CHAPTER 1
Text, Interpretation, and Authority
In late antiquity, the readers of Christian scripture and of Vergilās poetry played a visible role in making meaning of the texts at their disposal. These readers of Vergil have often been charged with mindlessly yielding to a dogmatic belief in the poetās infallibility. Alan Cameron, for example, describes the explanatory notes of Servius and Macrobius as misguided attempts at defensive criticism, at saving Vergil from the charge of ignorance (2011, 590ā94). But in describing their canonical texts as deeply meaningful, Augustine, Macrobius, and others made room for their own creative and positive interpretations. At the same time, late antique writers lent importance both to the work of exegesis and to the status of secondary authors. In this chapter, the construction of the cultureās canonical works and the rise of a literature whose fundamental concern was the interpretation of that canon will serve as indexes to mark the privileged status of reading in late antiquity. Once this privileging of reading has been established, the cultural significance of Macrobiusās or Augustineās exegesis will become evident. Rather than focus on the social or material conditions of reading in late antiquity, I approach reading as a literary activity. In this regard, I have benefited from the work of Joseph Pucci, who has shown that both Macrobius and Augustine legitimate the readerās involvement in the text (1998, 51ā82). I build on his results in order to show that this legitimation is one of the ways in which late antique authors came to reflect upon the importance of their reading. Because the textual reverence of late antiquity conceals a powerful turn toward appropriation, the readerās role became more significant as the classical canon became more distant from the contemporary world. Further, by construing writing itself as an act of reading, Macrobius and Jerome provided a theoretical basis for the readerās involvement in the text. I will begin with the exegetical programs of Jerome and Augustine before turning to the more literary reception of Vergil, in particular by Macrobius and especially in the Saturnalia.
Jerome and Augustine on the Interpretation of Scripture
Augustine wrote carefully about how and why he read the scriptures. Although he sometimes embraced the readerās free participation in making sense of the text, he also set strict limits on the proper interpretation of scripture. While Augustine admitted the readerās ability to understand something other than the authorās intended meaning, the somewhat elder Jerome emphatically sought to restore the textās original sense. Both authors valued the work of reading. Jerome focused on the depths of scripture and on the writing of commentaries; his example will serve as a foil to Augustineās more theoretical focus.
Jerome and the Writing of Scriptural Commentary
Jerome was already famous as a scholar, commentator, and translator of the scriptures within his lifetime (c. 347ā420). A concern for historical context and for the literal interpretation of scripture was fundamental to his exegesis. Although he drew on earlier Greek and Hebrew scholars (especially Origen), Jerome was an original thinker. And despite his fondness for historical philology and a concomitant disdain for what he saw as overly rhetorical interpretation, Jerome described the scriptures as a mysterious text whose sense remained to be uncovered by the diligent reader.
In a letter to Paulinus (soon to be) of Nola written in 394 and destined to be used during the Middle Ages as a preface to the scriptures, Jerome explains the contents and proper interpretation of the scriptures. He quotes Psalm 118:8 on the inner wisdom of the sacred text:
ārevela,ā inquit David, āoculos meos, et considerabo mirabilia de lege tuaā; lex enim spiritalis est et revelatione indiget, ut intellegatur ac revelata facie dei gloriam contemplemur.
(Ep. 53.4)
āUnveil my eyes,ā says David, āand I will consider the wonders of your law.ā For the law is spiritual and requires unveiling in order to be understood and for us to contemplate the glory of God in his unveiled appearance.
Jerome describes Christ as the divine Wisdom and as the one who holds the key to scriptureās unveiling (Ep. 53.4ā5). His description of scripture borrows explicitly from Psalm 118; it also alludes to Paulās description of the veil hanging over the Hebrew scriptures, a passage that was often quoted by Christian exegetes. Although Jerome was not the only author to describe scripture in this way, he does give special emphasis, in a relatively short letter, to the need for revelation. And when Jerome goes on to give Paulinus a brief overview of each book of the Old and New Testaments, he pays special attention to the mysterious sense of each text. In particular, he accentuates the hidden wisdom of the Apocalypse of John:
Apocalypsis Iohannis tot habet sacramenta, quot verba. parum dixi et pro merito voluminis laus omnis inferior est; in verbis singulis multiplices latent intellegentiae.
(Ep. 53.9)
The Apocalypse of John has as many mysteries as words. I have said too little, and every praise is inferior to the bookās merit. Multiple meanings lie hidden in individual words.
The concealed meanings of scripture appeal to Jerome, and for him, even single words do not have a simple meaning. Rather, he tells Paulinus that the simplistic surface of the text conceals a further meaning. The surface is simple so as to appeal to the unlearned; the learned, for their part, will understand scripture in a deeper way. For Jerome, the hidden meanings of scripture obligate the reader to interpret this text in more than its literal sense, and the authoritative text accepts and even requires its readerās active participation. In this way, even a literal-minded exegete like Jerome emphasized the mystical aspects of scripture. In so doing, he suggested that the readerās participation (and especially the commentatorās expertise) were necessary in order to elucidate the mysteries of scripture.
Jerome, who described scripture as a mysterious text, made a literary career out of scriptural exegesis. He was a student of the grammarian Aelius Donatus, and in many ways, his numerous scriptural commentaries follow the pattern set by commentators on classical texts. However, unlike earlier commentators, Jerome viewed exegetical writing as the highest form of literature. In so doing, he canonized an ideal of literature as exegesis and so lent weight to the work of reading.
In 392 or 393, Jerome wrote a work on Christian authors, De viris illustribus, modeled on Suetoniusās work of the same name. In his prologue, Jerome explains that his goal is to review āall those who have published anything memorable on the holy Scripturesā (āomnes qui de scripturis sanctis memoriae aliquid prodideruntā). He begins with Peter and ends with himself. His list includes poets, bishops, and exegetes. Thus, in Jeromeās arrangement, āwriting on scripture takes many forms and arises in many different contexts,ā but āall Christian writing worthy of the name is writing on scripture.ā The common thread in Jeromeās stance toward reading and his ideal of Christian authorship is the scriptural and exegetical thrust of his own scholarship.
In a follow-up to letter 53, Jerome invited Paulinus to begin writing works of scriptural exegesis. Upon receiving a panegyric (no longer extant) that Paulinus wrote in honor of Theodosius, Jerome praises his addresseeās eloquence, but he longs for the chance to train Paulinus in the scriptures rather than have him continue in the poetic and rhetorical training that he has already received. If Paulinus learns to understand the scriptures, Jerome says, there will be nothing āmore beautiful, more learned, or more Latinate than his works.ā Because Jerome goes on to compare Paulinus to a series of prose authors (Tertullian, Cyprian, Victorinus, Lactantius, and Hilary), he seems to have intended Paulinus to write exegetical works in prose rather than Christian poetry. Further, Mark Vessey (2007) has shown that Jerome appropriated for his own scholarship the Horatian ideal of laborious art. But in place of Horaceās ars poetica, Jerome substituted an ars scripturarum, the art of interpretation (Ep. 53.6). As Vessey says, āThis substitution was not to be the labour of a day or of a single pair of letters. It was Jeromeās life work, the combined effect of all his literary exertionsā (2007, 40). By constructing an ideal of literature as scriptural writing, Jerome made the work of reading the central task of any (Christian) author.
Jerome himself wrote voluminous commentaries on the scriptures, and he insists upon his role as commentator. In the preface to book 3 of his commentary on Galatians, Jerome apologizes for the rhetorical simplicity of his writing, in order to insist on the generic difference of commentaries:
sit responsum me non panegyricum, aut controversiam scribere, sed commentarium, id est, hoc habere propositum, non ut mea verba laudentur sed ut quae ab alio bene dicta sunt ita intelligantur ut dicta sunt. officii mei est obscura disserere, manifesta perstringere, in dubiis immorari. unde et a plerisque commentariorum opus explanatio nominatur.
(In Gal. 3, prol.)
I would reply that I am not writing a panegyric or a rhetorical exercise, but a commentary; that is, my aim is not for my words to be praised, but for the admirable words of another to be understood in the same way as they were spoken. It is my job to discuss what is obscure, to pass over what is obvious, to linger in doubtful places. For this reason, most people call the product of commentaries an explanation.
Jerome asserts elsewhere the generic difference of commentaries, and he also states that his aim is to set out the meaning of his author rather than to speak on his own authority. There is no reason to doubt that other commentators had the same aim or to think that Jerome was the first person to realize that a commentary was different than a panegyric. But for Jero...