De Laudibus Domini

ON THE PRAISES OF THE LORD. Who complains of being aided by a late endowment of virtue? Who complains that God’s promises proceed with a slow step? Who measures the urn of the Eternal Judge by a human standard, and considers slow what the ages owe? In the prolegomena, number 18, I set forth the reason why this poem, published under Constantine, could be placed among the doubtful or supposititious poems of Juvencus. Barthius calls this poem elegant, most learned, most polished, and most erudite, and in book 35 of his Adversaria, chapter 9, pronounces it worthy even of Paulinus. But that it is older than Paulinus is clearly evident from the very time in which it was written. Verse 7. With a stagnant stream: thus Juvencus, book 3, verse: "The stream of the Jordan breaks through the green with a flowing host." I think it should be read "Tardus Arar, pigrumque diu vix explicat amnem." For I do not understand what "Dinvix" is. The Arar, now the Saône, is a deity of Celtic Gaul, concerning which Caesar, in book 1 of the Gallic War, chapter: "The river is the Arar, which flows through the territories of the Aedui and the Sequani into the Rhone with such incredible gentleness that the eye cannot judge in which direction it flows." Joannes Michael Brutus, in his Scholia, contends that it should be read "incredible lightness." For nothing, he says, seems less fitting to the Arar than gentleness: but by excessive lightness it can sometimes happen that sight is deceived. This opinion is refuted not only by Caesar’s words, but also by the authority of several ancients, who call the Arar slow and sluggish. Pliny, book 3, chapter 4: "Sluggish Arar." Silius, book...

xv, verse: Through whose fields the sluggish Arar creeps with its very slow waters. Claudian, On the Consulship of Mallius Theodorus, verse 53, "the slow Arar"; and in book ii Against Rufinus, verse: "Whom the swift Rhone, whom the slower Arar surrounds." The author of this poem agrees with this, indicating the same in the preceding verse by "stagnant stream." For Barthius, in book xxi, chapter 17, does not correctly take "stagnant" simply as "flowing." Who would hasten the day that rewards merits with their due? The noble glory of a great deed bears witness. For where the slow Arar glides past its banks with a stagnant stream, and unfolds the lazy Diuvix river, Where the Aeduan youth is born from the brother Rhine, I recall a marriage of the highest piety and faithfulness; yet divine law heaped up the merit of love. And both had a vow: to precede the partner in death, and to entrust the care of the tomb to pious grief. But the page of decree chose the wife first. Then the anxious husband orders hospitable stones to be hollowed out by a wide mouth—things that are done for the limbs after death: so that the coming one might receive them, and, joining eternal bonds, the same tomb might raise up both, who in life had been held by the same bed, after receiving God. The wife, prescient of her husband's vows, felt them, and great miracles she granted to the chaste times. For when arms are joined to dead limbs, and a repeated hand binds the bonds to the trunk, lest the shapeless drifting of disjoined parts occur—an immense thing to say—at the time when life was completed, the husband, who was to be joined to his partner, was seen in his appointed seat.

After the man’s death the gate of death was unlocked, and the hateful light uncovered the dread household god. The woman was caught stretching forth her left palm, inviting her companion with a gesture of living love. Who gave effect to the tomb? Who loosened the bonds? Whence does the buried woman see the shade of her future husband? You do these things, You, Christ God; Your signs are set in motion, and little by little You teach the dormant limbs to rise again. Consider whether it is fitting to write back: where the Aeduan youth is born at Rome—the Aedui, as the more learned write, or Hedui, or Edui—they had been called brothers and kinsmen by the Roman Senate. Caesar, Gallic War, Book I, chapter: “First, because he saw that the Aedui, repeatedly called brothers and kinsmen by the Senate, were held in slavery and under the sway of the Germans.” And later: “If they did not do this, the fraternal name of the Roman people would be far from them (the Aedui).” Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I, 16, etc.: “The Aedui, our brothers, are fighting.

In sepulchral inscriptions of the ancients this formula occurs frequently: *Contra votum superstes*. To the pious grief of the other spouse, the survivor. Barthius, *Adversaria* Book XXVI, chapter 10, thinks this verse should be cast out with pitchforks, without which the whole sentence stands remarkably coherent. Perhaps it should be transposed in this manner: *Post percepta Dei bustum commune levaret*, — *Susciperetque uniens, aeternaque foedera jungens*. I rewrite *uniens* as a disyllable by synaeresis, for *veniens* cannot be retained. Barthius, *loc. cit.*, judges that it should be read *Post praecepta Dei*: that is, after the summons, or, as Jerome loves to speak, the dormition. Thus frequently in the formulas of Christian testaments we read: *Cum Dominus de me praeceperit*. This too is derived from the style of the holy Fathers. Add the verse of this poem: *Sed prior uxorem decreti pagina Legit*. Far better is *constringant* than *constringat*: namely, the repeated bonds *constringant* the hands to the trunk. By what reasoning this was customarily done may be observed in ancient images of the buried Lazarus. Recall the note on *vere* in Book IV of Juvencus’ *Historia Evangelica*.

The meaning is: Let there not occur a shapeless floating of the dismembered limbs, by which the duties of life are fulfilled. *Fluitatio* is a new word, but most apt for expressing the matter. It has been omitted by Forcellini, nor has it even been placed among the barbarous terms. This argument is treated by Julian of Toledo, *Prognosticon* Book I, chapter 18, who reasons thus from Saint Augustine: Yet the bodies of the dead, especially of the just and faithful, are not to be despised and cast aside, since the Holy Spirit used them as instruments and vessels for all good and holy works. Thus reads the very ancient codex of Julian which I use. You, whom the holy prophets sang would come, incorrupt offspring of God, and ruler of the ruler. Without whom the vast Father deliberates nothing great, at whose command the sea stands fixed on its shores, nor is it permitted for the immense ocean to overflow the lands, and the flat shores confine the mountainous waves: You who endowed the stable earth with varied bounty for our uses, generous in paternal piety. To you mortals entrust seeds in the furrows, and a new offspring proceeds from the dry sod: You command the fruitful nectar to flow from vines, You the juices pleasing to men's feasts and healing to health in trees, You thrust forth sweet honeys. You command every kind of living thing to serve man, and moreover the groves to bend with heavy fruits, and new returns to be born from no seed.

You various rivers to be of service to our labor, and to renew the age blessed by sacred springs with your holy waters: Under your guidance, the seas lay open to sail-bearing prows, and the sailor traversed divided ports across the straits. You, after the elements were driven into fixed shapes, lest the heavenly machine begin to grow numb with a rough appearance, marked the world with varied gifts: and whatever shines in the sky, your right hand fashioned. It pleased [the Lord] to weave his hall with these signs. Now, lest the seas be driven without any hospitable lands, and the busy sailor count an unceasing port, a frequent island is fixed in the swelling sea. This verse, and the following, do not seem to belong to this place and are perhaps corrupt. Without them, certainly, the sense proceeds well. For *venturae* I read *venturi*, or *venturam*. *Rectorque regentis*, in a fault, as I think, this place lies corrupted. This place is explained in the note to Dracontius, book II, verse 343. Barthius, book XXXV of the *Adversaria*, chapter 9, brings forth many words ending in *-escere* not of common use, and among them *curvescere* from this place. Forcellinus rejected *curvesco* among the barbarous words.

Return, fruit, yield. And thus this name is written from *redeo*, with the first syllable short. Therefore *redditus* can scarcely be tolerated in poets who freely lengthen the first syllable, as in *relligio*, *reppulit*. Is this a discussion of sacred baptism? I think so. Or are the elements increased? World, heaven: a meaning which Barthius confirms from Manilius and other ancients, in *Adversaria* book 35, chapter 16. Consider whether *dextera pinxit* might be better. Barthius, in book 24, chapter 5, says that this elegance was transferred from the Greeks to the Latins, so that savage minds were called barbarous and gloomy inhospitable, and he cites this very verse along with others from different authors. Accept the interpretation of Barthius, book 46, chapter: So that the seas would not be utterly inhospitable to human cultivation, and so that the sailor might know that an ever-present—that is, frequent, repeated, as if perpetual—harbor was never lacking for his labors anywhere, the Best and Greatest Creator fixed islands in the sea.

Yet it does not fear the raging wave that surrounds it, and resting on a tiny orb of straits it resists, trusting in you as its guide, whose venerable covenant, bound by equal law, levels the highest and the lowest. Nor does it allow any to transgress the limits imposed upon them. And lest the earth lie too flat or bare, you commanded hills to rise up, to be fitted for vines, and spacious groves to weave shade. Then, lest a vast horror drive through the silent forests, you add countless offspring to the tall woods, so that the inhabitant of the grove may not lack, nor the hunter his prey. Then many birds, and a thousand swarms of voices, resound in the bright groves with mortal harmony. Thus you chose to weave the year with varied forms, and with pleasant change to add fruit for mortals: lest an excessively long day burn the world too much, or a short one snatch the rightful fire from the newborn; and lest unceasing toil shake everything with its effort, the dewy night gives rest to weary human cares; and so that human health might lead a secure life, healing herbs spring up spontaneously from the turf. The Father himself sows these by his nod, not with a rich plow. Not if I were covered with an iron wall in my innermost being, and I had an iron voice and a thousand tongues in singing, could I recount all the gifts of your piety. But that Father of yours, seated in a secret place, not easily visible to anyone, and fearsome to all, sent you as Lord to the earth, and as master of life. And whoever venerates the Son with just honor, let him dedicate his vows and his eternal life to both.

You, tenacious of the chaste and the right, and ready to bend the laws after a crime, if headlong madness has driven someone from the prescribed limit of life. That our mouths might suffer you to guard us, the Father clothed you in a human face and perishable limbs. For who would attempt to raise fragile sights, if he had wished to set such a one on trembling lands?

I would read the offenses as straightforward. For doubtful matters, I would prefer something else. Of course, so that some remarkable event might render your birth illustrious. This verse and the following are obscure, and perhaps corrupt. It hints, I think, at the perpetual virginity of the Deipara, and that is clear if you read the following verse as "from afar." What are you like, when you hurl thunderbolts with your mighty right hand, and command the present punishment to tremble at the direct blow? Or when, appeased, you divide rains for the thirsty fields, and bring forth doubtful ears of grain in the furrows? Yet, lest no remarkable event should show your birth, You are conceived from a Virgin: it is not enough to be chaste. Nor could a married woman join a brother to the Lord, Lest foul contagion be far from the womb. Soon, when happy maturity has ripened with progress, You take up the task of guarding untamed minds with paternal warnings, and offer the straight path to those who slip. And so that the commands sent by God might be fully understood, You take away empire from death, and with disease dissolved, You order the desperate to take up the duties of life. And you restore the day to the blind, and lest anything untried remain, by which treacherous error might perish, You show sense to tombs, and you order long-buried limbs to rise again into the upper airs, and the beloved corpses recognize their own name. But after the suitable follower has absorbed the law.

That he might lay aside the heavenly spirit in a mortal hall, I understood the design by which you would teach all things to be endured for the sake of the highest God, and rightly that each one assumes eternal life for himself through contempt of death. Thus, bearing the completed commands of the Father, you returned to the secret places of the highest pole, where the bright ether forbids the sluggish clouds to kindle their own fire in the sky. And so that the destruction of the perishing multitude might be certain—that multitude which bars the precepts of God from its wretched ears, and that new laws would not already hold the dead—you open for us the infernal prison’s deadly places, and you command the countless people to emerge from the darkness. Only those are shut in whom an impious life has marked; and you assign the places of punishment to the shades that are to come. Those who do not believe you, or who pretend to believe. Holy God, and venerable pledge of the highest God, at whose name the violent dead are put to flight. A mass sent to God for a mass sent from God, of the sort I have observed many in Juvencus. Lest anything be left unattempted, from Virgil, Book VIII, line 205, which others also have imitated.

That the body might be loosened. Perhaps it refers to the words of Christ, "It is finished," which pertain to the cup of passion. The secrets of the sky, as Juvencus, book I, verse: The secrets of heaven. I correct "succedere" for "succendere." The peculiar opinion of this author is to be noted: That Christ ordered that those who had long since died should not be bound by the new precepts of Christ, nor be judged by them; that the infernal places of the prison of hell be left free and empty for us, that is, for those who were to come after Christ, countless souls having been drawn out from there and only those retained whom an impious life had stained. Therefore he divided the places of punishment, and left one part for those thus retained, and reserved another part for those who would not believe in Christ, or who would pretend to believe, because they would not hold to the faith through good works. He calls the dead "shades," a phrase taken from pagan custom, but which other Christian poets have used. With their own breasts, and having fastened themselves to the breasts of others, the souls cry out, grow pale, and, ordered, withdraw. Just as many miracles of yours were previously revealed, when they are held suspended between earth and sky, because through you nothing is permitted to the enemy. But now you, by merits, by piety, the parent, O lord,

These six verses are obscure, and something seems to be missing for the sense. The discourse, as I think, is about those who rose with Christ, and who were left behind in eternal punishments; or rather about those possessed by a demon, who is driven from the hearts of men by the grace of Christ, and sometimes also besieges the bodies of the just, and is commanded in the name of Christ to withdraw from them. See Paulinus, Natal. xi of Saint Felix, verses following. Easy in command, a teacher by the law of living, And equal to the edicts which the law established for you sanctifies, Victorious and joyful, make Constantine equal to me. The earth has given nothing better than this offspring before, Nor will it give; would that his children might equal their father! A similar eulogy of Constantine was composed by Juvencus at the end of book IV of the Evangelical History. *Lex tibi condita*, that is, established by you. Imitation of Horace, book IV, ode 2, concerning Caesar Augustus: Than whom nothing greater, better on earth – The Fates and the good gods have given; – Nor will they give, although the golden times of old should return.