ENGLISH DOOR

THE DIVINE HISTORY OF JESUS CHRIST

MAN AT WORK

HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION IN THE FIFTH CENTURY

FREDERIC OZANAM,

VOL. I.

CHAPTER I. OF PROGRESS IN THE AGES OF DECLINE.

CHAPTER II. THE FIFTH CENTURY.

CHAPTER III. PAGANISM.

CHAPTER IV. THE FALL OF PAGANISM, AND WHETHER ITS FALL WAS ENTIRE

CHAPTER V. LAW.

CHAPTER VI.PAGAN LITERATURE (POETRY).

CHAPTER VII. THE LITERARY TRADITION.

CHAPTER VIII. HOW LITERATURE BECAME CHRISTIAN.

CHAPTER IX. THEOLOGY.

CHAPTER X. CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY

CONTENTS OF VOL. II. ( PDF ) ( TEXT )

CHAPTER I. THE INSTITUTIONS OF CHRISTENDOM

CHAPTER II. CHRISTIAN MANNERS

CHAPTER III. THE WOMEN OF CHRISTENDOM

CHAPTER IV. HOW THE LATIN LANGUAGE BECAME CHRISTIAN

CHAPTER V. CHRISTIAN ELOQUENCE

CHAPTER VI. CHRISTIAN HISTORY

CHAPTER VII. POETRY

CHAPTER VIII. CHRISTIAN ART

CHAPTER IX. THE MATERIAL CIVILIZATION OF THE EMPIRE

CHAPTER X. THE RISE OF THE NEO-LATIN NATIONS

( PDF ) The Franciscan poets in Italy of the thirteenth century

( PDF ) Dante et la philosophie catholique au treizième siècle

( PDF ) Frederic Ozanam, professor at the Sorbonne : his life and works.

I purpose to write the literary history of the Middle Age, from the fifth to the end of the thirteenth century, the time of Dante, before whom I pause as the worthiest representative of that great epoch. But in the history of literature my principal study will be the civilization of which it is the flower, and in that civilization I shall glance especially at the handiwork of Christianity. The whole idea, therefore, of my book will be to show how Christianity availed to evoke from the ruins of Rome, and the hordes encamped thereupon, a new society which was capable of holding truth, doing good, and finding the true idea of beauty.

We know how Gibbon, the historian, visited Rome in his youth, and how one day, as, full of its associations, he was wandering over the Capitol, he beheld a long procession of Franciscans issuing from the doors of the Ara Coeli Basilica, and brushing with their sandals the pavement which had been traversed by so many triumphs. It was then that, indignation giving him inspiration, he formed the plan of avenging the antiquity which had been outraged by Christian barbarism, and conceived the idea of a history of the decline of the Roman Empire. And I have also seen the monks of Ara Coeli crowding the old pavement of the Capitolian Jove. I rejoiced therein as in a victory of love over force, and resolved to describe the history of progress in that epoch where the English philosopher only saw decay, the history of civilization in the period of barbarism, the history of thought as it escaped from the shipwreck of the empire of letters and traversed at length those stormy waves of invasion, as the Hebrews passed the Red Sea, and under a similar guidance, forti tegente brachio. I know of no fact which is more supernatural, or more plainly proves the divinity of Christianity, than that of its having saved the human intellect.

I shall be reproached mayhap with an inopportune zeal, since the accusations of the eighteenth century have fallen into oblivion, and public favour has returned, and even with some excess, to the Middle Age. But, on the one hand, little confidence can be placed in these abrupt returns of popularity : they love like the waves to quit the shores which they have been caressing, and indeed on looking more closely upon the movement of men’s minds, we may already perceive that mauy are beginning to stand aloof from those Christian ages whose genius they admire, but whose austerity they repudiate. In the depths of human nature there lies an imperishable instinct of Paganism, which reveals itself in every age, and is not extinct in our own, which ever willingly returns to pagan philosophy, to pagan law, to pagan art, because it finds therein its dreams realized and its instincts satisfied. The thesis of Gibbon is still that of half Germany, as well as of those sensualistic schools which accuse Christianity of having stifled the legitimate development of humanity in suppressing the instincts of the flesh ; in relegating to a future life pleasures which should be found here below; in destroying that world of enchantment in which Greece had set up strength, wealth, and pleasure as divinities, to substitute for it a world of gloom, wherein humility, poverty, and chastity are keeping watch at the foot of the cross. On the other hand, that very excess of admiration which is paid to the Middle Age has its perils. Its results may well be to rouse noble minds against an epoch, the very evils of which men seek to justify. Christianity will appear responsible for all the disorders of an age in which it is represented as lord over every heart. We must learn to praise the majesty of cathedrals and the heroism of crusades, without condoning the horrors of an eternal war, the harshness of feudal institutions, the scandal of a perpetual strife of kings with the holy see for their divorces and their simonies. We must see the evil as it was, that is in formidable aspect, precisely that we may better recognize the services of the Church, whose glory it was throughout those scantily studied ages not to have reigned, but to have struggled. Therefore I enter upon my subject with a horror of barbarism, with a respect for whatever was legitimate in the heritage of the old civilization. I admire the wisdom of the Church in not repudiating that heritage, but in preserving it through labour, purifying it through holiness, fertilizing it through genius, and making it pass into our hands that it might increase the more. For if I recognize the decline of the old world under the law of sin, I believe in its progress throughout Christian times. I do not fear the falls and the gaps which may interrupt it, for the chilly nights which succeed the heat of its days do not prevent the. summer from following its course and ripening its fruits.

History presents no commoner spectacle than that of generations that are feeble succeeding to those that are strong; centuries of destruction following ages of creation, and preparing unconsciously, and when bent only upon ruin, the first foundations of a new construction. When the barbarians levelled the temples of old Rome, they did but make ready the marble wherewith the Rome of the Popes has built its churches. Those Goths were the pioneers of the great architects of the Middle Age. For this reason, then, I thank God for those stormy years, and that amidst the panic of a society awaiting dissolution, I have entered upon a course of study in which I have found security. I learn not to despair of my own century by returning to more threatening epochs, and beholding the perils which have been traversed by that Christian society of which we are the disciples, of which, if it want us, we know how to act as champions. I do not close my eyes to the storms of the present day; I know that I myself, and with me this work to which I can promise no lasting existence, may perish therein. I write nevertheless, for though God has not given me strength to guide the plough, yet still I must obey the law of labour and fulfil my daily task. I write as those workmen of the primitive centuries used to work, who moulded vessels of clay or of glass for the daily wants of the Church, and who pictured thereon in coarse design the Good Shepherd or the Virgin and the Saints.

These poor folk had no dreams of the future, yet some fragments of their vessels found in the cemeteries have appeared 1,500 years after them, to bear witness to and prove the antiquity of some contested doctrine.