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Corippus As a Patristic Author?* by Heinz Hofmann

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Corippus As a Patristic Author?* by Heinz Hofmann CORIPPUS AS A PATRISTIC AUTHOR?* BY HEINZ HOFMANN For good reasons, I think, Altaner/Stuiber have also included the Christian poets in their "Patrologie". But it may seem somewhat sur- prising to find not only well recognized Christian poets such as-among others-Juvencus, Prudentius, Dracontius and Arator, but also poets like Ausonius, Claudius Claudianus and Sidonius Apollinaris, whose debt to the teaching of the Church is fairly minimal and whose contribu- tion to and impact on the development of patristic theology is even less. But if Ausonius with his half-dozen small poems treating Christian topics in a very formal manner is allotted the same space as his far more important and remarkable pupil Paulinus of Nola, and if even Claudian with only the 21 lines of his poor Carmen de salvatore (c.m. 32 Hall) is ranked among the Christian poets, then one may perhaps ask why the same honour has not been granted to Flavius Cresconius Corippus and why his name is still missing in the 8th edition of Altaner/Stuiber pub- lished in 1978,' whereas he was rewarded an entry of five columns in the Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum, where the authors state that "Im ganzen fberwiegen bei Corippus christliche Vorstellungen gegenilber den heidnisch-antiken" and "fberhaupt kommt die christliche Gesinnung des Corippus in seinen beiden Epen deutlich zum Ausdruck".2 Flavius Cresconius Corippus lived during the 6th century A.D. in Roman Africa which was then still under Vandal rule, but was in A.D. 533/534 reconquered by the Byzantine army under the command of Belisarius. He is known as the author of two panegyric epic poems: the Iohannis sive de bellis Libycis, 3 in eight books, which glorifies the cam- paigns of the Byzantine general John Troglita against the rebellious Moorish and Berber tribes in Northern Africa in the years A.D. 546- 548, and the panegyric In laudem Iustini Augusti minoris, in four books, which celebrates the ascendance to the throne of Justinian's nephew Justin II (565-578) in A.D. 565 (book I-III) and his inaugura- 362 tion as consul on 1 January A.D. 566 (book IV). There are further 511 hexametric lines, sandwiched between the preface and book I in the only extant manuscript of the In laudem Iustini Augusti minoris, the Matritensis 10029 s. IX/X (originally a manuscript from the church of Toledo). This short poem has hitherto been called a panegyric on the quaestor and magister (sc. officii) Anastasius, but is in fact no more than just the preface to that panegyric, whereas the panegyric itself is lost. There are no other records for the poet's biography than these poems, especially their prefaces, and the inscriptio of book I of the In laudem Iustini Augusti minoris which calls him Africanus gram- (m>aticus.1 This scanty evidence suggests that Corippus was a native African and by profession a grammaticus, i.e. a teacher of language and literature at the second level of the Roman schoolsystem,b in a provin- cial town somewhere in the inward area of Carthage. The composition of the Iohannis was his first great poetical task, perhaps commissioned by the general John Troglita himself, and its recitation at the celebration of the Roman victory in Carthage sometime between A.D. 549 and 553' was his first appearance before a sophisticated urban audience. As to his later career there is still some controversy: most probably he left his job as schoolmaster and became a wandering poet, a freelance writer who offered his services to rich private persons, members of city coun- cils, high officials in the administrative hierarchy and other well-to-do patrons in the empire. He would compose panegyric poems in praise of them and their towns (the so-called Patria) and recite them in public, and they would reciprocate by paying him in cash or providing means for his subsistence. In this way many poets between the 4th and 6th cen- turies A.D. earned their living and entered the service of many a wealthy patron, thus acquiring "a precarious prosperity in a position of genteel dependence".' Eventually Corippus came to Constantinople and found the favour not only of the emperors Justinian I (527-565) and his suc- cessor Justin II, but also that of other high-rank officials at the eastern court. Evidence of his services are the above-mentioned panegyrics on Anastasius and the emperor himself, and there are good grounds for the assumption that he has written more poems than those few known to us. The date of his death is-as that of his birth-unknown; however it must not necessarily be fixed in the first years of Justin 11's reign, and Corippus may well have been alive until the mid seventies of the 6th century.' In the following article, I shall plead, therefore, to give Corippus a .
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