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Juvencus and Paulinus
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Juvencus was the first considerable Christian poet in the Latin tongue. Juvencus was a Spanish priest, and he wrote Books of the Evangelists (4 books) during the reign of Constantine. He invokes the Holy Spirit instead of the Muses, to sing the deeds of Christ on earth.
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Paulinus of Nola was a pupil of Ausonius and a Christian lyrical poet in the west. He is featured in the Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum Latinorum. Paulinus, to his teacher Ausonius’ consternation, renounced wordly wealthy to devote himself to monastic life.
Prudentius
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The Spaniard Prudentius is called “the first great Christian poet.”
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Prudentius’ lyrical poems are collected under the titles Cathemerinon and Peristaphanon.
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The Peristaphanon venerates martyrs, especially Spanish (both also African and Roman).
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Apotheosis: refutes a serious onf errors on the Trinity and the divinity of Christ.
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Hamartigenia (“Birth of Evil”)
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Psychomachia: perhaps Prudentius’ most famous poem, a historically important Christian epic where personified virtues like Modesty and Patience wage a series of epic combats with speeches. They battle against Lust of Sodom, Worship of Ancient Gods, Anger, Pride, etc.
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Against Symmachus: 2 books. Refutes Symmachus’ Altar of Victory plea 20 years earlier. Attacks the heathen gods and contemporary astrology and sun worship. Includes a eulogy of Symmachus.
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About Julian the Apostate, Prudentius said “perfidus ille deo quamvis non perfidus urbi.”
Jerome
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Jerome was born between AD 340 and 350 in Pannonia and died in 420 AD at Bethlehem. He and Augustine were the most prolific doctors of the western Church.
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At Rome, Jerome was educated by Aelius Donatus, commentator on Terence and Vergil.
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Jerome spent three years in the desert of Chalcis, where he learned Hebrew and confronted his lustful desires.
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Jerome had a dream in which he was accused of being Ciceronian, not Christian.
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Jerome was the secretary and intimate friend of Pope Damasus (who also wrote poetry).
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The Vulgate: Jerome’s Latin translation of the Bible, which occupied twenty years of his time.
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Lives on Eremeites such as Paul of Thebes, Malchus and Hilarion.
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De Viris Illustribus. Three authors: Nepos, Suetonius and Jerome.
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Like Juvenal, Jerome descirbes worldly women’s “gaudy turbans and elaborate coiffures, their costly silks and liberally applied cosmetics and blazing wealth of jewels” (Hadas 435).
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Against Helvidius: first Latin treatise on Mariology; defends the perpetual virginity.
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Against Jovinian, Against Vigilantius (called punningly by Jerome “Dormitantius”)
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Dialogues against the Pelagians; Against Rufinus
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The Chronicle of Jerome was his translation of Eusebius’ Chornological Canons, which delat with the chronological systems of the Chaldaeans, Assyrians, Hebrews, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans.
Augustine
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Augustine was a pagan, Manichee, and Neoplatonist before becoming a Christian.
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Augustine was an African, born in AD 354 at Tagaste in Numidia (Tagaste was near Carthage). Augustine was born to a pagan father, the local official Patricius, and a devout Christian mother, Monnica.
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Augustine was educated at Madaura until age 16, when he returned and was idle (due to a lack of money for education) and partied hard. He writes later of his behavior: “Behold with what companions I walked the streets of Babylon, in whose filth I was rolled as if in cinnamon and precious ointments.”
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Augustine then studied rhetoric at Carthage, taking a mistress, who became the mother of his son Adeodatus. He taught in Tagaste, then in Carthage,then in Rome, and finally in Milan as a professor of rhetoric (he took his mistress, his mother Monica, and his son Adeodatus with him to Milan).
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Augustine dismissed his mistress when his mother Monnica found him a bride, and she went back to Africa. Augustine and his son Adeodatus eventually converted to Christianity, after which Augustine became a staunch critic of heresy.
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Augustine battled against the Pelagians, who disputed his doctrine of original sin and maintained that men were naturally good. Augustine thought most people would go to Hell.
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Confessions: Augustine’s lyrical treatise on his search for God and early days, in which he asks “What do I love, when I love Thee?” and questions the stars and earth about God.
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City of God (22 books): Written to answer why so many calamities had befallen the empire with the advent of Christianity. Augustine answers through an epic synthesis of doctrine. Pagans are to regard their calamities simply as “the heritage of their city of sin and death”.
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Books 1-10: Augustine polemicizes against pagan religion and philosophy, drawing upon Arnobius. Augustine says that the key to human history is the coexistence of a City of God, founded by angels, and a City of Man, founded by fallen angels.
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Psalm against the Donatists: The first example of poetry based on rhythm.
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Seven Books to Confute the Pagans: a univerasl history on the problem of evil, etc.
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Salvian was a priest of Marseilles who wrote On the Government of God, which held that the calamities befalling Christians must mean that Christians were inferior to pagans in everything but orthodoxy and the “right religion.”
Random Dudes in the Sixth Century
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Dracontius was an African poet who offended the Vandal King Gunthamund. He wrote a lengthy didactic poem called On the Praises of God.
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Caelius Sedulius wrote Carmen Paschale.
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Avitus, bishop of Vienne in 490 AD, wrote a verse paraphrase of the Old Testament.
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Venantius Fortunatus started as a troubador and became bishop of Poitiers around 590. He was the last representative of Latin poetry on the threshold of the Middle Ages.
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