Background
Aurelius Prudentius Clemens was born in Spain in 348.
(The Hymns of Prudentius By Aurelius Clemens Prudentius)
The Hymns of Prudentius By Aurelius Clemens Prudentius
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Aurelius Prudentius Clemens was born in Spain in 348.
He acquired the rudiments of a liberal education, frequented the schools of the rhetoricians.
Prudentius practiced law with some success, and was twice provincial governor, perhaps in his native country, before the emperor Theodosius I summoned him to court. Towards the end of his life (possibly around 392) Prudentius retired from public life to become an ascetic, fasting until evening and abstaining entirely from animal food; and writing poems, hymns, and controversial works in defence of Catholicism. Prudentius later collected the Christian poems written during this period and added a preface, which he himself dated 405.
The poetry of Prudentius is influenced by early Christian authors, such as Tertullian and St. Ambrose, as well as the Bible and the acts of the martyrs. His hymn Da, puer, plectrum (including "Corde natus ex parentis": "Of the Father's Love Begotten") and the hymn for Epiphany O sola magnarum urbium ("Earth Has Many a Noble City"), both from the Cathemerinon, are still in use today.
The allegorical Psychomachia, however, is his most influential work, incorporating as it did elements of both Hellenic epic and inner psychological conflict. It became the inspiration and wellspring of medieval allegorical literature, its influence (according to C. S. Lewis) exceeding its intrinsic artistic merit. In the battle between virtue and vice, full weight is given to the power of Luxuria, “Flowershod and swaying from the wine cup, Every step a fragrance”. With her attendants Beauty and Pleasure, and her weapons of rose-petals and violets, she succeeds in swaying the army of Virtue “in surrender to love”, before succumbing to ultimate defeat.
At the age of fifty-seven he retired to a monastery, but died shortly afterwards.
(The Hymns of Prudentius By Aurelius Clemens Prudentius)
Bentley calls Prudentius " the Horace and Virgil of the Christians, " but his diction is stilted and his metre often faulty.
