THE COSMIC CHRISTIAN VISION OF PRUDENTIUS' LIBER CATHEMERINON, AND THE INCULTURATION OF AUGUSTAN VATIC POETRY by Christopher Gordon McKelvie Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts at Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova Scotia September 2010 © Copyright by Christopher Gordon McKelvie, 2010 DALHOUSIE UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS The undersigned hereby certify that they have read and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate Studies for acceptance a thesis entitled “THE COSMIC CHRISTIAN VISION OF PRUDENTIUS' LIBER CATHEMERINON, AND THE INCULTURATION OF AUGUSTAN VATIC POETRY” by Christopher Gordon McKelvie in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Dated: September 3, 2010 Supervisor: _________________________________ Readers: _________________________________ _________________________________ _________________________________ ii DALHOUSIE UNIVERSITY DATE: September 3, 2010 AUTHOR: Christopher Gordon McKelvie TITLE: THE COSMIC CHRISTIAN VISION OF PRUDENTIUS' LIBER CATHEMERINON, AND THE INCULTURATION OF AUGUSTAN VATIC POETRY DEPARTMENT OR SCHOOL: Classics DEGREE: MA CONVOCATION: October YEAR: 2010 Permission is herewith granted to Dalhousie University to circulate and to have copied for non-commercial purposes, at its discretion, the above title upon the request of individuals or institutions. _______________________________ Signature of Author The author reserves other publication rights, and neither the thesis nor extensive extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author’s written permission. The author attests that permission has been obtained for the use of any copyrighted material appearing in the thesis (other than the brief excerpts requiring only proper acknowledgement in scholarly writing), and that all such use is clearly acknowledged. iii Dedication This work is dedicated to my family, to my parents Lorraine and Gordon, to my Sisters Katie and Christy, to all my Brother Franciscans, who put up with me while I wrote it: Peter, Paul, James, Nathanael, Francesco, Grant, and Pio, to Fr. Roberto, and to Dr. Peter O'Brien, my adviser. Lastly, and most importantly, this work is devoted to the Lord God Almighty, Through the hands of the Blessed Virgin Mary, my Mother and Queen. May the Holy name of Jesus be forever praised, adored, glorified, honoured, and loved by every human heart both now and forever! Ad Iesum Per Mariam! iv Table of Contents Abstract.........................................................................................................................vii Chapter I: Introduction....................................................................................................1 Prudentius the Christian Poet.....................................................................................1 Chapter II: Toward a Prudentian Hermeneutic................................................................8 A Survey of Recent Scholarship.................................................................................8 Prudentius and Scriptural Exegesis..........................................................................16 Augustan Poetic Exegesis.........................................................................................20 The Image of God in Nature.....................................................................................22 Chapter III: Reading the Scripture of the World, Hymns 1-6.......................................25 Christ Hidden in Nature............................................................................................25 A Primer of Salvation History..................................................................................25 Chapter IV: The Order of Grace....................................................................................41 A New Covenant ......................................................................................................41 The Final Days.........................................................................................................52 The Sun, Illumination, and Divine Synthesis...........................................................60 Chapter V: Prudentius as Vates Christianus..................................................................62 Reinterpreting the Vatic Poets..................................................................................62 Prudentius and Augustus .........................................................................................63 Vates and the Augustan Reforms..............................................................................64 Prudentius' Vatic Vocation and the Conversion of the Camena...............................69 Vates: Rex, Propheta, Sacerdos................................................................................73 The Christianized Vates-Concept.............................................................................81 Chapter VI: The Locus Amoenus in Salvation History Typology.................................86 In Paradisum Deducant te Angeles ........................................................................86 She Will Crush Your Head, and You Will Strike at Her Heel...................................86 Exodus and Elysium.................................................................................................92 The Lord is my Shepherd.........................................................................................95 Chapter VII: Prudentius and the Fourth Eclogue........................................................100 Tuus Iam Regnet Christus Rex................................................................................100 Chapter VIII: The Heros Reinterpreted.......................................................................111 Aeneas the Priest-King...........................................................................................111 The Propheta-Heros...............................................................................................112 Israel as Heros........................................................................................................115 v Christus Heros........................................................................................................117 The First Combat....................................................................................................121 The Final Battle .....................................................................................................124 A Way to the Stars..................................................................................................126 Light and the Soul..................................................................................................127 Chapter IX: Conclusion...............................................................................................135 Carmen Saeculare, Carmen Perpetuum, Carmen Historicum, Carmen Christi....135 Works Cited ................................................................................................................140 vi Abstract The object of this study is two-fold: 1) to show that the Liber Cathemerinon of Prudentius Aurelius Clemens is not just a series of unrelated hymns, but a poetic breviarium, or handbook, of fundamental Nicene Christian belief. Behind the literal narrative lies a salvation history, running through the chief elements of the Old and New Testaments. 2) To examine how Prudentius not only presents the salvation-history narrative, but also translates it into the Augustan poetic idiom through intertextual dialogue with Augustan pagan authors, primarily Vergil, Horace, and Ovid. By reinterpreting and refuting pagan religious sentiment through developed intertextual dialogue, Prudentius produces a hybrid world-view that is both Roman and Christian. vii Chapter I: Introduction Prudentius the Christian Poet In the late fourth century, a Christian layman retired from a successful government career to write Christian poetry in his native Spain. Well-educated in both Christian and pagan learning, a capable and original poet, all that is left to us of Aurelius Prudentius Clemens are his name, a body of poems, and endless speculation, none of which have been definitively resolved by Prudentian scholars, and much of which is out of the scope of the present study.1 He introduces himself to his audience in a prologue to the hymns and commends his poetic work to God in an epilogue, but apart from this only the internal references to historical events in the Late Antique period help to place Prudentius accurately in time. His poems, however, remained popular up until the Renaissance, and had a lasting impact on the style and metrics of Latin hymnody and prosody. Of his lyrical works, there are three books, the Liber Peristephanon (Book of the Crowns of Victory), a book of fourteen passiones or martyrdom-hymns of early Christian martyrs; the Dittochaeon (Two-Fold Libation), a series of 49 short poems on episodes from the New and Old Testaments; and the Liber Cathemerinon (Book for all of the Days), which is the subject of this study. It is a book of twelve hymns for celebrating various daily events and offering them to God, running through the events of the day (hymns 1-6), and specific celebrations in Christian life, such as fasting(hymns 7 and 8), Christmas (hymn 11) and the burial of the dead (hymn 10). They follow the theme of the 1 For a summary of many of these disputes, such as dates of composition, Prudentius' town of