2 - The early Christians and biblical eloquence

Summary

Athens and Jerusalem: opposition

Christianity had to make its way in a world dominated by other religions. On the one hand it saw itself as a new revelation for the Jews, on the other it sought to spread its truth among the Gentiles with their many varieties of paganism. The Bible too had to make its way, and it was a cause of argument with the gentiles that was not entirely theological. The conversion from paganism was often easier than the reconciliation of the new religion with the cultural standards of Greece and Rome, and these standards were ingrained in most of the Church Fathers. The Scriptures seemed not to conform to deeply held convictions of the nature and value of eloquence. For many the solution was to be Pauline, making a virtue of the Scriptures' difference from the human art of eloquence, while for some the solution was an often uneasy reconciliation of the two.

Now, it would be idle to suggest that this was the most urgent of issues for the Fathers, or even that it was an issue for most Christians. Like the simple fishermen Christ chose as disciples, most Christians were uneducated. Rhetoric – or logic or philosophy – meant little to them. The story to be followed here was an issue for only a few in the Church, but the Fathers, the men after Christ, the Jews and the first Christians who influenced Christendom the most, were among those few.