Table Of ContentSTUDIA GRAECA ET LATINA
GOTHOB URGENS IA
VI
~ATIN FATHERS
AND THE CLASSICS
A STUDY ON THE APOLOGISTS, JEROME AND
OTHER CHRISTIAN WRITERS
by
HARALD HAGENDAHL
GOTEBORG
1958
Also published as
ACTA UNIV.ERSITATIS GOTHOBURGENSIS
GOTEBORGS UNIVERSITETS ARSSKRIFT
Vol. LXIV • 1958
2
THIS BOOK IS PRINTED WITH A GRANT•IN•AID FROM
HuMANISTISKA FoNDEN
Distr.:
ALMQVIST & WIKSELL
STOCKHOLM
G0TEBORG 1958
ELANDERS BOKTRYCKERI AKTIEBOLAG
Preface
The origin of this book goes back not a few years. In the first part,
>>TheA pologists and Lucretius>>,I take up a subject which I have treated
already in Swedish in Eranos (XXXV, I937, 4I-67); it will now be
reexamined in a considerably enlarged form.
>>The· western Church and Classical Culture A. D. 200-550>► was the
theme of a series of lectures which I gave in Oslo in I95I on the invitation
of the Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. I am much
obliged to the Board. of the Institute for permitting me to postpone
the publication of these lectures until I have finished this book. It
was meant to contain research and discussions which could not find
place in a general survey. With time it has i_ncreased in size and attained
unexpected dimensions, mainly because of Jerome. The more I got
engaged in his voluminous writings, the more I felt convinced that an
exhaustive study of his relation to the Latin classics was wanted.
Jerome's importance as a writer and.the reach of his influence may
serve as an excuse if the second part of this book, headed >>Jeromea nd
Latin Literature>>, has turned out to be so large that it could better have
been published separately.
The third part contains heterogeneous questions illustrating various
sides of the main problem, the attitude of Latin Christianity towards
secular literature. These questions refer to authors different both in
time and character. Some of the most prominent Christian writers
as well as many lesser ones will come under our observation, although
their attitude will be examined only from a special point of view. There
are two reasons for this limitation of my scope. On the one hand the
attitude of many authors has been examined so thoroughly that a
fresh inquiry is uncalled for. On the other, some leading Fathers, e. g.
Ambrose - not to speak of Augustine - in spite of useful preparatory
research, have not yet received monographs which would render justice
to their importance for the problems which interest the classical scholar.
This is however a task that demands a separate volume.
4 HARALD HAGEKDAHI,
The scattered remnants of secular thought and letters to be found
in the Fathers open a wide historical prospect. They testify to the
immense influence which classical culture exercised upon Christianity.
No Christian writer of the IVth and the Vth centuries could keep himself
uninfluenced by it. Some of them attempted, more or less willingly
and successfully, to bring about a compromise. This process cannot
fail to captivate the student of antiquity, considering that it rescued
the legacy left by the ancients from falling altogether into neglect.
It represents in fact the last stage in the history of ancient civilization
as well as the foundation of a new civilization resting both on Christianity
and classical antiquity. Because of that it falls to a large extent also
within the province of the classical scholar.
The printing of this book has been made possible by generous grants
from >>Humanistiska fondem> and the University of Goteborg. I
wish to express to these institutions my sincere gratitude. My thanks
are due also to the staff of the City and Universiti Library of Goteborg
for never failing courtesy and helpfulness. I am much indebted to
Dr Charles Barber, Mrs. Barbara Barber, B. A. and Mrs. Mavis von
Proschwitz, M. A. for their valuable assistance in correcting my English.
Goteborg 15 december 1957.
Harald Hagendahl.
Contents
Page
Preface ..
3
Contents .
5
PART I
The Apologists and Lucretius
Chap. r. Introduction
9
Chap. 2. Arnobius . 12
Chap. 3. Lactantius
Chap. 4. The other apologists. Conclusion
77
PART II
Jerome and Latin Literature
Chap. r. Introductory remarks .. . . . . . . . . . . 91
Chap. 2. The writings 374-385 . 100
Chap. 3. Literary work in Bethlehem 386-393 .
Chap. 4. Polemical and other writings 393-402
A. The controversy with Jo vinianus
B. The Origenist controversy .
C. Letters and commentaries .
Chap. 5. The writings 402-419 215
A. Commentaries . . . . . 215
B. Letters ........ . 246
C. Polemical writings against the Pelagians .. 260
Chap. 6. Aspects and conclusions .....
A. The extent of J erome's readings .
a. The poets of the Republic ..
b. The poets of the Empire . . . .
c. The prose writers . . . . . . . . . . . . .
B. The quotations: technique and purpose ...
C. Jerome's attitude: principles and practice ..
6 HARALD HAGE:::-IDAHL
PART III
Miscellaneous questions
Page
Chap. I. >>Illasn otissimas quattuor animi perturbationes,> 331
Chap. 2. The four virtues . 347
Chap. 3. Pagan mythology and poetry applied to Christian
beliefs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382
A. General remarks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382
B. The myth of the iron age in Christian disguise 389
C. The conception of Purgatory 392
Indices .
397
PART I
THE APOLOGISTS AND LUCRETIUS
Chap. 1. Introduction
Lucretius' influence upon Latin literature bears no proportion to
his merits as poet and as thinker.1) If De rerum natura had been lost
and we were left to reconstruct it from incidental quotations, as the
matter stands in the case of Ennius and Lucilius, we cquld hardly
realize in full that the poem on the nature of things was one of the
masterpieces of Latin poetry as well as the chief literary manifestation
of Epicureanism.
The largest number of quotations is due to Nonius Marcellus, the
grammarian, and to Macrobius, the philologist. The former confined
his interest to the lexicographic point of view, the latter to Virgil's
indebtedness to Lucretius and other poets. This is significant; for the
influence which Lucretius exercised was almost entirely formal. It is
most obvious in Virgil, whose poetical language is filled with Lucretian
reminiscences, duly recognized by Gellius, Servius and Macrobius.2)
From the Augustan age the line can be traced, more or less distinctly,
to Flavian times, when, according to Tacitus, some literary circles
1) In my opinion it has been considerably overrated by George Depue Hadzsits
in his useful, but rather superficial survey, Lucretius and his Influence, London
1935 (Our Debt to Greece and Rome. 12). Other points on which I disagree with
Hadzsits will be discussed in the sequel. - Copious, although by no means ex
haustive materials for the assessment of Lucretius' influence are brought together
in the standard edition of Diels (Berlin 1923), in the commentaries of Lachmann,
Munro, Heinze, Giussani and Ernout-Robin, in scholarly editions of other Latin
authors and in numerous dissertations and papers, e. g. the monographs of Merrill,
where the relations of individual writers to Lucretius are treated. References to
literature will be found as wanted in the notes. It is worthy of remark that the
question of Lucretius' influence is nowhere discussed in the three bulky volumes
of the last edition by Cyril Bailey (I-III, Oxford 1947),
2) Cf. Hadzsits, p. 31: ,)The Virgilian poetry, over and over again, echoes the
language of Lucretius who exercised a mighty spell over the sensitive nature of
the Mantuan. Lucretian phraseology is woven into the fabric of Virgil's verse,
and, whatever the metamorphosis, it became an integral part of the new poetry».
IQ HARALD HAGBNDAHL
preferred Lucretius to Virgil, and further to the archaizing movement
of the second century. Its leading man, Fronto, favoured the reading
of Lucretius, not from love of philosophy - for Fronto was hostile to
all that bears that name - but as a means of realizing a new literary
style. I mitatio veterum became the catch-word of the new school. Its
aim was to renew the language by digging out and reviving obsolete
or rare words in archaic literature. To that end Lucretian poetry
proved useful.1) The best example will be found a century and a half
after Fronto in Arnobius, who adopted Lucretian phraseology to a larger
extent than anyone before or afterwards. In this connection the merely
lexicographic interest of the grammarians has to be remembered. It is
the last off-shoot of the archaizing movement.
Ovid was transported with admiration for the sublime poet;2) Virgil,
when still inclined to follow Epicurus, paid an equally fine tribute to
Lucretius as an Epicurean philosopher:
Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas
atque metus omnis et inexorabile /atum
subiecit pedibus strepitumque Acherontis avari.3)
For the rest, almost complete silence about the great philosopher of
nature, even in those quarters where it could least have been expected.
Cicero mentions Lucretius incidentally in a letter and then with
appreciation, 4) and is credited by Jerome with having corrected the
poem. 5 But in his philosophical writings Cicero entirely ignores Lucre
)
tius. He neither mentions his name nor quotes a single line nor shows
1) Quintilian, who was not favourable to Lucretius, was of a different opinion:
Inst. orat. X. 1, 87 Macer et Lucretius legendi quidem, sed non itt phrasin, id est
corpus eloquentiae faciant.
2) Amor. I. 15, 23-24:
Ca,-mina sublimis tune sunt peritura Lucreti,
exitio terras cum dabit una dies.
3) Georg. II. 490.
') Ad Q. fratr. II. 9, 3. For different interpretations of Cicero's criticism see
Diels, op. cit., p. XXXV; H. W. Litchfield, Cicero's judgment on Lucretius, Har
vard Studies 1913. 0. Tescari, Lucretiana (Torino 1935), pp. 7 sqq., is on the same
line as Hendrickson, Am. journ. of Phil. XXII (1901), 438.
5) Hier. Clwon. ed. Helm p. 149. As to the much debated eniemla'l!it I agree
with the opinion of Bailey, op. cit., I, pp. 18-21.
