THE PREFACE

In one or two of the MSS. this introductory poem is stated to be a preface of the Cathemerinon only: but the great majority of the codices support the view which is undoubtedly suggested by internal evidence, that the poem is a general introduction to the whole of Prudentius' works. It is inserted together with the Epilogus in this volume, because of the intrinsic interest of both poems.

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[8]The reference is to the toga virilis, the ordinary white-coloured garb of a Roman citizen who at his sixteenth year laid aside the purple-edged toga praetexta, which was worn during the days of boyhood.
[16 ff.]The cities referred to are unknown: but it is probable that they were two municipia in Northern Spain, and that the office held by Prudentius was that of duumvir or prefect. Provision was made by the twenty-fourth clause of the law of Salpensa (a town in the provincia Baetica of Spain) by which the emperor could be elected first magistrate of a municipium, and could thereupon appoint a prefect to take his place. This would explain the language of the text as to the semi-imperial nature of the post. The phrase militiae gradus need only be taken to indicate advancement in the civil service. But the words have been interpreted in accordance with the more familiar and definite meaning of militia, and understood to refer to a purely military post. Dressel thinks that Prudentius was a miles Palatinus, that is, a member of the best-paid and most highly-privileged imperial troops, who furnished officers for some of the most lucrative posts in the provinces. Though in the translation the usual meaning has been given to militia, it must be regarded as uncertain in the absence of more definite information regarding the office held by Prudentius.
[24]The consulship of Salia (or Salias) belongs to the year 348, the date of the birth of Prudentius. An inscription (quoted by Migne from Muratorius, Nov. Thes. Inscrip., i. 379) has been found in the monastery of St. Paul's outside the city bearing the words FILIPPO · ET · SALLIA · COSS

FILIPPO · ET · SALLIA · COSS

[I]

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[1]Of this poem lines [1-8], [81-84], [97-100], were included in the Roman Breviary as a hymn to be sung at Lauds, on Tuesday.
[2]The allusions to the cock in this and the following poem ([ii. 37-55]) were doubtless inspired by the lines of Ambrose in his morning hymn beginning Aeterne rerum conditor. Cf. ll. 5-8 and 16-24: "praeco diei iam sonat
noctis profundae pervigil,
nocturna lux viantibus
a nocte noctem segregans.
* * * * *
surgamus ergo strenue:
gallus iacentes excitat,
et somnolentos increpat:
gallus negantes arguit.
gallo canente spes redit,
aegris salus refunditur,
mucro latronis conditur,
lapsis fides revertitur." Translation. "Dawn's herald now begins to cry,
Lone watcher of the nightly sky:
Light of the dark to pilgrims dear,
Speeding successive midnights drear.
* * * * *
Brisk from our couch let us arise!
Hark to the cock's arousing cries!
He chides the sluggard's slumbrous ease,
And shames his unconvincing pleas.
At cock-crow Hope revives again,
Health banishes the stress of pain,
Sheathed is the nightly robber's sword,
And Faith to fallen hearts restored." See also Ambrose, Hexaem., v. 24, for an eloquent passage in the same strain. The cock was the familiar Christian symbol of early rising or vigilance, and numerous representations of it are found in the Catacombs. Cf. the painting from the Catacomb of St. Priscilla reproduced in Bottari's folio of 1754, where the Good Shepherd is depicted as feeding the lambs, with a crowing cock on His right and left hand. It is also a symbol of the Resurrection, our Lord being supposed to have risen from the grave at the early cockcrowing: see [l. 65 et seq.] In [l. 16] the first bird-notes are interpreted by the poet as a summons to the general judgment. Cf. Mark xiii. 35: "Ye know not when the lord of the house cometh, whether at even, or at midnight, or at cockcrowing, or in the morning." This passage serves as a kind of text for Prudentius' first two hymns, and perhaps explains why he has one for cockcrowing and another for morning.
[26]A common idea in all literatures. Cf. Virg., Aen., vi. 278 (taken from Homer), tum consanguineus Leti Sopor, and Tennyson's "Sleep, Death's twin-brother" (In Memoriam, 68).
[44]Cf. Augustine, Serm. 103: "These evil spirits seek to seduce the soul: but when the sun has arisen, they take to flight."
[59]The denial of Peter forms a subject of Christian casuistry in patristic literature, and this passage recalls the famous classical parallel in Euripides (Hipp. 612), "the tongue hath sworn: yet unsworn is the heart." Cf. Augustine, cont. mendacium: "In that denial he held fast the truth in his heart, while with his lips he uttered falsehood." For a striking representation of Peter and the cock, on a sarcophagus discovered in the Catacombs and now deposited in the Vatican library, see Maitland's Church in the Catacombs, p. 347. The closing words of the passage in Ambrose's Hexaemeron, already referred to under [l. 2], may here be quoted: "As the cock peals forth his notes, the robber leaves his plots: Lucifer himself awakes and lights up the sky: the distressful sailor lays aside his gloom, and all the storms and tempests that have risen in fury under the winds of the evening begin to die down: the soul of the saint leaps to prayer and renews the study of the written word: and finally, the very Rock of the Church is cleansed of the stain he had contracted by his denials before the cock crew."
[81 ff.]The best commentary on these words is to be found in the following passage from the second epistle of Basil to Gregory Nazianzen: "What can be more blessed than to imitate on earth the angelic host by giving oneself at the peep of dawn to prayer and by turning at sunrise to work with hymns and songs: yea, all the day through to make prayer the accompaniment of our toils and to season them with praise as with salt? For the solace of hymns changes the soul's sadness into mirth."

"praeco diei iam sonat
noctis profundae pervigil,
nocturna lux viantibus
a nocte noctem segregans.
* * * * *
surgamus ergo strenue:
gallus iacentes excitat,
et somnolentos increpat:
gallus negantes arguit.
gallo canente spes redit,
aegris salus refunditur,
mucro latronis conditur,
lapsis fides revertitur."

Translation.

"Dawn's herald now begins to cry,
Lone watcher of the nightly sky:
Light of the dark to pilgrims dear,
Speeding successive midnights drear.
* * * * *
Brisk from our couch let us arise!
Hark to the cock's arousing cries!
He chides the sluggard's slumbrous ease,
And shames his unconvincing pleas.
At cock-crow Hope revives again,
Health banishes the stress of pain,
Sheathed is the nightly robber's sword,
And Faith to fallen hearts restored."

[II]

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[1]This poem furnishes two hymns to the Roman Breviary, one to be sung on Wednesday at Lauds, and consisting of ll. [1-8], [48-53] (omitting l. 50), [57, 59, 60], [67] (tu vera lux caelestium) and 68: the other for Thursday at Lauds, consisting of ll. [25] (lux ecce surgit aurea), [93-108].
[17]Cf. Ambrose, ii. 8, de Cain et Abel: "The thief shuns the day as the witness of his crime: the adulterer is abashed by the dawn as the accomplice of his adultery."
[51]The practice of praying on bended knees is frequently referred to in early Christian writers. Cf. Clem., 1 Ad. Cor. cc. xlviii.: "Let us fall down before the Lord," and Shepherd of Hermas, vis. 1. i.: "After I had crossed that river I came unto the banks and there knelt down and began to pray." Dressel quotes from Juvencus (iv. 648), a Spanish poet and Christian contemporary of Prudentius, genibus nixi regem dominumque salutant, "on bended knees they make obeisance unto their King and Lord."
[63]The Jordan is a poetical figure for baptism, suggested doubtless by the baptism of our Lord in that river. Cf. [vii. 73-75].
[67]Cf. Milton, Paradise Regained, i. 293: "So spake our Morning Star, then in his rise." The figure is suggested by Rev. xxii. 16: "I am ... the bright, the morning star."
[105]The conception of God as speculator may be paralleled by a passage in the epistle of Polycarp ad Philipp. iv., where God is described as the Arch-critic (παντα μωμοσχοπειται) and subsequently (vii.) as παντεποπτην θεον, "the All-witnessing God." The last verse contains a distinct echo of the closing words of the fourth chapter of Polycarp: "None of the reasonings or thoughts, nor any of the hidden things of the heart escape His notice."

[III]