Paulinus Nolanus, Carmen 26: the Threat of War, St

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PAULINUS NOLANUS, CARMEN 26: THE THREAT OF WAR, ST. FELIX, AND OLD TESTAMENT EXAMPLES OF THE POWER OF GOD AND OF HIS SAINTS1

W. Evenepoel

Introductory biographical reminder: Around 390 the Galla-Roman Paulinus cut short a promising political career. Together with his Spanish wife he resided for a short time in Spain, where he was ordained a priest. In 395 he moved with his spouse to Nola to lead a monastic life, together with a number of like-minded friends, in the vicinity of the tomb of St. Felix, with whose cult he had become acquainted while a magistrate in Campania. For Paulinus St. Felix became the object of an intense personal veneration. As his friend Sulpicius Severns in Gaul was the promoter of Martin of Tours, so Paulinus would become, as priest-monk and later as bishop, and also as a builder and as the author of Carmina and Epistulae, the promoter of the cult of St. Felix of Nola.2 That Paulinus of Nola thoroughly familiarized himself with the Bible in quite a short time3 is apparent not only from the numerous biblical quotations in his correspondence, but even from a cursory reading of his Carmina. When Paulinus opted for a monastic life and

1 Paulinus of Nola is cited in the edition of G. De Hartel: Sancti Pontii Meropii Paulini Nolani Opera: I. Epistulae; II. Carmina. Recensuit et commentario critico instruxit G. De Hartel (CSEL, 29-30; Vienna, 1894). There is a misprint in v. 219 of Carm. 26: sic is to be read instead of si. See Klaus Kohlwes, Christliche Dichtung und stilistische Form bei Paulinus von Nola (Bonn, 1979), p. 192, n. 21. The English versions of passages quoted from Carm. 26 have been taken from The Poems rif St. Paulinus rif Nola, translated and annotated by P.G. Walsh, Ancient Christian Writers, 40; New York, 1975). 2 For the life ofPaulinus of Nola see Joseph T. Lienhard, Paulinus ifNola and Early Western Monasticism. With a Study of the Chronology of his Works and an Annotated Bibliography, 1879-1976 (Koln-Bonn, 1977). 3 For Paulinus of Nola and the Bible in general, see Lienhard 1977 (n. 2), pp. 128-34: "Paulinus and the Bible"; Paolino di Nola, I carmi. lntroduzione, traduzione, note e indici a cura di Andrea Ruggiero (Roma, 1990), pp. 81-5: "Presenza della Bibbia"; Sandro Leanza, "Aspetti esegetici dell'opera di Paolino di Nola", Atti del Convegno XXXI Cinquantenario della morte diS. Paolino di Nola (431-1981) (Roma, 1983), pp. 67-91. 134 EVENEPOEL

sought advice from the experienced monk Jerome, the latter in his letters 53 and 58 told him in no uncertain terms to acquire a pro found knowledge of the Scriptures under expert guidance4 : semper in manu tua sacra sit lectio, he writes in 58,6 (CSEL, 54, ed. I. Hilberg, p. 535). In his tum Paulinus himself in Carm. 22,1-2 advised the more philosophically inclined poet Jovius to make the Bible the foundation of his poetry: sacris ... carmina libris condere. Although Paulinus never became a biblical specialist like the philologistJerome,5 still the Bible for him became a fixed frame of reference, and it largely defined his spirituality. In recent years the omnipresence of the Bible in Paulinus' corre spondence and Carmina has been regarded more positively than be fore: it is now accepted that the references to the Scripture are not mere embellishments but are of essential importance. The Old and New Testaments (hereafter: OT and NT) were for Paulinus the basis of Christian doctrine and one of the primary sources of inspiration of his poetry. The Bible in his eyes also offers proof of God's providentia and potentia and is furthermore rich in morallessons.6 The NT ap pears somewhat more frequently in Paulinus' writings than the OT. The OT is represented in his Carmina mainly by Genesis, Exodus and the Psalms, the NT above all by the Gospels, the Acts, Paul's Letters to the Christians of Rome, Corinth and Ephesus, and lastly the Apocalypse. 7 Among Paulinus' earliest Christian poems are three Psalm paraphrases (Carm. 7, 8 and 9) that leave the impression that he may for a moment have been thinking of a metrical recasting of all the Psalms. As for the presence of the Bible in the Carmina of Paulinus Nolanus, it is primarily these Psalm paraphrases that have

4 See e.g. John R. Wachel, Classical and Biblical Elements in Selected Poems of Paulinus of .Nola (diss. Univ. oflowa, 1978), pp. l53ff. 5 It must be noted that he sometimes misconcieves what the Bible actually says; such errors are usually indicated by Walsh. These are not instances where Paulinus takes liberties with the biblical text, but rather what could be called cases of sloppi ness. 6 See in connection with the significance of the Bible for Paulin us, Ruggiero 1990 (n. 3), p. 84. 7 For the book of Genesis Ruggiero 1990 (n. 3), pp. 82-4 lists 64 references, for Exodus 35, and for the Psalms 121; for the Gospels 95 + 35 + 76 +56, for the Acts 35, for Rom. 38, Cor. 46 + 21, Eph. 28, and for Apocalypse 25. Cf. in general Walsh 197 5 (n. I) (although the latter has not added up the references). Such lists of references must, for various reasons, be handled with caution, but they do give a certain indication of the relative weight that can be accorded to the various biblical books within a given author's work.