Download or read book The Influence of the Second Sophistic on the Style of the Sermons of Saint Basil the Great written by James Marshall Campbell A. M. and published by Aeterna Press. This book was released on with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since M. Puech proposed the question of the indebtedness of patristic eloquence to the contemporary sophistic in the Revue de synthèse historique for June 1901, three dissertations have been published bearing directly on phases of that ample problem. M. Méridier has studied the influence of the Second Sophistic upon St. Gregory of Nyssa; Guignet has studied St. Gregory of Nazianzus in his contacts with the contemporary rhetoric; Father Ameringer, out of the vast bulk of St. John Chrysostom, has traced the sophistic influence on the style of the panegyrical sermons of that orator. The following study aims to furnish such a paragraph in answer to M. Puech’s question as will result from a careful study of the style of the 46 sermons of St. Basil that are found in the Benedictine edition.