Poetry, Bible and Theology from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages

Michele Cutino

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9783110687330
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: History of Christianity

Die Millennium-Studien wollen Grenzen überschreiten, Grenzen zwischen den Epochen und regionalen Räumen wie auch Grenzen zwischen den Disziplinen. Millennium ist international, transdisziplinär und epochenübergreifend ausgerichtet. Das Herausgebergremium und der Beirat repräsentieren ein breites Spektrum von Fächern: Kunst- und literaturwissenschaftliche Beiträge kommen ebenso zu ihrem Rechtwie historische, theologische und philosophische, Beiträge zu den lateinischen und griechischen Kulturen ebenso wie zu den orientalischen.

Part I: The Greek-Latin Biblical Epic in Late Antiquity

Narrative and Exegesis in Sedulius’ Carmen paschale

Michael Roberts

Sedulius’ Carmen paschale, dated to the second quarter of the fifth century, is the second of three New Testament biblical epics that survive in their entirety from late antiquity. The poems are spaced roughly a century apart and each poet clearly knew the work of his predecessor or predecessors.¹ In Sedulius’ case Juvencus’ Evangeliorum libri quattuor (hereafter ELQ) provided some form of precedent for his undertaking, though the later poem is very different in its free handling of the biblical original and in the incorporation of exegetical material into the narrative. These two aspects of the Carmen have been the subject of an important recent book by Daniel Deerberg that significantly advances the study of the poem.² In my paper I should like to suggest a slightly different way of thinking about the relation between narrative and exegesis in the poem from that adopted by Deerberg.

Fundamental to his approach is a distinction between horizontal reworking of a text, which involves variation in length—abbreviation and amplification—and the introduction of edifying elements sanctioned by the biblical original, and vertical reworking, introducing elements absent from the original.³ Juvencus, with rare exceptions, confines himself, in Deerberg’s account, to the horizontal level of the narrative.⁴ Overt exegesis is almost entirely absent from Juvencus’ poem. In this respect, the contrast could scarcely be more pronounced with the Carmen paschale, which contains multiple exegetic and homiletic elements that, in Deerberg’s analysis, belong to the vertical level of the text.

To provide a different perspective on this issue—broadly speaking the relationship between narrative and exegesis—I should like to cite a passage from the second book of Cicero’s De Oratore, in which Marcus Antonius is discussing historiography (II.15.62 – 63):

Nam quis nescit primam esse historiae legem, ne quid falsi dicere audeat? Deinde ne quid veri non audeat? … Haec scilicet fundamenta nota sunt omnibus, ipsa autem exaedificatio posita est in rebus et verbis: rerum ratio ordinem temporum desiderat, regionum descriptionem; vult etiam, quoniam in rebus magnis memoriaque dignis consilia primum, deinde acta, postea eventus exspectentur, et de consiliis significari quid scriptor probet et in rebus gestis declarari non solum quid actum aut dictum sit, sed etiam quo modo, et cum de eventu dicatur, ut causae explicentur omnes vel casus vel sapientiae vel temeritatis hominumque ipsorum non solum res gestae, sed etiam, qui fama ac nomine excellant, de cuiusque vita atque natura.

“Everyone, of course, knows that the first law of historiography is not daring to say anything false, and the second is not refraining from saying anything true… These foundations are, of course, recognized by everyone, but the actual superstructure consists of content and style. It is the nature of content, on the one hand, that it requires a chronological order of events and topographical descriptions; and also, since in the treatment of important and memorable achievements the reader expects intentions, the events themselves, and consequences, that it needs the writer to indicate what intentions he approves of, to reveal not only what was said and done but also in what manner, and, when speaking of consequences, to explain all the reasons, whether they result from chance, intelligence, or impetuousness, and also to give not only the achievements of any famous protagonist but also his life and character”.

The translation I provide is adapted from that of A.J. Woodman, in an important article on this passage, published in 1988, that I follow in my analysis.⁵ Shortly before this passage Antonius had criticized early Roman annalists, whose bare, unornamented record of events left much to be desired in his judgment. Woodman’s interpretation of Cicero stresses the basic distinction between the foundations (fundamenta) of a historiographical text and its superstructure (exaedificatio). Early annalists confined themselves to the fundamenta, an unadorned account of the simple facts, or what they took to be the simple facts. But for Antonius the real quality of a historian lay in his construction of a superstructure upon those bare facts, in which he would recount not just what was done (acta), but for what purpose (consilia), and with what outcome (eventus), and include an evaluation of the purposes for an action and the reasons (causae) for its outcome. The requirements largely coincide with those for a narration in oratory: the Rhetorica ad Herennium recommends enumerating “the reasons for purposes” (consiliorum rationes, I.9.16), and Cicero himself, in the Partitiones oratoriae requires the inclusion of “the cause of every deed and outcome” (cuiusque facti et eventi causa, 9.32). Underlying Antonius’ discussion is the belief that the art of historiography consists in the elaboration of a “hard core” (as Woodman calls it) of factual information. That elaboration, a matter of inventio in rhetorical terms, may involve an account of actions (a battle narrative, for instance) or a description of a scene (Quintilian gives instructions for how to treat the sack of a city [VIII.3.67 – 70]), but also takes in accounts and discussions of purposes and motives, the outcomes of events and the reasons for those outcomes. All these constitute parts of an artistically composed narrative.

This notion of a simple factual narrative serving as a foundation (fundamentum) on which to build ([ex]aedificare) some more sophisticated superstructure finds echoes in Christian homiletic and exegesis. Augustine speaks of the scriptures narrating actions (quae gesta sunt), which serve as a foundation (fundamentum), a factual base without which to propose further spiritual interpretation is like “trying to build on air” (quasi in aere quaeratis aedificare, Serm. 2.7, CCL 41: 14.170 – 74; cf. Serm. 8.2, CCL 41:80.53 – 81.1). The architectural language, of foundations and structures raised on those foundations, corresponds to that in Cicero’s treatise. The specific reference in the Augustine passage is to the sacrifice of Isaac, included among the “mysteries of the Holy Scriptures” (sacramenta divinarum scripturarum), in Augustine’s language. He insists that recognition of the literal, historical sense of the event is a p...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Part I: The Greek-Latin Biblical Epic in Late Antiquity
• Part II: Biblical Poetry and Theological Aims in other Poetic Genres between Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages
• Part III: The Versification of the Bible in the Latin West in the Middle Age
• Abstracts
• Index of Ancient and Medieval Authors
• Index of Biblical Texts