Christian Latin

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Christian Latin

7 notable Latin American Christians: saints, a pope, an evangelist
By Michael Gryboski , Mainline Church Editor
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 © 2022 The Christian Post, INC . All Rights Reserved.
Hispanic Heritage Month is a celebration in the United States that honors the contributions of Americans who trace their origins back to Latin America and other Spanish-speaking regions.
The observance begins on Sept. 15 , the anniversary of when Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua gained independence from the Spanish Empire, and ends on Oct. 15.
Throughout the centuries, Latin America has been the birthplace of large numbers of Christians, some of whom have received international renown and exerted broad influence on churches.
In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, here are seven notable Latin American Christians. They include a few Catholic saints, a prominent theologian, an accomplished evangelist, and the current pope.
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The Letter of the Church of Lyons concerning its martyrs is written in Greek; so at Rome, a century earlier, is that of Clement to the Corinthians. In both cases the language of those to whom the letters were addressed may have been designedly chosen; nevertheless, a document that may be called a domestic product of the Roman Church, the “Shepherd” of Hermas, was written in Greek. At Rome in the middle of the second century, Justin, a Palestinian philosopher, opened hisschool, and suffered martyrdom; Tatian wrote his “Apologia” in Greek at Rome in the third century; Hippolytus compiled his numerous works in Greek.
And Greek is not only the language of books, but also of the Roman Christian inscriptions, the greater number of which, down to the third century were written in Greek. The most ancient Latin document emanating from the Roman Church is the correspondence of its clergy with Carthage during the vacancy of the Apostolic See following on the death of Pope Fabian (20 January, 250). One of the letters is the work of Novatian, the first Christian writer to use the Latinlanguage at Rome.
But even at this epoch, Greek is still the official language: the original epitaphs of the popes are still composed in Greek. We have those of Anterus, of Fabian, of Lucius, of Gaius, and the series brings us down to 296. That ofCornelius, which is in Latin, seems to be later than the third century. In Africa Latin was always the literary language ofChristianity, although Punic was still used for preaching in the time of St. Augustine, and some even preached in the Berber language.
These latter, however, had no literature; cultivated persons, as well as the cosmopolitan population of the seaports used Greek. The oldest Christian document of Africa, the Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs, was translated into Greek, as were some of the works of Tertullian, perhaps by the author himself, and certainly with the object of securing for them a wider diffusion. The Acts of Sts. Perpetua and Felicitas, originally written in Latin, were translated into Greek.
In Spain all theknown documents are written in Latin, but they appear very late. The Acts of St. Fructuosus, a martyr under Valerian, are attributed by some critics to the third century. The first Latin Christian document to which a quite certain date can be assigned is a collection of the canons of the Council of Elvira, about 300.
Side by side with literary works, the Church produced writings necessary to her life. In this category must be placed the most ancient Christian documents written in Latin, the translations of the Bible made either in Africa or in Italy. Beginning with the second century, Latin translations of technical works written in Greek became numerous treatises on medicine, botany, mathematics, etc.
These translations served a practical purpose, and were made by professionals; consequently they had no literary merit and aimed at an almost servile exactitude resulting in the retention of many peculiarities of the original. Hellenisms, a very questionable feature in the literary works of preceding centuries, were frequent in these translations. The early Latin versions of the Bible had the characteristics common to all texts of this group; Hellenismsabounded in them and even Semitisms filtered in through the Greek.
In the fourth century, when St. Jerome made his newLatin version of the Scriptures, the partisans of the older versions to justify their opposition praised loudly the harsh fidelity of these inelegant translations (Augustine, Christian Doctrine II.15). These versions no doubt exercised great influence upon the imagination and the style of Christian writers, but it was an influence rather of invention and inspiration than of expression.
The incorrectness and barbarism of the Fathers have been much exaggerated: profounder knowledge of theLatin language and its history has shown that they used the language of their time, and that in this respect there is no difference worth mentioning between them and their pagan contemporaries. No doubt some of them were men of defectiveeducation, writers of incorrect prose and popular verse, but there have been such in every age; the author of the “Bellum Hispaniae”, the historian Justinus, Vitruvius, are profane authors who cared little for purity or elegance of style.
Tertullian, the Christian author most frequently accused of barbarism, for his time, is by no means incorrect. He possesses strong creative power, and his freedom is mostly in the matter of vocabulary; he either invents new words or uses old ones in very novel ways. His style is bold; his imagination and his passion light it up with figures at times incoherent and in bad taste; but his syntax contains, it may be said almost no innovations.
He multiplies constructions as yet rare and adds new constructions, but he always respects the genius of the language. His work contains no Semitisms, and the Hellenismswhich his critics have pointed out in it are neither frequent nor without warrant in the usage of his day. This, of course, does not apply to his express or implicit citations from the Bible. At the other extreme, chronologically, of Latin Christian literarydevelopment, a pope like Gelasius gives evidence of considerable classical culture; his language is novel chiefly in its choice of words, but many of these neoterisms were in his time no longer new and had their origin in the technical usage of theChurch and the Roman law.
In the historical development of Christian Latin literature three periods may be distinguished:
The first period is characterized by its dominant tone of apology, or defence of the Christian religion. In fact, most of the earliest Christian writers wrote apologies, e.g. Minucius Felix, Tertullian, Arnobius, Lactantius. In face of paganism and theRoman State they plead the cause of Christianity, and they do it each according to his character, and each with his own line of arguments.
In this way the early ChristianLatin literature presents all the varieties of apology. There are here mentioned only those apologies which formally present themselves as such, to them should be added some of St. Cyprian’s works — the treatise on idols, and “Ad Donatum”, the letter to Demetrianus, works which attack special weaknesses of polytheism, the vices ofpagansociety, or discuss the calamities of Rome.
These writers do not confine their activity to controversy with the pagans. The extent and variety of the works of Tertullianand St. Cyprian are well known. At Rome, Novatian touches, in his treatises, on questions which more particularly interestthe faithful, their religious life or their beliefs.
Victorinus of Pettau, in the mountains of Styria, introduced biblical exegesisinto Latin literature, and began that series of commentaries on the Apocalypse which so influenced the imagination, and echoed so powerfully among the artists and writers, of the Middle Ages. The same visions were embodied in the verses ofCommodianus, the first Christian poet, but in a second work he took his place among the apologists and combattedpaganism.
In their other works St. Cyprian and Tertullian kept always in view the apologetic interest; indeed, this is the most noteworthy trait of the early Christian Latin literature. We may call attention here to another characteristic: manyLatin writers of this time, Minucius Felix, Tertullian, Cyprian, Arnobius, perhaps Commodianus, were Africans, for which peculiarity two causes may be assigned. On the one hand, Gaul and Italy had long employed the Greek Language, whileSpain was backward, and Christianity developed there but feebly at this period.
On the other hand, Africa had become a centre of profane literature; Apuleius, the greatest profane writer of the age, was an African; Carthage possessed a celebrated school which is called in one inscription by the same name, studium, which was afterwards applied to themedieval universities. There is no doubt the second was the more potent cause.
The second period of Christian literature covers broadly speaking, the fourth century — i.e. from the Edict of Milan (313) to the death of St. Jerome (420). It was then that the great writers of the Church flourished, those known permanently as “theFathers”, both West and East. Though the term patristic belongs to the whole period here under consideration, as contrasted with the term scholastic applied to the Middle Ages, it may nevertheless be restricted to the period we are now describing.
Literary productiveness was no longer the almost exclusive privilege of one country; it was spread throughout all the RomanWest. Notwithstanding this diffusion, all the Latin writers are closely related; there are no national schools, the writers and their works are all caught up in the general current of church history.
There is truly a Christian West, all parts of which possess nearly the same importance, and are closely united in spite of differences of climate and temperament. And thisWest is beginning to stand off from the Greek East, which tends to follow its own particular path. The causes of Westerncohesion were various but it was principally rooted in community of interests and the similarity of questions arising immediately after the peace of the Church.
At the beginning of the fourth century Christological problems agitated theChurch. The West came to the aid of the orthodox communities of the East, but knew little of Arianism until the Teutonic invasions. When the conflict concerning the use of the basilicas at Milan arose, the Arians do not appear as the people ofMilan: they are Goths (Ambrose Ep. xii. 12, in P.L., XVI., 997).
In the fourth century the great personages of the West are champions of the faith of Nicaea: Hilary of Poitiers, Lucifer of Cagliari, Phoebadius of Agen, Ambrose, Augustine.Nevertheless the West has errors of its own:
Manichaeism has a complex character, and, in truth, appears to be a distinct religion. All other errors of the West have a bearing on discipline or morals, on practical life and do not arise from intellectualspeculation. Even in the Manichaeancontroversy moral questions occupy a large place.
Moreover, the characteristic and most important heresy of the Latincountries bears upon a problem of Christianpsychology and life the reconciliation of human liberty with the action of Divine grace. This problem, raised by Pelagius, was solved by Augustine. Another characteristic of this period is the universality of the gifts and the activity displayed by its greatest writers: Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine are in turn moralists, historians, and orators; Ambrose and Augustine are poets; Augustine is the universal genius, not only of his own time but of the Latin Church — one of the greatest men of antiquity, to whom Harnack, without exaggeration, has found none comparable in ancient history except Plato. In him Christianity reached one of the highest peaks of human thought.
This second period may be again subdivided into three generations.
Early Christian literature in the West may be regarded as ending with the accession of Theodoric (408). Thenceforth until theCarlovingian renascence there arises in the various barbarian kingdoms a literature which has for its chief object theeducation of the new-comers and the transmission of some of the ancient culture into their new civilization.
This brings us to the last of our three periods? which may conveniently be called the Gallo-Roman, and comprises about two generations, from 420 to 493. It is dominated by one school, that of Lérins, but already the splintering of the old social and political unityis at hand in the new barbarian nationalities rooted on provincial soil. In Augustine’s old age, and after his death, a fewdisciples and partisans of his teachings remain: Orosius, a Spaniards; Prosper of Aquitaine, a Gallo-Roman; Marius Mercator, an African.
Later Victor Vitensis tells the story of the Vandal persecution, in him Roman Africa, overrun by barbarians furnishes almost the only writer of the second half of the century. To the list of African authors must be added the names of two bishops of Mauretania mentioned by Gennadius–Victor and Voconius.
In Gaul a pleiad of writers and theologiansdevelops at Lérins or within the radius of that monastery’s influence — Cassian, Honoratus, Eucherius of Lyons, Vincent of Lérins, Hilary of Arles, Valerian of Cemelium, Salvianus, Faustus of Riez, Gennadius. Here we might mention Arnobius the Younger, and the author of the “Praedestinatus”. No literary movement in the West, before Charlemagne, was so important or so prolonged.
Gaul was then truly the scene of manifold intellectual activity; in addition to the writers of Lérins. that country reckons one polygrapher, Sidonius Apollinaris, one philosopher, Claudian Mamertus, several poets, Claudius MariusVictor, Prosper, Orientius. Paulinus of Pella, Paulinus of Périgueux, perhaps also Caelius Sedulius.
Against this array Italy canoffer only two preachers, St. Peter Chrysologus and Maximus of Turin, and one great pope, Leo I, still greater by his deedsthan by his writings, whose name recalls a new influence of the Church of Rome on the intellectual movement of the time, but a juridical rather than a literary influence.
Early in the fifth century Innocent I appears to have been occupied with a first compilation of the canon law. He and his successors intervene in ecclesiastical affairs with letters, some of which have the size and scope of veritable treatises. Spain is still poorer than Italy, even counting Orosius (already mentioned among thedisciples of Augustine) and the chronicler Hydatius. The island peoples, which in the preceding period had produced the heresiarch Pelagius, deserve mention at this date also for the works attributed to St. Patrick.
A first general characteristic of Christian literature, common to both East and West, is the space it devotes to bibliographical questions, and the importance they assume. This fact is explained by the very origins of Christianity: it is a religion not of one book but of a collection of books, the date, source, authenticity, and canonicity of which are matters which it is important to determine.
In Eusebius’s “History of the Church” it is obvious with what care he pursues the inquiry as to the books of Scripture cited and recognized by his Christian predecessors. In this way there grows up a habit of classifying documents and references, and of describing in prefaces the nature of the several books.
The Bible is not the only object of these minute studies; every important and complex work attracts the attention of editors. Let it suffice to recall the formation of the collection of St. Cyprian’s letters and treatises, a more or less official catalogue of which, the “Cheltenham Catalogue”, was drawn up in 359, after a lengthy elaboration, the successive stages of which are still traceable in severalmanuscripts.
Questions of authenticity play a large part in the dissensions of St. Jerome and Rufinus. Apocryphal writings, fabricated in the interest of heresy, engendered controversies between the Church and the heretical sects. Another illustration of the same literary interest is to be found in the inquiry, instituted at the end of the fourth century as to theCanons of Sardica, called Canons of Nicaea.
The “Retractationes” of St. Augustine is a work unique in the history of ancient bibliography, not to speak of its psychological interest, a peculiar quality of all Christian literature in the West.
In part, therefore, Christian Latin literature naturally assumes a character of immediate utility. Catalogues are drawn up, lists of bishops, lists of martyrs (Depositiones episcoporum et martyrum), catalogues of cemeteries, later on churchinventories, “Provinciales”, or lists of dioceses according to countries. Besides these archive documents, in which we recognise an imitation of Roman bureaucratic customs, certain literary genres bear the same stamp.
The accounts ofpilgrimages have as much of the guide-book as of the narrative in them. History had already been reduced to a number of stereotyped scenes by the profane masters, and had been incorporated, at Alexandria, in that elementary literature which condensed all knowledge into a minimum of dry formula. The “Chronicle” of St. Jerome, really only a continuation of that of Eusebius, is in turn continued by a series of special writers, and even a Sulpicius Severus betrays the influence of the newform of chronicle.
While in these departments of literature the West but imitates the East, it follows at the same time its own practical tendencies. Indeed, the Latin writers make no pretence to originality, they take their materials from theirEastern brethren. Five of them, Hilary, Jerome Ruffinus, Cassian and Marius Mercator, have been described as hellenizing Westerns.
St. Ambrose is generally considered an authentic representative of the Latin mind, and this is true of the bent of his genius and of his exercise of authority as the head of a Church; but no one, perhaps, translated more frequently from the Greek writers, or did it with more spirit or more care. It is an acknowledged fact that his exegesis is taken from St. Basil’s “Hexaemeron” and from a series of treatises on Genesis by Philo.
The same holds good in respect to his dogmatic ormystical treatises: the “De mysteriis”, written in his last years, before 397, is largely taken from Cyril of Jerusalem and a treatise of Didymus of Alexandria published a little before 381, while the “De Spiritu Sancto”, written before Easter, 381, is a compilation from Athanasius, Basil, Didymus, and Epiphanius, from a recension of the “Catechesis” of Cyril made after 360, and from some theological discourses which had been delivered by Gregory of Nazianzus less than a twelvemonth previously (380). St. Augustine is less erudite; his learning, if not his philosophy, is more Latin than Greek. But it is the strength of his genius which makes him the most original of the Latin Fathers.
One influence, however, no Christian writer in the West escaped, that of the literary school and the literary tradition From the beginning similarities of style with Fronto and Apuleius appear numerous and distinctly perceptible in Minucius Felix,Tertullian and Zeno of Verona. owing, perhaps, to the fact that all writers, sacred and profane, adopted then the same fashions, particularly imitation of the old Latin writers.
To its traditional character also, early Christian Latin literature owes two characteristics m
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