ABSTRACT
The period between Constantine’s adoption of Christianity in 312-13 and thedeath of Augustine in 430 has traditionally been hailed as the Golden Age of Latin patristic literature (Campenhausen 1964; Rusch 1977; Quasten 1986; Dekkers 1995). First impressions may suggest that this is an exaggeration, or at least an error of chronology. If we measure the intellectual importance of the era by the number of major authors producing seminal works, we might conclude that a time of real productivity did not begin until the 350s, and that it was only in the last quarter of the fourth century that the western church developed an output in any sense comparable to that of its Greek counterpart. From Tertullian onwards, the articulation of a Latin apologetic had been pioneered by the erudite zealots of North Africa; one of this tradition’s distant sons, the eminent court-teacher Lactantius, had been able to celebrate the dawning of the Constantinian age and the providential triumph of a faith so recently persecuted, but Lactantius by then was approaching his latter years, and no western intellectual of his succeeding generation appeared to make any effort to supplement his moralizing marketing strategies with a serious exposition of the core doctrines which underpinned the Christians’ values. A distinct Latin theology blessed with either depth or breadth had, it seemed, yet to materialize. Even when such a theology did come to birth, it never equalled the accomplishments of the Greek tradition in either quantity or, with the clear exception of Augustine’s work, quality. Should the ‘Golden Age’ designation therefore be abandoned?
