Litteratura vs. Scriptura

In his essay “What is Literature?” Rene Wellek provides a historical survey of the term. The most interesting fact, from my perspective?

We have to go to Tertullian and Cassian in the second century A.D. to find the term [‘litteratura‘] used for a body of writing. They contrast secular, pagan writing, litteratura, with scriptura, the Bible, the sacred writ.

Rene Wellek

Tertullian and Cassian, two early church fathers, categorically distinguish the Bible from literature. In their estimation, literature is writing that isn’t sacred. It could include fictional prose, poetry, mythology, or history. What matters most is that God did not inspire it.

Two observations:

1. The initial distinction between literature and the Bible came not from secular critics but from the Christian fathers.
2. The larger context for the quotation from Tertullian’s work makes clear that he fears literature’s corrupting power. The sentence Wellek quotes (“Si doctrinam saecularis litteraturae ut stultitiae apud deum deputatum, aspernamur” – “we despise the teaching of secular literature as being foolishness in God’s eyes”) makes clear that Tertullian wants Christians to stay away from literature. I’ll need to read Tertullian’s essay. on “Spectacles.”