The Hymns of Prudentius Part 19

The pure and faithful saint, whose heart is whole, To G.o.d the Father makes his sacrifice From out the treasures of a stainless soul, Glad gifts of innocence, beyond all price: Another with free hand bestows his gold, Whereby his needy neighbour may be fed.

No wealth of holiness my heart doth hold, No store have I to buy my brothers bread: So here I humbly dedicate to Thee The rolling trochee and iambus swift; Thou wilt approve my simple minstrelsy, Thine ear will listen to Thy servant's gift.

The rich man's halls are n.o.bly furnished; Therein no nook or corner empty seems; Here stands the brazen laver burnished, And there the golden goblet brightly gleams; Hard by some crock of clumsy earthen ware, Ma.s.sive and ample lies a silver plate; And rough-hewn cups of oak or elm are there With vases carved of ivory delicate.

Yet every vessel in its place is good, So be it for the Master's service meet; The priceless salver and the bowl of wood Alike He needs to make His home complete.

Therefore within His Father's s.p.a.cious hall Christ fits me for the service of a day, Mean though I be, a vessel poor and small,-- And in some lowly corner lets me stay.

Lo in the palace of the King of Kings I play the earthen pitcher's humble part; Yet to have done Him meanest service brings A thrill of rapture to my thankful heart: Whate'er the end, this thought will joy afford, My lips have sung the praises of my Lord.

_This edition of the_ Cathemerinon of Prudentius _has been prepared for the Temple Cla.s.sics by_ Rev. R. MARTIN POPE, M.A. (_St John's College, Cambridge, translator of the_ "Letters of John Hus"), _who has done the translation of the_ Praefatio _and_ Hymns i., ii., iii., viii., xi., xii., _with notes thereon and the note on_ Prudentius. _For the rendering of_ Hymns iv., v., vi., vii., ix., x., _and the_ Epilogus _with notes thereon,_ Mr R.F. DAVIS, M.A. (_St John's College, Cambridge_), _is responsible. The text, with some minor alterations in orthography and punctuation, is that of_ Dressel (Lipsiae, 1860). _The frontispiece is due to the kind suggestion of_ Dr SANDYS, _Public Orator of Cambridge University, to whom the thanks of the translators are hereby presented._

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE

AURELIUS PRUDENTIUS CLEMENS (to give his full t.i.tle) was born, probably at Saragossa (Caesaraugusta), in Spain, in the year of our Lord 348. The fourth century exercised a profound influence alike on the destiny of the Roman Empire and of the Christian Church. After a long discipline, strangely alternating between fiery persecution and contemptuous toleration, the Church entered upon a new era, when in 323 Constantine, the first Christian emperor, became master of the Roman world. Two years later the Council of Nicaea met to utter its verdict on the Arian controversy and to establish the terms of the orthodox symbol. A generation later Julian took up the reins of empire and commenced his quixotic and fruitless attempt to revive the glories of Paganism.

Athanasius died in 373: but fourteen years later Augustine, his successor in the champions.h.i.+p of the faith, was baptized, and in 395, at the death of Theodosius, when the Empire was divided between Honorius and Arcadius, he became Bishop of Hippo, and was marked out by his saintliness and learning as the leader of the Western Church, which he shaped by his splendid ideal of the _Civitas Dei_ into unity and stability, when the secular empire was falling into decay.

We know little more of the life of Prudentius than he himself has disclosed. The _Preface_, which stands as an introduction to his poems, is a miniature autobiography of great interest. M. Boissier in his _Fin du Paganisme_ calls it _melancolique_: though it is rather the retrospect of a serious and awakened, but not morbid, conscience. Prudentius views his past years in the light of that new spiritual truth to which he has opened his soul. We gather that he received a liberal education and was called to the bar. We need not misunderstand the allusion to the deceitfulness of the barrister life, seeing that the ordinary arts of rhetoric stand condemned by his recently adopted ethical standard. He held two important judicial posts and was promoted to a high position, probably in the civil service and not outside the limits of his native province, the _provincia Tarraconensis_.

He speaks of himself as having reached the age of fifty-seven, which brings us down to 405, and as intending to consecrate his remaining years to the poetic treatment of religious subjects. When and how he became a Christian we do not know, and it were vain to guess, although the suggestion that he may have owed his conversion to the influence of some Christian family of his acquaintance is at least interesting. It is unlikely that he took up poetry for the first time in his old age. His mastery of all kinds of metre--heroic and lyric--prove the practised hand.

The probability is that in the years of repose after a busy career his desire to redeem an unspiritual past suggested for the exercise of his natural gifts a field hitherto unoccupied by any of the writers of his age. Why not consecrate his powers to the task of interesting the literary circles of the Empire in the evangel of Christ? Why not present the truths of Christianity in a poetic guise, wrought into forms of beauty and set forth in the cla.s.sical metres of Roman literature? This became the pa.s.sion of his life, and however we may view the results of his toil, the spirit in which he went to work, as described in the touching _Epilogue_, cannot but evoke our profound admiration. He is but a vessel of earth, but whatever the issue may be, it will be a lasting joy to have sounded forth the praise of Christ in song.

This then is how Prudentius becomes the first poet of the Christian Church, or, as Bentley called him, "the Virgil and Horace of the Christians."

Doubtless there were other influences at work to determine the sphere to which he was naturally attract. Ambrose, who was Bishop of Milan when Prudentius was twenty-six years of age, had written the first Latin hymns to be sung in church. Augustine in a familiar pa.s.sage of the _Confessions_ (ix. 7.) describes how "the custom arose of singing hymns and psalms, after the use of the Eastern provinces, to save the people from being utterly worn out by their long and sorrowful vigils." "From that day to this," he adds, "it has been retained and, many might say, all Thy flocks throughout the rest of the world now follow our example." To Ambrose and Augustine the Church of Christ is for ever indebted: to the latter for a devotional treatise which is the most familiar of all the writings of the fourth century: to the former for the hymns of praise which he composed and the practice of singing which he thus inaugurated in the wors.h.i.+p of the Western Church. But the Church owes something also to Prudentius, a much more gifted poet than Ambrose. The collection of hymns known as the _Cathemerinon_ or _Hymns for the day_ is as little adapted for ecclesiastical wors.h.i.+p as Keble's _Christian Year_, although excerpts from these poems have pa.s.sed into the hymnology of the Church, just as portions of Keble's work have pa.s.sed into most hymn books. For example, seven of these excerpts in the form of hymns are to be found in the Roman Breviary, and thus for centuries the lyrics of Prudentius have been sung in the daily services of the Church.

Seeing that Prudentius must address himself to most English readers through the imperfect medium of a translation, it may be well to remind those who make their first acquaintance with him that a historical imagination is an indispensable condition of interest and sympathy. If Prudentius has a habit of leaving the main issue and making lengthy and tedious _detours_ into the picturesque parables and miraculous incidents of the Old Testament, there is method in his digressiveness. He knows that one of the charms of Paganism lies in its rich and variegated mythology. Yet Christianity also can point to an even n.o.bler inheritance of the supernatural and the wonderful in the mysterious evolutions of its history. Hence the stories of the early patriarchs, of the Israelites and Moses, of Daniel and Jonah, are imported by the poet as pictorial ill.u.s.trations of his theme. If occasionally the details border on the grotesque, he certainly reveals a striking knowledge of the Old Testament.

The New Testament is also adequately represented. In one poem (ix.) the miracles of Christ in His earthly ministry and His descent into Hades are narrated with considerable spirit and eloquence. Besides being a student of the Bible, Prudentius is a theologian. His theology is that of the Nicene Creed. The Fall of man, the personality of the Tempter, the mystery of the Trinity and of the Incarnation, the Virgin-birth, the Death and Resurrection of Christ, the pains of the lost and the bliss of the saints, the resurrection of the Body and the life everlasting--these are the themes of his pen, the themes too of the theology of his age. If the poet's treatment of these truths occasionally appears antiquated and crude to modern ideas, it is at least dignified and intelligent. His mind has absorbed the Christian religion and the Christian theology, and he not unfrequently rises to n.o.ble heights in the interpretation of their mysteries. His didactic poems, the _Hamartigenia_ or the _Origin of Evil_ and the _Apotheosis_, a treatise on the Person of Christ, prove him to be a theologian of no mean calibre. He is also an allegorist, as is proved by the _Psychomachia_ or the _Battle of the Soul_, a kind of _Holy War_ which was very popular in the Middle Ages. He is a martyrologist: as witness the _Peristephanon_, a series of poems on Christian, princ.i.p.ally Spanish, martyrs. Moreover, he is an undoubted patriot, and in the _Contra Symmachum_, which he wrote on the famous affair of the Altar of Victory, he proves that, while a Christian, he is also _civis Roma.n.u.s_, loyal to the Empire and the powers that be. He is a skilful versifier, and in this connection the quatrains of the _Dittochaeon_, verses on themes of the Old and New Testaments, may be mentioned in order to complete the list of his works. His mastery of his very varied metres--hexameter, iambic, trochaic and sapphic--is undoubted: everywhere we note the influence of Virgil and Horace, even when these poets are not recalled by echoes of their diction which are constantly greeting the reader of his poems.

Reference has already been made to the influence of Ambrose of Milan upon the thought and style of Prudentius. But there is a second and even more powerful influence that deserves at least briefly to be noted--namely, the Christian art of the Catacombs. Apart from such definite statements as _e.g._ are found in _Peristephanon_ xi., it is obvious that Prudentius had a first-hand knowledge of Rome and particularly of the Catacombs.

Everywhere in his poems we find evidences of the deep impression made upon his imagination by the paintings and sculptures of subterranean Rome. The now familiar representations which decorate the remains of the Catacombs suggested to him many of the allusions, the picturesque vignettes and glowing descriptions to be found in his poetry. Thus, the story of Jonah--a common theme typifying the Resurrection--the story of Daniel with its obvious consolations for an age of martyrs, the Good Shepherd and the denial of Peter may be mentioned among the numerous subjects which were reproduced in early Christian art and transferred by the poet to his verse.

The symbolism of the c.o.c.k, the Dove, and the Lamb borne on the shoulders of the Good Shepherd is a perpetually recurring feature in the lyrics and martyr-hymns of Prudentius, who thus becomes one of our most valuable authorities on the Christian art of the fourth century.

The poems, of which a new English rendering is presented in this volume, are acknowledged by most critics to ill.u.s.trate some of his best qualities, his brightness and dignity, his touches of nature-painting and his capacity for sustained and well-wrought narrative. As we study these lyrics of the early Church, we feel anew the mighty change that Christianity wrought in Roman life by its doctrine of immortality, and we note the curious fascination which the circ.u.mstances of the Nativity and especially the Adoration of the Magi had for the Western world. Prudentius had a great vogue in the Middle Ages, and the modern renewal of interest in mediaevalism invests with fresh dignity a poet whose works at the Revival of learning provoked the admiration of Erasmus[1] and the researches of numerous scholars and editors. But it is undoubtedly to the student of ecclesiastical history and dogma and to the lovers of Christian art and antiquities that Prudentius most truly appeals. He claims our interest, not merely because he reflects the Christian environment of his days, but because his poetry represents an attempt to preach Christ to a world still fascinated by Paganism, while conscious that the old order was changing and yielding place to new.

[1] _Prudentium, unum inter Christianos vere facundum poetam._

NOTES

HYMNS

THE t.i.tLE

The word _Cathemerinon_ is taken from the Greek and is the genitive of _chathemerina_ "daily things": the whole t.i.tle _Liber Cathemerinon_ is equivalent to "Book of daily hymns," and may be rendered "Hymns for the Christian's day."

THE PREFACE

In one or two of the MSS. this introductory poem is stated to be a preface of the _Cathemerinon_ only: but the great majority of the codices support the view which is undoubtedly suggested by internal evidence, that the poem is a general introduction to the whole of Prudentius' works. It is inserted together with the _Epilogus_ in this volume, because of the intrinsic interest of both poems.

Line

8 The reference is to the _toga virilis_, the ordinary white-coloured garb of a Roman citizen who at his sixteenth year laid aside the purple-edged _toga praetexta_, which was worn during the days of boyhood.

16 ff. The cities referred to are unknown: but it is probable that they were two _municipia_ in Northern Spain, and that the office held by Prudentius was that of duumvir or prefect. Provision was made by the twenty-fourth clause of the law of Salpensa (a town in the _provincia Baetica_ of Spain) by which the emperor could be elected first magistrate of a _municipium_, and could thereupon appoint a prefect to take his place. This would explain the language of the text as to the semi-imperial nature of the post. The phrase _militiae gradus_ need only be taken to indicate advancement in the _civil_ service. But the words have been interpreted in accordance with the more familiar and definite meaning of _militia_, and understood to refer to a purely military post. Dressel thinks that Prudentius was a _miles Palatinus_, that is, a member of the best-paid and most highly-privileged imperial troops, who furnished officers for some of the most lucrative posts in the provinces.

Though in the translation the usual meaning has been given to _militia_, it must be regarded as uncertain in the absence of more definite information regarding the office held by Prudentius.

24 The consuls.h.i.+p of Salia (or Salias) belongs to the year 348, the date of the birth of Prudentius. An inscription (quoted by Migne from Muratorius, _Nov. Thes. Inscrip._, i. 379) has been found in the monastery of St. Paul's outside the city bearing the words

FILIPPO ET SALLIA COSS

I

1 Of this poem lines 1-8, 81-84, 97-100, were included in the Roman Breviary as a hymn to be sung at Lauds, on Tuesday.

2 The allusions to the c.o.c.k in this and the following poem (ii. 37-55) were doubtless inspired by the lines of Ambrose in his morning hymn beginning _Aeterne rerum conditor_. Cf. ll. 5-8 and 16-24:

_"praeco diei iam sonat noctis profundae pervigil, nocturna lux viantibus a nocte noctem segregans._

_surgamus ergo strenue: gallus iacentes excitat, et somnolentos increpat: gallus negantes arguit._

_gallo canente spes redit, aegris salus refunditur, mucro latronis conditur, lapsis fides revert.i.tur."_

_Translation._

"Dawn's herald now begins to cry, Lone watcher of the nightly sky: Light of the dark to pilgrims dear, Speeding successive midnights drear.

Brisk from our couch let us arise!

Hark to the c.o.c.k's arousing cries!

He chides the sluggard's slumbrous ease, And shames his unconvincing pleas.

At c.o.c.k-crow Hope revives again, Health banishes the stress of pain, Sheathed is the nightly robber's sword, And Faith to fallen hearts restored."