Note 993 — PART III CHRISTIAN EDUCATION

e.g. Macrobius’s Saturnalia is an example of what a youth’s education should be. All kinds of subjects are treated, but Christianity is not once mentioned. Symmachus and Capella, both representative of culture in their day, are silent about Christianity. There was always the suspicion, even between two contending Christians, that the other might not have had the rhetorical or philosophical training necessary for argument. Cf. Jerome to Vigilantius: ‘Scilicet et gloriari cupis ... me non potuisse respondere eloquentiae tuae et acumen in te Chrysippi formidasse’ (Migne, xxii. 604).