The early Christian treatises from their authors’ point of view: from to σύνταξις К συγγράμματα

Early Fathers of the Church looked for and found the ways of expressing their thoughts which could meet the demands made by contemporaries to literary works. However, at first the new religion defenders opposed their works to pagan writers and poets’ compositions, to a greater or lesser degree, wishing or not. In the article the change of Christian authors’ attitude towards their own works is analysed. St. Justin Martyr uses the verb συντάσσειν - “compile” or “compose” to designate his work. His pupil Tatian does the same. St. Theophilus of Antioch and St. Clement of Alexandria name their treatises σύγγραμμα (pl. συγγράμματα) - «treatise». It is this word that St. Clement uses for designating philosophical works, whereas historical writings are named σύνταξις - «composition». These formal signs allow us to draw a conclusion that the attitude of Church authors of the second half of the IInd century towards their writings became different compared to the attitude of earlier authors. While St. Justin and Tatian did not consider their works to be valuable philosophical treatises and only tried to defend new studies and state their core, St. Clement, regarding Christianity as «true philosophy» and the acme of all previous philosophical wisdom, decides to create not compilations of Apostles’ words and writings, but compositions equal to the ones of Plutarch and Plato. This fact testifies Clement's wish to speak with his opponents as with the equal and was probably one of his missionary methods.