ABSTRACT
The long neglect of early Christian Latin poetry (which is usually taken to consist of poems by authors from Italy, Gaul, Spain and North Africa in the period from the early fourth century to the late sixth century) perhaps arises from the attitudes of Renaissance humanists who considered medieval literature as inferior to the extant works of such writers as Cicero, Horace and Virgil who were writing in the relatively short period of history that came to be termed ‘classical antiquity’. Vives denounced the poetry of Juvencus, Sedulius, Prosper and Paulinus as muddy waters1 and Aldus Manutius claimed that ‘among the learned of Italy he had met not one who had read a line of ancient Christian poetry’. And yet Petrarch admired Lactantius and Augustine for combining the ‘studia humanitatis’ with the ‘studia divinitatis’, and spoke approvingly of Arator, Prudentius, Sedulius and Juvencus in his tenth Eclogue; Luther called Sedulius ‘the most Christian poet’2 and John Colet recommended the reading of Lactantius, Juvencus, Proba, Prudentius and Sedulius, as writers of ‘clean and chaste Latin’ like that used by Cicero, Sallust, Virgil and Terence.3 But if during the Renaissance and Reformation the new enthusiasm for the writers of classical antiquity was often combined with an understanding of the importance of the Christian writers of late antiquity, the rather negative view of medieval ‘Dark Age’ civilization was reinforced during the so-called Enlightenment with its suspicion of the Catholic Church. The study of the Christian poets of late antiquity has suffered as a result of this suspicion. Classicists have apparently been put off by the Christian content and theologians by the poetic form. The tendency has been to drive a wedge between the classical and the Christian, denying any continuity between them4
and thereby also denying any quality to the Christian product. Even if we admit the superiority of some of the classical poets, it is nevertheless true that early Christian Latin poetry deserves attention for its
content and not merely for any formal and stylistic similarities it bears to classical poetry. It is a poetry that covers a wide variety of subjects and forms – theological points and doctrinal issues, anti-pagan and anti-heretical polemic, moral advice, saints’ lives and miracles, hymns, biblical epic based on both the Old Testament and the New, and pastoral, as well as more personal lyric, epigrams, consolation in bereavement and autobiographical poetry. It is a poetry in which these themes are often treated with imaginative richness, allowing the reader to perceive a spiritual meaning as well as the literal.5 It is a poetry in which the Latin language develops beyond the boundaries set by classical literary Latin, using new terms associated with Christianity and often derived from Vulgar Latin,6 but also using classical words in new ways. It is a poetry in which the poet’s passionate commitment to Christianity is often evident and which is not merely the product of a leisured elite. And finally, many of these poems came to be regarded by medieval readers as classics in their own right, becoming part of the school curriculum and having a strong influence on the creation of medieval literature in Latin and the vernacular languages.
