ABSTRACT
The part played in the shaping of our western civilization by Christian humanism, absorbing and transforming the classical heritage of Greece and Rome, has become familiar to all students. The history of literature and of literary education during the centuries that witnessed the expansion of Christianity will help us to understand better what it was that the Christian thinkers were trying to develop as the cultural setting of the orthodox faith., and what they hoped to make of the pagan intellectual heritage that was at the same time their own historic background and inheritance. The growth of Christianity under Constantine the Great affected the classical tradition in Palestine in differing ways. The success of the School of Gaza at this time seems to depend upon several factors, some of which do not appear to have been mentioned by previous scholars who have dealt with the literary history of the period.
