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The Metamorphosis of Sodom: The Ps-Cyprian ‘De Sodoma’ as an Ovidian Episode

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2016

Ralph Hexter
Ralph Hexter*
Affiliation:
Yale University
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Extract

The mysteries and challenges presented by the Latin poem known as De Sodoma are many and varied. The identity of its author will likely never be known. Date and place of composition can only be expressed in terms of probabilities, and portions of the poem are extremely difficult to read and interpret. I am currently involved in the preparation of a critical edition, with translation and commentary, of both De Sodoma and its shorter, perhaps superior companion-piece De Iona, in the hope that this might pave the way for easier reading. In the present discussion I also address problems of readability, returning to that aspect of the poem which first attracted my attention and which, on balance, seems to offer the greatest help comprehending it: its relation to Ovid's Metamorphoses. While the poet of De Sodoma makes explicit and dramatic reference to the tale of Phaethon as told by Ovid, Ovid's text functions at a yet more basic level. In my view, the defining characteristic of De Sodoma is its structure as an Ovidian episode. This structure sets it apart from earlier Latin Biblical epics, canonical school texts by the time De Sodoma was composed. Read against the backdrop of its Ovidian model, the poem reveals a unity and coherence which has previously not been recognized, and extends our appreciation of the interests of some early medieval audiences and of the learning and artistry of at least one early medieval poet.

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Articles
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Traditio , Volume 44 , 1988 , pp. 1 - 35
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Copyright © 1988 Fordham University Press 

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References

1 I first read a paper bearing this title at the annual meeting of the Americal Philological Association in December 1983. I thank the initiator of the APA sessions on Medieval Latin, John Clark, members of the original audience for the questions which first led me to expand my horizons, and all those who helped shape the present essay.Google Scholar

2 De Sodoma is listed as no. 7477 in Schaller, D. and Könsgen, E., Initia carminum latinorum saeculo undecimo antiquiorum (Göttingen 1977). Rudolf Peiper's text (CSEL 23 [1891] 212–20), though now nearly a century old, remains the standard one. It replaced W. Hartel's edition (CSEL 3.3 [1871] 289–97); prior to that the poem was accessible alongside the authentic works of Tertullian (e.g., PL 2.1101–1106).Google Scholar

3 De Iona is listed as Schaller–Könsgen 12236; Peiper's text: CSEL 23.221–26; see also PL 2.1107–14 and CSEL 3.3.297–301. While the juxtaposition of five cities destroyed with one saved, Nineveh, might occur to anyone conversant with the Old Testament, the author of the two poems may well have been influenced by any number of earlier exegetes. For a massive account of the Jonah tradition, see Duval, Yves-Marie, Le livre de Jonas dans la littérature chrétienne grecque et latine. Sources et influence de Commentaire sur Jonas de saint Jerome (Paris 1973). Duval discusses De Iona pp. 506–508. Müller, Lucian (‘Zu Tertullians Gedichten de Sodoma und de Iona,’ Rheinisches Museum 22 [1867] 329–44, 464; here 330) had already compared Severus, Sulpicius, Historia Sacra 1.84. Duval finds further comparisons of Sodom and Nineveh among the works of Sulpicius Severus (p. 496), Romanos, (pp. 485f.), Augustine (p. 512 n. 111: PL 39.1610–11; PL 40.334), and Fulgentius, Bishop of Ruspe (p. 549 n. 345: Epistula ad Probam 20 [ed. Fraipont, J.; CCL 91.224]). Sodom is prominent in the first paragraph of Book 1 of Jerome's commentary on Jonah, where it serves not as scriptural parallel but as part of a philological argument. Writing the commentary in 396, shortly after completion of his translation of the Biblical book based on hebraea veritas (391–94), Jerome is at pains to explain divergences from the LXX. He claims that while his translation differs from that of the LXX in the conclusion of Jonah 1.2 — he has ‘quia ascendit malitia eius coram me,’ the LXX has ‘ascendit clamor malitiae eius ad me’ (τ vββ avγ τ a a aτ πó με) — the difference is unimportant: ‘Porro quod ait “ascendit malitia eius coram me” sive “clamor malitiae eius ad me,” hoc ipsum est quod in Genesi dicitur: “Clamor Sodomae et Gomorrae multiplicatus est” [Gen. 18.20]; et ad Cain: “Vox sanguinis fratris tui clamat ad me de terra” [Gen. 4.10]’ (Antin, Paul, ed., Saint Jérome. Sur Jonas [Sources chrétiennes 43; Paris 1956] 56; PL 25.1119).Google Scholar

4 Peiper believed the author of De Sodoma and De Iona to have been a contemporary countryman of the mysterious ‘Cyprian,’ author of the Heptateuchos, adding ‘post Hegesippum i. Ambrosium is scripsit, antiquam uersionem bibliorum secutus, in re metrica saeculi quinti alumnus’ (CSEL 23.xxviii n. 1). The first assertion still establishes the author as later than the fourth century, even if the identification of Hegesippus with the young Ambrose is no longer admitted. What Peiper means by the second assertion is that the poem cannot be later than the sixth century: ‘nam sexto saeculo ex usu catholicae ecclesiae disparuit illa [sc. vetusta versio Latina]’ (xxvi). In fact, there is not enough evidence to support either the major or the minor premise of Peiper's syllogism, nor, for that matter, his third assertion. Stanislas Gamber represents the common view in the wake of Peiper: he places De Sodoma at the end of the patristic period (fifth century rather than fourth) and reports, ‘qu'il ait été composé en Gaule, ainsi que la plupart des traductions en vers de la Genèse’ ( Le Livre de la ‘Genèse’ dans la poésie latine au V me siècle [Paris 1899] 30). I believe the poem is likely a yet later production (see below, pp. 21–22). It may still have been written in Gaul — indeed, I think that is overwhelmingly likely — but the presumptive force of Gamber's parallel is less, the later the date.Google Scholar

5 Who is meant by ‘Cyprian’? The famous Bishop of Carthage; the less well-known Bishop of Toulon (b. Marseilles, 476; d. October 3, 546), pupil of Caesarius of Aries and author of a life of Caesarius in two books (MGH SRM 3.457–501), as well as a letter to Bishop Maximus of Geneva (MGH Epp. 3.434–36); or another, otherwise unknown, Cyprian? In his edition of Avitus, Peiper proposed the Bishop of Toulon as the poet, but remained non-comittal (MGH AA 6.2 [1883] lxiii). Eight years later, editing the poems ascribed to Cyprian, he argued that the author came from Gaul and lived in the first half of the fifth century, but was otherwise unidentifiable (CSEL 23.xxiv). The corpus of this ghostly Cyprian poeta quickly came to include De Sodoma and De Iona as well as the poetry on the entire heptateuch (Peiper) and the utterly dissimilar parody known as the Cena Cypriana. To say De Sodoma was attributed to ‘Cyprian of Gaul’ is to say nothing at all, at least nothing that would have made sense to any Carolingian scholar. See Herzog, Reinhard, Die Bibelepik der lateinischen Spätantike. Formgeschichte einer erbaulichen Gattung (Munich 1975) 56–59.Google Scholar

6 Mico's Florilegium is edited by Traube, MGH PLAC 3.2, and studied by Van de Vyver, A., ‘Dicuil et Micon de St. Riquier,’ Revue beige de philosophie et d'histoire 14 (1935) 25ff. According to Herzog, the date of its compilation must be shifted from ca. 830 to the middle of the ninth century (Bibelepik 55 n. 33).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 ‘Alcimus Avitus (c. 450–c. 518) as the author of De Resurrectione mortuorum, De pascha (De cruce), De Sodoma and De Iona formerly attributed to Tertullian and Cyprian,’ Classica et Mediaevalia 26 (1965) 258–75. Dismissed also by Roberts, Michael, Biblical Epic and Rhetorical Paraphrase in Late Antiquity (ARCA, Classical and Medieval Texts, Papers and Monographs 16; Liverpool 1985) 101 n. 159, with reference to Roncoroni, A., ‘L'epica biblica di Avito di Vienne,’ Vetera Christianorum 9 (1972) 318–24.Google Scholar

8 Bibelepik 55. By ‘extra-canonical,’ Herzog means outside the canon of major Bible epics, discussed immediately below. Dieter Kartschoke (Bibeldichtung. Studien zur Geschichte der epischen Bibelparaphrase von Juvencus bis Otfrid von Weissenburg [Munich 1975] is also concerned with questions of reception; his focus on Biblical ‘paraphrases’ places De Sodoma on the edge of his purview.Google Scholar

9 Müller, Lucian, ‘Zu Tertullians Gedichten’ (above n. 3); Müller discusses the conjectures of Moriz Haupt (Hermes 5 [1871] 316) in ‘Zu dem Gedicht de Sodoma,’ Rheinisches Museum 27 (1872) 486–88. Müller, , hidden behind the anonymity of ‘L. M.,’ rates his own contribution highly: ‘… das carmen de Sodoma, in dem man vor L. Müllers Publicationen aus dem Vossianus kaum 5 Zeilen lesen konnte …’ (488). Indeed, despite his own claims in 1867 not to overrate the readings of the Vossianus manuscript (V), which he is bringing to light, he does just that. Still V is sometimes the sole witness to the correct text (lines 91–92 and 162, possibly lines 117, 126, 156), and Müller's work rendered all previous editions obsolete. W. Hartel, who edited De Sodoma among the works of Cyprian in CSEL 3 (1871) 289, was the first to be able to take Müller's work into account.Google Scholar

10 Le livre de la ‘Genèse’ (above n. 4) 180–200. There are some few metrical features of the poem that are unparalleled in classical poets: adhaerere (˜˜-˜, line 150), spiritus (a plural -˜˜, line 28); juvenale habet (a hiatus, if Peiper's correction stands, line 51). None of these, however, constitutes an irregularity in the context of the other poems Gamber is analyzing.Google Scholar

11 Roberts, Alexander and Donaldson, James, eds., The Antenicene Fathers. Translations of the Writings of the Fathers down to A.D. 325 (New York 1885; repr. of Edinburgh ed.) 4.129–32. Schaller and Könsgen omit mention of it, presumably in accordance with their stated principle to list only ‘Übersetzungen … wissenschaftlicher Qualität’ (p. x).Google Scholar

12 Peiper based his text primarily on the readings, if not on autoscopy, of three manuscripts: Laon 279, fols. 3vb–5ra [saec. ix] (his L); Paris, B.N. lat. 2772, fols. 70r–74r [saec. x] (P); and Leiden, Vossianus Q.86, fols. 81v–83r [saec. ix] (V), the readings of which he takes from Müller's collation (‘Zu Tertullians Gedichten’ [above, n. 3] 333–40). Peiper did not collate L's sister manuscript, Laon 273, fols. 5ra–6rb. Gamber (above, n. 4) 30 refers to yet another manuscript, ‘Cluny 526,’ which Hartel and Peiper are supposed to have collated carefully. This is, however, known only from the Cluny catalogue (ca. 1160) edited by Delisle, L., where it is item 526 (Le Cabinet des Manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Imperiale [Paris 1868–81] 2.459f.; Peiper CSEL 23.i–ii; cf. vi: ‘qualis erat Cluniacensis 524 aut 526’ [my emphasis]).Google Scholar

13 The current Neapolitan numbers of the two ‘Vienna’ manuscripts appear to be Mus. Naz. 2 (olim Vindobonensis 16; fols. 52v–53v) and Mus. Naz. 55 (olim Vindobonensis 4194; fols. ir–viiiv); cf. Martini, E., ‘Sui codici Napoletani restituiti dall'Austria,’ Atti della Reale Accademia di Archeologie, Lettere et Belle Arti n.s. 9 (1926) 157–82, 169 and 178, respectively.Google Scholar

14 The standard edition is Schenkl's in CSEL 16 (1888) 569–609, replacing the text in PL 19.803–18. Clark, Elizabeth A. and Hatch, Diane F., The Golden Bough, The Oaken Cross. The Virgilian Cento of Faltonia Betitia Proba (American Academy of Religion, Texts and Translations 5; Chico, Calif. 1981), conveniently reprint Schenkl's text opposite their own translation; they also provide some analysis and full bibliography, but appear to have overlooked Herzog's sophisticated treatment of the cento (above, n. 5, 3–51; bibliography, p. 3).Google Scholar

15 Vv. 3–4; cf. her invocation: ‘praesens, deus, erige mentem:/Vergilium cecinisse loquar pia munera Christi,’ vv. 22–23.Google Scholar

16 ‘Puerilia sunt haec et circulatorum ludo similia’: Ep. 53.7 (ed. Hilberg, I., CSEL 54 [1910] 453f.; Clark, and Hatch, 104–105).Google Scholar

17 There is a need for a book-length survey in English of the Latin Biblical epic. M. Roberts (above, n. 7) analyzes the major Biblical epics (not De Sodoma or De Iona) in the context of late antique paraphrastic practice; he provides extensive references to a wide range of secondary material. Two earlier studies by Roberts focus on Avitus: ‘The prologue to Avitus' De spiritalis historiae gestis: Christian Poetry and Poetic Licence,’ Traditio 36 [1980] 399–406, and ‘Rhetoric and Poetic Imitation in Avitus’ Account of the Crossing of the Red Sea (De Spir. Hist. Gest. 5.371–702),' Traditio 39 [1983] 29–80. McClure, Judith, ‘The Biblical Epic and Its Audience in Late Antiquity,’ in Cairns, Francis, ed., Papers of the Liverpool Latin Seminar 3 (ARCA, Classical and Medieval Texts, Papers and Monographs 7; Liverpool 1981), 305–21, focuses on contemporary Biblical scholars and exegetes as readers of Biblical epic. She makes no mention of either De Sodoma or De Iona. For general surveys, see Thraede, Klaus, ‘Epos,’ Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum 5 (Stuttgart 1962) 1006–42, Kartschoke, , Bibeldichtung, and Herzog, , Bibelepik (above, nn. 8 and 5, respectively). Of wider purview are: Raby, F. J. E., A History of Christian Latin Poetry (Oxford 1953); Fontaine, J., Naissance de la poésie dans l'occident chrétien. Esquisse d'une histoire de la poésie latine chrétienne du iii e au vi e siècle (Paris 1981). The central role of Vergil in pagan and Christian literary culture cannot be over-emphasized. One study relevant to the present context is Hudson-Williams, A., ‘Virgil and the Christian Latin Poets,’ Proceedings of the Virgil Society 6 (1966–67) 11–21. Springer, Carl P. E., The Gospel as Epic in Late Antiquity: The Paschale Carmen of Sedulius (Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 2 [Leiden 1988]) gives a brief overview of the genre (5–7); note particularly his discussion of Sedulius' poem as a Christian Aeneid (76–83).Google Scholar

18 Four books, ed. Huemer, J., CSEL 24 (1891).Google Scholar

19 Five books, ed. Huemer, J., CSEL 10 (1885).Google Scholar

20 Three books, ed. Hovingh, P. F., CCL 128 (1960) 115–93, 269–97; also ed. Schenkl, C., CSEL 16 (1888) 335–498.Google Scholar

21 Three books, ed. and trans. Corsaro, Francisco (Catania 1962); ed. Vollmer, F., MGH AA 14 (1905) 23–113; also PL 60.695–770.Google Scholar

22 Five books, ed. Peiper, R., MGH AA 6.2 (1883) 201–74; also PL 59.323–68.Google Scholar

23 Two books, ed. McKinlay, A. P., CSEL 72 (1951).Google Scholar

24 Ed. Peiper, R., CSEL 23 (1981) 1–208; also PL 19.345–80.Google Scholar

25 Ed. Peiper, R., CSEL 23 (1891) 231–39; also PL 50.1287–92. — Any list is provisional and somewhat arbitrary. We know of lost Biblical epics (e.g., the metrum Severi episcopi in evang. libri xii, 489 verses from books 8, 9, and 10 of which have been discovered by B. Bischoff, and three epics of Cresconius: see Herzog, , pp. xxxii–xxxiii). Other Christian epics — e.g., Prudentius' Psychomachia or Paulinus of Périgueux's life of St. Martin of Tours — were widely read, but are in no sense Biblical epics. My term ‘major’ is purposely vague; Herzog rightly bases his distinction between ‘canonical’ and ‘extra-canonical’ on the documentable reception of the poems; see below.Google Scholar

26 Ed. Peiper, R., CSEL 23 (1891) 240–54.Google Scholar

27 See Kartschoke, (above, n. 8) 93: ‘Arator setzt rigoroser noch als Sedulius sein carmen perpetuum aus ausgewählten, unverbunden aneinandergereihten Episoden zusammen, die er titulusartig zunächst in Prosa wiedergibt mit der stereotypen Einleitung De eo ubi…. Von eigentlichen Tituli underscheiden sich diese Prosaeinleitungen durch ihre größere Ausführlichkeit, die sie in die Nähe wirklicher Prosaparaphrasen rücken.’ Cf. Roberts, M. (above, n. 7) 176, 180.Google Scholar

28 See above, n. 7.Google Scholar

29 Alethia 1.144–46: Roberts 98.Google Scholar

30 On variatio, see ibid. 198.Google Scholar

31 He does not reproduce in direct speech either Lot's first words to the angels or their response (Gen. 19.2); he only summarizes Lot's speech to his prospective sons-in-law (Gen. 19.4; line 79).Google Scholar

32 On the usage of animae (v. 45) to mean ‘animals,’ see Gamber, (above, n. 4) 191.Google Scholar

33 While it has long been assumed that the peculiar sin of the Sodomites was homosexuality, a number of recent investigators argue that in the Biblical account the Sodomites are punished for the sin of impiety, specifically for their breach of hospitality: so Bailey, Derrick Sherwin, Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition (London 1955); McNeill, John, The Church and the Homosexual (Kansas City, Mo. 1976) 42–50; Marvin Pope in The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, Supplementary Volume (Nashville 1976) 415–17; Boswell, John, Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century (Chicago 1980) 93–98. What appears to be a new consensus of Old Testament scholars concerning the events narrated in Genesis is less significant, in the present context, than the documentable history of Biblical exegesis. While it seems that sexual overtones, at first heterosexual, later homosexual, first entered the interpretive tradition only after the story of Sodom was composed (Boswell 93, 97–98), they entered it long before De Sodoma was composed. The homosexual interpretation became popular, though the best scholars in their best moments have hesitated. For example, it is interesting that while the Vetus Latina translated σvγγεvμεθa (Gen. 19.5) as coitum faciamus, and while Jerome rendered it concumbamus when he quoted the verse in his commentary on Isaiah (PL 24.65d; Adriaen, M., ed., CCL 73 [1963] 51), in the Vulgate, when he was working from the Hebrew, Jerome close the more literal and more ambiguous cognoscamus. Not long after, however, Orosius is quite explicit about the reference to male homosexuality (Historia adversus paganos 1.5.8; CSEL 5.46). Still, though the poet of De Sodoma no doubt assumes he is following the soundest exegetical tradition, he seems also to acknowledge the original interpretation further on when, after the conflagration, in a passage which summarizes the passing of Sodom, he gives the Sodomites' inhospitality extraordinary prominence: Google Scholar

Nusquam sunt Sodomi, nusquam illic impia lucent Google Scholar

moenia, cum dominis domus omnis inhospita nusquam (127–28).Google Scholar

34 Either manuscript reading (in nomen, huic nomen) makes this point; it becomes all the clearer if Müller's clever conjecture Iridis en numen! is admitted ([above, n. 3] 464).Google Scholar

35 In the Christian tradition, the coordination of Noah's flood and subsequent devastations is not merely temporal; it is thematic, even theological. Cf. the significance of the episodes of Lot's wife and Jonah in Avitus' De spiritalis historiae gestis (Roberts [above, n. 7] 214–18; cf. 225).Google Scholar

36 Cf. ‘testem iudicii sui [i.e. Dei] futuram …,’ Orosius, , Historia adversus paganos 1.5.9 (CSEL 5.46).Google Scholar

37 ‘Praescius hospes’: literally ‘prescient,’ or merely ‘very wise’? If the former, the poet is already preparing the ground for his subsequent, astounding claim that Graeco-Roman myth followed on the events of Genesis. From this perspective, a guest with these preferences would indeed be prescient.Google Scholar

38 The barbarous inhospitality of the Scythians was proverbial in Classical literature. The audience of De Sodoma would have had no first-hand experience of this fierce tribe.Google Scholar

39 Busiris, an Egyptian king, sacrificed strangers until he himself was slain by Hercules: cf. Vergil, , Georgics 3.5; Ovid, , Tristia 3.11.39; Macrobius, , Saturnalia 3.5.9; Myth. Vat 1.65.Google Scholar

40 Bebryx, , king in Bebrycia in Asia Minor (later Bithynia), excelled at the caestus, a type of boxing with gloves housing metal balls. He sacrificed all foreigners beaten by him until Pollux bested and then killed him: see Valerius Flaccus 4, esp. lines 99, 220, 261, 290, 315. A recently discovered eleventh- or twelfth-century library catalogue from Lobbes has revived arguments for a French connection for the tradition of Valerius; cf. Reeve, M. D. in Reynolds, L. D., ed. Texts and Transmission: A Survey of the Latin Classics (Oxford 1983) 427, with further bibliography.Google Scholar

41 Antaeus, the Libyan giant, was finally slain by Hercules: cf. Ovid, , Met. 9.184.Google Scholar

42 Ionge Peiper: a ex e V.Google Scholar

43 ‘Idcirco vocatum est nomen urbis illius Segor,’ Gen. 19.22 (Vulgate), although it is not at all obvious that idcirco refers to parva in 19.20. The poet could have known the explanation from any number of sources, e.g. the ‘Latin Josephus’: ‘qui locus Zohor hactenus appellatur. sic enim Hebraei modicum vocant’ (Franz Blatt, ed.: The Latin Josephus I. Introduction and Text. The Antiquities: Books I–V [Acta Jutlandica 30; Copenhagen 1958] 150), translating Jewish Antiquities (henceforth JA) 1.204: Zω τ a vuv λγετa aλovσ γà ovτω 'Eβa o τòv oλγov. Blatt's text of books 6–10 is finished and awaiting publication: so Feldman, Louis H., Josephus and Modern Scholarship (Josephus and Modern Scholarship) (Berlin 1984) 43–44. On etymological interpretation of the Hebrew text, see Franxman, T. W., ‘Genesis and the “Jewish Antiquities” of Flavius Josephus,’ Biblica et Orientalia 35 (Rome 1979), 146 n. 25.Google Scholar

44 ingreditur: ingressus est Vulgate, , intravit Vetus; exoritur sol: sol (ex)ortus est Vetus, , sol egressus est Vulgate. Cf. et sol exoritur , Victorius, Claudius Marius, Alethia 3.763. The paucity of echoes in De Sodoma of any of the earlier Latin poetic versions of the destruction of Sodom underscores the fact that it stands apart from the main tradition of Biblical poetry.Google Scholar

45 For example, Adolf Ebert writes: ‘Merkwürdig ist …, daß der Dichter den Mythus von Phaetons Untergang auf den Brand von Sodom und Gomorrha zurückführt, und die Verwandlung von Lots Frau in eine Salzsäule, welcher er noch wunderbare Eigenschaften leiht, den antiken Metamorphosen, wie Wahrheit der Fabel, gegenüberstellt, und so seine Dichtung gleichsam als ein christliches Seitenstück dem berühmten Werke Ovids erscheinen läßt’ (Allgemeine Geschichte der Literatur des Mittelalters im Abendlande bis zum Beginne des XL Jahrhunderts [2nd ed.; Leipzig 1889] 1.123). Schanz, Martin notes, ‘Hierbei kommt ihm [i.e., the poet] eine heidnische Reminiszenz in den Sinn, nämlich die Sage von dem Sonnenbrand infolge des Phaethonschen Wagnisses; er steht nicht an, diese Sage aus dem Strafgericht, das über Sodoma ergangen, abzuleiten’ (Geschichte der römischen Literatur [Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaften 4.1; 2nd ed., 1914] 207; see pp. 207–209 for a summary, p. 209 for bibliography to early editions and studies: classicists of Schanz's day had not yet learned to ignore post-classical texts). Ghisalberti, F., that indefatigable student of the Ovidian tradition, neatly described the relationship between the texts as follows: ‘L'autore del carme De Sodoma trova nel mito de Fetonte l'allegoria dell' incendia de Sodoma e Gomorra’ (L'Ovidius moralizatus de Pierre Bersuire [Studi romanzi 23; Rome 1933] 9). Gamber speaks of ‘une tendance très accusée à expliquer les faits de l'Ancien Testament d'une manière symbolique’ and concludes that in the author's mind ‘cet ouvrage devait servir de pendant aux récits fabuleux d'Ovide …’ (above, n. 4, 30). But then according to Gamber, , De Iona is ‘un peu plus longue (505v.)’ (p. 31): it is in fact shorter (105 lines) than De Sodoma. Google Scholar

46 The prominence of the Ovidian subtext of De Sodoma is unusual in the tradition of Biblical epics. See Pascal, Carlo, ‘Sopra alcuni passi delle Metamorfosi ovidiane imitati dai primi scrittori cristiani,’ Rivista di filologia e di istruzione classica 37 (1909) 1–6, and further bibliography in Roberts, M. 188 n. 73. There is no definitive study of the Ovidian tradition in the Middle Ages. Several short surveys are: Battaglia, Salvatore, ‘La tradizione di Ovidio nel medioevo,’ Filologia Romanza 6 (1959) 185–224; Monteverdi, Angelo, ‘Ovidio nel medio evo,’ Studi Ovidiani (edd. Arnaldi, F. et al.; Rome 1959) 63–78; Munari, Franco, Ovid im Mittelalter (Zurich 1960). For further bibliography, see Hexter, R., Ovid and Medieval Schooling: Studies in Medieval School Commentaries on Ovid's Ars Amatoria, Epistulae ex Ponto, and Epistulae Heroidum (Münchener Beiträge zur Mediävistik und Renaissance-Forschung 38; Munich 1986). Stroh, Wilfried, Ovid im Urteil der Nachwelt: Eine Testimoniensammlung (Darmstadt 1969) 131–62 (‘Verzeichnis der seit 1935 zum Nachleben Ovids erschienenen Literatur’) takes up where Schanz, M. and Hosius, C., Geschichte der römischen Literatur (Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaften 8.2; 4th ed., Munich 1935, repr. 1959) 260–64, leave off. Through the late antique period and early medieval centuries, Ovid had nowhere near the impact or influence of Vergil (Hexter 3–4). Early medieval poets seemed rather to take inspiration from an Ovidian genre or Ovidian situation. See, e.g., Schmid, W., ‘Ein christlicher Heroidenbrief des 6. Jahrhunderts,’ in Studien zur Textgeschichte und Textkritik (edd. Dahlmann, H. and Merkelbach, R.; Cologne 1959) 253–63 (on Venantius Fortunatus 8.3.277ff.), or Brugnoli, G., ‘Ovidio e gli esiliati carolingi,’ Atti del Convegno Internazionale Ovidiano 2 (Rome 1959) 209–16; on medieval receptivity to the topos Ovidius exul, see Hexter 86–99.Google Scholar

47 In lieu of a complete bibliography, the following titles suggest a number of different perspectives: Marrou, H. I., Saint Augustin et la fin de la culture antique (Paris 1938) and Histoire de l'Education dans l'antiquité (7th ed.; Paris 1977); Courcelle, P., ‘Les Pères de l'Eglise devant les enfers virgiliens,’ Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Age 22 (1955) 5–69; Hagendahl, Harald, Latin Fathers and the Classics (Göteborg 1958); Momigliano, A., ed., The Conflict between Paganism and Christianity in the Fourth Century (Oxford 1963); Markus, R. A., ‘Paganism, Christianity and the Latin Classics in the Fourth Century,’ in Binns, J. W., ed., Latin Literature of the Fourth Century (London 1974) 1–21; Christianisme et formes littéraires de l'antiquité tardive en Occident, Entretiens Hardt 23 (Vandoeuvres–Genève 1977); of the many studies that touch on wider issues, note Cochrane, Charles N., Christianity and Classical Culture: A Study of Thought and Action from Augustus to Augustine (Oxford 1940; frequently repr.).Google Scholar

48 De rerum natura 380–415, here 405–406.Google Scholar

49 I.e., like Eve. Lot's wife and Eve are compared by Prudentius (Hamartigenia 741–42; see Roberts, M. [above, n. 7] 216 n. 158).Google Scholar

50 On the ‘argumentative digressions’ of Avitus, see Roberts, , ibid. 214–15: The Greek myths of Deucalion (IV 3–10) and a race of giants (V 88–122) are criticized as distortions of the biblical truth…. The myth that giants piled up mountains to challenge heaven is … in Avitus‘ opinion a falsified version of the Biblical story.’ Google Scholar

51 Text: Theoduli eclogam recensuit et prolegomenis instruxit Osternacher, Joannes (Urfahr 1902) 1–58; Osternacher's text only, with minimal apparatus, is reprinted in Bernhard of Utrecht, Commentum in Theodolum (1076–1099), ed. Huygens, R. B. C. (Spoleto 1977) 9–18. For a brief summary, English readers may turn to the introductory section (‘Fortuna,’ pp. 386–88) of Betty Nye Quinn, ‘ps. Theodolus,’ in Kristeller, P. O., ed., Catalogus translationum et commentariorum 2 (Washington 1971) 383–409. In the course of his analysis of Bernhard of Utrecht's commentary on Ecloga Theoduli, Hennig Brinkmann sheds light on the poem itself (Mittelalterliche Hermeneutik [Darmstadt 1980], esp. 348–401). I have recently discussed the Ecloga Theoduli in ‘Latinitas in the Middle Ages: Horizons and Perspectives,’ Helios 14 (1987) 69–92 esp. 78–80. On early medieval education see Riché, Pierre, Les écoles et l'enseignement dans l'occident chrétien de la fin du V e siècle au milieu du XI e siècle (Paris 1979). For a detailed census of the school authors, see Glauche, Günter, Schullektüre im Mittelalter: Entstehung und Wandelungen des Lektürekanons bis 1200 nach den Quellen dargestellt (Münchener Beiträge zur Mediävistik und Renaissance-Forschung 5; Munich 1970).Google Scholar

52 In each exchange a pagan ‘falsehood’ is corrected by Christian ‘truth.’ E.g., the pagan gigantomachy is countered with the Biblical story of Babel (as in Avitus). Pseustis leads off, but it appears at once that Alithia's source, the Bible, orders the debate. Her first examples all derive from Genesis, but she proceeds through the Pentateuch and historical books of the Old Testament. Pseustis is not following a single text, though Ovid's Metamorphoses provides a significant number of Pseustis' fables. Alithia includes the story of Sodom and Lot's wife (lines 113–16) as a rejoinder to Pseustis' account of Phyllis and Demophon (109–12; not from Ovid, it seems, but from Servius' commentary on Ecl. 5.10). The pairing seems to turn on metamorphosis into a hard object: Phyllis into a tree, which Demophon kisses, and Lot's wife into a pillar of salt, which animals lick. Pseustis invokes Phaethon and the ensuing cataclysm (vv. 245–48) in an appeal to the evening to come quickly — he senses he is getting the worst of the debate.Google Scholar

53 Carmen paschale 1.121–26 (CSEL 10). Cf. the Vulgate's versa est in statuam salis (Gen. 19.25) and Sedulius', in statuam mutata salis (v. 122).Google Scholar

54 Lines 5758–60; CCL 128. The phrase is the usual one: Cassiodorus' team of translators rendered Josephus JA 1.203 (quoted below) as ‘in statuam salis conuersa dinoscitur’ (The Latin Josephus, ed. Blatt [above, n. 43] 150). A complete survey of Sodom in early medieval Biblical poetry would look as well at: Dracontius, , De laudibus Dei 2.405–39, 3.251ff. (MGH AA 14; a more recent ed., with Italian trans., is that of Francisco Corsaro [Catania 1962]); Avitus, , De spiritalis historiae gestis 2.326–407, 4.352–90 (MGH AA 6.2); Florus of Lyon, carmen 4.51–88 (see MGH PLAC 2.509–66, additions in PLAC 4.2.930f.); Hymns in Analecta Hymnica 50 (1907) 210–18; the Anglo-Saxon Genesis, lines 2399–2575 (Genesis A); and the Old Saxon Genesis, lines 151–377. Gamber, , Le livre de la ‘Genèse,’ 160–63, is not satisfactory.Google Scholar

55 In dealing with ‘Lactantius’ we jump from the frying pan into the fire. The only sure thing about the matter is that Lactantius, the author of the Divine Institutes, had nothing to do with them. The standard treatment is that of Otis, Brooks, ‘The Argumenta of the so-called Lactantius,’ Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 47 (1936) 131–63; here 132. If one consults the two published ‘critical’ editions (Slater, D. A., Towards a Text of the Metamorphoses of Ovid [Oxford 1927]; Hugo Magnus, P. Ovidii Nasonis Metamorphoseon Libri xv. Lactantii Placidi qui dicitur Narrationes Fabularum Ovidianarum recensuit apparatu critico instruxit [3rd ed.; Berlin 1914]), the Lactantian material appears as an integral text comprising tituli and argumenta. In reality, there is the kind of casual variation among manuscripts one must expect with ancillary as opposed to primary texts. Moreover, one cannot even be absolutely certain what the relationship between tituli and argumenta is. For our purposes, we can appeal to the Lactantian material to document a tradition of segmenting the Metamorphoses which is no later than De Sodoma. Of course, the date of compilation can be only roughly approximated. The earliest extant text of Ovid which contains the material dates from the second half of the ninth century. On the basis of a range of evidence, including errors characteristic of minuscule copying of majuscule archetypes, Otis concludes that the ‘Argumenta along with a few scholia existed in some fifth- or sixth-century codex’ (140). Richard Tarrant writes that the Lactantian material ‘was probably composed for an ancient edition of the poem' but 'still awaits a thorough study’: Reynolds (see above, n. 40) 278. — The first four tituli of book two cover the material relevant to De Sodoma: ‘Phaethon Solis et Clymenae filius fulmine ictus; sorores Phaethontis in arbores populos; lacrimae earum in electrum; Cygnus Sthenelei filius in avem sui nominis’ (cited from Slater, as above). Uncharacteristically, the first of these does not contain a metamorphosis.Google Scholar

56 Roberts, (above, n. 7) 203–207.Google Scholar

57 Ibid. 205.Google Scholar

58 Ibid. 206.Google Scholar

59 Ibid. 183.Google Scholar

60 Nicander, , Eratosthenes, Phanocles, and Boios are among the better-known names for some of Ovid's specific sources (not to mention the most important figures in Greek didactic poetry, Hesiod and Aratus). Despite the intervening years, Lafaye, G., Les Métamorphoses d'Ovide et leurs modèles grecques (Paris 1904), remains indispensable.Google Scholar

61 10.7 (Jerusalem Bible translation). The phrase ‘fruit that never ripens’ is a fine translation of the LXX, but note that the reference to the apples of Sodom is a bit more oblique in the Vulgate, which says only, ‘et incerto tempore fructus habentes arbores.’ Google Scholar

62 ε στλv λ μετβaλε στóβσa δ' avτ, τ γà a v δaμvε (JA 1.203); ‘Latin Josephus’: ‘in statuam salis conversa dino⋅citur. vidi siquidem eam: hactenus enim manet’ (ed. Blatt 150). Josephus makes a similar ‘eye-witness’ claim about all the wonders of the region of Sodom in his Jewish War (henceforth BJ) 4.485.Google Scholar

63 On the commonplace that the pillar may still be seen, see Wilkinson, John, Egeria's Travels (London 1971) 219–20, who cites, in addition to Wisdom and Josephus, Clement of Rome I ad Cor. 11.4, and Irenaeus Adversus haereses 4.31.3. Cyril of Jerusalem (?), Cat. Myst. 1.8 (ed. Piédagnel, A., Sources chrétiennes 126 [Paris 1966] 96ff.) mentions Lot's wife but does not make it clear whether or not the pillar is still standing. Kartschoke (above, n. 8) 215f. adds: Jerome; Prudentius, , Hamartigenia 738ff.; and the Anglo-Saxon Genesis (A) 2565ff. For similar claims in Rabbinic literature, see Rapoport, S., Agada und Exegese bei Flavius Josephus (Frankfurt a. M. 1930), 105–106.Google Scholar

64 Itinerarium Egeriae 12.5–7 (edd. Franceschini, Aet. et Weber, R., Itineraria et alia geographical CCL 175 [1965] 43). As the exact sense of Egeria's description is essential, and the peculiarities of her diction may not be patent to all readers, I provide a translation: ‘The greater part of Palestine, which is the promised land, was seen from that vantage point, as well as the whole land of Jordan, as much, that is, as the eye could see. Now on the left we saw all the lands of the Sodomites, including Segor, which Segor mind you alone of those five [cities] remains standing to this day. For there is even a monument there; but of those other cities nothing remains but a heap of ruins, just as they were turned into ash. The place where the monument of Lot's wife was was also shown to us, which place is mentioned even in the Bible. But believe me, reverend ladies, that the pillar itself no longer appears. Only the place is shown, while the pillar is said to have been covered by the Dead Sea. Surely while we saw the place, we saw no column, and therefore I am unable to deceive you about this thing. For the bishop of the place, that is, of Segor, told us that it had now been a number of years since the pillar disappeared. And that place, where the pillar had stood, is about six miles from Segor, and the water now totally covers it.’ The passage has also been rendered by Wilkinson, , Egeria's Travels 107–108 as part of his complete translation of Egeria's journey (89–147).Google Scholar

65 For the complex problem of the two traditional sites of the cities of the plain, see Milani, Celestina, Itinerarium Antonini Placentini: un viaggio in Terra Santa del 560–570 d. C. (Milan 1979) 270–71 (notes on 10.2, 10.5, 10.6) and 274 (notes on 15.2 and 15.3), with generous bibliography. The ruins shown ‘Antoninus’ were southwest of Jericho and not on the Dead Sea at all; these were the ruins of ‘Herodian Jericho,’ or Tell Iktanu. Commenting on 15.3 (cited below) Milani says, ‘È difficile dire dove l'anonima abbia visto la statua della moglie di Lot’ (274). Inventive guides will have seen to that. Milani is right in disputing the claim of E. Power (‘The Site of the Pentapolis,’ Biblica 11 [1930] 49–52) that already Egeria had located Sodom and Gomorrah to the north; this is not certain, since she is only speaking of what can be seen from Mt. Nebo (Egeria 12.5–7, cited above). On the same page (271), Milani unravels the confusions involved in this so-called Mt. Nebo, in fact Pisgâ. Milani's book is invaluable for the study not only of ‘Antoninus Placentinus’ and other accounts of Holy Land pilgrimages, but of Biblical topography and sixth-century Latinity. The map she provides, however, is confusing for the portion of the journey that interests students of De Sodoma, for it shows Sodom, Gomorrah, and Segor at the southern end of the Dead Sea, despite the fact that ‘Antoninus’ viewed the alternate, northern site. In addition to the translations listed by Milani (13), an English version of ‘The Piacenza Pilgrim’ is available in Wilkinson, John, Jerusalem Pilgrims before the Crusades (Jerusalem 1978) 79–89. Wilkinson provides a considerably simpler account of the process by which Sodom 'shifted' from the southern to the northern end of the Dead Sea (Jerusalem Pilgrims, especially 164; cf. Egeria's Travels 220); I owe the information about the marl deposits to Wilkinson.Google Scholar

66 De situ terrae sanctae 20, in Itinera Hierosolymitana saeculi IIII–VIIII (ed. Geyer, Paul, CSEL 39 [1898] 146). Theodosius' account is also translated in Wilkinson, , Jerusalem Pilgrims 63–71.Google Scholar

67 The poet refers to menstrual blood in another context below (line 157), but Theodosius' report, although the only analogue that I have found to date to the claim in De Sodoma that the salt statue of Lot's wife menstruated, is sufficient to establish that this is not simply a doublet. We may link the specific reference here to the suggestion that Lot's wife is another Eve (turn quoque, line 115): menstruation was ‘the curse of Eve’ and the disobedience of both — explicit in lines 115–16 — leads, in both cases, to menstruation. A study of medieval lore about menstruation and its place in misogynistic literature is sorely needed. Wood, C. T., ‘The Doctors’ Dilemma: Sin, Salvation, and the Menstrual Cycle in Medieval Thought,' Speculum 56 (1981) 710–27, focuses on the ramifications of medieval scientific opinion on menstruation for Mariology, and vice versa. Most of the texts he discusses are much later than De Sodoma, but he refers (713f.) to one text that might not be so distant in time of composition from the poem: the unusually humane response of Pope Gregory to inquiries by St. Augustine of Canterbury incorporated by Bede into the Historia ecclesiastica (1.27.viii). The so-called Libellus responsionum enjoyed a wide independent circulation in subsequent centuries; see Meyvaert, Paul, ‘Les Responsions de S. Grégoire à S. Augustin de Cantorbéry,’ Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique 54 (1959) 879–94, for further bibliography.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

68 ‘Antoninus Placentinus,’ Itinerarium ad loca Terrae Sanctae 15.3. For ease of citation, I reproduce the text of P. Geyer (CSEL 39.159–218: here 169–70; = CCL 175.159–218), rather than Milani's (above, n. 65), who gives parallel diplomatic transcriptions of both manuscript witnesses for the recensio prior and, facing, an edition of the recensio altera based on sixteen manuscripts of the ninth through seventeenth centuries.Google Scholar

69 Scholars have noted parallels between De Sodoma and some of the naturalists and geographers, although I know of no systematic examination of these texts. Müller mentions the relevance of Solinus, and he no doubt served as the authority for Ebert's comments in his more widely-read handbook (above, n. 45) 123. Likewise Schanz repeats but does not expand on Ebert's reference to Solinus. It is Peiper who, in an appendix to his edition (Auctores imitatores, CSEL 23.295) compares Tacitus (Historiae 5.7), Augustine (De civitate Dei 21.5), Hegesippus (4.18), and Isidore (Origines 14.3.25) with lines 135ff.; Pliny (7.65, 28.80), Tacitus (Hist. 5.6), Josephus (BJ 4.8.4), Hegesippus (4.18), and Isidore (16.2.1) with lines 146ff.; Tacitus (Hist. 5.6) with lines 152f.; and Pliny (7.65, 28.80; 31.22) with lines 157 and 159.Google Scholar

70 ‘Hegesippus’ is the supposed author of a popular Latin ‘History of the Jewish Wars’ in 5 books (CSEL 66) — in fact a shortened Latin adaptation of Josephus‘ Jewish War in seven books, heavily contaminated by numerous sources, prominent among them Josephus’ own Jewish Antiquities. The text can be dated with some confidence to ca. 370. The author remains unknown; it has often been attributed to the young Ambrose, but that is almost certainly not true. See Schreckenberg, Heinz, Die Flavius-Josephus-Tradition in Antike und Mittelalter (Arbeiten zur Literatur and Geschichte des hellenistischen Judentums 5; Leiden 1972) 56; Feldman (above, n. 43) 41f. The common wisdom is that the name ‘Hegesippus’ is simply an ignorant Latin deformation of the Greek ‘Iosippus.’ There was also a second-century Church historian with this very name (not infrequently noted: e.g., Schreckenberg, , Tradition 56; Pelletier, Andre, Josèphe. Guerre des Juifs 1 [Paris 1975] 25). Less frequently noted is the fact that his Hypomnemata are in five books. Ironically, Hegesippus may have used Josephus as a source (see Mras, K., ‘Die Hegesippus Frage,’ Anzeiger der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien 95 [1958] 143–53, and Feldmann 846). All this is simple compared to the problem of the ‘Latin Josephus.’ In addition to ‘Hegesippus,’ based only loosely on Josephus‘ Jewish War, there were good Latin translations of all Josephus’ works. The Jewish Antiquities and the Contra Apionem were rendered under the supervision of Cassiodorus (Institutiones [1.17.1; ed. Mynors 55]). Cassiodorus also refers (ibid.) to a respectable translation of the Jewish War in seven books; Cassiodorus himself does not know who effected it (alii Hieronymo, alii Ambrosio, alii deputant Rufino). This translation — ‘ps-Rufinus’ would be perhaps the best way to identify it — deserves a critical edition; on work to date assembling the manuscripts and the difficulties, see Schreckenberg, , Tradition 58–61, and Rezeptionsge-schichtliche und textkritische Untersuchungen zu Flavius Josephus (Arbeiten zur Literatur und Geschichte des hellenistischen Judentums 10 [Leiden 1977], 27–28); Feldman 44–46. It has not been published since 1524: Flavii Iosephi, Patria Hierosoly-/mitani, religione iudaei, inter Graecos historiographos, cum / primis facundi, opera quaedam RVFFINO presby/tero interprete, in quibus post ultimam aliorum aeditionem, loca nec pauca, nec omnino le/uis momenti ex uetus-tissimorum co-/dicum collatione restituta / comperies lector. / basileae apvd io. frobenivm. / anno m.d.xxiiii. / mense septembri. Cf. Bulhart, V., ‘Textkritische Studien zum lateinischen Flavius Josephus,’ Mnemosyne 4.6 (1953) 140. The most recent account of the problem is Bell, Albert A., ‘Josephus and Pseudo-Hegesippus,’ in Louis H. Feldman and Gohei Hata, edd., Josephus, Judaism, and Christianity [Detroit 1987], 349–61.Google Scholar

71 Josephus, , JA 1.203, Hegesippus 4.16.2; Tacitus, , Historiae 5.7; Orosius 1.5.Google Scholar

72 Josephus, BJ 4.484; Hegesippus 4.18 (in cinerem; cf. v. 138); Tacitus, , Historiae 5.7; Orosius, , Historiae adversus paganos 1.5; Solinus, , Collectanea rerum memorabilium 35.6 (in pulverem); Augustine, , De civitate Dei 21.5.1 (in pulverem); Isidore, , Etymologiae 14.3.24–25. s-Rufinus, Tr. of Josephus, BJ 5.5: ‘Denique adhuc in ea diuini reliquiae ignis, et oppidorum quinque uidere licet imagines et renascentes in fructibus cineres, qui colore quidem sunt edulibus [sic] similes, carpentium uero manibus in fumum dissoluuntur et cinerem’ (Basel 1524, 761; note that the book and chapter number of this translation, 5.5, do not correspond to that given for Josephus. This dates from Niese's edition, 1885–1894). See also Bede, , De locis Sanctis 11 (in cinerem). Prior to De Sodoma, but certainly unknown to the poet, would be Tatius, Achilles, Leucippe and Clitophon 3.6; cf. Anderson, G., ‘The Mystic Pomegranate and the Vine of Sodom. Achilles Tatius 3.6,’ American Journal of Philology 100 (1979) 516–18.Google Scholar

73 Hegisippus, 4.18; Itinerarium Burdigalense 24.16 (partially translated in Wilkins, , Egeria's Travels 153–61; ‘Antoninus Placentinus,’ Itinerarium 10.4; Bede, , de locis Sanctis 11.Google Scholar

74 Strabo, , Geography 16.2.42; Pliny, , Natural History [NH] 7.15.65; Josephus BJ 4.476; Tacitus, , Historiae 5.6.Google Scholar

75 Pliny, , NH 7.15.65. See also Josephus, , BJ 4.480; Tacitus, , Historiae 5.6 (‘nec abscindere aere ferrove possis: fugit cruorem vestemque infectam sanguine, quo feminae per mensis exolvuntur’); Hegesippus, 4.18 (here closer to Tacitus than Josephus). Note, however, how Tacitus continues: 'sic veteres auctores, sed gnari locorum tradunt undantis bitumine moles pelli manuque trahi ad litus, mox, ubi vapore terrae, vi solis inaruerint, securibus cuneisque ut trabes aut saxa discindi.' Google Scholar

76 Bede, , de locis Sanctis 11 : ‘haerere sibi bitumen et nequaquam ferro praecidi fertur, sanguini tantum milierum menstruo uel urinae cedere, utilis autem ad compagem nauium vel corporibus hominum medendis.’ Google Scholar

77 Strabo, , Geography 16.2.43: a ov a a aλλa δvσδβ vγá. I cite the translation of Jones, H. L. in the Loeb edition, 7 (New York 1930) 295. Cf. Reinhardt, Karl, Poseidonios über Ursprung und Entartung: Interpretation zweier Kulturgeschichtlicher Fragmente (Orient und Antike 6; Heidelberg 1928) 65, who says that ‘other malodorous liquids’ is a circumlocution ‘für das, was bei Tacitus mit Namen steht.’ Note Reinhardt's entire excursus, ‘Ekphrasis und Geophysik des toten Meeres,’ 60–71. It is interesting to learn that, in this tradition, the Dead Sea was an example of the operation of geophysical and volcanic rather than divine forces.Google Scholar

78 Strabo, , Geography 16.2.42; Josephus, , BJ 4.476–77 (=Ps-Rufinus 5.5; ed. Basel 1524, 761) has the story that Vespasian tested this property of the lake by having several non-swimmers thrown in with their hands tied behind their backs; see also Tacitus, , Historiae 5.6; Bordeaux Pilgrim, 24.16.Google Scholar

79 Hegesippus 4.18: ‘Sed iam siue naturam siue qualitatem aquarum exprimamus, ne noster quoque in eo lacu excutiatur stilus, ex quo omnia, quaecumque mergenda putaueris uiuentia, tamen resilire opinio est et quamuis uehementer inlisa statim excuti’; Bede, , De locis Sanctis 11: ‘omniaque uiuentia demersa, licet et vehementer inlisa, statim resilire.’ Both Hegesippus and Bede also report Vespasian's scientific experiment (see preceding note); in Hegesippus this bit of real Josephus follows at some distance the report about living things not sinking, a result of Hegesippus' practice of combining BJ with other sources and tradition.Google Scholar

80 Cited by Reinhardt, (above n. 77) 64.Google Scholar

81 Hegesippus 4.18: ‘Lucernam accensam ferunt supernatare, sine ulla conversione extincto demergi lumine, et quavis demersum arte quod uiuat difficile haerere in profundo.’ This is taken over word for word by Bede, , De locis Sanctis 11.Google Scholar

82 ‘Antoninus Placentinus’ 10.4: ‘In quo mare nihil inuenitur uiuificatum nec paleas nec lignum supernatat neque homo natare potest, sed quicquid ibi iactatum fuerit, in profundum dimergitur.’ Google Scholar

83 Herzog, (above, n. 5): (1) pp. xix–xxiii, (2) pp. xxiii–xxv, (3) pp. xxv–xxxii.Google Scholar

84 This would suggest that those responsible for the manuscript attributions to Cyprian were thinking of a major patristic author of prose, Cyprian of Carthage.Google Scholar

85 On ‘Überlieferungszusammenhänge,’ see Bischoff, Bernhard, Paläographie des römischen Altertums und des abendländischen Mittelalters, Grundlagen der Germanistik 24 (Berlin 1979) 255: ‘Durch ein planmässiges Arrangement kann auf einzelne Texte ein neues Licht fallen.’ In the note to this sentence, Bischoff gives Laon 273 and 279 as examples.Google Scholar

86 Frank, G., ‘Vossianus Q.86 and Reginensis 333,’ American Journal of Philology 44 (1923) 67–70. Juvencus occupies fols. 1r–101v ; Sedulius, , fols. 101v–162v .CrossRefGoogle Scholar

87 For a detailed description of the manuscript and its contents, see de Meyier, K. A., Codices Vossiani latini II: Codices in quarto (Leiden 1975) 197–204.Google Scholar

88 See Glauche, (above, n. 51) 33–35, who also cites a book listed in a twelfth-century Cluny library catalogue that might very well be a twin of V: ‘Volumen in quo continentur Iuvencus, Sedulius, Arator, Prosper, quoddam metrum Tertuliani, Cato, Avianus, quedam diverse collectiones versuum diversorum a〈u〉ctorum, libri Alcimi episcopi, ars Isidori de grammatica artium et de disciplinis aliarum artis.’ Cf. Delisle, L., Cabinet des Manuscrits (above, n. 12) 2.479.Google Scholar

89 The manuscripts were already in Laon in the ninth century. As for actual provenance, a recent student of all the manuscripts at Laon in this period writes, ‘Manuscript 279, which contains Wicbod's Quaestiones in Octateuchum, was copied somewhere in the valley of the Moselle, probably not far from Wicbod's abbey, Saint Maximinus in Trier’: Contreni, John J., The Cathedral School of Laon from 850 to 930: Its Manuscripts and Masters (Münchener Beiträge zur Mediävistik und Renaissance-Forschung 29; Munich 1978) 45, with reference to his earlier study ‘A propos de quelques manuscrits de l'école de Laon au ixe siècle: Découvertes et problèmes,’ Le Moyen Age 78 (1972) 5–39, esp. 10–14. On Wigbod, see below. Of manuscript 273, all that can be said is that it is one of a number of books donated to Laon by Bernard and Adelelm which they had inherited from their teacher, Martin Hiberniensis (819–75). His hand is found in its margins (Contreni, , Cathedral School 38–39).Google Scholar

90 Laon 279, although presumably the older of the two manuscripts, is partially mutilated. For this reason I have chosen Laon 273 as the base, giving its wording of the manuscript titles of each item and noting any divergences of 279 from it. The following description is based on the tables of contents in Peiper's preface to his edition of Avitus in MGH AA 6.2 (1883) and his tabular comparison of the two manuscripts in his edition of Cyprian in CSEL 23.V. I have collated Peiper's summaries with the material in Contreni's recent study (1978), and give for each different work the item number assigned it by C(ontreni) in Appendix A, ‘The Contents of the Library,’ 169–87. Contreni surveys a great number of manuscripts; on the exact contents of Laon 273 and 279, Herzog's information (above, n. 5, especially p. xxx) is more reliable, if less systematically presented.Google Scholar

91 Ps-Hilary of Aries; see above, p. 6.Google Scholar

92 On Proba's Vergilian cento, see above, p. 5. ‘Aeptatica’ for ‘Heptateuch,’ although for Proba, the Old Testament events (lines 1–332) are merely the prelude to the life, passion, and ascension of Christ (lines 333–694; cf. maius opus moueo, line 334).Google Scholar

93 De spiritalis historiae gestis, in 5 books. Books 1–4 are drawn from Genesis, books 1–3 covering Gen. 1–3.24 and book 4 Gen. 6–9.17 (the flood); book 5, which treats the crossing of the Red Sea, alone is taken from the book of Exodus (1–15.1) and appears separately in these manuscripts; see below. Laon 273 continues to serve as a school text: see Nodes, Daniel J., ed., Avitus. The Fall of Man. De spiritalis historiae gestis libri I–III. Edited from Laon, Bibliothèque municipale, MS. 273 (Toronto Medieval Latin Texts 16; Toronto 1985).Google Scholar

94 De laudibus Dei, excerpts; 1.118–561 cover Gen. 1–3.Google Scholar

95 ‘Cyprian of Gaul,’ Carmen in Genesim; part of Metrum super Heptateuchum. Google Scholar

96 Wigbod, , Quaestiones in Octateuchum. Contreni reports (The Cathedral School [above, n. 89] 37–38, 186) that only Book 1 has been published (PL 96.1105–68, where it appears under Wigbod's name). However, the entire work has long been available among Bede's published works: PL 93.233ff. See Herzog, p. xxx and n. 88, where he refers to Laistner's publication of this information in Speculum 21 (1946) 527 and Harvard Theological Review 40 (1947) 30.Google Scholar

97 Book 5 (De transitu maris rubri) covers Exodus 1–15; for books 1–4, see above, n. 93.Google Scholar

98 Can Contreni have missed the (re)appearances of the Metrum super Heptateuchum in (279) and 273? I follow Herzog, p. xxx here.Google Scholar

99 This holds true, whether Laon 279 is the original of 273 or they both descend from a common archetype. Peiper (CSEL 23 [1891] 212), referring to a lost manuscript from the convent of St. Nazarius in Lorsch, asserts, ‘erat is haud dubie Nazarianus iste, ex quo fluxerunt Laudunenses nostri.’ In his edition of Avitus (MGH AA 6.2 [1883] liii), Peiper lists the contents of this manuscript according to Angelo Mai. However, Herzog has shown that the order and nature of the lost Lorsch collection are quite different from the Laon manuscripts (above, n. 5, 56–68). On Mai's own fabrications and the vexed relationship obtaining among the Lorsch catalogues, see Bischoff, Bernhard, ‘Lorsch im Spiegel seiner Handschriften,’ in Knöpp, Friedrich, ed., Die Reichsabtei Lorsch. Festschrift zum Gedenken an ihre Stiftung 764 (Darmstadt 1977) 2.7–128 (also published separatim as a Beiheft to Münchener Beiträge zur Mediävistik und Renaissance-Forschung [Munich 1974]) esp. 8–18.Google Scholar

100 In this summary of the matter of Wigbod, I follow Herzog (above, n. 5) xxx–xxxii closely; see also Contreni, , Cathedral School (above, n. 89) 68.Google Scholar

101 Ed. Dümmler, , MGH PLAC 1.88f.: line 88. See Herzog xxxi for other, supporting arguments. In addition to the Laon manuscripts, we know of another such contemporary collection from the catalogue of St. Riquier, dating from 831; see Becker, G., Catalogi bibliothecarum antiqui (Bonn 1885), no. 81: ‘quaestiones Hilarii, Cypriani, Alcimi Aviti, Hieronymi, Augustini super Pentateuchum in I. vol.’ (cited by Herzog, , ibid.).Google Scholar

102 Becker, , Catalogi, no. 258 (Lorsch) (cited by Herzog, , ibid.).Google Scholar

103 Herzog summarizes: ‘Die Kette der kommentierenden patres Ambrosius, Hieronymus, Augustinus, Gregorius und Isidor wird für die Leerstelle anonymer Poesie mit den Namen Cyprian und Hilarius aufgefüllt; die Bibelepik substituiert sich als eine Art sekundärer Kommentar der fehlenden alttestamentlichen Exegese der vorambrosianischen Kirchenväter’ (ibid.).Google Scholar

104 The relationship between Biblical scholarship and Biblical poetry makes an interesting topic. McClure (above, n. 17) has made a first step toward such a study, although she does not go later than the sixth century. In this context, Herzog (ibid.) reminds us of the plans Alcuin, the great Carolingian Biblical scholar, had for a project combining commentary with the poetry of Juvencus (epist. 143, ad Karolum).Google Scholar

105 The titles of chapters eight (95–111) and nine (113–34) respectively of Contreni, , Cathedral School (above, n. 89).Google Scholar

106 Ibid. 96. MS 92, which also contained Bede's commentary on Mark, ‘was partially copied and annotated by Martin' (ibid. 129). The text of these works was originally faulty and incomplete; ‘Martin must have had access to a complete text since he corrected and completed passages in his own copy’ (ibid. 72). Not clearly Martin's book, but available in the library at Laon in his day or soon thereafter, were copies of ‘Josephus Libri antiquitationes ludaicorum latino sermone’: i.e., the ‘Latin Josephus’ translated under Cassiodorus’ supervision (ibid. 180, item 246); also available, no later than the third quarter of the tenth century, was ‘Hegesippus De excidio Hierosolimorum,’ the title given it in nearly all medieval manuscripts (ms 402bis, fols. 1r–162v; see ibid. 52 n. 51; 72).Google Scholar

107 Ibid. 130; see also p. 113 (on ms 273 as a teaching manuscript).Google Scholar

108 One might be more confident about the suggestions offered above if it were possible to match the manuscript contexts exemplified by V and L(') with any of the dedications or programmatic statements that appear in the canonical and earlier Biblical poems. Note, e.g., Victorius, Claudius Marius, Alethia, preface, lines 104f.: ‘dum teneros formare animos et corda paramus / ad verum virtutis iter puerilibus annis.’ Victorius, a public orator in Marseilles in the third quarter of the fifth century, ostensibly wrote his Alethia for his son (so Gennadius, , De viris illustribus 61; cf. McClure [above, n. 17] 321); cf. also Avitus, , Ep. xxxxiii (38) ad Euphrasium (MGH AA 6.2 [1883] 73), in the first decade of the sixth century: ‘Quocirca volumen per vos temperatius ingerendum si supradictus frater vel infantibus legi debere censuerit, possum per quaecunque magnificentiae suae scripta cognoscere.’ Google Scholar

109 Above, n. 51.Google Scholar

110 See Hexter (above, n. 51).Google Scholar

111 Bede, , Historia ecclesiastica 4.24 (edd. Colgrave, Bertram and Mynors, R. A. B. [Oxford 1969] 418).Google Scholar

112 Cf. Kartschoke, , Bibeldichtung (above, n. 8) 219–20.Google Scholar

113 Contreni discusses the annotations to this sermon in some detail: Cathedral School (above, n. 89) 115–17.Google Scholar

114 Ibid. 116.Google Scholar