The Hymns of Prudentius Part 22

The lines selected are 22-24, 1-21.

11 The use of the symbol _o_, (p.r.o.nounced here as a single syllable), appears to indicate that the names Omega and Omikron came into use at a later date than Prudentius' time. In Rev. i. 8, the best MSS. read _ego eimi to alpha kai to o_.

33 The words _vulnerum piamina_ are generally supposed to refer to the "gifts which Moses commanded" to be offered by those healed of leprosy (Lev. xiv. 2). If so, Prudentius' language may imply that the cure was not actually complete until the offering of these gifts, and is at variance with St. Matthew, viii. 43, "and forthwith his leprosy was cleansed." Probably, however, his idea is rather that the gifts to the priest formally marked the leper as a clean man.

71 Cf. note on iii. 199.

X

1 Parts of this hymn are used in the Moz. Brev. in the Office of the Dead, being ll. 1-16, 45-48, 57-68, 157-168.

The burial rites of the primitive Church were simple, and marked by an absence of the ostentatious expression of grief which the pagan peoples displayed. The general practice of cremation was rejected, partly owing to the new belief in the resurrection of the body, and partly from a desire to imitate the burial of the Lord. At Rome, during the first three centuries, the dead were laid in the Catacombs, in which Prudentius took conspicuous interest (see Translator's Note), but after 338 A.D. this practice became less frequent, and was completely abandoned after 410 A.D. Elsewhere, from the earliest times, the Christians purchased special enclosures (_areae_), which were often attacked and rifled by angry mobs in the days of persecution. The body was frequently embalmed (_cf._ ll. 51, 52), swathed in white linen (l. 49), and placed in a coffin; vigils and hymns continued for three or four days, but hired mourners were forbidden (l. 113), and instead of the dirges of the heathens, chants expressive of triumphant faith were sung as the body was carried to the grave, where a simple service was held, and evergreens and flowers were strewn about the tomb (ll. 169, 170). The earliest inscriptions are often roughly scratched on plaster, and consist merely of a name and age, or simple words like--

GEMELLA DORMIT IN PACE

but later (cf. l. 171), they were engraved on small marble slabs.

25 In both thought and language this stanza, as vii. 16 _et seq._, is evidently reminiscent of Horace (_Sat._ 2, ii. 77): _Quin corpus onustum_, etc.

"The Body, too, with Yesterday's excess Burthened and tired, shall the pure Soul depress, Weigh down this Portion of celestial Birth, This Breath of G.o.d, and fix it to the Earth."

(Francis).

51 Boldetti, in his work on the Catacombs (lib. i. cap. 59), says that on many occasions, when he was present at the opening of a grave, the a.s.sembled company were conscious of a spicy odour diffusing itself from the tomb. Cf. Tertullian (_Apol._ 42): "The Arabs and Sabaeans knew well that we consume more of their precious merchandise for our dead than do the heathen for their G.o.ds."

57 Prudentius' firm faith in the resurrection of the body is also n.o.bly expressed in the _Apotheosis_ (ll. 1063 _et seq._):--

"_Nosco meum in Christo corpus resurgere; quid me Desperare iubes? veniam, quibus ille revenit Calcata de morte viis: quod credimus hoc est._

_Pellite corde metum, mea membra, et credite vosmet c.u.m Christo reditura Deo; nam vos gerit ille Et sec.u.m revocat: morbos ridete minaces: Inflictos casus contemnite; tetra sepulcra Despuite; exsurgens quo Christus provocat, ite._"

_Translation._

"I know in Christ my body shall arise; Why bid me, then, despair? for I shall go By that same path whereby my Lord returned, Death trodden 'neath His feet: this is my creed.

Banish, my limbs, all terror; and believe That ye with Christ our G.o.d shall yet return; He beareth you and with Himself recalls.

Laugh at the threats of sickness; scorn the blows Of fate; despise the horrors of the tomb; And fare ye where the risen Christ doth call."

61 The poet expresses as a duty owed to Christ Himself the heathen obligation of casting three handfuls of earth upon a body discovered dead.

69 For the incident referred to in these lines, see the Apocryphal book of Tobias, cc. ii. and xi. Tobit, a pious Israelite captive in Nineveh, was reduced to beggary as the result of his zeal in burying those of his countrymen who had been killed and exposed by royal command. He also lost his sight, which was eventually restored by the application of the gall of a fish which attacked his son Tobias, and was killed by him. The "fish" of the legend is probably the crocodile, whose gall was credited with medicinal properties by various Greek and Latin writers. Cf. Pliny, _N. H._ xxviii. 8: "They say that nothing avails more against cataract than to anoint the eyes with its gall mixed with honey."

113 Cf. Cyprian (_De Mortal._ 20): "We must not lament our brethren whom the Lord's summons has freed from the world, for we know that they are not lost, but gone before. We may not wear the black robes of mourning while they have put on the white raiment of joy. Nor may we grieve for those as lost whom we know to be living with G.o.d."

171 Cf. _Perist._ vii.:--

"_Nos pio fletu, date, perluamus Marmorum sulcos._"

The early Christian epitaphs, of which many thousands exist, are instinct with a faith which is in striking contrast to the unrelieved gloom or sullen resignation of paganism. We may compare with the common

AVE ATQVE VALE

"Hail and farewell"

or inscriptions like

INFANTI DVLCISSIMO QVEM DI IRATI AETERNO SOMNO DEDERUNT

"To a very sweet babe, whom the angry G.o.ds gave to unending sleep."

the Christian

DVLCIS ET INNOCENS HIC DORMIT SEVERIANVS SOMNO PACIS CVIVS SPIRITVS IN LVCE DOMINI SVSCEPTVS EST (A.D. 393)

"Here slumbers in the sleep of peace the sweet and innocent Severia.n.u.s, whose spirit is received in the light of the Lord"

or

NATVS EST LAVRENTIVS IN ETERNVM ANN. XX. DORMIT IN PACE (A.D. 329)

"Laurentius was born into eternity in his twentieth year. He sleeps in peace."

See also note on iii. 205.

XI

1 Virgil's Fourth Eclogue known as the "Pollio" has undoubtedly influenced the thought and style of this poem: the more noticeable parallels will be pointed out as they occur. In Milton's ode _On the Morning of Christ's Nativity_ there are several pa.s.sages which recall Prudentius' treatment of the theme in this and the succeeding hymn; but curiously enough, the Puritan poet in alluding to the season of the Nativity takes an opposite line of thought, and regards the diminished suns.h.i.+ne of winter as a veiling of an inferior flame before the light of "a greater Sun." Prudentius proclaims the increase of the sun's light, which begins after the winter solstice, as symbolic of the ever-widening influence of the True Light. The idea is given in a terse form by St. Peter Chrysologus, _Serm._ 159: _Crescere dies coepit, quia verus dies illuxit_. "The day begins to lengthen out, inasmuch as the true Day hath shone forth."

18 For the somewhat obscure phrase _verbo editus_, see note on iii. 2.

20 For "Sophia" or the Divine Creative Wisdom, see Prov. iii. 19, 20, and especially viii. 27-31, where the language "has been of signal importance in the history of thought, helping, as it does, to make a bridge between Eastern and Greek ideas, and to prepare the way for the Incarnation" (Davison, _Wisdom-Literature of the O. T._, pp.

5, 6). In Alexandrian theology the conception of G.o.d's transcendence gave rise to the doctrine of an intermediate power or _logos_, by which creation was effected. In the Prologue of the fourth Gospel the idea was set forth in its purely Christian form. See 1, 3, where the Logos or the pre-incarnate Christ is described as the maker of all things--an idea which is also ill.u.s.trated by the language of St.

Paul in such pa.s.sages as Col. i. 6.

59 Cf. for the conception of a golden age, Virg., _Ecl._, iv. 5 _et seq._: _Magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo_, etc.

65 Reminiscences of ancient prophecy appear to be embodied in this and following lines. Cf. Joel iii. 18: "And it shall come to pa.s.s in that day that the mountains shall drop down sweet wine and the hills shall flow with milk." Amos ix. 13: "The mountains shall drop sweet wine and all the hills shall melt." But cf. especially Virg., _Ecl._, iv. 18-30: _At tibi prima, puer, nullo munuscula cultu_, etc.

"Unbidden earth shall wreathing ivy bring, And fragrant herbs (the promises of spring) As her first off'rings to her infant king.

Unlaboured harvest shall the fields adorn, And cl.u.s.tered grapes shall blush on every thorn; The knotted oaks shall showers of honey weep, And through the matted gra.s.s the liquid gold shall creep."

(Dryden's Trans.)

81 The legend of the ox and a.s.s adoring our Lord arose from an allegorical interpretation of Isa. i. 3: "The ox knoweth his owner, the a.s.s his master's crib." Origen (_Homilies on St. Luke_ xiii.) is the first to allegorise on the pa.s.sage in Isaiah, where the word for "crib" in the Greek translation of the O. T. is identical with St. Luke's word for "manger" (_phatne_). After referring to the circ.u.mstances of the Nativity, Origen proceeds to say: "That was what the prophet foretold, saying, 'The ox knoweth,' etc. The Ox is a clean animal: the a.s.s an unclean one. The a.s.s knew his master's crib (_praesepe domini sui_): not the people of Israel, but the unclean animal out of pagan nations knew its master's crib. 'But Israel hath not known me: and my people hath not understood.' Let us understand this and press forward to the crib, recognise the Master and be made worthy of his knowledge." The thought that the Ox = the Jews and the a.s.s = Pagans, reappears in Gregory n.a.z.ianzen, Ambrose and Jerome. See an interesting article by Mr. Austin West (_Ox and a.s.s Legend of the Nativity_. _Cont. Review_, Dec. 1903), who notes the further impetus given to the legend by the Latin rendering of Habb. iii. 2 (LXX.) which in the _Vetus Itala_ version appears as "in medio duorum animalium in notesceris," "in the midst of two animals shalt thou be known" (R.V., _in the midst of the years make it known_). The legend does not appear in apocryphal Christian literature earlier than in the _Pseudo-Matthew Gospel_, which belongs to the later fifth century. It is interesting to note that with St. Francis and the Franciscans the ox and the a.s.s are merely animals: the allegorical interpretation of Origen had vanished from Christendom: and in its place we find St. Francis (see _Life of St.

Francis_ by St. Bonaventura, "Temple Cla.s.sics" edition, p. 111) making a _presepio_ at Greccio, to which a living ox and a.s.s are brought, in order that a visible representation of the manger-scene might kindle the devotion of the Brethren and the a.s.sembled townsfolk. This act of St. Francis inaugurated the custom, still observed in the Roman Church, of representing by means of waxen images the whole of the Nativity manger-scene, Mother and Child together with the adoring animals.