Prudentius, in his poem (Crowns of the Martyrs V) on *Vincent (deacon of Zaragoza and martyr of Valencia, S00290), exhorts the veneration of the relics of the saint on the day of his festival. Written in Latin in Calahorra (northern Hispania), c. 400.
Evidence ID
E00885
Type of Evidence
Literary - Poems
Literary - Hagiographical - Accounts of martyrdom
Major author/Major anonymous work
Prudentius
Liber Peristephanon, Poem V.561-568
Si rite sollemnem diem
ueneramur ore et pectore,
si sub tuorum gaudio
uestigiorum sternimur,
paulisper huc inlabere,
Christi fauorem deferens,
sensus grauati ut sentiant
leuamen indulgentiae.
'If we duly reverence the day of your festival with lips and heart, if we bow down before your relics (vestigia tua) rejoicing in them, come down to us here for a little while bringing the favour of Christ, that our burdened souls may feel the relief of forgiveness.'
Text: Cunningham 1966: 313
Translation: Thomson 1953, 202-203, lightly modified
Festivals
Saint’s feast
RelicsUnspecified relic
Source
Aurelius Prudentius Clemens (348–after 405) was a Christian aristocrat from Calahorra in the Spanish province of Tarraconensis. He was a high official in the imperial bureaucracy in Rome, but withdrew from public life, returned to Calahorra, and dedicated himself to the service and celebration of God. Most of what we know about his biography comes from the preface to the ensemble of his works, which can be reliably dated to 404 (Cunningham 1966, 1-2), and other autobiographical remarks scattered throughout his works (for a detailed discussion, see Palmer 1989, 6-31). He composed several poetical works, amongst them the Peristephanon (literally, On the Crowns [of the Martyrs]), a collection of fourteen poems of different length describing martyrdoms of saints. We do not know exactly at which point in his literary career Prudentius wrote the preface (possibly at the very end, just before publication); for attempts at a precise dating of the Peristephanon, see Fux 2013, 9, n. 1.The poems in the Peristephanon, written in elegant classical metres, deal mainly with martyrs from Spain, but some of them are dedicated to saints of Rome, Africa and the East. The poems were widely read in the late antique and medieval West, and had a considerable influence on the diffusion of cult of the saints included. In later periods they were sometimes used as hymns in liturgical celebrations and had an impact on the development of the Spanish hymnody. Some indications in the poems suggest that they were written to commemorate the saints on their feast days, but Prudentius probably did not compose them for the liturgy of his time. Rather, they probably provided 'devotional reading matter for a cultured audience outside a church context' (Palmer 1989, 3; see also Chapter 3 in her book).
Discussion
On the poem see E00858The quoted passage, closing the poem, finds its counterpart in its opening verses, in which Prudentius praises the day of the martyr's feast (see E00860). In our passage he adds mention of Vincent's relics being venerated on his feast day. The mention of these relics raises the question of where the festival was taking place: there is no previous mention of such relics in Prudentius' hometown Calahorra, but he refers to his body buried in Sagunto near Valencia (E00884); we also know that relics of Vincent were kept in Zaragoza (E00813, E00831).
Bibliography
Editions of the Peristephanon:Cunningham, M.P., Prudentii Carmina (Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 126; Turnhout: Brepols, 1966), 251-389.
Bergman, J., Prudentius, Carmina (Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 61; Vienna, 1926), 291-431.
Translations of the Peristephanon:
Eagan, C., Prudentius, Poems (Fathers of the Church 43; Washington D.C.: Catholic University Press, 1962), 95-280. English translation.
Thomson, H.J., Prudentius, vol. 2 (Loeb Classical Library; London Cambridge, Mass: W. Heinemann; Harvard University Press, 1953), 98-345. Edition and English translation.
Further reading:
Fux, P.-Y., Prudence et les martyrs: hymnes et tragédie. Peristephanon 1. 3-4. 6-8. 10. Commentaire, (Fribourg: Academic Press, 2013).
Malamud, M.A., A Poetics of Transformation: Prudentius and Classical Mythology (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989).
Meyer, S., Der heilige Vinzenz von Zaragoza: Studien zur Präsenz eines Märtyrers zwischen Spätantike und Hochmittelalter (Stuttgart, 2012).
Palmer, A.-M., Prudentius on the Martyrs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989).
Roberts, M., Poetry and the Cult of the Martyrs: The "Liber Peristephanon" of Prudentius (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993).
Record Created By
Marta Tycner, Marta Szada
Date of Entry
24/11/2015
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00290 | Vincentius/Vincent, deacon of Zaragoza and martyr of Valencia | Certain |
|---|
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