For whatever it is worth I am sending the list a part of the handbook I am
working on - apologies to Leofranc since it does not necessarily reflect,
yet his valuabke suggestions and corrections.
Hagendahl (1958 and 1967) are still the standard studies of patristic
engagement with the classics, although Courcelle (1984), while
unfortunately limited to the A, is a magnificent tool for tracing the use
of that poem through late anitquity into the early Middle Ages. Despite
the implications of arguments in Irvine (1994), none of the commentary
collections can be identified as specifically Christian in origin, although
Philargyrius 1 and 2 and the Scholia Bernensia have been clearly worked
over by Christian scholars (see use of Orosius and Eusebius in the Scholia
Bernensia) and include comments accepting the possibility of Christain
prophetic allegory for Eclogue 4, the 'Messianic', a poem with an extensive
critical literature which can only be touched upon here. It is possible
that these 'Christian elements' are to be referred to Philargerius,
Gaudentius and/ or Gallus - and that these commentators may represent a
circle of grammatici working in Milan. It is also possible that the
Christian elements represent later Insular extrapolations from Patristic
sources. Courcelle (1957) is still the fullest and most balanced study of
the patristic reaction to this text.
Christian engagement with Vergil had two sources: first, his
pre-eminent position in the literary culture and educational system of the
Latin speaking areas of the empire; second, the apparent prophecy of Christ
in the fourth Eclogue. It is possible that the second source proceeds as
much from the first source as from any apparent shared imagery of Isaiah
and Vergil. The attention lavished on Eclogue 4 is connected to Vergil's
pre-eminence as not merely 'the poet', but 'the poet of the empire' for men
like Constantine, who delivered a Christian imperial reading of Eclogue 4
in the Oratio Constantini, and his eldest son's tutor, Lactantius, who
compared Isaiah and the Sibylline oracles using Eclogue 4 as a framework in
his Divinae Institutiones (VII. 24, 7, CSEL 19).
Constantine the Great's nearly line by line analysis of the fourth
Eclogue, which insists on its prophetic nature, was composed originally in
Latin and delivered by the Emperor at an Easter between 325 and 337, but
survives only in a Greek translation and re-working by Eusebius as an
appendix to his life of the Emperor. Monteleone (EV 1 913-5) drew
attention to its similarity to Lactantius: Divinae Institutiones.
Courcelle (1957 311) described Augustine as assimilating Constantine's
reading of Vergil. Constantine suggested that the Erythraean Sibyl was
filled with the true prophetic inspiration, while (Oratio Constantini
XVIII) Vergil himself was not a prophet, but aware and committed to the
hidden meaning of his words, which, out of consideration for personal
safety and his audience's sensibilities, he had embodied in more
traditional terms.
For some scholars Jerome is the great biblical translator, for
others, the most venomous tongued man of his generation. For students of
Vergilian commentaries, however, his claim to fame is two-fold. First he
was the student of Aelius Donatus; second, although speaking of Vergil with
the greatest respect, calling him poeta eloquentissimus, insignis poeta,
poeta sublimis, (Holtz 1985, 9), he would have no truck with the Vergilian
fantasies of the 'muliercules' (Epistle 53. 6-7 CSEL 55). This is unlike
Augustine, who accepted in De civitate Dei 10.27 (CCSL 47, 302-3) that
Vergil, at least, was reporting the prophetic word of the Cumaean Sibyl.
Nevertheless, Jerome had only limited effect. Quodvultdeus in De
promissionibus et praedictionibus Dei (PL. 51) developed the essential idea
behind the Vergilian prophecy. Isidore ensured that it could be read
across Europe in a particular light: quarum omnium carmina efferuntur in
quibus de Deo et de Christo et gentibus multa scripsisse manifestissime
conprobantur(Etym. 8.8.7). Leopardi (EV 4, 422-3) has noted that in the
earlier middle ages interpretation oscillated between the Christian and
Servian interpretation according to the circumstances of the moment. One
quotation given by Leopardi (423) from the ninth century Ms Valenciennes
394 is of particular interest since it reflects the opinion and experience
of an early medieval teacher-commentator in the early middle ages:
Volunt quidam ad Christianos referri et nouum saeculum sub nouo testamento
per Christum dominum ex Maria uirgine natum renouatum. Unde beatus
Augustinus in quadam homelia hunc uersum 'iam noua progenies caelo
dimititur alto' de Christo predictum asseuerat. Licet sanctus Hieronimus
hoc penitus neget, quia iuxta Pauli uocem misterium ab initio saeculi
absconditum nemo principium huius mundi cognovit quod in fine saeculi per
filium suum Deus pater ostendit.
Allegory in the Vergilian commentaries has assumed a position for
many modern medievalists which is out of all proportion to its actual place
in the late imperial and early medieval commentaries. The reasons for
this are complex, but the importance of the fourfold exegesis of scripture
( and the unspoken assumption the assumption that there was a monolithic
approach to texts based on it from the fourth/fifth century onwards (see
especially Robertson, () and Irvine (1994)), the very real importance of
allegory to the reading of Homer (Lamberton,1989), the popularity of moral
allegory and its place in the literature later Middle Ages and Renaissance
are all contributing factors. Jones found 183 instances of allegorical
interpretation in Servius, based on a definition of allegory as (130 note
2) 'any interpretations which are clearly "other than" or "different from"
the ones which might be suggested by a literal rendering of Vergil's text.'
This is a broad definition and a tiny percentage of the whole commentary.
Perhaps as important, the Servian allegories are neither particularly
consistant nor do they add up to an underlying fully articulated sub-text.
In 'Vergilii vita de commentario Donati sublato' the commentator wrote
(Hagen 1, 73-4): 'Illud tenedum esse praedicimus, in Bucolicis Vergilii
neque nusquam neque ubique figurate aliquid dici, hoc est per allegoriam.
Vix enim propter laudem Caesaris et amissos agros haec Vergilio conceduntur
cum Theocritus simpliciter conscripserit, quem hic noster conatur imitari.'
The material which lies behind BE, SB, P1, and P2 belongs to a tradition
which is characterised by greater allegorization, at least in the E, a
tradition from which Servius was at some pains at least at times to divert
his students (as at E.1.1: et hoc loco Tityri sub persona Vergilium debemus
accipere; non tamen ubique, sed tantum ubi exigit ratio, or his comment on
E 3.71 AUREA MALA DECEM MISI ... et volunt quidam hoc loco allegoriam esse
ad Augustum de decem eclogis: quod superfluum est: quae enim necessitas hoc
loco allegoriae, a passage of particular interest since Boniface clearly
expects his sister to know the allegorization of the apples as poetry in
line 11 of the preface to his Enigmata (1968, 279): aurea nam decem
transmissi poma sorori. Compare SB 3.70-71: PUERO SILVESTRI EX ARBORE
LECTA \ AUREA MALA DECEM MISI. Allegorice ex agresti carmine decem eclogas
misi Octaviano scriptas. ... ALTERA, Georgica vel Aeneidos). Allegorical
readings of Vergil were accepted by learned pagans, but not of the sort
which we find in Fulgentius (for Fulgentius see EV II. 603-4) or applied to
biblical narrative.
Starr (1995) who argued for the importance of allegory within the
ancient readings of E using E. 7 as a leading case. He began (1995,130) by
identifying the types of allegory which commentators and their audience
thought that the poets of the early empire used: the simple expedient of
substituting metrically equivalent names as, following DS at E. 10. 2,
'Lycoris' for 'Cytheris': Lycoris pro Cytheris; licet enim poetis alia
nomina pro aliis ponere, an advance from this which then assumed that there
was 'a straight forward one-to-one correspondence' of characters in a poem'
to real contemporary (to later readers, historical) people, and finally the
sort of readings which we find on E. 1.38 and 39 where not only characters,
but individual parts of the landscape represent the poet's contemporaries:
38. TITYRUS Vergilius. PINUS Roma. 39: FONTES senatores. Arbusta
fructeta, id est scolastici. The uncharacteristic extravagance of this last
interpretive position must be seen within both the lacuna from E 1: 37 -2:
10 in a from which all our manuscripts descend (see Thilo and Hagen 3.1.10,
apparatus: Servianus ad 1.38-2.10 commentarius interiit. nam scholia in [P]
[H] [R] [M] libris ad eos uersus adscriptae Iunii Filarggirii grammatici
explanatione petita sunt.). Lambert's suggestion (1986, 92),that the text
has been highly contaminated or even replaced between E 1.38 and 2. 10 with
Philargyrius because of the homosexual love explicit in the E 2 was treated
with more circumspection in Philargyrius is interesting, but is not without
problems. On a very simple level it would not be necessary to drop all
these lines or to pull out a full quire to avoid scandal. Further one
could have hardly expected Servius to have become a respected teacher,
co-opted into Macrobius's Saturnalia as the ideal grammarian if he had
treated E 2 with anything but the greatest discretion.
Starr (1995, 131) called attention to the particular bigraphical
nature of this allegory:
The biographical allegory which we find in our commentaries is pervasive,
in that virtually everything can be taken for something else, but it is
historical and biographical, not philosophical or moral. Since there was
little or no tradition of using biographical allegory to interpret pastoral
poetry, the use of this interpretive strategy represents a choice exercised
by the readers of the Eclogues as members of an interpretative community..
Later readers were, however, as Starr observed, lead into this strategy
almost by default: although Servius, and one assumes Donatus were aware of
the Theocritian tradition (interesting on this point is the Servian comment
noted by Starr (132,n19):
intentio poetae haec est, ut imitetur Theocritum Syracusanum, meliorem
Moscho et ceteris qui bucolica scripserunt, - unde est <VI 1> PRIMA
SYRACOSIO DIGNATA EST LUDERE VERSU NOSTRA - et aliquibus locis per
allegoriam agat gratias Augusto vel aliis nobilibus, quorum favore amissum
agrum recepit. in qua re tantum dissentit a Theocriti versibus facit, quos
ab illo dictos constat esse simpliciter.),
There is is probably little which survives in the tradition that arose
from a first hand knowledge of the Idylls or their influence. As
Starr(19995, 131)wrote:
instead of recognizing literary commonplaces, the scholiasts discover
history and biography ... yet literary ignorance in itself does not
sufficiently explain why readers chose biographical allegory as their
interpretative strategy, since allegory started to surface at a time near
Vergil's own, when the literary background was still relatively accesible.
In defense of such a course, readers in late antiquity, and earlier even
Quintilian (8.6.46-7: Hoc enim loco praeter nomen cetera propriis decisa
sunt verbis: verum non pastor Menalcas, sed Vergilius est intelligendus.
Habet usum talis allegoriae frequentur oratio, sed raro totius: plerumque
apertis permixta est.), could have pointed (Starr, 1995, 131-2) to the
apparent encouragement by Vergil of biographical readings at E 5: 86-7 and
of the opening lines of E 2 and 3, but as Starr wrote (1995,133) concuring
with Horsfall's estimation of the ancient lives of Vergil:
once the Eclogues had been used to help create the few meager 'facts' about
Vergil's life, those 'facts' were then used in a perfect circle to
illuminate the very work which, in turn created the detailed biographical
allegory of the Eclogues.
To this biographical impulse which must have seemed built into the text to
these readers, were added (Starr, 1995, 133) the assumption that a book of
poems must have a single theme or subject, the stated belief of both
Servius and Tiberius Claudius Donatus, and the assumption that the poems
were understandable only in the historical context of the rivalry between
Octavian and Anthony and the literary rivalries of Vergil's own early
career. It is difficult, in fact, even accepting Starr's dictum(1995,
134):
Their interest in history, however, is a code-breaker's interest in a code:
they are interested not in placing the Eclogues in Vergil's historical
context but rather in breaking the code, in removing the characters's masks
and revealing their true identities.
not to have a certain general sympathy with their assumption of historical
allegory even while wondering at the excesses of the method, although a
modern reader would probably agree with Starr's assessment of the
limitations of this approach particularly when pursued to the exclusions of
all others.
Irvine (1994, 131-41, esp. 133-5) in the course of his attempt to
define the essential nature of the textual culture which developed in late
antiquity and dominated the earlier middle ages, argued for the importance
of allegorical methods and assumptions in Servius which were he believed
were directed, at least at times, towards the establishment of Vergil as
'pagan scripture'. He also insisted on the importance of the
'allegorization' of E 4 to the medieval reception of Vergil. He is,
perhaps to be censured for not putting the allegorical readings, (for
example the anger of Juno and the Pythagorean implications of Y) in the
context of the commentary as a whole. There is also a tendency to ignore
classical and late classical definitions of allegory and to blur the
distinction between metaphor and, simile and symbol. He described at some
length the use of historical/biographical allegory in the Vergilian canon,
but overlooked, the implications for its use in medieval writers and its
connection with early medieval notions of the purpose of history and epic
poetry. Historical/biographical allegory, which has a good or better
pedigree as moral allegory, has been unfairly neglected by students of
medieval literature, possibly because it does not offer the opportunities
for reading works whose historical milieu are imperfectly understood or
unknown, although a political allegory has been suggested for the Irish
Táin Bó Cuailnge (Kelleher, 1971). Irvine does not refer to Wlosok(1985)
whose brief study of the theory of gemina doctrina as found in passages of
both Vergil and Ovid.
Both EB1 and EB2 (Thilo and Hagen 3.2.77-8) offered Mary as an
alternate identification (the other being Justice) for the VIRGO of line 6,
SB (Hagen 1.107) agreed, reading 'vel secundum nos Maria' an identification
shared with Quodvultdeus. Unlike Constantine, but perhaps following
Augustine, P2 apparently worked on the assumption Vergil was ignorant of
the deeper meaning of his poem(Thilo and Hagen 3.2.77): id est Augustum
dicit aestimauit enim Virgilius quod de Augusto praedixit Sibylla, cum de
Christo omnia profetavit. P1, however, reads 'idest quidam dicunt
inspiratum eum de Salvatoris adventu ... quidam de adventu Salonini
Pollionis, quidam de adventu Octaviani dixisse.' SB (H1, 107) only
inserts: 'vel Christus'. EB1 and EB2 (Thilo and Hagen 3.2.79) and SB
(Hagen 1.108) all offer alternative scholia which refer E.4. 13-4 to man's
justification by Christ. None, however, jettison the historical allegory;
the Christian comments on E 4. 13-4 cannot be considered strictly
identical.
Compared to Irving, Robertson (1967) is a much slighter work;
nevertheless, it is a balanced introduction to the classical understanding
and use of allegory and to the development of allegory, first as a critical
method and then as a genre, and Vergil's use of personification and the
possibility of political allegory in his works.
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