s of particular truths, it
acquired a quality which led Aristotle to consider poetry as more
philosophical than history.

The Homeric poems are in a great measure the fountainhead from which
the refinement of the Ancients was derived. The history of the Iliad
and the Odyssey represent a state of society warlike it is true, but
governed by intellectual, literary and artistic power. Philosophy was
early cultivated by the Greeks, who first among all nations
distinguished it from religion and mythology.

Socrates is the founder of the philosophy that is still recognized in
the civilized world. He left no writings behind him; but by means of
lectures, that included question and answer, his system, known as the
dialectics, has come down to us.

Aesop, who lived 572 B.C., was the author of some fables which have
been translated into nearly every language in the world, and have
served as a model for all subsequent writings of the same kind. In 322
B.C., the centre of learning owing to the conquests of Alexander the
Great, was moved to Egypt in the city that bears his name. Here the
first three Ptolemies founded a magnificent library where the literary
men of the age were supported by endowments. The second Ptolemy had the
native annals of Egypt and Judea translated into Greek, and he procured
from the Sanhedrim of Jerusalem the first part of the Sacred
Scriptures, which was later completed and published in Greek for the
use of the Jews at Alexandria. This translation was known as the
Septuagint, or version of the Seventy; and is said to have exercised a
more lasting influence on the civilized world than any book that has
ever appeared in a new language. We are indebted to the Ptolemies for
preserving to our times all the best specimens of Greek literature that
have come down to us.

THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE GREEK FATHERS.

The interdependence of Greek literature includes some reference to the
Greek fathers and their writings.

Many of the books of the Old Testament, regarded as canonical by the
Catholic Church; but known as the Apochrypha among non-Catholics, were
written in Greek. A number of them are historical, and of great value
as illustrating the spirit and thought of the age to which they refer.
The other class of writers includes the work of Christian authors.
Greek and Latin writings wholly different from Pagan literature, began
to appear soon after the first century, and their purifying and
ennobling infl