the attrition that has ruined so much of antiq-
uity. And even the uninstructed observer of
these tall octavos must see here an influence in
the world, may conjecture that traces of that
influence may be actual even now.

Only a few of these volumes concern us here
and only the first seven of these thirteen cen-
turies. Important as were others for their own
age and place, the totality of Greek patristic
influence may be summed up in a few great
men -- creative men themselves or at least
representative in their own achievement of what
their lesser brethren did, of sufficient authority
in their own and after-times to direct the chan-
nels of patristic effort in the East and to bridge
the gulf between the East and that West which
shares Our Debt to Greece and Rome. By the
end of the fifth century of our era most of
these men were dead, living only in the com-
pilations of their numerous disciples and imi-
fators. For reasons that will appear hereafter
St. John of Damascus must be included in their
number and we therefore conclude the patristic
period only with his death in the middle of the
eighth century. The writers in the Migne who
flourished after St. John's death, even as most
in the three centuries before it, are but echoes

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