402 Mr TYTLER'S Introduction to an Enquiry 



the manners of the early Christians ; and there are few to whom 

 the history of their religion is a subject of interest, who have not 

 heard of CYPRIAN Bishop of Carthage, of his unwearied labours, 

 his unshaken piety, his eloquence, his misfortunes, and his mar- 

 tyrdom *. 



If the cause of letters was so deeply indebted to the Chris- 

 tian Fathers in the third century, the exertions of the same en- 

 thusiastic and learned scholars become still more brilliant during 

 the fourth and fifth centuries, when contrasted with the increas- 

 ing darkness of paganism. GREGORY NANZIANSENE f, whose 

 mind, although engrossed in his labours as a Christian orator, 

 had imbibed in the schools of Athens the love of the ancient 

 philosophy ; and CHRYSOSTOM, whose studious and abstemious 

 youth, nursed for six years in the solitude of the desart , ripen- 

 ed into a manhood of unremitting toil, and almost unrivalled 

 eloquence ; these two great men were sufficient of themselves to 

 oppose a very successful barrier against the inroads of ignorance 

 and barbarism. The compositions of CHRYSOSTOM are celebrated 

 not only by contemporary critics, but by the fastidious philolo- 

 gists of the sixteenth century, as admirable for their Attic puri- 

 ty of style || ; and, in the West, the writings of LACTANTJUS, HI- 

 LARY of Poitiers, JEROME and AUGUSTINE, were serviceable not 

 only in their zealous, though sometimes ill directed endeavours 

 for the protection of the infant Church from heresy, but in the 

 preservation of the purity of the Latin language. 



1 may briefly advert to two remaining causes, which at this 

 period had a powerful effect in preserving from total extermina- 

 tion the relics of the learning of Greece and Rome ; and one of 



* CYPRIAN was slain in the year 258. CAVE, Hist. Literar. p. 126. vol. i. 

 + CAVE, Hist. Literar. p. 246- GREGORY flourished in the year 370. 

 \ CAVE, Histor. Literar. p. 300. || CHRYSOSTOM was born in 354. 



