Appendix A - A note on the title of the Hamartigenia

Summary

The oldest manuscript (A) gives the title as amartigenia on the first page and gives throughout the book ‘prudentii lib. ii’ (verso) and ‘amartigenia’ (recto). Another ancient manuscript (B) also gives ‘amartigenia’, although the heads of certain pages are missing. The inscription ‘Praefatio’ appears in no manuscript although it is retained by the two most recent editors in the series CSEL and CCL. Cunningham retains the manuscript spelling ‘amartigenia’, ‘(quod) magis ad aetatem Prudentianam convenit’ (Cunningham–CCL: 116).

Gennadius, writing towards the end of the fifth century, gives the title ‘Amartigenia’: ‘Conposuit et libellos, quos Graeca appellatione praetitulavit AπωTHEOSIS πSICHOMACHIA AMARTIGENIA, id est, De divinitate, De compugnatione animi, De origine peccatorum.’ It would be in accordance with the conventions of the era for Prudentius to use, often, Greek titles for his poems. Gennadius gives the meaning of ‘Amartigenia’ as ‘de origine peccatorum’, which should more properly be ‘de origine peccati’, but the title follows the precedent of other Greek composite words: ‘Quod vocabulum Graecum poeta confecit Graeca vocabulorum compositorum exempla secutus, qualia sunt et καλλιγένεια, θεογονία, ψυχογονία.’

The date of the manuscripts places them remarkably close to the time of Prudentius. It is rather like having a manuscript of Vergil from the time of Hadrian. Although their chronological proximity to the author does not absolutely exclude the possibility of these titles being the invention of an early recension, the dates are certainly close enough for it to be credible they come from the author's pen.