writers includes the work of Christian authors. Greek and Latin
writings wholly different from Pagan literature, began to appear
soon after the first century, and their purifying and ennobling
influence was more and more felt as time passed. The primitive
Christians held these writings of the Greek and Latin fathers in
great esteem, and in the second and third centuries Christianity
counted among its champions many distinguished scholars and
philosophers, particularly among the Greeks. Their writings,
biblical, controversial, doctrinal, historical and homiletical,
covered the whole arena of literature.

Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius, Athanasius,
Gregory Nazianzen, Basil, and John Chrysostom are only a few of
the brilliant names among Greek and Latin writers, who added a
lasting glory to literature and the Church.


ROMAN.

To the Roman belongs the second place in the classic literature
of antiquity. The original tribes that inhabited Italy, the
Etruscans, the Sabines, the Umbrians and the Vituli had no
literature, and it was not until the conquest of Tarentum in 272
B.C. that the Greeks began to exercise a strong influence on the
Roman mind and taste; but Rome had, properly speaking, no
literature until the conclusion of the first Punic war in 241
B.C.

This tendency to imitate the Greek was somewhat modified by Roman
national pride. We catch sight of this spirit in Virgil and