THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
4. Individual Preachers.
of blessing. The different currents of the life of the Church are exhibited in the discourses. Alongside of the Alexandrian allegorical method was the Antiochian grammatical-historical plan; doctrinal controversy was reflected; as were the tendencies toward sacrificialism and ceremonialism and the increasing practise of veneration of the saints and of the Virgin and toward asceticism. Polemics were not absent. In the East the sermon was often imaginative, poetic, even bombastic and wordy; in the West the rhetoric was more sober, and the sermon practical, simple, and clear. The function came to be confined to the bishops and the presbyters, the deacon requiring the authorization of the bishop before he could officiate. The bishop preached sitting; the audience stood in North Africa but sat in Italy and the East. The sermon came in the first part of the service after singing and reading of Scripture; its length varied, and in the Greek Church all the audience did not always await the conclusion.
The Greco-Syrian sermon divides into the practical-rhetorical, the dogmatic-didactic, and the ascetic-mystical. Eusebius of C»sarea (q.v.) forms the transition to this period, and already shows the style of the Byzantine court in a tendency to bombast and flattery after the pattern furnished in the Greek schools of rhetoric. But the leader in establishing the practical-rhetorical school of preaching was Basil the Great (q.v.), who gained his title by his preaching. He was bold, brilliant without aiming at brilliance, looking rather for force than elegance of diction, earnest, possessing a lively imagination, clearness, orderliness, and solidity of thought. All this made him, next to Chrysostom, the pattern of the Greek Church. Gregory of Nyssa (q.v.) stood near Basil in eminence in power of exposition and fluency, and excelled him as a thinker. His skill was less the product of nature than of art, and his turn of mind was speculative, philosophical, theological, with a strong trend to the allegorical. He was at his best in addresses commemorating persons of high estate, martyrs, and saints. Gregory Nazianzen possessed a solicitous soul with a tender spirit, in whom the wish for seclusion fought with the desire to use his splendid gifts for the community. A born orator of great versatility, he had, as compared with Basil, a feminine and receptive nature. His theological ideas were clear, his dialectic nimble, his imagination lively; his diction was elegant and his style deeply affected with irony often tempered with pathos, while he could flash out with invective. A defender of the doctrine of the Trinity and fond of dogmatic discussion, especially of the problems then alive in the Church, he did not lose sight of practical needs. His sermon followed a single thought and purpose, yet not without digressions. Greek preaching reached its eminence in the Antiochian school, which employed classical norms, alongside of exegetical, rhetorical, and popularly practical elements. Of this school Chrysostom (q.v.) was the chief exponent, combining in himself the exegete and the grammarian. Among those who employed the dogmatic-didactic style Euse-
bius of Emesa (q.v.) is probably to be numbered, though his homilies are lost. The same is to be said of Cyril of Jerusalem (q.v.). The homilies of Qyril of Alexandria (q.v.) have a dogmatic-polemic cast. The Antiochian Theodoret, bishop of Cyrrhus (q.v.), was peculiarly a homilist, as is shown in his ten addresses on divine providence, in which he preaches a sort of natural religion. Keen insight, orderly exposition, concise and luminous diction characterize his work. Examples of ascetic-mystical sermonizing come from the recluses of the desert. The twenty-nine addresses of the Egyptian monk Isaiah partake of the character of primitive Christianity, dealing partly with practical and common Christianity, in part with matter for the monks. Fifty homilies of the elder Macarius (see Macarius, 1) survive; they are textless, answer questions put by the monks, are full of noble pictures, deeply ethical, and emphasize the corruption of soul and body and the mystical union with Christ. Ephraem Syrus (q.v.), while belonging with this group, was eminently original. His was a native, not an acquired, homiletical genius, and his inspiration was a holy zeal for the orthodox faith and for the monastic ideal. Poetic brilliancy and the might of his exposition make of him one of the great preachers of the early Church. The swing of his thought is united with a metrical silveriness of diction, while the stream of his emotions combining with a fulness of imagination compel him to the use of exclamation, question, apostrophe, and other varieties of rhetorical expression. He is a mighty preacher of repentance.
The sermon bloomed out near the end of this period in independent form through Augustine and Leo (q.v), who were long the best fruits of homiletic study in the West. During the fourth century the West did not simply imitate the East, it copied it. Bishop Zeno of Verona (q.v.) has left
5. Zeno, ninety-three genuine sermons or tracts. A ustine His best examples deal with patience, " humility, modesty, covetousness, and he was largely dependent upon Basil. In strong contrast with these earlier preachers of the West stood Augustine (q.v.), who was distinguished for his energy and tirelessness as a preacher. The sermons of Augustine are strong in the elements of experience, witness-bearing, dialectic, and practical application; they are less affected by secular training and more infused with the Gospel; they give the impression of being by a man who had triumphed over the flesh, false philosophy, heathendom, and heresy, who spoke from the depths of his own living experience. They show the gifts of keen understanding, a power of deep speculation, precise expression, wide powers of illustration, and a deep sense of what salvation means. Augustine employs allegory less than the Greeks, stresses more the historical narratives of the Old Testament, and suppresses polemics more. His speeches show unity, coordination, and plan; the ethical elements are deeply Christian, the dialectic is keen, the antitheses are pregnant, and the thought is spiritual. His sermons on festal days, in rimed prose, deserve especial mention.
In the Greek Church of the period from the fifth