§ 167. DIDTMUB OF ALEXANDRIA. 02]
He is the greatest orator of the Greek cliurch, \\;th tlic exception perhaps of Chrjsostom ; but his oratory often degcn erates into arts of persuasion, and is full of hibored ornamenta tion and rhetorical extravagances, which are in the spirit of lii? age, hut in violation of healthful, natural taste.
As a poet he holds a subordinate, though respectable place. He wrote poetry only in his later life, and wrote it not froir native impulsCj-as the bird sings among the branches, but in the strain of moral reflection, upon his own life, or upoi doctrinal and moral themes. Many of his orations are poetical, many of his poems are prosaic. Not one of his odes or hymns passed into use in the church. Yet some of his smaller pieces, apothegms, epigrams, and epitaphs, are very beautiful, and betray noble affections, deej) feeling, and a high order of talent and cultivation.'
We have, finally, two hundred and forty-two (or 244:) Epistles from Gregory, which are important to the history of the time, and in some cases very graceful and interesting.
§ 167. Didymus of Alexandria.
I. DiDfMi Alexandeini Opera omnia: accedunt S. Amphilocliii et Nee
tarii scripta qu89 supersunt Grjece, accurante et deuuo recognosccnto J. P. Migne. Petit-Montrouge (Paris), 1858, (Tom. xxxix. of tbe Patrologia Grseca.)
II. HiEEONTMUs : De viris illustr. c. 109, and Proosm. in Iloseam. Scat-
tered accounts in Rufinus, Palladitjs, Soorates, Sozomen, and Theo- DOEET. Tillemont: M6moires, x. 164. Fabricitis: Bibl. Gr. torn, ix. 269 sqq. ed. Harless (also in Migne's ed. of the Opera, pp. 131-140)
' His poems fill together with the Epistles the whole second tome of the magnificent Benedictine edition, so dchghtful to handle, which was published at Paris, 1842 (edeute et curante D. A. B. Caillau), and vols. iii. and iv. of Migne's reprint. They are divided by the Bened. editor into: I. Poemata theologica (dogmatica, moraha); II. historica (a. autobiographical, qrnc spectant ipsum Gregorium, Trepi eavrov, De Beipso ; and b. irepl tS>v eTfpwv, quae spectant alios) ; III. epitaphia ; lY. epigrammata ; and V. a long tragedy, Chrhtus patiens, with Christ, the Holy Virgin, Josepli, Theologus, Mary Magdalene, Nicodemus, Nuntius, and Pilate as actors. This is the fii-st attempt at a Christian drama. The order of the poems, as well as the Orationa and Epistles, differs in the Beuedietine from that of the older editions. See tbe comparative table in torn. ii. p. xv. sqq. One of the finest passage" in iiis poems !« his lamentation over the temporary suspension of his friendship with Basil, quoteJ above, p. 914.
922 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
ScHKOECKii: Church History, vii. 74-87. Guericke: De Bcbola Alox andrina. Hal. 1824.
DiDTMUS, the last great teacher of the Alexandrian eate chetical school, and a faithful follower of Origen, was bore probably at Alexandria about the year 309. Though he became in his fourth year entirely blind, and for this reason haa been surnamed Cwcus, yet by extraordinary industry he gained comprehensive and thorough knowledge in philosophy, rhetoric, and mathematics. He learned to write by means of wooden tablets in which the characters were engraved ; and he became 60 familiar with the Holy Scriptures by listening to the church lessons, that he knew them almost all by heart.
Athanasius nominated him teacher in the theological school,, where he zealously labored for nearly sixty years. Even men like Jerome, Rufinus, Palladius, and Isidore, sat at his feet with admiration. He was moreover an enthusiastic advocate of ascetic life, and stood in high esteem with the Egyptian anchorites; with St. Anthony in particular, who congratulated him, that, though blind to the perishable world of sense, he was endowed with the eye of an angel to behold the mysteries of God. He died at a great age, in universal favor, in 395.
Didymus was thoroughly orthodox in the doctrine of the Trinity, and a discerning opponent of the Arians, but at the same time a great venerator of Origen, and a participant of his peculiar views concerning the pre-existence of souls, and probably concerning linal restoration. For this reason he was long after his death condenmed with intolerant zeal by several general councils.'
We have from him a book On the Holy Ghost, translated by Jerome into Latin, in which lie advocates, with much disenmination, and in simple, biblical style, the consubstantiality of the Spirit with the Father, against the Semi- Arians and Fneumatomachi of his time ;' and three books on the Trinity,
' First at the fifth ecumenical council in 553. The sixth council in 680 stigma* ized him as a defender of the abominable doctrine of Origen, who revived th* heathen fables of the transmigration of souls ; and the seventh repeated tiiis in t87.
* Didymus wrote only one book De Spiritu Sancto (see Jerome, De viria illustr