A Companion to Late Antique Literature

by Scott McGill

  Traditional didactic topics endure in longer form as well, as the surviving hymnic proem to a didactic poem on marine life and the iambic works by the senator Avienius, Symmachus’s friend and translator of Aratus’s Phaenomena, attest. Avienius’s works engaged the antiquarian interests of the senatorial class of the later fourth century (the set that provides the personages for Macrobius’s Saturnalia). This antiquarian interest and choice of meter were also manifest in the East. Helladius of Antinupolis composed a didactic encyclopedia, a Chrestomathia or “Things Worth Knowing,” on linguistic, literary, and antiquarian topics in four books of iambic trimeters. If the audience for antiquarian didactics was predominantly aristocratic and learned, Christian authors, too, turned to iambic poetry as a vehicle for more popular education. In a papyrus we discover an anapestic abecedarius instructing the reader on good Christian living. Amphilochius, a friend of Gregory Nazianzus, lays out in a scant 337 iambs a program for how Christians should interact with the secular world.

  In the colonization of genres by iambic meters, we witness a piece of the progressive breakdown of the old hierarchies and categories that had dominated Latin and Greek poetic composition since the Hellenistic period. By the end of the sixth century, most poets had put aside the old meters (Agosti 2001). The Celtic poet Columba more or less followed classical grammar, but his language (a fusion of biblical and ecclesiastic Latin with odd words also seen in the prosimetric Hisperica famina) and form (rhythmic, rhyming abecadarii) mark his hymns as decidedly non‐Classical. For Greeks, the increasing turn to iambic verse acknowledged the shift in Greek pronunciation that had long since decoupled its quantities from the old meters. The increasing regimentation of the hexameter – Nonnus admitted only nine patterns of the hexameter; Paulus Silentarius only six – was a rearguard action, an attempt to match classical quantitative rhythm with contemporary tonal accent. The iambic epic, panegyric, and epigrams of George of Pisidia (early seventh) often stand as the signpost that we have left the classicizing world of late antiquity and embarked fully into the Byzantine milieu. Indeed, we might seem to have crossed into a new world when we read George’s Hexameron, a 1894‐verse account of the Creation in the 12‐syllable iambics that would dominate Byzantine verse. (Michael Psellus, the great 11‐century intellectual, would rank George above Euripides!) But even George composed his On Human Life and On the Vanity of Life in Nonnian hexameters. There always seems to be a further candidate for the last “last poet of antiquity.” A generation after Columba, the talented Celtic poet Columban would still compose quantitative poetry, including an epistle in adonics and the spirited Song of the Oar in hexameters. A generation later still, Eugenius II, Bishop of Toledo, supplemented Dracontius’s Satisfactio and composed around 100 epigrams in simple but correct Latin steeped in the new canon of late antique Christian poets. Although his prosody often lapses from classical standards, there is a sense that these are not missteps taken in ignorance but, like the lapses of Gregory three centuries before, conscious decisions to slough off moribund strictures. Instead of a decisive break with the past or threshold crossed, we face the conundrum of the ship of Theseus. The sweep of late antique minor and occasional poetry reveals the tenacious endurance of the old forms alongside the new until at last, we observe something that in many essential ways remains the same – yet is undeniably different.

  REFERENCES

  Agosti, Gianfranco. (2001). Late antique iambics and Iambikè Idéa. In: Iambic Ideas (ed. Alberto Cavarzere, Antonio Aloni, and Alessandro Barchiesi), 219–248. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

  Bastiaensen, A.A.R.(2007). Biblical poetry in Latin liturgical texts. In: Poetry and Exegesis in Premodern Latin Christianity (ed. Willemien Otten and Karla Pollmann), 265–274. Leiden: Brill.

  Cameron, Alan. (2011). The Last Pagans of Rome. New York: Oxford University Press.

  Charlet, Jean‐Louis. (1988). Aesthetic trends in late Latin poetry (325–410). Philologus 132: 74–85.

  Consolino, Franca Ela. (2017). Polymetry in late Latin poems: Some observations on its meaning and functions. In: The Poetics of Late Latin Literature (ed. Jas Elsner and Jesús Hernández Lobato), 100–124. New York: Oxford University Press.

  Dihle, Albrecht. (1994). Greek and Latin Literature of the Roman Empire: New York: Routledge.

  Formisano, Marco. (2007). Towards an aesthetic paradigm of late antiquity. Antiquité Tardive 15: 277–284.

  Kelly, Gavin. (2013). Sidonius and Claudian. In: New Approaches to Sidonius Apollinaris (ed. Johannes A. van Waarden and Gavin Kelly), 171–192. Leuven: Peeters.

  McGill, Scott. (2005). Virgil Recomposed: The Mythological and Secular Centos in Antiquity. New York: Oxford University Press.

  Rapp, Claudia. (2005). Literary culture under Justinian. In: The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian (ed. Michael Maas), 376–397. New York. Cambridge University Press.

  Roberts, Michael. (2009). The Humblest Sparrow. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

  Roberts, Michael. (2017). Lactantius’s Phoenix and late Latin poetics. In: The Poetics of Late Latin Literature (ed. Jas Elsner and Jesús Hernández Lobato), 373–390. New York: Oxford University Press.

  Trout, Dennis. (2015). Damasus of Rome: The Epigraphic Poetry. New York: Oxford University Press.

  Squire, Michael. (2017). POP art: The optical poetics of Publilius Optatianus Porfyrius. In: The Poetics of Late Latin Literature (ed. Jas Elsner and Jesús Hernández Lobato), 25–99. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  Ware, Catherine. (2012). Claudian and the Roman Epic Tradition. New York: Cambridge University Press.

  Whitby, Mary. (2006). The St Polyeuktos epigram (AP 1.10): A literary perspective. In: Greek Literature in Late Antiquity: Dynamism, Didacticism, Classicism (ed. Scott Fitzgerald Johnson), 159–188. New York: Routledge.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Christian Poetry

  Laura Miguélez‐Cavero and Scott McGill

  In the second book of his Epistles (Ep. 2.9.4), the fifth‐century CE bishop and writer Sidonius Apollinaris describes a library he encountered while visiting the estates of two friends. In the library devotional works were placed in an area for women and rhetorical works in an area for men. The latter comprised Christian and non‐Christian authors who resembled one another in their scientia or “artistic skill,” and who were similar in their style although their doctrines differed (in causis disparibus dicendi parilitatem): “Here was read Augustine, there Varro, here Horace, there Prudentius” (hinc Augustinus hinc Varro, hinc Horatius hinc Prudentius lectitabantur).

  Sidonius’s account reflects a significant innovation in late antiquity: the development of Christian poetry, that is, poetry on Christian subject matter and thought, represented by Prudentius in Ep. 2.9.4, within the broader field of Christian literature. As Sidonius understood when he noted the disparities in causae and when he distinguished Horace from Prudentius (hinc…hinc), Christian content is an obvious line of demarcation between Christian and classical verse. With that content came new poetic forms as well as new purposes and functions for poetry. Authors were committed not only to Christian truth but also to Christian edification and exegesis, and they sought to celebrate and advance Christianity, including, at times, in specific devotional settings. At the same time, there is a far deeper connection between Christian and classical poetry than that which Sidonius identifies when he notes the similar styles and scientia of the authors in the library. Most Christian poetry in late antiquity was inextricably bound to the classical Greek and Latin literary past. This is because Christian poetry developed within Greco‐Roman culture and took much from it. The poetry was hybrid verse that blended classical literature with the Bible, with Christian doctrine and thought, and with Christian ideas about what poetry was and did. Responses to the classical tradition were varied, and they show dependence and independence, continuity and distance, accommodation and polemics, descent and dissent (Roberts 1989, pp. 122–131; Shorrock 2011, pp. 45–46, Elsner and Hernández
Lobato 2017, pp. 3–16). The relationship manifests itself in a range of ways: Christian authors recurrently situate themselves and their work against their classical forebears; resist and reject elements of classical/pagan culture and literature in their poetics, even as they fuse the Christian and classical in their texts; modify and renew classical literary genres, thus adapting classical modes of expression and representation to Christian subjects (and vice versa); incorporate classical patterns of thought into their texts; echo classical language; and imitate specific classical models.

  16.1 Greek Christian Poetry

  16.1.1 Christian Poetics

  Constantine’s accession to the throne does not seem to have had an immediate effect on the composition of Greek poetry. On the contrary, when the Emperor Julian passed a series of laws that de facto banned Christians from teaching classical literature or philosophy on the grounds that they could not uphold with faith the contents of their teaching (CTh 13,3,5 = CIust 10,53,7; Iul. Epist. 42, with Banchich 1993), according to two late antique historians (Socrates HE 3.16.1–5; Sozom. HE 5.18), a certain Apollinaris of Laodicea produced paraphrases of the books of the Old Testament, imitating Homer and the tragedians. Nothing remains of this enterprise, if it really occurred (Agosti 2001a, pp. 70–71), but Julian’s monopolization of classical culture seems to have caused learned Christians to realize the need to make explicit their right to operate within the classical tradition.

  Thus Gregory of Nazianzus (Van Dam 2002, pp. 189–202; McLynn 2006) championed in several speeches a cultural resistance to Julian’s policies and his right to enjoy classical literature (Or. 15 and 4, esp. 4.103–4, differentiating Hellenic people and Hellenic religion, and 4.108 on poetry). Other Christian notables were more cautious: Basil of Caesarea recommended in his Ad adulescentes (Van Dam 2002, pp. 181–188) traditional classical studies (including the reading of Homer) as preliminary to the study of Christian texts.

  The at least theoretical concern with the harming of Christian souls in contact with immoral poetry spurred a creative middle way: the composition of poetry on Christian topics in classical style. This implied the double compositional challenge of bringing classical tradition closer to Christianity and effectively transforming Christianity to look and sound classical. Additionally, poetry could be used to advance spiritually Christian believers and lukewarm converts, and as a means of learned seduction of non‐Christians, with the complete conversion of society in mind.

  A late antique description of the poetic middle way can be found in Gregory’s justification of his writing of poetry in On His Own Verses II.1.39, lines 34–57 (McGuckin 2006; Milovanovic‐Barham 1997). His first reason is to control his prolixity (poetry required more work than prose), which implies a Christian ascetics of the word, a serious poetic intent, in opposition to playful compositions on classical topics. Secondly, his poetry is written for the sake of (Christian) youth and those who enjoy literature, leading them toward the good and sweetening the harsh aspects of the Christian commandments, that is, as a substitute for other (non‐Christian) types of poetry, and with a spiritual intent on the part of poet and reader. The third reason is linked to the second: Gregory writes because the xenoi (lit. “the strangers” – both “pagans” and “heretics” – Simelidis 2009, pp. 25–27) should not necessarily be better skilled in logoi (words). This opens up the Christian competition with classical authors and an orthodox (anti‐heretical) approach. Poetry is also a consolation for Gregory’s old age, and he compares his poetry with a swan’s final brilliant song, his verses being for him as important as his speeches. Finally, he invites the wise to enter his mind through his poetry (2.1.39, lines 58–59), contrasting poetry as a means to portray his “real” inner Christian soul and the sophistic appearances he assumes in his speeches, a frequent basis for the evaluation of his career (especially in Constantinople).

  16.1.2 Liturgy

  Following the tradition of the classical world, hymns were at the center of Christian worship as noted in early Christian writings (Eph. 5:19–20, Col. 3:16; McGuckin 2008; Brucker 2014). The few second‐ and third‐century extant hymns suggest that formal variety (prose, rhythmic prose in which accents are loosely regulated, different metrical forms) was the norm (Löhr 2014; Leonhard 2014). These include P.Oxy. 1786, a hymn with musical notation, written in a quantitative meter; the anapaestic hymn to Christ preserved by Clement of Alexandria (Paedagogus 3.12.101); and the iambic hymn to Christ, bridegroom of the Church, cited by Methodius of Olympus at the end of his Banquet.

  From the fourth century we have Gregory of Nazianzus (see above and infra) and Synesius of Cyrene (370–413), whose nine hymns in ionic meter illustrate his knowledge of Neoplatonic philosophy and classical culture as much as his Christian beliefs (Amande 2008; Di Pasquale Barbanti 2008; Roques 2007). The creative culmination of the genre is Romanos the Melodist (sixth century CE), who composed liturgical hymns in Justinian’s Constantinople. His kontakia (a proem followed by a series of strophes in the same rhythm, each ending with the same refrain; the initial letters of the line form an acrostic) adapted the biblical narrative to the events of the liturgical calendar, supplying additional details to inscribe the final composition in the general economy of salvation (Krueger 2004, pp. 159–188).

  16.1.3 Other Spiritual Uses of Poetry

  Oracles in verse (Busine 2005a) were popular in the eastern part of the empire from at least the second century CE. Because of their focus on theological reflection about the nature of god, the function of the traditional gods, and the immortality of the soul, verse oracles popularized a “theological koine,” a pool of poetic expressions to describe the divine acceptable to worshippers of all creeds. These oracles came to circulate in collections (Busine 2005b) that Christian writers often quote as an external confirmation of their faith (Busine 2005a, pp. 373–431).

  A Christian oracular tradition came into being under the authority of the Sibyl. The Oracula Sibyllina include a number of Christian books that draw on the tradition of the oracular hexameter. Books 1–2 review the history of the human race over 10 generations, from the creation of the world and of man to the end of the world and the Day of Judgment (Lightfoot 2007). Book 6 is a hymn (28 verses) and books 7–8 are frequently cited by Lactantius.

  The Codex Visionum (P.Bodmer 29–38), a papyrus codex dated to the turn of the fifth century, preserves some poems not extant elsewhere (Hurst and Rudhardt 2002; Miguélez‐Cavero 2013; Agosti 2015), which were copied as tools for personal and community instruction as well as meditation. For their composition a number of classical and Christian elements were combined in a novel way: basic forms of classical rhetoric (comparison, paraphrase, ethopoeia), biblical narratives (On Abraham, Words of Cain, Words of Abel); standard Christological themes ([Eulogy] of the Lord Jesus, The Lord to Those Who Suffer); some frequent topics on Christian conversion (Speech to the Righteous); and the generic forms of visionary literature (Vision of Dorotheus).

  16.1.4 Gregory of Nazianzus (Late 320 s–390)

  As the author of 17 000 lines, Gregory was the most prolific Christian poet of antiquity. The Maurist edition (Paris, 1778–1840), reprinted by J.P. Migne in his Patrologia Graeca, vols. 37–38 (Paris, 1858–1862), organized his poems in four sections: dogmatic (I.1.1–38), moral (I.2.1–40), self‐referential (II.1.1–99), and referring to others (II.2.1–8). These sections, however, do not reflect the variety and innovative quality of Gregory’s production: He operated in different meters (Agosti and Gonnelli 1995, pp. 359–409) and transformed a number of preexisting genres with a Christian twist to enhance the spiritual advancement of a broad audience.

  Gregory composed a number of devotional texts (Daley 2006, pp. 165–78), including hymns (I.1.30, 33), and prayers (I.1.35, 37 and II.1.3, 24–26, 74). He also tried his hand at biblical paraphrase (I.1.20–27; Palla 1989), reducing the biblical accounts to the most essential details, perhaps to help in memorizing the Scripture.

  As for didactic poetry, the Poemata Arcan
a (I.1.1–5, 7–9; Sykes 1970; Daley 2012) describe central revealed truths of the Christian faith. Although the formal influence of the Homeric hymns is visible (Faulkner 2010), they have been mostly read as Gregory’s attempt to create a Christian version of classical didactic poetry of the philosophical type (Sykes 1985; Moreschini and Sykes 1997, pp. 57–60): where earlier didactic forms inform and entertain, the Poemata seek the involvement of the reader and try to exact from him or her a confession of faith (Meinel 2009).

  The Carmina quae spectant ad alios (II.2.1–8) is a series of verse epistles (Demoen 1997), each addressed to a particular person to deal with a concrete “pastoral” problem, but with a potential wider readership in mind. Thus, no. 6, “To Olympias,” on her marriage, focuses on the general necessity of sophrosyne (Whitby 2008), and 7, “To Nemesianus,” explains the principles of Christianity and attacks paganism at first sight in order to convert the dedicatee, although the text is suitable for a broader pagan audience.

  Book 8 of the Palatine Anthology gathers 256 epigrams by Gregory, mostly epitaphs (with more than one poem dedicated to the same subject, e.g. 52 to Gregory’s mother), and some on funerary matters (e.g. against tomb desecrators: Floridi 2013; Palla and Moroni 2013). The composition of Christian poetic epitaphs illustrates to what point Christianity had permeated the local establishment of Cappadocia at the time (McGuckin 2006, p. 204).