human
Abstain from all heathen books. For what hast thou to do with such foreign discourses, or laws, or false prophets, which subvert the faith of the unstable? For what defect dost thou find in the law of God, that thou shouldest have recourse to those heathenish fables? etc., etc. Again in a collection of canons, which is sometimes assigned to a synod at Carthage A.D. 398, the 16th canon in the collection runs thus:
gpt
A bishop shall read no heathen books, and heretical books only when necessary. The Carthaginian synod of 398 is a fiction, and some of the canons in the collection deal with controversies of a much later date: but we need not doubt that all the canons were enacted in some Church or other in the course of the first six centuries. The spirit of this one is very much in harmony with the known tendencies of the sixth century; and we find Gregory the Great (A.D. 544-604) making precisely the same regulation. He forbad bishops to study heathen literature, and in one of his letters (_Epp._, ix. 48) he rebukes Desiderius, Bishop of Vienne, for giving his clergy instruction in grammar, which involved the reading of the heathen poets.
human
The praises of Christ do not admit of being joined in the same mouth with the praises of Jupiter; and it is a grave and execrable thing for bishops to sing what even for a religious layman is unbecoming. The story that he purposely burnt the Palatine library is not traced earlier than the twelfth century, and is probably untrue; but it indicates the traditional belief respecting his attitude towards classical literature. And it is certainly true that he was twice in Constantinople, and on the second occasion remained there three years (A.D. 579-582), and yet never learnt Greek. In his time, as we learn both from himself and his contemporary, Gregory of Tours, the belief was very prevalent that the end of the world was at hand; and it was argued that mankind had more serious things to attend to than the study of pagan literature--or indeed any literature that was not connected with the Scriptures or the Church. Henceforward, in the words of Gregory of Tours,