Prudentius — Commentary on Scripture

1 Kings 5:4-5

After this war one work remains for us,
O leaders, that which Solomon achieved,
The peaceful scion and the unarmed heir
Of a warlike realm, whose father’s weary hand
Was sullied by the ardent blood of kings.
The blood effaced, a temple is upraised
And golden altar, house sublime of Christ.
Jerusalem then by its temple crowned,
Received its God, now that the wandering ark
On the marble altar found repose.
In our camp let a sacred temple rise,
that God may in its sanctuary dwell.
What profits it to have repelled the hosts
Of earthborn vices, if the Son of man
From heaven descending, enter the body cleansed,
But unadorned and not a temple fair?
Thus far we have engaged in fierce conflict:
Now let white-vestured Peace perform its tasks,
And youth unarmed build up a sacred house.

THE SPIRITUAL COMBAT 804-22

1 Peter 3:19

That the dead might know salvation,
who in limbo long had dwelt,
Into hell with love he entered;
to him yield the broken gates
As the bolts and massive hinges
fall asunder at his word.
Now the door of ready entrance,
but forbidding all return
Outward swings as bars are loosened
and sends forth the prisoned souls
By reversal of the mandate,
treading its threshold once more.

HYMNS 9.70-75

1 Peter 5:8

Who goes roaring around, raging madly
As he seeks to entrap and devour us,
When, O infinite God, we praise thee only!

HYMNS 4.79-81

1 Thessalonians 4:16

When at the awful trumpet’s sound
The earth will be consumed by fire,
And with a mighty rush the world
Unhinged, will crash in dreadful ruin.

HYMNS 11, 105-8

1 Thessalonians 5:6

The winged messenger of day
Sings loud, foretelling dawn’s approach,
And Christ in stirring accents calls
Our slumbering souls to life with him.
“Away,” he cries, “with dull repose,
The sleep of death and sinful sloth;
With hearts now sober, just and pure,
Keep watch, for I am very near.”

HYMNS 1.1-8

2 Corinthians 6:14

Shall we stoop to say of mammon who have been reborn in Christ? Formed to God’s eternal image, shall we serve the fleeting world? God forbid that celestial flame should be mingled with earth’s mire.

HYMNS 1.58-60

Exodus 2:3

Thus Moses in a former age
Escaped proud Pharaoh’s foolish law,
And as the savior of his race
Prefigured Christ who was to come.
A cruel edict had been passed
Forbidding Hebrew mothers all,
When sons were born to them, to rear
These virile pledges of their love.
Devoutly scornful of the king,
A zealous midwife found a way
To hide her charge and keep him safe
For future glory and renown.

HYMNS FOR EVERY DAY 12.141-52

Exodus 3:2

It was the Word, breathed from the Father’s mouth,
Who of the Virgin took a mortal frame.
The human form that not yet in the flesh
Appeared to Moses wore a brow like ours,
Since God, who would by power of the Word
Assume a body, made the face the same.
Flames rose and seemed to burn the thorny bush.
God moved amid the branches set with spines,
And tresses of the flames swayed harmlessly,
That he might shadow forth his Son’s descent
Into our thorny members sin infests
With teeming briers and fills with bitter woes.
For tainted at its root that noxious shrub
Had sprouted from its baneful sap a crop
Of evil shoots beset with many thorns.
The sterile branches suddenly grew bright
As God enkindled with his mighty power
The leafy boughs, nor harmed the tangled briers.
He touched the scarlet berries, blood-red fruits,
And grazed the twigs that grew from deadly wood,
Shed by the tortured bush with cruel pangs.

THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST 49-70

Genesis 1:26

The inspired historian makes it very clear
That at earth’s dawn the Father not alone
Nor without Christ his new creation formed.
“God fashioned man,” he says, “and gave to him
The face of God.” What but to say that he
Was not alone, that God stood by God’s side
When the Lord made man in image of the Lord?

POEMS

Genesis 8:6-7

As a sign that the flood had abated
the dove is now bringing
Back to the ark in her beak
the budding green branch of an olive.
For the raven, held captive by gluttony,
clung to foul bodies,
While the dove brought back
the glad tidings of peace that was given.

SCENES FROM SACRED HISTORY 3

Genesis 10:6-14

A Nimrod, who goes round the world, made rough
With deep ravines and wooden crags, and strives
To waylay some by fraud and secret wiles,
To vanquish others by his giant arms
And spread his deadly triumphs far and wide.

ORIGIN OF SIN 143-48

Genesis 23:19

This is the lodging place of the Lord, where an oak branch at Mamre
Covered the pastoral roof of the ancient seer; in this hospice
Sarah laughed at the joy of bearing a child in her old age
And at the faith her venerable husband could have in the marvel.
Abraham purchased a field wherein he might bury his wife’s bones,
Inasmuch as justice and faith on the earth dwell as strangers:
This is the cave for which he expended a great sum of money,
To prepare a fit resting place for his wife’s holy ashes.

SCENES FROM SACRED HISTORY 4-5

Isaiah 55:9

“If you would,” he says,
“Ascend to heaven, banish cares of earth.
For far as earth is distant from the sky
And heaven from the world below, so far
Are your vain thoughts from my eternal thoughts,
Ill from good, sin from virtue, dark from light.
I counsel you to shun all passing things
And deem as nought all to corruption prone,
For it is destined to return to nought.
All earth brings forth and holds, at dawn of time
I made; I decked with splendid ornaments
The shining world and formed the elements,
But willed that the enjoyment be confined
Within due bounds, as far as mortal frame
And fleeting human life may have the need,
Not that humanity, by unbridled passion ruled,
Should reckon good alone things sweet and vain,
Which I have preordained to pass with time.

AGAINST SYMMACHUS 2:123-40

John 1:3

Though you came from the mouth of God,
Born as his Word on earth below,
Yet as his Wisdom you lived
Forever in the Father’s heart.
This Wisdom uttered made the sky,
The sky and light and all besides;
All by the Word’s almighty power
Were fashioned, for the Word was God.
But when the universe was formed
And ordered by unchanging laws,
The Cause and architect divine
In the Father’s bosom still remained,
Until the slow revolving years
In centuries at length had passed,
And he himself condescended to come
Down to the world grown old in sin.…
But such destruction of humankind
The heart of Christ could not endure;
And lest his Father’s handiwork,
Unvindicated, should be lost,
He clothed himself in mortal flesh,
That by arising from the tomb
He might unlock the chains of death
And bring man to his Father’s house.
This is your natal day, on which
The high Creator sent you forth,
And gave to you a form of clay,
Uniting flesh with his own Word.

HYMNS FOR EVERY DAY 11, A HYMN FOR CHRISTMAS DAY

John 1:14

Of the Father’s love begotten before the beginning of the world,
Called Alpha and Omega, himself both source and end
Of all that is, has been, and will exist in times to come.
He commanded and they were created, he spoke and they were made,
Earth, heavens, the depths of the sea—the triple structure of the universe—
And all that inhabits them beneath the lofty orbs of sun and moon.
He put on mortal body’s form and limbs vulnerable to death,
To prevent the destruction of the race sprung from the first creature
Whom a deadly law had plunged deep into hell.
O what a blessed birth was then, when a virgin in labor,
Having conceived by the Holy Spirit, brought forth our salvation,
And the child who is the world’s redeemer revealed his sacred face.
Let the heights of heaven sing, all you angels, sing,
Let all the powers everywhere sing in praise of God,
Let no tongue be silent, let every voice ring in harmony.
Look how the one who was foretold by seers in ages past
And pledged in the prophets’ reliable writings,
Shines forth, he who was promised long ago: let all things praise him.

HYMNS FOR EVERY DAY 9.10-27

Joshua 4:3-4

Also, twelve stones from Jordan’s bed,
Left dry when waters backward flowed,
He raised and firmly set in place,
The type of Christ’s apostles twelve.

HYMNS FOR EVERY DAY 177.180

Joshua 7:1

And Jericho had seen in her own ruin
Our hand’s control, when conquering Achan fell.
Renowned for bloodshed, proud of leveling walls,
He fell a victim to the enemy’s gold
When from the dust he gleaned the stuff accursed
And snatched the mournful plunder from the ruins.
His tribe did not avail, nor his descent
From Judah, founder of the race of Christ
And patriarch blessed in his noble scion.
Let those who imitate his race accept
A similar form of death and punishment.

THE SPIRITUAL COMBAT 536.46

Judges 15:4-5

Samson resistless because of his hair is attacked by a lion;
When he killed the wild beast, from its mouth there flowed streams of honey,
And from an ass’s jawbone comes forth a fountain of water:
Folly with water overflows and virtue with sweetness.
Samson catches three hundred foxes and arms them with firebrands,
Which he ties to their tails, and he lets them go into the cornfields
Of the Philistines to burn their crops: thus the fox of false doctrine
Cunningly scatters the flames of heresy over our vineyards.

SCENES FROM SACRED HISTORY 17.18

Luke 1:30-33

A heavenly fire engenders him, not flesh
Nor blood of father, nor impure desire.
By power of God a spotless maid conceives,
As in her virgin womb the Spirit breathes.
The mystery of this birth confirms our faith
That Christ is God: a maiden by the Spirit
Is wed, unstained by love; her purity
Remains intact; with child within, untouched
Without, bright in her chaste fertility,
Mother yet virgin, mother that knew not man.
Why, doubter, do you shake your silly head?
An angel makes this known with holy lips.
Will you not hearken to angelic words?
The Virgin blest, the shining messenger
Believed, and by her faith she Christ conceived.
Christ comes to men of faith and spurns the heart
Irresolute in trust and reverence.
The Virgin’s instant faith attracted
Christ into her womb and hid him there till birth.

THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST 566-84

Luke 1:34-35

When God’s coming draws near, the angel Gabriel advances
From the Father’s high throne and enters the house of the Virgin.
“Mary,” he says, “the Holy Spirit will render you fruitful,
And you shall give birth to the Christ, O glorious Virgin.”

SCENES FROM SACRED HISTORY 25