the most golden ages of
ancient learning could never bear the least comparison with the three
last centuries. The destruction of a few libraries by accidental fire,
the desolation of a few provinces by unsparing and illiterate
barbarians, might annihilate every vestige of an author, or leave a few
scattered copies, which, from the public indifference, there was no
inducement to multiply, exposed to similar casualties in succeeding
times.

We are warranted by good authorities to assign, as a collateral cause of
this irretrievable revolution the neglect of heathen literature by the
Christian church. I am not versed enough in ecclesiastical writers to
estimate the degree of this neglect; nor am I disposed to deny that the
mischief was beyond recovery before the accession of Constantine. From
the primitive ages, however, it seems that a dislike of pagan learning
was pretty general among Christians. Many of the fathers undoubtedly
were accomplished in liberal studies, and we are indebted to them for
valuable fragments of authors whom we have lost. But the literary
character of the church is not to be measured by that of its more
illustrious leaders. Proscribed and persecuted, the early Christians had
not perhaps access to the public schools, nor inclination to studies
which seemed, very excusably, uncongenial to the character of their
profession. Their prejudices, however, survived the establishment of
Christianity. The fourth council of Carthage in 398 prohibited the
reading of secular books by bishops. Jerome plainly condemns the study
of them except for pious ends. All physical science especially was held
in avowed contempt, as inconsistent with revealed truths. Nor do there
appear to have been any canons made in favour of learning, or any
restriction on the ordination of persons absolutely illiterate.[481]
There was indeed abundance of what is called theological learning
displayed in the controversies of the fourth and fifth centuries; and
those who admire such disputations may consider the principal champions
in them as contributing to the glory, or at least retarding the decline,
of literature. But I believe rather that polemical disputes will be
found not only to corrupt the genuine spirit of religion, but to degrade
and contract the faculties. What keenness and subtlety these may
sometimes acquire by such exercise is more like that worldly shrewdness
we see in men whose trade it is to outwit their neighbours than th