This is borne out by the inscriptions. We are struck in the south by the frequency of long-winded and ornate epitaphs, e.g.[928]

D.M.

Memoriae aeternae
Socchiae Enneanis
Dulcissim. et. super. ae
tatem. ingenio. nobi
lissimo. qui vixit. an
... Menses VII. D. XXIIII
L. Boconius. Pho(t)inus Pa
ter et Alpia Castina ma
ter. Parentes infelicis
simi repentina huius. a
missione orbati filio
Karissimo unico prae
cl.... p.... s.... sibi erepto (praeclaro pro sua aetate)
et sibi vivi posteris que
suis Po(s) et sub Ascia (posuit)
dedicaverunt.

As we go north epitaphs of this description become much rarer, which seems to indicate that as the influence of the Celtic element, and, perhaps, the Greek Massilia, decreases, there is a decrease also in the ‘ubertas Gallici sermonis’.[929]

We can hardly realize to-day how enormous the power and the extent of rhetoric was. In all parts of the Empire it was the mark of a cultured gentleman. As we have seen, it was the basis of education, the condition of imperial appointments, a tremendous factor in the policy of the emperors. ‘If we lose our eloquence’, said Libanius,[930] ‘what will be left to distinguish us from the barbarians?’ and again, ‘If you know the art of speaking you know the art of commanding.’[931] From Isocrates to Libanius Persuasion (Peitho) cast her spell with unfailing charm, nor was it Gaul alone that was bound by the chains of the tongue. Beyond the Graeco-Roman world the influence went: Sidonius, the conservative, could compliment an Arbogast on his eloquence,[932] and it was the rhetoric of pagan Gaul, as well as the religion of Christian Gaul, that led captive her fierce conquerors. So, too, beyond the pagan world, rhetoric invaded the Church and left its manifold traces on Christian education.

Kaufmann estimates that by the year 450 pagan schools in Gaul were disappearing under the influence of the Church militant.[933] Now it is true that the Church considered it a duty to condemn the rhetoricians, but their system persisted nevertheless through the monasteries up to our own day both in the matter and in method.

The Christian literature of the period shows this clearly. In poetry (except in a few cases like the _Ad uxorem_, and the _De providentia Dei_) the fetters of the tradition are still strong, and in trying to force biblical subjects into unsuitable forms, men like Sedulius, Marius Victor, and Paulinus of Nola produce mere lifeless paraphrases; in prose, where there were fewer rules to check naturalness and freshness of thought, the results are much more gratifying. In the schools it is recognized that the rhetorical system is indispensable. Tertullian[934] allows Christian children to attend pagan schools, though he will not permit Christians to teach in them, and Jerome, while he complains that the clergy are too fond of Vergil and the Comedies, is constrained to add ‘in pueris necessitatis est’.[935] The Church did not create a new educational system.

One or two particular cases of the survival of rhetoric may be given. Ennodius, Bishop of Pavia, born in 474 at Arles, illustrates in a typical way the enormous power which rhetoric could exercise over Christians as late as the end of the fifth century. He is passionately in love with the forms and methods of his pagan authors, loves their pomp and glitter,[936] and is always playing a part in the hope of winning applause.[937] He makes rhetoric say: ‘I am she who does things or changes things done. Light can dispel the darkness, however vast, in which the law involves a man, and this light by reading I can give. I am she from whom men await prosecution if guilty and acquittal if innocent ... for my gain the Roman keeps vigil throughout the Empire. Unless I adorn them, office, riches, honours lose their attraction: it is I who rule the rulers.’[938] This is all very similar to what Isocrates had said centuries ago, when he talked of the power and benefits of Persuasion,[939] and the traditional moral note is there just as in Isocrates[940] and in Cicero.[941] Rhetoric, says Ennodius, is the only moulder of public opinion. Her charm is irresistible and universal. (Why mention so obvious a fact?) The opinion she creates is eternal. It is she who makes people believe whatever she wishes about the deeds of the brave, she who can suppress facts with impunity. She is the mother of poetry, jurisprudence, dialectic, arithmetic, and she gives them their value.[942] ‘Grammar’ is recognized as the necessary precedent, the nurse of knowledge and virtue, who produces the sparks that lead to the Ciceronian fire of speech.[943] The idea that rhetorical adornment is specially connected with the school is still current. A correspondent begs him with many prayers that his letter to him should be embellished with the graces of the school (_multis enim supplicationibus exegistis ut pagina vobis concinnationis didascalicae fingeretur_[944]) and in the _Libellus pro Synodo_ he urges ‘illas _didascalici_ libelli relegamus argutias’.[945]

Later on Ennodius began to have misgivings about the part rhetoric played in his life. ‘Erat orandi fastidium dum perorandi tenebar cupiditate....’[946] He laments his placid satisfaction with his fine speeches, his elation at poetic successes, while he had no ear for the ‘angelorum chori’ owing to the intoxication of applause. ‘Quotiens adclamantium flatibus propter religionem vertex nudatus intumuit....’ But even in his confessions rhetoric is present, and she triumphs at the very time when he speaks of her defeat.

A curious instance of the survival of rhetoric is seen in the invective of Hilary of Poitiers against Constantius.[947] The author has worked up a great deal of feeling, and, to give it the most effective utterance, he lets it flow into the moulds prescribed by tradition. His divisions correspond perfectly to those of the schools. He spares no form of contumely, even at the expense of historical fact.[948] His railing reminds us of Milton’s denunciation of Salmasius:[949] for as late as the seventeenth century Latin retained its reputation as the language of invective. In spite of his preliminary professions of sincerity: ‘cesset itaque maledictorum opinio et mendacii suspicio. Veritatis enim ministros decet vera proferre’, we feel that in following the rules of the game he has proved himself a good player, but not always ‘a servant of truth’.[950]

Of a truer type was the rhetoric of Hilary of Arles. Honoratus is enthusiastic about the copious eloquence of his oratory, the gems of expression which he produced, the varied shades and shapes of his descriptions.[951] There was plenty of rhetorical colour, but there was also elasticity. ‘If the learned company was absent, he fed the hearts of the untutored with simple food’; and it was the opinion of contemporary critics, the savants of the day, that Hilary ‘had attained something that was neither eloquence nor learning, something superhuman’.[952] Famous for eloquence were also Salvian, the master of fiery denunciation, and Lupus, ‘scholis adhibitus et rhetorum studiis imbutus’.[953] In the very monasteries the artifices of the rhetor’s school lingered. Valerian, Bishop of Cemelium (near Nice), gives many examples of this in his Homilies. He frequently uses Parallelism and Repetition: ‘Disciplina igitur magistra est religionis, magistra verae pietatis; quae nec ideo increpat ut laedat, nec ideo castigat ut noceat’;[954] or Chiasmus and Assonance: ‘Alter de subscriptione patris disputat: alter de fratris persona desperat’;[955] ‘Vitare ista, dilectissimi, per singulos gradus forte difficile est, et laboriosum multis simul hostibus per diversos errores occurrere’; or Alliteration: ‘Ita _e_st _e_rgo, ut in te antiqui iuris districtio nihil habeat potestatis, si ea quae legis _p_lenitudo _p_ostulat, _o_bedienter _o_bserves’.[956] ‘Et _n_ullus _p_rofecto adhuc _p_oenae finis _n_isi Christus _n_oster cruentis _l_egibus o_l_eum _m_isericordiae _m_iscuisset.’[957] ‘Sic erit ut _h_omo de _h_umiliore _l_oco ad ce_l_siora perveniat et remuneratus honore _c_ondigno, _c_aelestis gratiam potestatis adquirat.’[958]

The rhetorical tradition, therefore, lived on; and it survived the more easily because of the controversial nature of Christianity at this time and the importance of preaching. The change from the rhetor’s ‘cathedra’ to the pulpit was often merely one of place and subject: the method was the same. And so the ideal of the orator persisted. In education it persisted for the further obvious reason that the monasteries had not yet organized themselves round the model of St. Benedict, and that very often Christian parents had to send their children to the pagan schools—in spite of Tertullian’s warnings.[959]

The triumph of rhetoric among the Christians, however, was only partial. When the Christian Fathers observed their congregations of simple and unlettered folk, and remembered the injunction of Christ[960] and the teaching of St. Paul,[961] they began to feel the need of a more direct style of speech. Largely, too, it was a natural reaction, springing from the opposition between Christian and pagan, and the ascetism which the monasteries preached.

This reaction is noticeable chiefly in the Church Fathers. In their prefaces it became the customary thing to proclaim their ‘rusticity’, and to hide (sometimes with false modesty) the traces of their rhetorical training.[962] So much was this the tendency, that Sidonius, with all his highly refined artificiality, must needs talk about his ‘countrified style’ (‘Si quid stilo rusticante peraravero’,[963] ‘in hoc stylo cui non urbanus lepos inest sed pagana rusticitas’[964]). Partly, of course, this was due to the over-courteous ways of high society at that time, as we may see from the correspondence of Symmachus or of Ausonius, and to an idea (never carried out by these gentlemen) that letter-writing ought to be careless and natural.[965] But the reaction against rhetoric was very strong. None of the Christian clergy dared to defend the rhetoricians openly. Lactantius, who did so,[966] was a layman.

The inscriptions reflect this tendency, or at any rate one of its causes—the simplicity and ignorance of the people. The Christian epitaphs, though influenced now and then by rhetorical floridness, as in the case of those composed by Sidonius,[967] are much shorter and simpler than the pagan ones. Sometimes they consist merely of a cross with the name of the person.[968] Sometimes the words ‘pax tecum’ are added. The increase in Christian education is indicated by the fact that there are only four inscriptions dating from the fourth century and fifty-four from the fifth.

How constantly the Church Fathers strove to check the rhetorical tendency in themselves and in the clergy may be seen from their frequent protests. Jerome remarked reprovingly of Hilary of Poitiers that he was affected by the tragic and turgid vein in the Gallic character, and too much adorned with the ‘flowers of Greece’, so that his long periods were not understood by the simple friars.[969] And Vincent of Lérins had to warn that a priest’s language must be ‘disciplined and grave’.[970] ‘Docente te in ecclesia’, said Jerome elsewhere,[971] ‘non clamor populi sed gemitus suscitetur.’ Gallus, in Sulpicius Severus,[972] expresses his contempt for flowery language. ‘For if you call me a disciple of Martin (the stern saint of Tours) you must also allow me the right of following him in despising vain ornamental speech and verbal embellishment’ (_sermonum faleras et verborum ornamenta_). In a sermon on Rebecca, attributed to Caesarius,[973] the preacher proclaims the principle of adaptability: ‘The educated must accommodate themselves to the ignorance of the simple. If, in expounding holy Scripture we desired the arrangement and the eloquence of (certain) holy fathers, ... the food of doctrine could reach only a small band of scholars (there is a secret satisfaction in having had a superior training), while the remaining masses of the people would go unfed. And therefore I humbly ask that the ears of the learned bear patiently the words of simplicity (_rustica verba_) if only the whole flock of God may partake of spiritual food by means of speech unadorned and (if I may say so) pedestrian.’ Ruricius, Bishop of Limoges, and a contemporary of Sidonius,[974] speaks of his ‘ineptia rusticitatis’,[975] his ‘rusticus sermo’.[976] ‘Rusticitatem meam’, he says, ‘malo prodere quam perdere caritatem’.[977]

This prevalent cultivation of ‘rusticitas’ was, as has been said, partly a reaction, and like all reactions it had a tendency to go too far. It is not surprising to find men like Jerome protesting (though with self-condemnation) against the bald style of certain Christian writings.[978] Heyne, after describing the ‘verborum fucos, concinnos et calamistrum’ of the rhetoricians, remarks on the uncultured and disgusting lack of style into which the later writers fell. It was natural, he says, that, having thrown eloquence overboard, they should fall into ‘barbaries’ and subjects vulgar and essentially trivial (_per se tenuia_). The charge of ‘barbaries’ is admitted. But the subject-matter was not always ‘per se tenuia’; it was essentially the reverse: and the ‘horrida oratio’ into which the Christian writers fell had the compensation of sincerity and the capacity of rising into genuine eloquence.

We have, then, these two facts: the persistence in Christian thought of rhetoric, and the reaction in the direction of simplicity. But we must ask what the Christian attitude was towards pagan education as a whole, for on this attitude largely depended the nature of the Christian schools.

Sulpicius Severus is uncompromisingly harsh. All literature except the Bible and theological writings are utterly vain. ‘For what did the pagan writers themselves gain by a literary glory that was to perish with their generation? Or what profit was it to posterity to read of Hector’s battles or Socrates’ philosophy? Not only is it folly to imitate those writers, but not to attack them with the utmost fierceness is sheer madness....’[979] The pagan philosophy has been a mighty bane. ‘Qui quidem error humanus (pagan philosophy) litteris traditus in tantum valuit ut multos plane aemulos vel inanis philosophiae vel stultae illius virtutis invenerit.’[980] Tertullian, Arnobius, and Lactantius on entering the Church abjured the heathen literature,[981] and Jerome conceived of the difference between the two groups of writers as that between light and darkness.[982] Philosophy was regarded as dangerous, and extensive secular reading deprecated.[983] Poetry was banned because it inflamed passion,[984] and Claudius Victor of Marseilles went so far as to trace the misfortunes of his day to the pagan schools and authors.

‘Is not ours the blame?’ he wails: ‘Paul and Solomon are neglected and the Vergil who wrote of Dido and the Ovid who described Corinna are recited, the verses of Horace are applauded and the scenes of Terence, and it is we, we who are at fault, we who basely feed those flames.’[985] Paulinus writes to his old master Ausonius who is much concerned because his pupil has deserted the Muses, and declares with pathetic firmness that the Christian heart must needs say ‘No’ to Apollo and the Muses. ‘New is the force and greater the god that now moves the soul, and he permits not leisure in work or play for the literature of fable.’[986] To him the education and the literature of the pagan world is nothing but ‘the clever influence of a sophist, the knack of a rhetor, the false imagination of a bard’, and its professors men who miss the truth,

Qui corda falsis atque vanis imbuunt
tantumque linguas instruunt;
nihil adferentes ut salutem conferant,
quod veritatem detegat.[987]

In order to understand this exclusive spirit we must remember the circumstances: the tenacity of paganism, which had taken its last stand in the public amusements,[988] the persecutions, the close connexion between the schools and the old religion. The Gallic panegyrists (most of them teachers) ostentatiously proclaim the gods of ancient Rome even to Christian emperors like Theodosius.[989] ‘Di boni’ and ‘Di immortales’ appear everywhere, the emperor is divine, and the school at Autun is ‘aedes Herculis atque Musarum’.[990] The rhetorical education had the immense advantage of being traditional. Then, as now, the argument carried great weight. Libanius in his defence of dancing asks indignantly (and the method of his protest is typical) whether the settled opinion of the ancients in this matter is to be upset: ἆρ’ οὖν πρᾶγμα ἀρχαῖον, καὶ παρὰ τοῖς οὕτω γενναίοις οὕτω γενναῖον καὶ καλὸν εἶναι δοκοῦν, εἰκῆ καὶ ῥᾳδίως ἡμεῖς τῶν φαύλων εἶναι πιστεύσομεν;[991] Everything that was not cut according to the traditional pattern, according to the opinions handed down with hardly any criticism, from one teacher to another,[992] tended to be despised, and this was the attitude towards the Christians in the educational world of the day.[993] Moreover, the old system was properly organized, and Christians in being compelled to send their children to pagan masters felt the danger. For the subject-matter of both the grammatical and the rhetorical schools was largely the pagan mythology, which was next door to religion. Even contemporary literature proclaimed pagan ideas: the fourth-century comedy _Querolus_ is permeated by the heathen conception of fate.

To all these causes of opposition and bitterness towards the pagan culture, there were added the desperate earnest of these early Christians to whom salvation and perdition were piercing and vivid realities, and the bitter scorn of pagans like Rutilius Namatianus. As he returned to his native country, Gaul, he saw in the growth of monachism one of the causes of Rome’s decline—Rome who had all his devotion, whose magistrate he was proud to have been.

Squalet lucifugis insula plena viris,

he says of Capraria,[994] where a monastery had been started. Pride and prejudice make the monks an inexplicable problem to him:

Munera fortunae metuunt, dum damna verentur.[995]

Either they are really criminals forced to live this sort of life, or else the slaves of black bile. To him, too, the youth who becomes a monk is ‘impulsus furiis’.[996] Such was the temper towards the Christians even as late as the fifth century, and the counterpart of this bitterness is seen in the murder of Hypatia in Alexandria (A.D. 415).

The attitude of the ‘extreme’ Christians towards pagan literature is not, therefore, entirely inexplicable. But all were not extreme. The better spirits like Augustine, realizing that Christian education inevitably depended largely on the nobles who had come to the Church from the rhetorical schools, went on the principle of ‘spoiling the Egyptians’, of taking from pagan education and literature whatever was good and useful. Jerome protests against the narrow standpoint with considerable emphasis. He criticizes those who neglect style, and flares up at the suggestion that he is afraid of the pagan training of his opponents in controversy.[997] Ignorance, he says, is not holiness, and lack of culture is unfitting in a student of the Apostles. ‘Nec rusticus et tantum simplex frater ideo se sanctum putet si nil noverit, nec peritus et eloquens in lingua aestimet sanctitatem.’[998] He felt the need of rhetoric as a weapon against opponents. A holy ignorance, he argued, is a gain only to itself (he is curiously reluctant either to accept pagan learning entirely or to condemn it utterly), but all it builds up of the Church of Christ is lost if it does not meet its opponents.[999]

So, too, Paulinus of Nola and Prudentius ‘quidquid e paganis operibus novae fidei non adversabatur laudabant et servabant’.[1000] Sedulius, again, refused to draw the rigid line which the extremists drew: he wants to retain the culture of his time, but in a Christianized form. In the dedication of his _Carmen Paschale_ to Macedonius he argues that he writes in verse because ‘there are many who, owing to their training in secular studies, are attracted rather by the delights of verse and the pleasures of poetry’; and that the Church must make use of this artistic tendency in people (_horum mores non repudiandos aestimo_). They will remember divine truths better if they are pleased with the form in which they are presented, and everybody must be freely won for God along the line of his particular bent (_ut quisque suo magis ingenio voluntarius acquiratur Deo_). The way in which you approach the faith does not matter so long as you get there and remain there.[1001] It is clear that he stands for liberalism in this matter and does not object to pagan literature if only the object in view is the right one.

Thus the wiser among the Christians opposed the policy of exclusiveness. They foresaw that though bigoted zeal and a natural antipathy might keep out pagan letters for a time, in the end they could not do so; and they realized that it was one of the functions of the Church to hand down what was good in the old culture. So the two Apollinarii (fourth century), Christian teachers of Laodicea, turned the Old Testament into heroic verse and the New Testament into Platonic dialogues;[1002] Juvencus put the gospels into metre, and Nonnus wrote out St. John in hexameters. In order to appeal to the intellectual classes the Christian writers were bound to follow the pagan models, and so a virtue was made of necessity: for amid the distraction of the failing Empire it was the Church alone that could have saved the form and content of the ancient culture by providing scribes for the one and thinkers for the other. It would have been interesting to have Paulinus of Nola’s Panegyric on Theodosius. ‘Quid interfuerit tum inter Christianum oratorem, et oratorem, in scriptis saltem, paganum’ (says Monnard[1003]) ‘diiudicare liceret, nisi temporis invidia Panegyrico Theodosii, quem Paulinus scripserat, quemque cum Ausonii Panegyrico conferre potuissemus nos privavisset.’ We should also have been able to see how far he followed the pagan model, especially in view of his extreme statements to Ausonius[1004] on the subject of pagan literature. Probably he was just as rhetorical as Hilary in his Demosthenic denunciation of Constantine. This supposition is confirmed by the words of Jerome, who is enthusiastic in his praise of the speech. ‘If the author’, he says, ‘surpasses others in the beginning of his oration, towards the end he excels himself. His style is brilliant with Ciceronian purity, yet copious in thought.’[1005] There was a certain amount of hypocrisy in the railing of the Christian writers against the pagan authors.

In spite of her criticism and antipathy, therefore, the Church listened to her leaders in their wiser moods and saved pagan culture. She set her monks to copy the ancient authors.[1006] Augustine ‘brought Plato into the (Christian) schools under his bishop’s robe’, and even Jerome expounded lyric and comic poets to the children at Bethlehem.[1007] Vergil, in particular, was admitted on account of the prophecy supposed to be contained in the fourth _Eclogue_. Roman law, of which Bossuet said that good sense, the master of human life, reigned throughout it, was regarded by the Church as a reflection of divine justice, and studied more particularly on account of its supposed similarity to the law of Moses.[1008] Through the Church it passed to the barbarians, and so became a heritage of the civilized world.

This ultimate attitude of the Church is the determining factor of Christian education, and it forms the background without which that education cannot be rightly studied. Kaufmann maintains that towards the end of the fifth century the rhetorical school lost its pedagogic significance,[1009] but his statement needs modification. The number of the rhetorical schools in Gaul certainly decreased as Christianity advanced during the fifth century: their spirit, their importance and meaning for education survived and, to a large extent, still survives.

3. THE RISE OF CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS IN GAUL

One of the ways in which Christianity supplemented paganism was the development of elementary schools. It began with the masses, where knowledge was small and opportunities few, but these common people it inspired with a desire to learn and made them potential scholars, who, though backward, were yet not decadent, and who shared their spiritual possessions with one another just as much as their material property.

In touching this kind of man Christian education did what the pagan schools had neglected to do, as we have seen, on account of the rigid class-distinctions. In paying particular attention to elementary education the Church followed her own needs and Christ’s example of sympathy with children. In so far as the Church applied the Pauline teaching of the essential brotherhood and equality of man these hard distinctions tended to disappear, and education became more generally diffused. There was a real democratization of letters, but the masses had so long been neglected that the diffusion was very slow. Caesarius knew prominent business men who could not even read or write.[1010] Their culture consisted largely in folk songs and tales handed down by word of mouth. And besides, the Church was not always true to her principles: the pagan influence, backed as it was by education, proved too strong when it came to organization. The old relation of simple sincerity between clergy and congregation had long passed away, and the fifth century was a time of ecclesiastical dissensions. The bishops were chosen more and more from the aristocracy, and the sort of church ‘cursus honorum’ which had been instituted soon created barriers. In theory the government of the Church was democratic, but Sidonius gives us a picture of the practice at the episcopal elections, which shows how unstable the democracy was. On one occasion there was a great tumult caused by the contending candidates: one boasts of his ancient see, one relies on the attractiveness of his kitchen, a third has a secret arrangement whereby he will allow his followers to pillage the church property if he is elected. Finally, the bishops, Euphranius and Patiens, take the matter into their own hands, nominate an obscure worthy man, a ‘reader’ called John, and proclaim him their colleague.[1011] So, too, at Bourges, Sidonius is asked by the faction-wearied people to nominate them a bishop.[1012] In fact, the general impression, derived from reading the account of bishops and their elections in Sidonius, is that they would have said with Horace, in exactly the same pagan spirit (though they might have resented being connected with a pagan name), ‘Odi profanum vulgus et arceo’. They go in for charities,[1013] but these are often only a form of patronage.

Thus, in attempting to provide for plebeian education, Christianity had to contend with many difficulties. The first appearance of organized Christian education is represented by the catechumen schools which sprang up everywhere after the establishment of Christianity. The most prominent one was that of Alexandria,[1014] dating at least from the second century. The bishop, or, more frequently, a subordinate church official, following the Apostolic example,[1015] would go to some lecture-hall after the sermon and expound the doctrine of the Church to all who cared to come, or would gather his disciples round him in some private house. The school was therefore intended for adults. It had no formal organization nor was it of a permanent character. It was a kind of missionary movement that spread to all parts of the Empire. Among the first attempts in the direction of Christian elementary education, apparently, was the school at Edessa, where Lucian, a presbyter of the third century, who became famous as a teacher at Antioch,[1016] was educated.[1017] It was a place worthy of being a cradle of Christian education; its church was martyred in the second century, its teachers Protogenes and Eulogius were driven into banishment in the fourth, and in the fifth it became famous for its active share in the Nestorian controversy.

But in the West it was that ‘invasion from the South’, which Montalembert referred to, that was the instrument of Christian education. Tradition said that Athanasius introduced the idea of monasticism into Gaul (where it spread more rapidly than anywhere else in the West[1018]) during his exile at Trèves (336-7). This influence issued in action with Martin of Tours (the most popular saint of the Gallic Church), when he founded the monastery of Ligugé near Poitiers, and a second and larger one, Marmoutier (‘maius monasterium’) near Tours, about the middle of the fourth century. When he died, at the end of that century, there were numerous monasteries not only in the province of Tours but in Rouen and what afterwards became Normandy and Picardy.

The work of Martin influenced two men of Gaul, both of the upper classes, and both educated in all the learning of the day—Sulpicius Severus, ‘vir genere et litteris nobilis’,[1019] and Paulinus of Nola, the pupil of Ausonius. These men made monasticism fashionable—so much so that even Sidonius patronized it.[1020] At the beginning of the fifth century Cassian founded the monastery of St. Victor near Marseilles, and Honoratus the famous cloister of Lérins. About 450 Romanus established a monastery at Condat on the Jura, and around these centres there grew up a network of abbeys.

Now at this time there were no orders of monks, and the Rule of the Abbeys depended mainly on the choice of the abbot. The monasteries were merely groups of people who had come to live the common life (κοινόβιοι) and to discuss matters of common interest. Thus educational development was stimulated, and we find a much stronger intellectual life among the simple Christians than in the form-bound school of the rhetor. Whenever there was a dangerous heresy abroad in Gaul, Jerome or Augustine would write a refutation which was circulated throughout the country,[1021] and Sulpicius’s _Life of Martin_ was eagerly read everywhere, and was much in demand at Rome.[1022]

This intellectual activity presently overflowed the boundaries of the monastery. Catechumens had to be trained for the Church, and it was found necessary to establish informal schools for them, where, besides religious training, they also received a smattering of the seven liberal arts. These were the forerunners of those cathedral schools which became, in the Middle Ages, the main intellectual support of the country.

The most famous episcopal school was at Arles, where Hilary taught a large number of students.[1023] Among his pupils were Cyprian, Bishop of Toulouse, Firminius, Bishop of Usez (Ucetia), and Bishop Vivencius. The interest of the Fathers in education may be illustrated from the life of Caesarius.[1024] ‘Who can describe how great and pleasing was the zeal that shone forth from him, when he discussed the Scriptures and expounded difficulties? His greatest delight was to be challenged to discuss a problem, and he himself very often urged his class, saying to us: “I know you don’t understand everything: why don’t you ask, that you may know?”’ Whatever may be said as to the extent of their teaching, it must be admitted that they showed the proper spirit of education in thus stimulating knowledge. At Arles, also, taught Pomerius, ‘scientia rhetor, Afer genere’,[1025] whose interest in literature and rhetoric was great,[1026] and whose lectures Caesarius attended. Another famous Christian teacher of the fifth century, versed particularly in ecclesiastical matters, was Victorius of Marseilles.[1027]

The monastery of St. Victor at Marseilles,[1028] built in the woods over the grotto where the martyr Victor, a Roman legionary, had been buried at the end of the third century, became a school for training the clergy, though not at once, for the motto of its founder was to flee all bishops and women.[1029] It did good work, but its fame is almost entirely eclipsed by that of the older monastery at Lérins, the nursery of bishops. Vincent the theologian,[1030] Patrick of Ireland, Cassian the founder of St. Victor, Hilary of Arles, Faustus the bishop of the _via media_ in theological controversy,[1031] Lupus, called by Sidonius ‘episcopus episcoporum’,[1032] Eucherius, and many other celebrities were sons of Lérins. From Lérins and St. Victor were drawn almost all the educated clergy of Gaul during the fifth century. ‘En général’, says Fauriel,[1033] ‘ce furent ces évêques ou ces prêtres, sortis des cloîtres de Lérins ou de Saint-Victor, qui formèrent la partie érudite et savante du clergé ou de l’épiscopat gallo-romain....’ The _Chronologia Lerinensis_[1034] likens Lérins to a trailing vine which fills the earth with its fruits and extends, by the grace of God, beyond the rest. Among the many other references to the monastery in the Chronicle, there are numerous verse panegyrics extolling its congenial surroundings and indicating a real love of learning. Sidonius, too, is enthusiastic in its praise;[1035] and his commendation, imbued as he was with rhetorical culture and prejudiced in its favour, says much for the educational standard reached by Lérins. So famous was its school that Lupus, ‘the prince of prelates’, came to study there for a year, before he went to spread its spirit of study and piety. For, like most of these monks from the aristocracy, ‘he had ... a cultivated mind and took an active interest in intellectual development. He was anxious about schools and educational facilities in his diocese, and gave protection to all who encouraged learning.’[1036] Indeed, we may say that all the most literary and philosophic men of the time, as well as the most religious, flocked to the island-quiet of Lérins. It is no wonder that Mamertus, in describing the failing culture of the fifth century, mentions Lérins as an exception.

4. THE PRACTICE OF CHRISTIAN EDUCATION

In the _Chronologia sacrae insulae Lerinensis_[1037] we find a concrete example of a monastic school.

‘At the time when the studies of the monastery of Lérins flourished in the regions of Gaul, the Christian religion ... began to grow everywhere and _to commit itself to the study of letters_. In this place there was an excellent abbot, a holy man, Caesarius, the servant of Christ, who afterwards became bishop of Arles.’ Amid the general flocking of people to Lérins for education or edification (‘cumque ad eum omnes unanimiter concurrerent _pro salute animarum sive studiis litterarum_’), there came an Italian soldier and his son Siffredus, earnestly craving admittance. The soldier became a monk, and his son was put to school (‘filius vero _litterarum studiis traditur_’), and in a short time he attained proficiency in ‘grammar’, rhetoric, and dialectic.

Similarly, Salvian sends a fellow countryman of his to be educated at Lérins,[1038] and we may judge from the Regula of Caesarius that many boys went there for instruction. Laymen were not excluded. In 480 St. Melanius attended a school at Rennes controlled by priests, yet apparently attached to no monastery.[1039] That such semi-theological schools existed in Gaul, at least from the beginning of the fifth century, we may judge from the fact that the sons of Eucherius, Veranius and Salonius, were taught at Lérins in subjects religious and profane[1040] during the first years of that century.[1041] Not unjustifiable, therefore, is the statement of Barralis that Lérins was ‘litterarum et virtutis emporium’.[1042]

But while the existence of Christian schools cannot be questioned, their extent and organization in Gaul during the fifth century are vague and undefined. St. Benedict’s example had not yet brought about an ordered system of monasteries, and there was still much that was erratic and irregular. Though the leaders of the Church in the main allowed the use of pagan studies in Christian teaching, yet in practice the methods employed must have depended on the sympathy and the inclination of the autonomous abbot. Now where an abbot had enjoyed a rhetorical training, we can hardly doubt that he imparted it to his pupils: for it requires a great deal of intellectual development in a master not to teach as he has been taught. But only a certain proportion of abbots could have had this training. There were many brilliant monks, many perhaps of whose distinction we do not know. But they could not have directed all the monasteries of fifth-century Gaul. The temper of the people, too, was all against literary studies. The number, therefore, of such schools as Lérins, in which secular and religious studies were simultaneously kept up, was probably not large. In the following century the division between secular and religious schools became progressively marked, chiefly owing to the influence of Cassiodorus. The division between one Christian school and another was naturally far from rigid; we read of Honoratus sending three of his scholars at Lérins to hear the lectures of Paulinus at Nola.[1043]

The children who came to the monastery schools were of two kinds: the _oblati_,[1044] who remained and became monks, and those who attended the _schola exterior_ and lived a secular life after their education. The age at which they were admitted was an early one. Ennodius says that Epiphanius became a ‘lector’ at eight,[1045] and Sidonius that Bishop John of Châlons-sur-Marne was ‘lector ab infantia.’[1046] Nunneries, like the one at Arles, took children at six or seven—‘ab annis sex aut septem, quae iam litteras discere et obedientiae possit obtemperare’.[1047]

Classes were generally held in the body of the church (_in inferiori Basilicae navi_[1048]) and the twenty-fourth canon of the fourth Council of Toledo (seventh century) probably represents the regular practice of our period. It provides that the children of the clergy should all be kept in one room to be trained in the ways of the Church, and that they should be entrusted to a senior person of approved character who was to give them both moral and intellectual instruction.[1049]

We hear of a head master variously called in later times ‘Scholasticus’, ‘scholaster’, ‘capischola’ (_caput scholae_) ‘Decanus’, ‘Cancellarius’. ‘Cum igitur Levitas feceris’, wrote Remigius, ‘Archidiaconum institueris Primicerium scholae clarissimae.’[1050] A sixth-century inscription of Lyons[1051] reads: ‘In hoc tomolo requiescit famolus D̅I̅ Stefanus primicirius scolae lectorum....’

Private teaching, which had always gone side by side with the schools, increased in the fifth century among Christian parents for three reasons: the opposition of pagan to Christian education, which, amid the unorganized state of the monastery schools, often forced home-education upon parents; the fact that the pagan schools catered chiefly for the upper classes and that Christianity was now inspiring the masses with a desire for instruction; and the influence of the monastic ideal which shunned public contact for fear of contamination.