Epigramma

S. Paulinus’s Epigram. Preface. This poem, which we have said above is itself contained in the Parisian codex, folios 87v–90r, appended to the *Alethia* of Claudius Marius Victor, was first published by the same Gagneius, whose frauds we have just noted, in such a way that, not caring that in the Lyons codex—if indeed he had such a book—it was inscribed, without doubt in the same manner as in the Parisian, as “S. Paulini epigramma,” he attributed it to Victor with this added title: “Claudii Marii Victoris Oratoris Massiliensis de perversis suae aetatis moribus, Liber quartus Ad Salmonem.” In which title G. Fabricius, in his *Poet. vet. eccl.*, deleted the words “Liber quartus” and wrote “Epistola.” Whence this poem began already to be considered an epistle. But J. C. Wernsdorf, who received it into his *Poet. lat. min. corp.* vol. III, rightly determined in the preface, p. LXVIIII, that one must think not of an epistle but of a sermon. Although he did not well explain what the nature of this sermon was, led partly into error by the foul fictions with which Gagneius (for, not knowing the Parisian codex, he was compelled to follow him) had also polluted and disfigured this poem. For which reason the nature of the sermon must be set forth more accurately.

Some Salmon, who seems to have been a priest of the sacred rites, after a long time revisited that city in which he had been raised and educated. He had, however, migrated from there, as he himself says in verse 105, to the river Tecum in the land of the Sordones, and had established his dwelling there. Now when he had come to the monastery which was in that city, he is received by a monk heavy with years, whom he calls dear father (verse 103), and says that he has always cherished his memory with a pious heart. From this you may gather that Salmon was raised and educated in that monastery, having experienced that monk's singular zeal in that matter. Therefore this monk addresses Salmon with these words: if you have come with the intention of visiting our temple and approaching the abbot himself, you will recognize that truly Christian piety exists in our community; but if you wish to converse with me, I shall lead you to the house of Thesboni. Now near the monastery there was a hospice, to which strangers would turn aside. Salmon is then imagined to have entered the dwelling of Thesboni with that man, and there, having been kindly received, they enjoy mutual conversation, with the host himself also sitting by. And when Salmon is asked by the monk what the state of affairs is in that city which he now uses as his homeland, after he has described the disasters suffered from the barbarians, he denies that the citizens' morals have been corrected by that calamity, but affirms that the same vices which previously held sway dominate in their minds, and he sets forth more precisely the morals of the men, corrupted in every way.

After this speech, Thesbon adds that, although the state of affairs is to be lamented, the situation is nevertheless more tolerable, provided that women are not tainted by the same stain; for the ruined life of women is a far greater evil than that of men. To this Salmo responds in such a way that he declares the corruption of morals in women to be even more serious and inveighs against them most bitterly. After he has finished his lament, the monk denies that there is any doubt that in that city there are also many good men devoted to God. While Salmo concedes this, he contends that this is the sole consolation in such great misery. At the same time, setting that matter aside, he asks the monk what his life had been from the time when he himself had left the monastery and gone to the River Tecum. Then the latter says: "I would gladly satisfy your wish and set forth the blessed life I have enjoyed, were it not that evening has already come, which warns us to enter the temple and, with the company of the pious, offer prayers to God." Thus the conversation is broken off and deferred to the next day.

This poem was composed in that age when southern Gaul was being ravaged by the Vandals and Alans. For these are expressly mentioned in verse. But which people the poet intended to signify by the name of Sarmatians in verse is obscure; for I think no one will give credence to Wernsdorf, who maintains that the Goths are to be understood. Rather, it seems one must think of certain peoples who had joined themselves to the Alans. These, then, the poet calls Sarmatians, who certainly did not know that this name also pertains to the Alans. That all those peoples descended from lands facing the north is indicated by the word Riphaean in the mutilated verse, which Gagneius not badly filled out with the words arcus Alani. Now if you examine more carefully what is read in the following verses, I think you will agree with me in maintaining that at that time there was not continuous war, but certain intervals of peace, albeit uncertain and ambiguous. For the Gauls are said to have been then occupied in restoring, as far as could be done, their former fortune. Since this is the case, I suspect this poem was written at the beginning of the year 408, when Constantine, having repelled the attack of the Germans, restored to Gaul, if not peace, at least a certain shadow of peace. Moreover, if any similarity exists between the poem of Paulinus and that On Divine Providence which is falsely ascribed to Prosper of Aquitaine, this is to be explained by the fact that poets, in describing similar things, even if they are not dependent on one another, nevertheless use similar colors.

Therefore, nothing is thereby established which would prove that the author of the poem on divine providence had Paulinus’s epigram before his eyes. For similar colors are also not infrequently detected in those passages where Salvianus, in his books on the governance of God, described the disasters inflicted by the barbarians. But if you ask who Paulinus was, I am permitted to set before you only one conjecture, and that a rather uncertain one. For Petschenig informed me by letter that in the chronicle of Idacius, chapter XXV, a certain Paulinus, bishop of Baeterrae, is mentioned, who, elected around the year 400, probably died about twenty years later. Idacius reports that this Paulinus wrote a letter in which he recounted many terrible signs that had occurred in the city of Baeterrae. But I well understand how weak a foundation this conjecture rests upon. Moreover, the one who composed this poem was cultivated and polished by literary studies and was not lacking in skill in composing a poem and fashioning verses. Add to this that a certain natural elegance shines forth in his speech, alien to all artificial ornament and empty verbal noise. But when he inveighs against the vices of his age, then he rises higher and is borne along as if by a swift current of the weightiest words.

Finally, he never stoops to the slavish imitation of the ancient poets, but although here and there he turns certain passages of Lucretius and Vergil to his own use, he seems to have done this more in following the custom then prevailing for the sake of embellishing his style than because his talent failed him. Therefore, whether you consider the subject matter narrated in this poem or the poem itself, it is clear that a place certainly not the lowest among the poems of that age must be assigned to it. If, as a suppliant sinner, you have approached the temple of the Lord, and indeed the guardian of the temple and the teacher of the people, as many men as are here, so many altars of Christ you see: but if it pleases you to indulge in exchanged words, here dwells that guest of yours, my very vitals, Thesbon, for whom, for the rest of the brethren, in the cave of the leafy vine, grassy seats have been built from living turf. Tell me, therefore, Salmon, what is now your lot, what is the state of your fatherland, what delights you in it? For now, for the first time, the barbarian, with the pact of peace disturbed, bears down upon the fields, wealth, men, and farmers of the land, unharmed: nor do villas built of solid marble now avail for the long ages of life, and all the rocks wasted on vain stage-fronts. But truly, an inner plague and a deep war has long been wearing us down with a dense cloud of darts.

More savage and so much more dangerous is the enemy as it is more hidden. And yet, alas, if the Sarmatian has laid waste to something, if the Vandal has burned something, or the swift Alan has carried something off, we strive, with uncertain hopes and feeble efforts, to restore some semblance of our former state. But those things which have been lost through our own peril we neglect, and we idly allow the minds to grow foul with long neglect, and we have given our necks to chains and are bound as prey by the manacles of sin. And it is more urgent to prune the vine, to cut away the brambles, to repair a shattered door or to renew a broken window, than to cultivate the broad fields of the soul and the praetorium of the heart, and to restore the collapsed honor of the captive mind. The sword, dire famine, and finally diseases have accomplished nothing: we were what we are, and we always remain the same. Abiding in the same vices with no end of faults, the man who used to feast into the night now also drinks, continuing his days with no distinction by lamplight. Pedius was an adulterer: he commits adultery; he persists in the same leprosy while it is dark; Polio was envious: he envies; Albus, once a seeker of all honors, does he labor less with ambition in the destruction of the world?

Nothing is holy to us except profit, and that is honorable which has been useful, and we apply the names of right things to vices, and the miser takes the name of thrifty. But those who could not be caught in confessed vices and open crime—led by the image of virtue, they have more deeply fostered the hidden sore of a wound—these are drawn by an earthly wisdom ignorant of truth, and the same error that deceives them also drives the wretched. They inquire into the causes of things and the movements of the stars, what the shape of the sky is, why long rivers do not perish in their course, on what boundary the broad sea lies, and they wish to know what is known only to God, hidden from all—alas, and they seem to know it, though it is impiety. These, indeed, Salmon, are the crimes of our sex; but the disease of vices in your city is light, if the frenzies of women have not blazed up more fiercely. The damp night will hide the day, Thesbon, before I could run through the customs of this crowd, who, though they live under the law of God, live under the law of men—for shame! they never sin without our crime. For unless we were easily drawn by their pleasures, we would not want them to live by our vices; neither the stiff garments of gold nor the silks of the Seres

nor do they buy stones, which the merchant carries from the whole world, at the prices of estates. We join sighs of grief and are not ashamed to add vain cares, if a grave Lesbia has come forth with unknown gems and ten times Passiena has shone in new purple. Now if they strive to meet changing forms and to oppose other and yet other faces to their husbands, is that not our error? What do white lead and red lead and a hundred poisons of colors do in a chaste body? The honor of the mind and the glory of morals are the bonds of holy marriage; if beauty pleases, love will yield to the advancing years: only virtue knows no old age. Now that they traverse everything in perpetual wanderings, that they feed, that they carry many things, that they speak many things—is that not our vice? With Paul and Solomon left behind, either Maro’s Phoenissa is sung or Naso’s Corinna. Do not our inner rooms resound with hollow theaters? They receive applause for the lyre of Flaccus and the stage of Marullus. We are the cause of these things, we are the cause, we shamefully give nourishment to those flames—should the shameless wife of an honorable man be blamed for plucking a coin from a coin?—for just as a mirror faithfully reflects what it receives,

Those who are similar in talent and character follow examples of custom. Why is a woman, unhappy, condemned for a solid fault, when a worthless wife pleases a foolish husband? One enemy everywhere rages with a scattered whirlwind: nor is it surprising that those subdued by the terror of war are conquered. But if we, corrected, were to be of sound mind, and a mind free from dark clouds, purified by Christ, were open; if we were to press the sickle of the word into the heart and from there wish to cut off the knots of old vices, no force would prevail against the servants of Christ, nor would the Riphaean mountains lay us low... all war, and those who now, proud, rage at our destruction... Yet in your people a crowd of the good is not rare; it flourishes, and the church nourishes many pious ones. There are clearly many innocent ones, best of fathers, whose likeness I wish to be, and there is no lack of [solace for life], whom each sex leads to victorious crowns. And if anything commends the fatherland, if there is anything in it that helps, this one thing is, these are the solaces of life. Now come, dear father, tell me in turn, eager as I am, what worthy rest has received you, since I, carrying you in my heart, departed from here and sat down with you.

Not unwilling, indeed, shall I recall my joys, Salmon, nor shall I defraud you of the judgment of such great goods; but the hour of the day already warns us, confined, to rise and hasten to the sacred assemblies of the saints. Tomorrow's light will come freely to our words.