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	Prudentius

	
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		Roman writer

For the ninth-century writer and bishop, see Prudentius of Troyes.

Aurelius Prudentius Clemens (/pruːˈdɛnʃiəs, -ʃəs/) was a Roman Christian poet, born in the Roman province of Tarraconensis (now Northern Spain) in 348.[1] He probably died in the Iberian Peninsula some time after 405, possibly around 413. The place of his birth is uncertain, but it may have been Caesaraugusta (Saragossa), Tarraco (Tarragona), or Calagurris (Calahorra).


Contents


	1 Life
	2 Poetry
	3 Influence
	4 Works
	4.1 Editions



	5 See also
	6 References
	7 Further reading
	8 External links





Life[edit]

Prudentius practiced law with some success, and was twice provincial governor, perhaps in his native country, before the emperor Theodosius I summoned him to court. Towards the end of his life (possibly around 392) Prudentius retired from public life to become an ascetic, fasting until evening and abstaining entirely from animal food; and writing poems, hymns, and controversial works in defence of Christianity.[2] Prudentius later collected the Christian poems written during this period and added a preface, which he himself dated 405.


Poetry[edit]

The poetry of Prudentius is influenced by early Christian authors, such as Tertullian and St. Ambrose, as well as the Bible and the acts of the martyrs. His hymn Da, puer, plectrum (including "Corde natus ex parentis": "Of the Father's Love Begotten") and the hymn for Epiphany O sola magnarum urbium ("Earth Has Many A Noble City"), both from the Cathemerinon, are still in use today.[1]

The allegorical Psychomachia, however, is his most influential work, incorporating as it did elements of both Hellenic epic and inner psychological conflict.[3] It became the inspiration and wellspring of medieval allegorical literature, its influence (according to C. S. Lewis) exceeding its intrinsic artistic merit.[4] In the battle between virtue and vice, full weight is given to the power of Luxuria, “Flowershod and swaying from the wine cup, Every step a fragrance”.[5] With her attendants Beauty and Pleasure, and her weapons of rose-petals and violets, she succeeds in swaying the army of Virtue “in surrender to love”,[6] before succumbing to ultimate defeat.


Influence[edit]

With his merger of Christianity with classical culture,[7] Prudentius was one of the most popular medieval authors,[8] being aligned as late as the 13th century alongside such figures as Horace and Statius in Henri d'Andeli's Battle of the Seven Arts between Grammar (poetry) and Logic.[9]


Works[edit]

The list of Prudentius's works given in the preface to his autobiography mentions the hymns, poems against the Priscillianists and against Symmachus and Peristephanon. The Diptychon is not mentioned. The twelve hymns of the Cathemerinon liber ("Daily Round") consist of six for daily use, five for festivals, and one intended for every hour of the day.[10]

The specific works include:


	Liber Cathemerinon -- ("Book in Accordance with the Hours") comprises 12 lyric poems on various times of the day and on church festivals.
	Liber Peristephanon -- ("Crowns of Martyrdom") contains 14 lyric poems on Spanish and Roman martyrs. Some were suggested to Prudentius by sacred images in churches or by the inscriptions of Pope Damasus I.[10]
	Apotheosis -- ("Deification") attacks disclaimers of the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus.
	Hamartigenia -- ("The Origin of Sin") attacks the Gnostic dualism of Marcion and his followers. In this and the Apotheosis, Tertullian is the source of inspiration.[10]
	Psychomachia -- ("Battle of Souls") describes the struggle of faith, supported by the cardinal virtues, against idolatry and the corresponding vices.
	Libri contra Symmachum -- ("Books Against Symmachus") oppose the pagan senator Symmachus's requests that the altar of Victory, which had been removed by Gratian,[11] be restored to the Senate house.
	Dittochæon -- ("The Double Testament") contains 49 quatrains intended as captions for the murals of a basilica in Rome.[11]


Editions[edit]

	Bergman, J. (ed.). Aurelii Prudenti Clementis carmina. Vienna: Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky, 1926. (Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, 61).
	Cunningham, M.P. (ed.). Aurelii Prudentii Clementis Carmina. Turnhout: Brepols, 1966 (Corpus Christianorum. Series Latina, 126).
	Thomson, H.J. (ed. and trans.). Prudentius. 2 vols. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1949-53 (Loeb Classical Library).
	Tränkle, H. (ed.). Prudentius, Contra Symmachum - Gegen Symmachus. Turnhout: Brepols, 2008. 284 p. (Fontes Christiani, 85).


See also[edit]


	Allegory in the Middle Ages
	Ausonius
	Of the Father's Heart Begotten
	Paulinus of Nola
	Sidonius Apollinaris
	Quicumque Christum Quærtis




References[edit]


	^ a b H. J. Rose, A Handbook of Classical Literature (1967) p. 508

	^ H. J. Rose, A Handbook of Classical Literature (1967) p. 508-9

	^ Gilbert Highet, Juvenal the Satirist (1960) p. 184

	^ C. S. Lewis, The Allegory of Love (2013) p. 83

	^ Helen Waddell, The Wandering Scholars (1968) p. 48

	^ Quoted in B. Machosky, Structures of Appearing (2012) p. 85

	^ J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, The Barbarian West (1964) p. 12

	^ J. Broussard, The Civilisation of Charlemagne (1968) p. 58

	^ Helen Waddell, The Wandering Scholars (1968) p. 141-2

	^ a b c  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Prudentius, Aurelius Clemens". Encyclopædia Britannica. 22 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 518.

	^ a b Chisholm 1911.





Further reading[edit]

	Albrecht, M. von. 1997. "Prudentius." In A History of Roman Literature: From Livius Andronicus to Boethius with Special Regard to its Influence on World Literature. Vol. 2. By M. von Albrecht. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
	Cameron, A. 2011. The last Pagans of Rome. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
	Conybeare, C. 2007. "Sanctum, Lector, Percense Volumen: Snakes, Readers, and the Whole Text in Prudentius’s Hamartigenia." In The Early Christian Book. Edited by W. E. Klingshirn and L. Safran, 225–240. Washington, DC: Catholic Univ. of America Press.
	Deferrari, Roy J., and James Marshall Campbell. 1932. A Concordance of Prudentius. Cambridge, Mass.: The Mediaeval Academy of America.
	Dykes, A. 2011. Reading Sin in the World: The Hamartigenia of Prudentius and the Vocation of the Responsible Reader. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
	Fux, P.-Y. 2003. Les sept passions de Prudence (Peristephanon 2.5.9. 11–14): Introduction générale et commentaire. Fribourg, Switzerland: Éditions Univ. Fribourg Suisse.
	Fux, Pierre-Yves. 2013. Prudence et les martyrs: hymnes et tragédie (Peristephanon 1.3-4.6-8.10). Commentaire , Paradosis 55, Fribourg.
	Krollpfeifer, Lydia 2017.  Rom bei Prudentius. Dichtung und Weltanschauung in »Contra orationem Symmachi« (=Vertumnus. Berliner Beiträge zur Klassischen Philologie und zu ihren Nachbargebieten. Vol. 12). Goettingen: Edition Ruprecht.
	Lease, Emory B. 1895. A Syntactic, Stylistic and Metrical Study of Prudentius. Baltimore: The Friedenwald Company.
	Malamud, M. 1989. A Poetics of Transformation: Prudentius and Classical Mythology. Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell Univ. Press.
	Malamud, M. A. 1990. "Making a Virtue of Perversity: The Poetry of Prudentius." In The Imperial Muse: Ramus Essays on Roman Literature of the Empire. Edited by A. J. Boyle, 64–88. Bendigo, Australia: Aureal.
	Mastrangelo, M. 2008. The Roman Self in Late Antiquity: Prudentius and the Poetics of the Soul. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press
	O’Daly, G. 2011. "Choosing to be a Christian poet: Prudentius, Praefatio and Cathemerinon 2.37–56." In Noctes Sinenses: Festschrift für Fritz-Heiner Mutschler zum 65. Geburtstag. Edited by A. Heil, M. Korn, and J. Sauer, 373–378. Heidelberg, Germany: Winter.
	Palmer, A.M. 1989. Prudentius on the Martyrs. Oxford: Clarendon.
	Pucci, J. 1991. "Prudentius’ Readings of Horace in the Cathemerinon." Latomus 50:677–690.
	Roberts, M. 1993. Poetry and the Cult of the Martyrs: The Liber Peristephanon of Prudentius. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.
	Roberts, M. 2001. "Rome Personified, Rome Epitomized: Representations of Rome in the Poetry of the Early Fifth Century." American Journal of Philology 122:533–565.
	Witke, C. 1968. "Prudentius and the Tradition of Latin Poetry." Transactions of the American Philological Association 99:509–525.


External links[edit]

		Wikiquote has quotations related to: Prudentius


	Library resources about 
 Prudentius 

	
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By Prudentius
	
	Online books
	Resources in your library
	Resources in other libraries




	Works by Prudentius at Perseus Digital Library
	Works by Prudentius at Project Gutenberg
	Works by or about Prudentius at Internet Archive
	Prudentius, Loeb Classical Library, Volume I - Latin and English, H. J. Thomson, 1949
	Prudentius, Loeb Classical Library, Volume II - Latin and English, H. J. Thomson, 1953
	Liber peristephanon - Latin text.
	The Catholic Encyclopedia
	The Christian Classics Ethereal Library
	Opera Omnia by Migne's Patrologia Latina with analytical indexes


		v
	t
	e


Seven virtues in Christian ethics

	Four
cardinal virtues	
	Prudence (Prudentia)
	Justice (Iustitia)
	Fortitude (Fortitudo)
	Temperance (Temperantia)


	Sources: Plato
	Republic, Book IV


	Cicero
	Ambrose
	Augustine of Hippo
	Thomas Aquinas



	


	Three
theological virtues	
	Faith (Fides)
	Hope (Spes)
	Love (Caritas)


	Sources: Paul the Apostle
	1 Corinthians 13






	Seven deadly sins	
	Lust (Luxuria)
	Gluttony (Gula)
	Greed (Avaritia)
	Sloth (Acedia)
	Wrath (Ira)
	Envy (Invidia)
	Pride (Superbia)


	Source: Prudentius, Psychomachia


	People: Evagrius Ponticus
	John Cassian
	Pope Gregory I
	Dante Alighieri
	Peter Binsfeld




	Related concepts	
	Ten Commandments
	Great Commandment
	Eschatology
	Sin
	Original sin


	Old Covenant
	Hamartiology




	
	Christian philosophy







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