The greatest of
the late pagans,--Ausonius and Claudian at the end of the fourth
century; Boethius, philosopher-victim of Theodoric in the early sixth;
Cassiodorus, the chronicler, imperial functionary in the same
century,--disclose a familiarity whose foundations are to be looked for
in love and enthusiasm rather than in mere cultivation. It may be safely
assumed that, in general, appreciation of Horace was proportionate to
greatness of soul and real love of literature.
The same assumption may be made in the realm of Christian literature.
Minucius Felix, calmly and logically arguing the case of Christianity
against paganism, Tertullian the fiery preacher, Cyprian the enthusiast
and martyr, Arnobius the rhetorical, contain no indications of
familiarity with Horace, though this is not conclusive proof that they
did not know and admire him; but Lactantius, the Christian Cicero,
Jerome, the sympathetic, the sensitive, the intense, the irascible,
Prudentius, the most original and the most vigorous of the Christian
poets, and even Venantius Fortunatus, bishop and traveler in the late
sixth century, and last of the Christian poets while Latin was still a
native tongue, display a knowledge of Horace which argues also a love
for him.
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