{"prudentius-apotheosis/0.1":{"o":"Est tria summa Deus, trinum specimen, vigor unus ;\nCorde Patris genita est Sapientia, Filius ipse est ;\nSanctus ab aeterno subsistit Spiritus ore.\nTempore nec senior Pater est, nec lumine maior ;\nNam sapiens retro semper Deus edidit ex se,\nPer quod semper erat gignenda ad saecula, Verbum.\nEdere sed Verbum Patris est : at cetera Verbi,\nAdsumptum gestare hominem, reparare peremptum,\nConciliare Patri, dextraque in sede locare.\nSpiritus ista Dei complet : Deus ipse fideles\nIn populos charisma suum diffundere promptus,\nEt Patris et Christi virtutem in corpora transfert.\nEstne vera secta? te, Magister, consulo.\nRectamne servamus fidem ?\nAn viperina non cavemus dogmata,\nEt nescientes labimur ?\nArtam salutis vix viam discernere est\nInter reflexas semitas.\nTam multa surgunt perfidorum compita,\nTortis polita erroribus :\nObliqua sese conserunt divortia,\nHinc inde textis orbitis ;\nQuas si quis errans ac vagus sectabitur,\nRectum relinquens tramitem,\nScrobis latentis pronus in foveam ruet,\nQuam fodit hostilis manus,\nManus latronum, quae viantes obsidet,\nIter sequentes devium.\nQuid non libido mentis humanae struat ?\nQuid non malorum pruriat?","t":"God is three in the highest, a threefold form, one power;\nWisdom was begotten from the Father’s heart: that is the Son;\nthe Holy Spirit subsists from eternity from the mouth [of God].\nNeither is the Father older in time, nor greater in light;\nfor God, being wise, always from before brought forth from himself\nthe Word, through whom there always were ages to be begotten.\nTo bring forth the Word is the Father’s; but the rest is the Word’s:\nto bear the man he assumed, to restore him who had perished,\nto reconcile him to the Father, to place him on the right-hand seat.\nThe Spirit of God completes these things: God himself,\nready to pour out his charisma on faithful peoples,\ntransfers the power of both Father and Christ into bodies.\nIs our sect true? I consult you, Master.\nDo we keep the right faith?\nOr are we not on guard against viperous doctrines,\nand slip without knowing it?\nThe narrow way of salvation can scarcely be discerned\namong the winding paths.\nSo many crossroads of the faithless rise up,\npolished with twisted errors:\ncrooked diversions join one another,\nwith tracks woven on this side and that;\nif anyone, erring and wandering, follows them,\nleaving the straight path,\nhe will fall headlong into the pit of a hidden ditch,\nwhich the enemy’s hand has dug,\nthe hand of robbers, which besets travelers\nwho follow the out-of-the-way road.\nWhat will the lust of the human mind not build?\nWhat evils will it not itch for?","f":"Prudentius, <i>Apoth.</i> 0.1 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 1–30; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-apotheosis/0-1)."},"prudentius-apotheosis/0.31":{"o":"Statum lacessunt omnipollentis Dei\nCalumniosis litibus.\nFidem minutis dissecant ambagibus,\nUt quisque lingua est nequior ;\nSolvunt, ligantque quaestionum vincula\nPer syllogismos plectiles.\nVae captiosis sycophantarum strophis !\nVae versipelli astutiae !\nNodos tenaces recta rumpit regula,\nInfesta dissertantibus.\nIdcirco mundi stulta delegit Deus,\nUt concidant sophistica;\nDeque imbecillis subiugavit fortia,\nSimplex ut esset credere.\nLapis ecce nostro fixus offensaculo est,\nImpingat in quem vanitas,\nSignum caventi, non caventi scandalum :\nHunc sternit, illum dirigit.\nDum plura tentat caecus incerto gradu,\nIncurrit id quod obvium est.\nFax sola Fidei est praeferenda gressibus,\nUt recta sint vestigia.\nQuis in tenebris hostis errantes tamen\nPulsat, trahitque, et proterit?\nQui sparsa ad ipsum commeantum transitum\nFrumenta saevus devorat :\nQui laeta Christi culta fur interpolat,\nAddens avenas aemulas,\nQuas de veneni lacte in herbam fertiles\nPatitur colonus crescere,\nNe forte culmen fibra inanis spiceum\nSimul revulsa internecet.\nExspectat ergo, dum dolosa et farrea\nFervens coquat maturitas,\nDet ventilabro lecta quaeque ut horreis,\nUrat recrementum focis.\nRefert sed ipsa nosse, quae messem necant,\nZizaniorum semina.","t":"They attack the state of the almighty God\nwith slanderous quarrels.\nThey cut the faith to pieces with minute evasions,\neach according to the wickedness of his tongue;\nthey loose and bind the chains of questions\nthrough plaited syllogisms.\nWoe to the captious tricks of the sycophants!\nWoe to the turncoat cunning!\nThe straight rule bursts the tenacious knots,\nhostile to the disputants.\nThat is why God chose the foolish things of the world,\nso that sophistries might fall,\nand subdued the strong by the weak,\nso that believing might be simple.\nSee, a stone is set for us to stumble on,\nagainst which vanity may strike,\na sign to the wary, to the unwary a stumbling block:\nthis one it lays low, that one it guides.\nWhile the blind man tries many ways with uncertain step,\nhe runs into what is in his way.\nThe torch of Faith alone must be carried before our steps,\nso that our footsteps may be straight.\nWho is the enemy who in the darkness strikes those who wander,\ndrags them and tramples them?\nHe who savagely devours the grain scattered\non the very path of those who go along;\nhe who, a thief, corrupts the glad crops of Christ,\nadding rival wild oats,\nwhich, fertile in grass from the milk of poison,\nthe farmer allows to grow,\nlest perhaps the empty root, pulled up with them,\nshould destroy the stalk with its ear.\nSo he waits until ripeness, seething,\ncooks the deceitful and the wheaten,\nso that the winnowing-fan may give each chosen thing to the barns\nand burn the refuse in the fires.\nBut it matters to know the very seeds\nof the darnel, which kill the harvest.","f":"Prudentius, <i>Apoth.</i> 0.31 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 31–68; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-apotheosis/0-31)."},"prudentius-apotheosis/1.1":{"o":"Plurima sunt, sed pauca loquar, ne dira vel ausu\nDogmata catholicam maculent male prodita linguam.\nIlle Patrem pellens solio detrudit in artum\nCorporis humani gestamen, nec pavet ipsum\nObiectare neci, duroque adfigere ligno.\nPassibilisne Deus? cuius species et imago\nNulli visa umquam; nec enim comprendier illa\nMaiestas facilis sensuve, oculisve, manuve.\nHaud umquam testata Deum potuisse videri.\nIlle Pater, quem nulla acies violenta tuendo\nEminus ardentis penetravit acumine visus,\nQui se forma hominis non induit, et deitatis\nImmensum adsumpto non temperat ore, modove.\nAut Evangelici pietas spernenda libelli,\nVis intacta Patris, non admiscenda caducis.\nSed tamen et Patris est specimen, quod cernere fas sit,\nHumanis aliquando oculis concurrere promptum.\nQuod quamvis hebes intuitus speculamine glauco,\nHumentique acie potuit nebulosus adire.\nQuisque hominum vidisse Deum memoratur, ab ipso\nInfusum vidit Gnatum : nam Filius hoc est,\nQuod de Patre micans se praestitit inspiciendum\nPer species, quas possit homo comprendere visu.\nNam mera maiestas est infinita, nec intrat\nObtutus, aliquo ni se moderamine formet.\nHoc vidit princeps generosi seminis Abram,\nHospes homo, in triplicem numen radiasse figuram.\nHoc conluctantis tractarunt brachia Iacob.\nIpse dator legis divinae accedere coram\nComminus, et sacris coniunxit verba loquelis,","t":"There are very many errors, but I will speak of few, lest dire doctrines,\nwickedly published, should stain the catholic tongue even by the daring of telling them.\nOne, driving the Father from his throne, thrusts him down into the narrow\nburden of a human body, and does not fear to expose him\nto death and fix him to the hard wood.\nIs God capable of suffering? whose form and image\nno one has ever seen; for that majesty is not easy\nto be grasped by sense, or eyes, or hand.\n[John] has testified that God could never be seen.\nThat Father, whom no keen gaze, looking from afar,\nhas penetrated with the sharpness of burning sight,\nwho did not put on the form of man, and does not limit\nthe immensity of his godhead by an assumed face or measure:\neither the piety of the Gospel book must be spurned,\nor the Father’s power is untouched, not to be mixed with perishable things.\nBut yet there is also a form of the Father which it is lawful to see,\nready at times to meet human eyes;\nwhich, though dull with a gray glass of gazing,\nthe cloudy man with moist sight could approach.\nWhoever of men is recorded to have seen God\nsaw the Son, poured forth from him: for this is the Son,\nwho, flashing forth from the Father, presented himself to be looked on\nthrough forms which man can grasp by sight.\nFor the pure majesty is infinite, nor does it enter\nthe gaze, unless it shapes itself by some measure.\nThis the prince of the noble seed, Abraham, saw,\na man who was host to the godhead shining in a threefold figure.\nThis the arms of wrestling Jacob handled.\nThe giver of the divine law himself approached face to face,\nclose at hand, and joined words in sacred speech,","f":"Prudentius, <i>Apoth.</i> 1.1 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 1–30; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-apotheosis/1-1)."},"prudentius-apotheosis/1.1021":{"o":"Carnis onus, manuumque horret monumenta suarum?\nIndignumne putat luteum consciscere corpus?\nQui non indignum quondam sibi credidit ipsum\nPertractare lutum, quum vas componeret arvo\nNondum viscereo: sed inertis glutine limi,\nImpressoque putres sub pollice duceret artus?\nTantus amor terrae, tanta est dilectio nostri !\nDignatur praepinguis humi comprendere mollem\nDivinis glebam digitis, nec sordida censet\nHaerentis massae contagia. Iusserat, ut lux\nConficeret : facta est ut iusserat. Omnia iussu\nImperitante novas traxerunt edita formas.\nSolus homo emeruit Domini formabile dextra\nOs capere, et fabro deitatis figmine nasci.\nQuorsum igitur limo tanta indulgentia nostro\nContigit, ut Domini manibus tractatus, honora\nArte sacer fieret, tactu iam nobilis ipso?\nDecreverat quoniam Christum Deus incorrupto\nAdmiscere solo: sanctis quod fingere vellet,\nDignum habuit digitis, et carum condere pignus.\nDestituit natura quidem destructa coactae\nTelluris formam, mortique obnoxia cessit;\nSed natura Dei numquam solvenda, caducam\nTellurem nostro vitiatam primitus usu\nEsse suam voluit, ne iam vitiabilis esset.\nChristus nostra caro est : mihi solvitur et mihi surgit ;\nSolvor morte mea, Christi virtute resurgo.\nQuum moritur Christus, quum flebiliter tumulatur,\nMe video: e tumulo quum iam remeabilis adstat,","t":"the burden of the flesh, and shudders at the memorials of his own hands?\nDoes he think it unworthy to take on a body of clay,\nhe who once thought it not unworthy of himself\nto handle clay, when he put together a vessel from the field,\nnot yet of flesh, but drew out its crumbling limbs\nfrom the glue of inert mud under his pressing thumb?\nSo great is his love of the earth, so great his affection for us!\nHe deigns to grasp the soft clod of rich ground\nwith divine fingers, nor does he think the clinging mass\na filthy contagion. He had commanded that light\nbe made: it was made as he had commanded. All things,\nbrought forth by a commanding order, took new forms.\nMan alone deserved to receive a face formed by the Lord’s\nright hand, and to be born by the craftsman’s fashioning of the deity.\nWhy, then, did such indulgence fall to our clay,\nthat, handled by the Lord’s hands, it became sacred\nby honoring art, already noble by that very touch?\nBecause God had decreed to mingle Christ with the incorrupt\nground: what he wished to fashion he thought worthy\nof his holy fingers, and to establish as a dear pledge.\nNature, indeed, destroyed, abandoned the form of the compacted earth,\nand, liable to death, gave way;\nbut the nature of God, never to be dissolved, willed\nthat the perishable earth, corrupted from the first by our use,\nshould be his own, so that it would no longer be corruptible.\nChrist is our flesh: for me he is dissolved, and for me he rises;\nI am dissolved by my death, I rise again by the power of Christ.\nWhen Christ dies, when he is mournfully buried,\nI see myself; when, now returning, he stands out of the tomb,","f":"Prudentius, <i>Apoth.</i> 1.1021 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 1021–1050; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-apotheosis/1-1021)."},"prudentius-apotheosis/1.1051":{"o":"Cerno Deum. Si membrorum phantasma meorum est,\nEt phantasma Dei est : mendax in utroque necesse est\nSit Christus specie, si Christus fallere novit:\nSi non verus homo est, quem mors hominem probat ipsa,\nNec verus Deus est, operis quem gloria prodit\nEsse Deum; vel crede mori, vel adesse refelle,\nEt gemina verum Christum ratione negato.\nNam quid magnificum, si non est mortuus Iesus,\nEt redit? Illa Dei virtus memorabilis est, ut\nOccisus redeat superis, surgatque sepultus.\nQuisque Deum Christum vult dicere, dicat eumdem\nEsse hominem, ne maiestas sua fortia perdat.\nNosco meum in Christo corpus consurgere. Quid me\nDesperare iubes? veniam, quibus ille revenit\nCalcata de morte viis : quod credimus, hoc est:\nEt totus veniam. Nec enim minor, aut alius quam\nNunc sum, restituar. Vultus, vigor, et color idem,\nQui modo vivit, erit: nec me vel dente vel ungue\nFraudatum revomet patefacti fossa sepulcri.\nQui iubet ut redeam, non reddet debile quidquam;\nNam si debilitas redit, instauratio non est.\nQuod casus rapuit, quod morbus, quod dolor hausit,\nQuod truncavit edax senium, populante veterno,\nOmne revertenti reparata in membra redibit.\nDebet enim mors victa fidem, ne fraude sepulcri\nReddat curtum aliquid ; quamvis iam curta vorarit\nCorpora : debilitas tamen et violentia morbi\nVirtus mortis erat. Reddet quod particulatim\nSorbuerat, quocumque modo ; ne mortuus omnis\nNon redeat, si quid pleno de corpore desit.\nPellite corde metum, mea membra, et credite vosmet\nCum Christo reditura Deo. Nam vos gerit ille,\nEt secum revocat. Morbos ridete minaces :\nInflictos casus contemnite, et atra sepulcra\nDespuite : exsurgens quo Christus provocat, ite.","t":"I see God. If it is a phantom of my limbs,\nit is also a phantom of God: Christ must be\na liar in both appearances, if Christ knew how to deceive:\nif he is not true man, whom death itself proves man,\nneither is he true God, whom the glory of his work reveals\nto be God; either believe that he died, or refute that he is present,\nand deny the true Christ by a twofold reasoning.\nFor what is magnificent if Jesus did not die\nand return? That is the memorable power of God, that,\nslain, he returns to the world above, and, buried, rises.\nWhoever wishes to call Christ God, let him say that the same\nis man, lest his majesty lose its mighty deeds.\nI know that my body rises in Christ. Why do you bid me\ndespair? I shall come by the ways by which he came back,\ndeath trampled down: what we believe, this is it:\nand I shall come whole. For I shall not be restored less, or other\nthan I now am. The face, the vigor, the color\nthat now lives will be the same: nor will the pit of the opened tomb\nvomit me back cheated of a tooth or a nail.\nHe who bids me return will give back nothing weak;\nfor if weakness returns, it is not restoration.\nWhat accident snatched away, what disease, what pain drained,\nwhat devouring old age cut off as decay plundered,\nwill all return to the restored limbs of the one who returns.\nFor death, conquered, owes good faith, lest by the fraud of the tomb\nit give back anything maimed; although it has devoured bodies\nalready maimed, yet the weakness and violence of disease\nwere the strength of death. It will give back what it had swallowed\nbit by bit, in whatever way, lest the whole dead man\nshould not return, if anything is lacking from the full body.\nDrive fear from your heart, my limbs, and believe that you\nwill return with Christ God. For he carries you,\nand calls you back with him. Laugh at threatening diseases;\ndespise inflicted mishaps, and spit on the black tombs:\ngo where Christ, rising, summons you.","f":"Prudentius, <i>Apoth.</i> 1.1051 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 1051–1085; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-apotheosis/1-1051)."},"prudentius-apotheosis/1.121":{"o":"Quem si perspicuum mortalibus infitiaris,\nFare age, quem videat Babylonis ab arce tyrannus\nInnocuas inter flammas procul exspatiantem,\nCalcantem rapidos inadustis fratribus ignes.\nNempe ait: — « O proceres, tres vasta incendia anhelis\nAccepere viros fornacibus ; additus unus\nEcce vaporiferos ridens intersecat ignes.\nFilius ille Dei est ; fateorque et victus adoro:\nInritas removete faces, taedasque tepentes\nSubtrahite: friget succensi sulphuris ardor.\nFilius (haud dubium est) agit haec miracula rerum,\nQuem video : Deus ipse, Dei certissima proles.\nImperat immensis ardoribus, et domat iras,\nInsultans, famulante rogo, piceosque furores\nComprimit, et rabiem flammarum algescere cogit :\nBarbaricos calida aura sinus non tangere iussa\nPraeterit, et tenues stridens transcurrit amictus.\nIpse per Assyrias metuit vapor ire tiaras,\nNe coma fusa humeris fumo obsordescat amaro. » —\nHaec ait; et varios iubet obmutescere cantus,\nOrgana, sambucas, citharas, calamosque, tubasque.\nStulta superstitio tacuit : vox festa quievit,\nQuae male conspicuae celebrabat imaginis aurum.\nCarmina sanctorum resonant iam sola virorum,\nTriplice concentu Regem laudantia caeli,\nQui mare, qui terras, qui lucida sidera fecit,\nIgnibus et mediis securos texit alumnos.\nSemper in auxilium sermo Patris omnipotentis\nDescendit servando homini : mortalia semper\nAdmiscenda sibi proprio curavit amore :","t":"If you deny that he was visible to mortals,\ncome, tell me, whom did the tyrant see from the citadel of Babylon\nwalking about far off amid harmless flames,\ntreading the rushing fires, his brothers unburned?\nHe says, indeed: “O nobles, the vast fires in the panting furnaces\nhave received three men; see, one added\ncuts smiling through the steaming fires.\nThat one is the Son of God; I confess it and, conquered, I adore:\ntake away the useless torches, and withdraw the warm\npine-brands: the heat of the kindled sulphur is cold.\nIt is the Son (there is no doubt) who does these wonders,\nwhom I see: God himself, the most certain offspring of God.\nHe commands the immense heats and tames their wrath,\nmocking it, the pyre serving him, and checks the pitchy fury,\nand forces the rage of the flames to grow cold;\nthe hot air, ordered not to touch the barbarian robes,\npasses by, and runs hissing through their thin garments.\nThe very heat is afraid to go through the Assyrian tiaras,\nlest the hair flowing on their shoulders be soiled with bitter smoke.”\nSo he says; and he orders the various songs to fall silent,\norgans, harps, lutes, reeds and trumpets.\nThe foolish superstition fell silent; the festal voice was still,\nwhich wickedly celebrated the gold of the conspicuous image.\nThe songs of the holy men alone now resound,\npraising in threefold harmony the King of heaven,\nwho made the sea, the lands, the bright stars,\nand protected his nurslings, safe in the midst of the fires.\nThe Word of the almighty Father always comes down\nto help man, to save him; he has always taken care,\nin his own love, to mingle mortal things with himself,","f":"Prudentius, <i>Apoth.</i> 1.121 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 121–150; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-apotheosis/1-121)."},"prudentius-apotheosis/1.151":{"o":"Ut socianda caro, Dominoque implenda perenni,\nDegenerem vitam, quae tunc animalis agebat,\nExemplo mutaret Heri, similesque per artus\nCernere consortem terreni adsuesceret oris ;\nParticipemque suum visu velut obside nosse,\nEt consanguineo paullatim accedere Christo.\nErgo animalis homo quondam ; nunc Spiritus illum\nTranstulit ad superi naturam seminis, ipsum\nInfundendo Deum, mortalia vivificantem.\nNunc nova materies, solidata intercute flatu,\nMateries, sed nostra tamen; de Virgine tracta.\nExuit antiquae corrupta exordia vitae,\nImmortale bonum proprio spiramine sumens.\nFilius ille hominis, sed Filius ille Tonantis,\nIam solus vultum Patris adspicit et videt ipsum.\nNemo Patrem novit nisi Filius, et cui monstrat\nFilius, et nostri mediator et Omnipotentis.\nDenique concludam brevis ut compendia summae:\nNon Pater in carnem descendit, sed Patris arcem\nSumpta caro adscendit. Natus per utrumque cucurrit.\nCede, profanator Christi, iam cede, Sabelli,\nDepositorque Patris, Natique insane negator.\nNonne Patrem violas, dum Natum scire recusas?\nQuandoquidem non est genitor, nisi filius exstet;\nNec vocitare Patrem potis es, quem germine fraudas.\nSed fortasse velis patriae pietatis honore\nDespoliare Deum, contentus nomine nudo,\nQuod Deus est, adimasque decus Patris, et generis vim.\nEcquis in idolio recubans, inter sacra mille,\nRidiculosque deos venerans sale, caespite, ture,","t":"so that flesh, to be joined to him and filled with the eternal Lord,\nmight change the degenerate life it then led as natural man\nby the example of its Master, and, through limbs like its own,\nmight grow used to seeing a sharer of its earthly face,\nand to know its partner by sight as by a hostage,\nand little by little to approach Christ its blood-kin.\nSo man was once natural; now the Spirit has carried him\nover to the nature of the heavenly seed, pouring\nGod himself into him, giving life to mortal things.\nNow it is new matter, made solid by a breath under the skin,\nmatter, but ours nevertheless, drawn from the Virgin.\nIt has put off the corrupt beginnings of the old life,\ntaking up immortal good by its own breath.\nHe, the Son of man, but also the Son of the Thunderer,\nalone now beholds the Father’s face and sees him himself.\nNo one knows the Father except the Son, and the one to whom\nthe Son shows him, the mediator between us and the Almighty.\nIn short, to conclude briefly the sum of the matter:\nthe Father did not come down into flesh, but the flesh that was taken\nwent up to the Father’s citadel. The Son ran through both.\nGive way, profaner of Christ, give way now, Sabellius,\ndeposer of the Father and mad denier of the Son.\nDo you not violate the Father, while you refuse to know the Son?\nFor there is no begetter unless a son exists;\nnor can you call him Father whom you cheat of offspring.\nBut perhaps you would wish to strip God of the honor\nof fatherly love, content with the bare name\nthat he is God, and take away the glory of Father and the force of generation.\nIs there anyone, lying in an idol’s temple among a thousand rites,\nworshiping ridiculous gods with salt, turf and incense,","f":"Prudentius, <i>Apoth.</i> 1.151 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 151–180; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-apotheosis/1-151)."},"prudentius-apotheosis/1.181":{"o":"Non putat esse Deum summum, et super omnia solum?\nQuamvis Saturnis, Iunonibus, et Cythereis,\nPortentisque aliis fumantes consecret aras;\nAttamen in caelum quoties suspexit, in uno\nConstituit ius omne Deo, cui serviat ingens\nVirtutum ratio, variis instructa ministris.\nQuae gens tam stolida est animis, tam barbara linguis?\nQuaeve superstitio tam sordida, quae caniformem\nLatrantemque throno caeli praeponat Anubem?\nNemo Cloacinae, aut Eponae super astra deabus\nDat solium, quamvis olidam persolvat acerram,\nSacrilegisque molam manibus rimetur et exta.\nConsule barbati deliramenta Platonis :\nConsule et hircosus Cynicus quos somniat, et quos\nTexit Aristoteles torta vertigine nervos.\nHos omnes quamvis anceps labyrinthus et error\nCircumflexus agat, quamvis promittere et ipsi\nGallinam soleant, aut gallum, clinicus ut se\nDignetur praestare deus morientibus aequum ;\nQuum ventum tamen ad normam rationis et artis,\nTurbidulos sensus, et litigiosa fragosis\nArgumenta modis concludunt numen in unum,\nCuius ad arbitrium sphaera mobilis atque rotunda\nVolvatur, serventque suos vaga sidera cursus.\nNon recipit natura hominis, modo quadrupes ipse\nNon sit, et erecto spectet caelestia vultu,\nNon recipit, neget ut regimen pollere supremum.\nIstud et ipse Numae tacitus sibi sensit haruspex,\nSemifer et Scotus sentit, cane milite peior.\nSed nos, qui Dominum libris et corpore iam bis","t":"who does not think there is a supreme God, alone over all things?\nAlthough he consecrates smoking altars to Saturns, Junos and Cythereas\nand other monsters,\nyet whenever he has looked up to heaven, he places\nall authority in one God, whom an immense order of powers serves,\nequipped with various ministers.\nWhat nation is so dull in mind, so barbarous in tongue?\nOr what superstition so sordid that it would put dog-shaped,\nbarking Anubis before the throne of heaven?\nNo one gives Cloacina or Epona a throne above the stars\namong goddesses, though he pay a stinking censer\nand probe the sacrificial meal and entrails with sacrilegious hands.\nConsult the ravings of bearded Plato;\nconsult those whom the goatish Cynic dreams of, and the sinews\nwhich Aristotle wove with twisted giddiness.\nThough a doubtful labyrinth and winding error drives them all,\nthough they themselves are accustomed to promise a hen\nor a cock, so that the healing god may deign to show himself\nfavorable to the dying;\nyet when they come to the rule of reason and art,\nthey conclude their muddled senses and their contentious arguments\nwith clattering modes in one Godhead,\nat whose will the moving and round sphere\nturns, and the wandering stars keep their courses.\nHuman nature does not admit it, provided man is not\na four-footed beast himself and looks at the heavens with upright face;\nit does not admit denying that a supreme rule prevails.\nThis even Numa’s soothsayer silently felt within himself,\nand the half-wild Scot feels it, worse than a dog-soldier.\nBut we, who have now seen the Lord twice, in books and in body,","f":"Prudentius, <i>Apoth.</i> 1.181 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 181–210; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-apotheosis/1-181)."},"prudentius-apotheosis/1.211":{"o":"Vidimus, ante fide, mox carne et sanguine coram,\nQuique voluminibus vatum, cruce teste, probatis,\nRimantes digitos costarum in vulnera cruda\nMersimus, et manuum visu dubitante lacunas\nScrutati, aeternum regem cognovimus Iesum,\nAbiurare Deo titulum nomenque paternum\nCredimus esse nefas, qui regem protulit ex se :\nNon regem populi Parthorum, aut Romulidarum,\nSed regem summae, et mediae rationis, et imae,\nAtque ideo rerum dominum, et super omnia regem.\nCarnis habet medium; summum Patris, et Stygis imum.\nDefluit his gradibus, rursusque revolvitur in se :\nEst Deus, est et homo : fit mortuus, et Deus idem est.\nOmnia percurrit naturae munia pronae,\nUt sursum Patris in gremium replicata reportet\nMortua quae fuerant, ipsos quoque subvehat artus.\nHaec fore quum veterum cecinissent organa vatum ;\nNos oculis, manibus, congressu, voce, loquela\nExperti, heroum tandem intelleximus orsa\nPriscorum, et viso patefacta oracula Christo.\nHaec est nostra salus, hinc vivimus, hinc animamur:\nHoc sequimur; numquam detracto nomine nati\nAppellare Patrem, Patris et sine nomine numquam\nNatum nosse Deum : numquam nisi Sanctus et unus\nSpiritus intersit, Natumque, Patremque vocare:\nSic tamen haec constare tria, ut ne separe ductu\nTres faciam : tribus his subsistat sed Deus unus.\nNec Pater ipse autem qui Filius ; ut, quia Natum\nScimus ab Innato, vere Pater, et sata vere\nSit soboles : nec sic genitor sibi Filius ipse.","t":"first by faith, then in flesh and blood face to face,\nand who, having tested the volumes of the prophets with the cross as witness,\nplunged our searching fingers into the raw wounds\nof the side, and, our sight doubting, searched the hollows\nof the hands, and recognized Jesus as the eternal king,\nwe believe it a sin to strip God of the title\nand name of Father, who brought forth a king from himself:\nnot a king of the people of the Parthians or of the sons of Romulus,\nbut king of the highest, the middle and the lowest order,\nand therefore lord of things and king over all.\nHe holds the middle as flesh; the highest as the Father’s; the lowest, of the Styx.\nHe flowed down by these steps, and turns back again into himself:\nhe is God, and he is man: he becomes dead, and the same is God.\nHe ran through all the offices of fallen nature,\nso that, rolled back up, he might carry back into the Father’s bosom\nthe things that had been dead, and carry up the very limbs as well.\nThough the instruments of the ancient prophets had sung that these things would be,\nwe, having experienced him with eyes, hands, meeting, voice and speech,\nhave at last understood the words of the ancient\nheroes, and the oracles laid open when Christ was seen.\nThis is our salvation, by this we live, by this we are animated;\nthis we follow: never, taking away the name of the Son,\nto call on the Father, and never without the name of the Father\nto know the Son as God; never to call on the Son and the Father\nunless the one Holy Spirit is present:\nyet so that these three stand together, that I do not make\nthree by separate drawing-out, but one God subsists in these three.\nYet the Father himself is not the one who is the Son; so that, since we know\nthe Son is from the Unbegotten, he may be truly Father, and the begotten\ntruly offspring: nor is the begetter thus his own Son.","f":"Prudentius, <i>Apoth.</i> 1.211 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 211–240; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-apotheosis/1-211)."},"prudentius-apotheosis/1.241":{"o":"Perquam ridiculum est et futile, natus ut ex se ;\nSive Pater natus fuerit, sive ipse repente\nNascendi nova materies, ac se Deus ultro\nEdiderit, natumque sibi se fecerit ipsum.\nNil falsum aut mendax divina vocabula fingunt.\nQui Pater est, gignendo Pater: tum Filius, ex hoc\nFilius, auctore quod genitus sit Patre summo:\nSummus et ipse tamen ; nec enim minor, aut Patre dispar.\nUnde in utroque operis forma indiscreta, nisi omnem\nVim maiestatis Patriae generosus haberet\nFilius, idque Deus genitor, quod Filius, esset?\nPergunt ulterius scrutantes, quid sit idipsum\nGignere, si fas est humanos tendere sensus\nUsque ad secretum, quod tempora cuncta diesque\nPraevenit antiquos, et principium super ipsum\nEminet, et, quodcumque potest homo quaerere, transit.\nQuum sit difficilis via noscere principiorum\nSemina, cui dabitur mortali exquirere, quidnam\nUltra principium Deus egerit ? aut quo pacto\nEdiderit Verbum, quod principio caret omni ?\nHoc solum scimus, quod traditur esse Deus, quem\nNon genitus genitor generaverit, unus et unum,\nInteger integrum: non coeptum, sed tamen ortum,\nEt conperpetuum retro Patri, et Patre natum.\nSed nec decisus Pater est, ut pars Patris esset\nFilius, extendens nec se substantia tractim\nProduxit, minuitque aliquid de numine pleno ;\nDum mutata novum procudit portio Natum.\nNon convertibilis, nec demutabilis umquam","t":"It is utterly ridiculous and futile that one should be born from himself,\nwhether the Father was born, or he himself suddenly\nbecame new matter for birth, and God of his own accord\nbrought himself forth and made himself his own son.\nThe divine names fashion nothing false or lying.\nHe who is Father is Father by begetting; the Son is Son\nfrom this, that he was begotten with the supreme Father as author;\nyet he himself is supreme; for he is not less, nor unequal to the Father.\nHow could the form of the work be indistinguishable in both, unless the noble Son\nhad all the force of the Father’s majesty,\nand unless God the begetter were what the Son is?\nThey go on further, searching what this very thing\n‘to beget’ is, if it is right to stretch human senses\nas far as the secret which goes before all times and the ancient days,\nand stands out above the beginning itself,\nand passes beyond whatever man can seek.\nSince it is a difficult way to know the seeds\nof beginnings, to what mortal will it be given to search out what God\ndid beyond the beginning? or in what manner\nhe brought forth the Word, which lacks all beginning?\nThis alone we know, which is handed down: that he is God, whom\nthe unbegotten begetter begot, one begetting one,\nwhole begetting whole: not begun, but yet arisen,\nco-eternal with the Father backward, and born of the Father.\nBut neither is the Father cut off, so that the Son should be a part\nof the Father, nor did the substance, extending itself, draw itself out at length\nand diminish anything from the full Godhead,\nwhile a changed portion forged a new Son.\nNever convertible, never changeable","f":"Prudentius, <i>Apoth.</i> 1.241 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 241–270; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-apotheosis/1-241)."},"prudentius-apotheosis/1.271":{"o":"Est Deus, aut gignendo aliquid sibi detrahit: atqui\nTotus, et ex toto Deus est, de lumine lumen.\nQuando autem lumen sine lumine ? quando refulgens\nLux fulgore caret? quando est, ut proditus ignis\nIgnem deminuat? quando Pater et Deus et lux\nNon lucis Deus et Pater est? qui, si Pater olim\nNon fuit, et serum genuit post tempora natum,\nFit novus, inque novum ius proficit. Absit, ut umquam\nPlenus proficiat, qui non eget incremento.\nEt Deus, et genitor, lumenque, et gloria semper\nIlle fuit; nec post sibi contulit, ut Pater esset.\nSic fit, ut aeternum credamus cum Patre Christum,\nIllo auctore satum, cui nullus praefuit auctor.\nHaec tu si dubitas nati mysteria Christi,\nPerdite, catholica non es de plebe, sed unus\nDe grege turifero venerator, Deucalionum\nDevotus cippo, ficulni et stipitis unctor.\nQuin potius scrutare Dei signacula in ipso\nFonte vetustatis, percurre scrinia primi\nScriptoris : quem non Sardus pater, aut avus augur,\nFabula nec veteris famae, nec garrula nutrix,\nNec sagae clangore loquax et stridula cornix\nRem docuere Dei : sed coram proditus ipse,\nIpse Deus trepidum mortalem mitis amico\nImbuit adloquio, seque ac sua summa retexit.\nNimirum meminit Scriptor doctissimus, illo\nOrbis principio non solum, nec sine Christo\nInformasse Patrem facturae plasma novellae.\nFecit, ait, condens hominem Deus, et dedit illi\nOra Dei. Quidnam est aliud, quam dicere, solus","t":"is God, nor does he take anything from himself by begetting; but\nhe is whole God, and God from the whole, light from light.\nBut when is light without light? When does shining\nlight lack brightness? When does it happen that fire brought forth\ndiminishes fire? When is the Father, both God and light,\nnot God and Father of light? If he was once not Father,\nand begot a son late, after times,\nhe becomes new, and advances into a new right. Far be it that ever\nthe Full should advance, who needs no increase.\nHe was always God, and begetter, and light, and glory;\nnor did he afterwards confer on himself that he should be Father.\nSo it comes about that we believe Christ eternal with the Father,\nbegotten with him as author, whom no author preceded.\nIf you doubt these mysteries of Christ’s birth,\nlost man, you are not of the catholic people, but one\nof the incense-bearing herd, a worshiper of Deucalions,\ndevoted to a post, an anointer of a fig-wood stump.\nRather search the tokens of God in the very\nfountain of antiquity; run through the book-cases of the first\nwriter, whom no Sardinian father, nor augur grandfather,\nnor the tale of ancient rumor, nor a garrulous nurse,\nnor the shrill crow, talkative with the cry of a witch,\ntaught the matter of God: but God himself, revealed face to face,\ngently instructed the trembling mortal with friendly\naddress, and unveiled himself and his highest things.\nOf course that most learned Writer records that at the beginning\nof the world the Father fashioned the form of his new creation\nnot alone, nor without Christ.\n“God made man,” he says, “establishing him, and gave him\nthe face of God.” What else is this but to say: he was not","f":"Prudentius, <i>Apoth.</i> 1.271 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 271–300; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-apotheosis/1-271)."},"prudentius-apotheosis/1.301":{"o":"Non erat? atque Deo Deus adsistebat agenti,\nQuum Dominus faceret Domini sub imagine plasma?\nChristus forma Patris, nos Christi forma et imago,\nCondimur in faciem Domini bonitate paterna,\nVenturo in nostram faciem post saecula Christo.\nPossum multa sacris exempla excerpere libris,\nNi refugis, quae te doceant, non in Patre solo\nVim maiestatis positam, sed cum Patre Christum\nEsse Deum; velut illud ait Genealogus idem:\nA Domino Dominus flammam pluit in Sodomitas.\nQuis Dominus? de quo Domino? si solus ab arce\nSiderea spectat Pater, aut ardescit in iras?\nFilius armatam Domini Patris ignibus iram\nSpargebat Dominus : sunt unum fulmen utrique.\nHaec si Iudaicos sic intellecta rigassent\nAuditus, stupidas ut possint tangere fibras,\nAudissent Dominum virtutum, qui pereuntes\nVenerat ut servaret oves : sed ab auribus omnis\nFluxerat ornatus, caput et iam coctile Baal\nFinxerat, auriculasque suo spoliarat honore.\nDux populi peccantis adest de monte corusci\nLuminis, adloquioque Dei, tabulasque tremendo\nIncisas digito caeca ad tentoria defert.\nSed cadit in faciem plebs, non visura profundae\nLegis in effigie scriptum per aenigmata Christum.\nInfelix, quae luce oculos praestricta paventes\nTexerit, et presso faciem velarit amictu!\nAt nos reiecto Christum velamine coram\nCernimus, atque Deum vultu speculamur aperto ;\nNec, sub lege gravi, depressa fronte iacemus,","t":"alone? And God stood by God as he worked,\nwhen the Lord made a creature in the image of the Lord?\nChrist is the form of the Father; we, the form and image of Christ,\nare made in the face of the Lord by fatherly goodness,\nas Christ was to come into our face after ages.\nI could pick many examples from the sacred books,\nif you do not shrink from them, to teach you that the force of majesty\nis not placed in the Father alone, but that Christ with the Father\nis God; as that same Genealogist says:\n“The Lord rained fire from the Lord on the Sodomites.”\nWhich Lord? From which Lord? If the Father alone watches\nfrom the starry citadel, or grows hot with anger?\nThe Son, the Lord, was scattering the wrath of the Lord the Father,\narmed with fires: there is one thunderbolt for both.\nIf these things, so understood, had watered the Jewish\nears so as to be able to touch their dull fibres,\nthey would have heard the Lord of powers, who had come\nto save the perishing sheep: but every ornament had flowed\nfrom their ears, and they had already fashioned the molten head\nof Baal, and stripped their little ears of their honor.\nThe leader of the sinning people comes down from the mountain\nof flashing light and the speech of God, and brings to the blind tents\nthe tablets cut by the dreadful finger.\nBut the people falls on its face, not to see Christ\nwritten in riddles in the likeness of the deep law.\nUnhappy people, which, its fearful eyes dazzled by the light,\ncovered them, and veiled its face with pressed-down cloth!\nBut we, the veil thrown off, see Christ face to face,\nand gaze at God with unveiled face;\nnor, under the heavy law, do we lie with bowed brow,","f":"Prudentius, <i>Apoth.</i> 1.301 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 301–330; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-apotheosis/1-301)."},"prudentius-apotheosis/1.31":{"o":"Carnis in effigie Christum se cernere sensit.\nSed maiora petens, animum per vota tetendit\nInconcessa homini, plusquam mortale laborans,\nIpsum, quantus erat, sine corpore visere Christum.\nDenique post multi sermonis mutua, postque\nConspectum praesentis Heri, et consortia longa,\nQuaeso, ait, ut liceat te nunc, Deus optime, nosse.\nRespondit Dominus : mea, non me, cernere iustis\nPosteriora dabo. Quid apertius, absque aliena\nQuam sumpta facie Verbum non posse videri?\nPosse tamen, quum malit idem, numquam Patre viso\nTerrenis oculis, habitu se ostendere nostro :\nSaepe et in angelicas vel mortales moderatum\nInduci species, queat ut sub imagine cerni.\nHoc Verbum est, quod vibratum Patris ore benigno\nSumpsit virgineo fragilem de corpore formam.\nInde figura hominis nondum sub carne, Moysi\nObiecta, effigiem nostri signaverat oris :\nQuod quandoque Deus Verbi virtute coactum\nSumpturus corpus, faciem referebat eamdem.\nSed tamen et sentem visa est excita cremare,\nVulnificasque comas innoxius ignis agebat :\nEsset ut exemplo Deus inlapsurus in artus\nSpiniferos: sudibus quos texunt crimina densis,\nEt peccata malis hirsuta doloribus implent.\nInculto nam stirpe frutex vitiosus iniquis\nLuxuriam virgis inhonesto effundere succo\nCoeperat, et nodos per acumina crebra ligabat.\nCernere erat steriles subito splendescere frondes,\nConlucere Deum, nec spinea laedere texta,\nLambere sanguineos fructus, et poma cruenta,","t":"perceived that he saw Christ in the likeness of flesh.\nBut, seeking greater things, he stretched his mind through prayers\nnot granted to man, laboring for more than mortal,\nto see Christ himself, as great as he was, without a body.\nAt last, after the exchange of much speech, and after\nthe sight of his present Master and long companionship,\n“I pray,” he says, “that I may now know you, best God.”\nThe Lord answered: “To the righteous I will give to see my back parts,\nnot me.” What could be plainer: that without a borrowed\nface assumed, the Word cannot be seen?\nYet he can, when he wishes, though the Father is never seen\nby earthly eyes, show himself in our dress;\nand often, adapted, he takes on angelic or mortal\nforms, so that he may be seen under an image.\nThis is the Word, which, sent forth from the kindly mouth of the Father,\ntook a fragile form from a virgin’s body.\nHence the figure of a man, not yet in flesh, set before\nMoses, had marked out the likeness of our face:\nfor, as God was one day to take a body, drawn together\nby the power of the Word, he showed the same face.\nAnd yet a fire, roused, was seen to burn the bramble,\nand the harmless fire drove through the wounding foliage,\nso that it might be an example that God would come down into\nthorny limbs, which crimes weave with dense stakes,\nand sins fill, bristling with evil pains.\nFor the faulty shrub, from an uncultivated stock, had begun\nto pour out luxury with wicked shoots and shameful sap,\nand bound knots through frequent points.\nOne could see the barren leaves suddenly shine,\nGod glowing, and not harming the thorny weave,\nlicking the bloody fruits and gory apples,","f":"Prudentius, <i>Apoth.</i> 1.31 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 31–60; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-apotheosis/1-31)."},"prudentius-apotheosis/1.331":{"o":"Sed legis radium sublimi agnoscimus ore.\nHeu, frondosa prius ramis felicibus arbor!\nPinguibus, heu, quondam radix oleagina bacis!\nEcce tibi inserto revirescit nunc oleastro\nTruncus, et externi vestitur cortice libri.\nIam miserere tui. Non se silvestris olivi\nSurculus, exsultans alieno stipite, iactat:\nSed monet, ut generis proprii memor, unguine amaro\nContristare comas desuescas, stirpe nec imo\nInvideas missis in celsa cacumina virgis.\nBlasphemas Dominum, gens ingratissima, Christum.\nPascha tuum dic, dic cuius de sanguine festum\nTam solemne tibi est? quis tandem caeditur Agnus\nAnniculus? sacer ille tibi redeuntibus annis;\nSed sacer in pecude. Stultum est sic credere sacrum;\nSanguine balantis summos contingere postes,\nLascivire choris, similaginis azymon esse,\nQuum fermentati turgescant crimine mores.\nNon sapis, imprudens, nostrum te effingere Pascha?\nLegis et antiquae praeductis pingere sulcis\nOmne sacramentum, retinet quod passio vera ;\nPassio, quae nostram defendit sanguine frontem,\nCorporeamque domum signato conlinit ore?\nHanc fugit exclusis Aegyptia plaga flagellis :\nHaec regis Pharii regnum ferale resolvit ;\nDeque potestatis mundanae grandine densa\nEripit Abraham cum stirpe et gente fideli.\nAbrahae genus est verum, cui sanguis in ore\nCreditus, inscriptusque rubet: cui visus in orbe,","t":"but we recognize the ray of the law with uplifted face.\nAlas, tree once leafy with fruitful branches!\nAlas, olive root once rich in berries!\nSee, now your trunk grows green again with a wild olive grafted in,\nand is clothed with the bark of foreign rind.\nNow have pity on yourself. The shoot of the wild olive,\nexulting on a stock not its own, does not boast,\nbut warns you, mindful of your own race, to give up\nsaddening your foliage with bitter oil, and not from the lowest stock\nto envy the twigs sent up to the lofty tops.\nYou blaspheme the Lord Christ, most ungrateful nation.\nSay, say: of whose blood is your Passover a feast\nso solemn for you? Who in the end is the yearling Lamb\nthat is slain? He is sacred to you as the years return;\nbut sacred in a beast. It is foolish to believe it sacred thus:\nto touch the tops of the doorposts with the blood of a bleater,\nto frolic in dances, to eat unleavened bread of fine flour,\nwhile your morals swell with the crime of leaven.\nDo you not understand, foolish one, that you are portraying our Passover,\nand painting in the furrows drawn beforehand by the ancient law\nthe whole sacrament which the true passion holds:\nthe passion which defends our brow with blood,\nand smears the bodily house with a signed face?\nFrom it the Egyptian plague fled, its scourges shut out;\nit broke up the deadly kingdom of the king of Pharos;\nand from the thick hail of worldly power\nit snatches Abraham with his stock and faithful race.\nThe true race of Abraham is he on whose face the blood\nis entrusted and glows red-written: by whom he who was seen in the world","f":"Prudentius, <i>Apoth.</i> 1.331 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 331–360; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-apotheosis/1-331)."},"prudentius-apotheosis/1.361":{"o":"Haud dubitante fide, Deus est, Deus ex Patre verus.\nIlle Deum vidit, visum mox credidit : at tu,\nPosteritas carnis, carnaliter omnia cernens,\nCarnis opus sub lege geris, quam spiritus implet\nInterior: nec enim caelo lex carnea fluxit,\nQuam tu carne colis : sed Christo feta, meamque\nSpem paritura utero. Quam spem ! nisi numinis almum\nLumen, et adventum Domini, quem viderat Abrae\nPrima fides, nostrisque pater promiserat olim\nPerspiciendum oculis, et legis voce probandum.\nNec solum legis: nam quae iam littera Christum\nNon habet? aut quae non scriptorum armaria Christi\nLaude referta, novis celebrant miracula libris?\nHebraeus pangit stilus, Attica copia pangit,\nPangit et Ausoniae facundia tertia linguae.\nDigere versiculis, quae sit suffixa potestas\nFronte Crucis: titulus sit triplice lingua :\nAgnoscat Iudaea legens, et Graecia norit,\nEt venerata Deum percenseat aurea Roma.\nQuidquid in aere cavo reboans tuba curva remugit,\nQuidquid ab arcano vomit ingens spiritus haustu,\nQuidquid casta chelys, quidquid testudo resultat,\nOrgana disparibus calamis quod consona miscent,\nAemula pastorum quod reddunt vocibus antra,\nChristum concelebrat, Christum sonat, omnia Christum\nMuta etiam fidibus sanctis animata loquuntur.\nO nomen praedulce mihi! lux, et decus, et spes,\nPraesidiumque meum ! requies o certa laborum !\nBlandus in ore sapor, fragrans odor, inriguus fons,","t":"with faith not doubting, is God, true God from the Father.\nHe saw God, and soon believed in the one he saw: but you,\nposterity of the flesh, seeing all things carnally,\ncarry out under the law the work of the flesh, which an inner spirit\nfills: for the fleshly law which you keep in the flesh\ndid not flow from heaven: but it was pregnant with Christ, and about to bear\nmy hope from its womb. What hope? none other than the kindly light\nof the divine power, and the coming of the Lord, whom Abraham’s\nfirst faith had seen, and whom the father had once promised\nto be seen by our eyes, and to be proved by the voice of the law.\nNor by the voice of the law alone: for what writing now does not have\nChrist? or what bookcases of writers, filled with the praise\nof Christ, do not celebrate his miracles in new books?\nThe Hebrew pen sings of him, Attic abundance sings,\nand the third eloquence, of the Ausonian tongue, sings too.\n[Pilate commands:] Set out in verses what power was fixed\non the front of the Cross: let the title be in a threefold tongue:\nlet Judea recognize it as she reads, and Greece know it,\nand golden Rome, worshiping God, survey it.\nWhatever the curved trumpet bellows, booming in hollow bronze,\nwhatever the huge breath vomits from a hidden draught,\nwhatever the chaste lyre, whatever the tortoise-shell echoes,\nwhat the harmonious organs mingle with unequal pipes,\nwhat the caves give back in rivalry with the voices of shepherds,\ncelebrates Christ, sounds Christ; all things, even mute,\nanimated by holy strings, speak Christ.\nO name most sweet to me! light, glory and hope,\nand my protection! O sure rest from labors!\nsweet taste in the mouth, fragrant smell, watering fountain,","f":"Prudentius, <i>Apoth.</i> 1.361 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 361–390; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-apotheosis/1-361)."},"prudentius-apotheosis/1.391":{"o":"Castus amor, pulchra species, sincera voluptas.\nSi gens surda negat sibi tot praeconia de te,\nTam multas rerum voces, elementaque tantae\nNuntia laetitiae, stolidas intrare per aures;\nAudiat insanum bacchantis energima monstri,\nQuod rabidus clamat capta intra viscera daemon,\nEt credat miseranda suis. Torquetur Apollo\nNomine percussus Christi, nec fulmina verbi\nFerre potest ; agitant miserum tot verbera linguae,\nQuot laudata Dei resonant miracula Christi.\nIntonat antistes Domini: Fuge, callide serpens,\nExue te membris, et spiras solve latentes.\nMancipium Christi, fur corruptissime, vexas?\nDesine : Christus adest, humani corporis ultor :\nNon licet, ut spolium rapias, cui Christus inhaesit.\nPulsus abi, ventose liquor; Christus iubet, exi.\nHas inter voces medias Cyllenius ardens\nEiulat, et notos suspirat Iuppiter ignes.\nEcce Gerasenos legio ruit effera porcos,\nEt post multiplices busti sub rupe catenas,\nPoenarum gemitus longis grunnitibus edit.\nClamarat, sed ab ore hominis: Cognoscimus, Iesu,\nNate Deo, nate sceptris et germine David,\nQui sis, quid venias : qua nos virtute repellas\nNovimus, adventusque tui terrore iacemus.\nHaec, Iudaea, tuas vox non pervenit ad aures?\nPervenit: mentem sed non penetravit egenam\nLucis, et a primis foribus disclusa refugit.\nAudiit adventum Domini, quem solis Hiberi\nVesper habet, roseos et qui novus excipit ortus,","t":"chaste love, beautiful form, sincere pleasure.\nIf the deaf nation denies that so many proclamations of you,\nso many voices of things, and elements, messengers\nof so great a joy, enter through its dull ears,\nlet it hear the mad possession of the raving monster,\nwhich the rabid demon shouts within the captured bowels,\nand let the wretched nation believe its own. Apollo is tortured,\nstruck by the name of Christ, and cannot bear the thunderbolts\nof the word; as many lashes of the tongue harass the wretch\nas the praised miracles of Christ God resound.\nThe bishop of the Lord thunders: “Flee, cunning serpent,\nstrip yourself out of the limbs, and loosen your hidden coils.\nDo you harass a slave of Christ, most corrupt thief?\nStop: Christ is here, avenger of the human body:\nyou may not snatch as spoil one to whom Christ has clung.\nGo, driven out, windy liquid; Christ commands, come out.”\nAmid these words Cyllenius, burning,\nwails, and Jupiter sighs at fires he knows.\nSee, the savage legion rushes into the Gerasene pigs,\nand after many chains under the rock of the tomb,\nutters groans of punishment with long grunts.\nIt had cried out, but from the mouth of a man: “We know, Jesus,\nborn of God, born of the sceptres and seed of David,\nwho you are, why you come: we know by what power you drive us back,\nand we lie prostrate in terror of your coming.”\nHas this voice not reached your ears, Judea?\nIt has reached them: but it has not penetrated a mind lacking\nlight, and, shut out from the first doors, it has fled back.\nThe coming of the Lord has been heard by the land that the evening\nof the Spanish sun holds, and by the land that first receives the rosy dawn;","f":"Prudentius, <i>Apoth.</i> 1.391 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 391–420; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-apotheosis/1-391)."},"prudentius-apotheosis/1.421":{"o":"Laxavit Scythicas verbo penetrante pruinas\nVox Evangelica, Hyrcanas quoque fervida brumas\nSolvit, ut exutus glacie iam mollior amnis\nCaucasea de cote fluat Rhodopeius Hebrus.\nMansuevere Getae, feritasque cruenta Geloni\nLacte mero sitiens exsanguia pocula miscet,\nLibatura sacros Christi de sanguine potus.\nNovit et Atlantis pridem plaga perfida Mauri,\nDedere crinitos ad Christi altaria reges.\nEx quo mortalem praestrinxit Spiritus alvum,\nSpiritus ille Deus ; Deus et se corpore matris\nInduit, atque hominem de virginitate creavit;\nDelphica damnatis tacuerunt sortibus antra,\nNon tripodas cortina tegit, non spumat anhelus\nFata Sibyllinis fanaticus edita libris.\nPerdidit insanos mendax Dodona vapores,\nMortua iam mutae lugent oracula Cumae,\nNec responsa refert Libycis in Syrtibus Hammon.\nIpsa suis Christum Capitolia Romula moerent\nPrincipibus lucere Deum, destructaque templa\nImperio cecidisse ducum. Iam purpura supplex\nSternitur Aeneadae rectoris ad atria Christi,\nVexillumque Crucis summus dominator adorat.\nPrincipibus tamen e cunctis non defuit unus,\nMe puero, ut memini, ductor fortissimus armis,\nConditor et legum, celeberrimus ore manuque,\nConsultor patriae, sed non consultor habendae\nReligionis, amans tercentum millia divum :\nPerfidus ille Deo, quamvis non perfidus orbi.\nAugustum caput ante pedes curvare Minervae","t":"the voice of the Gospel loosened the Scythian frosts\nwith its penetrating word, and, fervent, melted the Hyrcanian\nwinters too, so that the Rhodopean Hebrus, now freed of ice,\nflows a softer river from its Caucasian rock.\nThe Getae have grown gentle, and the bloody savagery of the Gelonian,\nthirsting for pure milk, mixes bloodless cups,\nto drink the holy draughts of the blood of Christ.\nThe once faithless land of the Moor of Atlas too has learned\nto surrender long-haired kings to the altars of Christ.\nSince the Spirit touched a mortal womb,\nthat Spirit who is God, and God clothed himself\nwith his mother’s body and created man from virginity,\nthe Delphic caves have fallen silent, their oracles condemned;\nthe cauldron no longer covers the tripods, nor does the panting\nfanatic foam out fates published in Sibylline books.\nLying Dodona has lost its mad vapors,\nCumae, now mute, mourns its dead oracles,\nnor does Hammon give back answers in the Libyan Syrtes.\nThe very Capitol of Romulus mourns that Christ shines\nas God for its princes, and that the temples have fallen,\ndestroyed by the command of the emperors. Now the purple, suppliant,\nlies prostrate at the halls of Christ, ruler of Aeneas’ people,\nand the supreme lord adores the standard of the Cross.\nYet among all the emperors there was one,\nwhen I was a boy, as I remember, a leader very brave in arms,\na founder of laws, most famous for speech and hand,\na counselor of his country, but no counselor for keeping\nreligion, loving three hundred thousand gods:\nfaithless to God, though not faithless to the world.\nHe did not shrink from bending his august head before the feet of Minerva","f":"Prudentius, <i>Apoth.</i> 1.421 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 421–450; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-apotheosis/1-421)."},"prudentius-apotheosis/1.451":{"o":"Fictilis, et soleas Iunonis lambere, plantis\nHerculis advolvi, genua incerare Dianae;\nQuin et Apollineo frontem submittere gypso,\nAut Pollucis equum suffire ardentibus extis.\nForte litans Hecaten placabat sanguine multo;\nPontificum festis feriunda securibus illic\nAgmina vaccarum steterant, vitulasque revincta\nFronte coronatas umbrabat torta cupressus.\nIamque insertato reserabat viscera cultro\nVittatus de more senex, manibusque cruentis\nTractabat trepidas letali frigore fibras,\nPostremosque animae pulsus in corde tepenti\nCallidus interpres numeris et fine notabat;\nQuum subito exclamat media inter sacra sacerdos\nPallidus : En quid ago? maius, rex optime, maius\nNumen nescio quod nostris intervenit aris,\nQuam sufferre queant spumantia cymbia lacte,\nCaesarum sanguis pecudum, verbena, coronae,\nAccitas video longe dispergier umbras,\nTerrita Persephone vertit vestigia retro,\nExstinctis facibus, fracto fugitiva flagello.\nNil agit arcanum murmur, nil Thessala prosunt\nCarmina, turbatos revocat nulla hostia manes.\nNonne vides, ut turibulis frigentibus ignis\nMarceat? ut canis pigrescat pruna favillis?\nEcce Palatinus pateram retinere minister\nNon valet, elisa destillant balsama dextra ;\nFlamen et ipse suas miratur vertice laurus\nCedere, et incertum frustratur victima ferrum.\nNescio quis, certe subrepsit Christicolarum","t":"of clay, to lick the sandals of Juno, to roll\nat the feet of Hercules, to smear the knees of Diana with wax;\nnay, even to bow his brow before the plaster of Apollo,\nor to fumigate the horse of Pollux with burning entrails.\nAs it happened, sacrificing, he was appeasing Hecate with much blood;\nherds of cows had stood there, to be struck by the axes\nat the pontiffs’ feasts, and twisted cypress shaded the heifers\ncrowned on their bound brows.\nAnd now the old man, wearing the fillet according to custom,\nwas opening the entrails with the inserted knife, and with bloody hands\nhandling the fibres trembling with the cold of death,\nand, a crafty interpreter, noting by numbers and limits\nthe last pulses of life in the warm heart;\nwhen suddenly in the midst of the rites the priest cries out,\npale: “See, what am I doing? Some greater, best king, greater\ndivine power has come upon our altars\nthan the cups foaming with milk can bear,\nthe slain blood of cattle, the sacred boughs, the garlands.\nI see the summoned shades scattered far;\nPersephone, terrified, turns back her steps,\nher torches put out, fleeing with broken scourge.\nThe secret murmur does nothing, Thessalian songs avail nothing,\nno victim calls back the troubled ghosts.\nDo you not see how the fire in the cold censers\nlanguishes? how the coal grows sluggish under white ashes?\nSee, the Palatine attendant cannot hold the libation dish;\nthe balsam drips from his squeezed right hand;\nthe flamen himself wonders that his laurels fall\nfrom his head, and the victim cheats the uncertain iron.\nSome one, surely, of the worshipers of Christ has crept in","f":"Prudentius, <i>Apoth.</i> 1.451 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 451–480; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-apotheosis/1-451)."},"prudentius-apotheosis/1.481":{"o":"Hic iuvenum. Genus hoc hominum tremit infula, et omne\nPulvinar divum: lotus procul absit, et unctus.\nPulchra reformatis redeat Proserpina sacris. »\nDixit, et exsanguis collabitur; ac, velut ipsum\nCerneret exserto minitantem fulmine Christum,\nIpse quoque exanimis, posito diademate, princeps\nPallet, et adstantes circuminspicit: ecquis alumnus\nChrismatis inscripto signarit tempora ligno;\nQui Zoroastraeos turbasset fronte susurros.\nArmiger e cuneo puerorum flavicomantum\nPurpurei custos lateris deprenditur unus:\nNec negat, et gemino gemmata hastilia ferro\nProiicit, ac signum Christi se ferre fatetur.\nProsiluit pavidus, deiecto antistite, princeps,\nMarmoreum fugiens, nullo comitante, sacellum.\nTum tremefacta cohors, dominique oblita, supinas\nErigit ad caelum facies, atque invocat Iesum.\nIamne piget facti? iam poenitet? en tibi Christum,\nInfelix Iudaea, Deum : qui sabbata solvens\nTerrea, mortales aeterna in sabbata sumpsit.\nGentibus emicuit, praefulsit regibus, orbem\nPossidet, imperii dominam sibi cedere Romam\nCompulit, et simulacra deum Tarpeia subegit.\nDisce tuis miseranda malis, quo vindice tandem\nVana superstitio, lex et carnaliter acta\nPlectatur; cuius virtus te proterat ultrix.\nDestructone iacent Salomonia saxa metallo,\nAedificata manu? Iacet illud nobile templum.\nCur iacet? artificis quia dextra solubilis illud\nCaementum struxit resolubile : iure solutum est,","t":"here among the young men. The priestly fillet trembles at this race of men,\nand every couch of the gods: let the washed and anointed one be far away.\nLet beautiful Proserpina return, the rites restored.”\nHe spoke, and collapses bloodless; and, as if he saw\nChrist himself threatening with his thunderbolt drawn,\nthe emperor too, lifeless, his diadem laid aside,\nturns pale, and looks around at those standing by: which nursling\nof the chrism had signed his temples with the inscribed wood\nand troubled the Zoroastrian whispers with his brow?\nOne armor-bearer from the band of fair-haired youths,\nguard of the purple side, is found out:\nnor does he deny it, but throws down his spear-shafts,\njewelled with double iron, and confesses that he bears the sign of Christ.\nThe emperor leapt forth in fear, the priest thrown down,\nfleeing the marble shrine with no one accompanying him.\nThen the terrified cohort, forgetting its master, raises\nits upturned faces to heaven, and calls on Jesus.\nAre you now sorry for what you did? Do you now repent? See your Christ,\nunhappy Judea, God: who, loosing the earthly sabbaths,\nhas taken mortals into eternal sabbaths.\nHe has shone out to the nations, outshone kings, possesses\nthe world, has compelled Rome, mistress of the empire, to yield to him,\nand subdued the Tarpeian images of the gods.\nLearn, pitiable one, from your misfortunes, by what avenger at last\nvain superstition and a law carried out carnally\nare punished, whose avenging power tramples you.\nDo the stones of Solomon, built by hand, lie destroyed\nwith their metal? That noble temple lies low.\nWhy does it lie low? Because the soluble right hand of a craftsman\nbuilt that dissoluble masonry: rightly it was dissolved,","f":"Prudentius, <i>Apoth.</i> 1.481 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 481–510; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-apotheosis/1-481)."},"prudentius-apotheosis/1.511":{"o":"Et iacet, in nihilum quoniam redit omne politum.\nQuod fieri recipit, recipit quandoque perire.\nSi nostrum contra, quod sit, vis discere, templum,\nEst illud, quod nemo opifex fabriliter aptans\nComposuit, quod nulla abies, pinusve dolata\nTexuit ; exciso quod numquam marmore crevit :\nCuius onus nullis fultum sublime columnis\nFornice curvato tenui super arte pependit ;\nSed Verbo factum Domini, non voce sonora :\nSed Verbo, quod semper erat. Verbum caro factum\nHoc templum aeternum est, hoc finem non habet, hoc tu\nExpugnare volens, flagris, cruce, felle petisti.\nDestructum iacuit poenis vexantibus: esto.\nMatris enim ex utero, quod destrueretur, habebat.\nSed, quod morte brevi materna ex parte solutum est,\nMaiestate Patris vivum lux tertia reddit.\nVidisti, angelicis comitatum coetibus, alte\nIre meum, cuius servor munimine, templum.\nIllius aeternae suspendunt culmina portae,\nAc per inaccessas scalarum gloria turres\nTollitur, et gradibus lucet via candida summis.\nAt tua congestae tumulant holocausta ruinae :\nQuid merearis, Titus docuit ; docuere rapinis\nPompeianae acies; quibus exstirpata per omnes\nTerrarum pelagique plagas tua membra feruntur.\nExsiliis vagus huc illuc fluitantibus errat\nIudaeus, postquam patria de sede revulsus,\nSupplicium pro caede luit, Christique negati\nSanguine respersus commissa piacula solvit.\nEn quo priscorum virtus defluxit avorum?","t":"and lies low, since everything polished returns to nothing.\nWhat admits of being made admits one day of perishing.\nIf, on the other hand, you wish to learn what our temple is:\nit is that which no workman, fitting it with craft,\nhas put together, which no fir or hewn pine\nhas woven, which never grew from quarried marble,\nwhose lofty weight, supported by no columns,\nhas not hung above on a curved vault by slender art,\nbut was made by the Word of the Lord, not by a sounding voice:\nby the Word, which always was. The Word made flesh,\nthis is the eternal temple, this has no end; this you,\nwishing to storm it, attacked with scourges, cross, gall.\nIt lay destroyed by harassing punishments: granted.\nFor from his mother’s womb he had what could be destroyed.\nBut what was dissolved by a brief death on the mother’s side,\nthe third day gives back alive by the majesty of the Father.\nYou saw my temple go on high, accompanied by angelic throngs,\nby whose protection I am kept safe.\nThe everlasting doors lift up its summits,\nand its glory is raised through inaccessible towers of stairs,\nand a white road shines on the highest steps.\nBut your burnt offerings are buried by heaped-up ruins:\nwhat you deserve Titus taught; the armies of Pompey\ntaught with their plunder; by whom your limbs, uprooted,\nare carried through all regions of land and sea.\nThe Jew wanders, a vagrant, here and there in floating exiles,\nsince, torn from his ancestral seat,\nhe pays the penalty for the slaughter, and, sprinkled with the blood\nof the Christ he denied, atones for the crimes he committed.\nSee, to what has the virtue of the ancient forefathers flowed down?","f":"Prudentius, <i>Apoth.</i> 1.511 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 511–540; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-apotheosis/1-511)."},"prudentius-apotheosis/1.541":{"o":"Servit ab antiquis dilapsa fidelibus heres\nNobilitas, sed iam non nobilis. Illa recentem\nSuspectat captiva fidem : vis tanta novellae\nCredulitatis inest. Christum confessa triumphat\nGens infida prius ; Christi sed victa negatrix\nSubditur imperio, dominos sortita fideles.\nSunt qui Iudaico cognatum dogma furori\nInstituunt, media Christum ratione secuti:\nHoc tantum quod verus homo est ; at caelitus illum\nAdfirmant non esse Deum; pietate fatentur,\nMaiestate negant: morum pro laude sacratum\nConcelebrant : adimunt naturae summa supernae.\nOmne opus egregium, per quod sollertia pollens\nEmicat, ingenii est, aut roboris: illud acuto\nCorde viget; duris excellit viribus istud.\nMortale est sed utrumque homini : nam cana senescunt\nIngenia, et validos consumunt saecla lacertos.\nHaec nos in Domini virtute et laude perenni\nNon sequimur: sequimur, nullo quod semine terrae\nGerminat, immundum quod non de labe virili\nSumit principium, tener illum seminat ignis:\nNon caro, nec sanguis patrius, nec foeda voluptas.\nIntactam thalami virtus divina puellam\nSincero adflatu per viscera casta maritat:\nIncomperta ortus novitas, iubet ut Deus esse\nCredatur Christus sic conditus. Innuba Virgo\nNubit Spiritui, vitium nec sentit amoris.\nPubertas signata manet, gravis intus, et extra\nIncolumis, florens de fertilitate pudica.\nIam mater, sed virgo tamen, maris inscia mater.","t":"The nobility that is heir, fallen from the ancient faithful,\nis a slave, but no longer noble. Captive, it looks up\nat a recent faith: so great a power is in the new\nbelief. The nation once faithless triumphs, having confessed Christ;\nbut the denier of Christ, conquered,\nis subjected to its rule, having received faithful masters.\nThere are those who establish a doctrine akin to the Jewish madness,\nfollowing Christ by a halfway reasoning:\nonly this, that he is a true man; but they affirm\nthat he is not God from heaven; they confess him for his goodness,\nthey deny his majesty: they celebrate him as consecrated\nfor the praise of his conduct; they take away the highest part, the heavenly nature.\nEvery outstanding work by which powerful skill\nshines out belongs to talent or to strength: the one thrives\nby a sharp heart; the other excels by hard force.\nBut both are mortal for man: for talents grow old and gray,\nand the ages consume strong arms.\nThese things we do not follow in the power and everlasting praise\nof the Lord: we follow what sprouts from no seed of earth,\nwhat takes its beginning not from the unclean stain of man;\na tender fire sows him:\nnot flesh, nor a father’s blood, nor foul pleasure.\nThe divine power weds the girl untouched by the bridal chamber\nwith a pure breath through her chaste womb:\nthe unheard-of newness of the birth bids that Christ,\nso formed, be believed to be God. The unwed Virgin\nis married to the Spirit, and feels no defect of love.\nHer maidenhood remains sealed, heavy within, and without\nunharmed, blooming with chaste fruitfulness.\nNow a mother, yet still a virgin, a mother not knowing a man.","f":"Prudentius, <i>Apoth.</i> 1.541 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 541–570; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-apotheosis/1-541)."},"prudentius-apotheosis/1.571":{"o":"Quid renuis? Quid inane caput, non credule, quassas?\nAngelus hoc Sancto fore nuntiat ore : placetne\nCredere, et angelicis aurem reserare loquelis?\nIpsa coruscantis monitum sacra Virgo ministri\nCredidit, atque ideo concepit credula Christum.\nCredentes nam Christus adit: dubitabile pectus\nSub titubante fide refugo contemnit honore.\nVirginitas et prompta fides Christum bibit alvo\nCordis, et intactis condit paritura latebris.\nCrede quod emissus solio Patris angelus infit.\nVel, si concretus liquidam de sidere vocem\nNon capit auditus, mulier quid coniuge praegnans\nClamet anus, credens et tandem sobrius audi.\nMira fides ! utero puer interceptus anili,\nVirgineum Dominum materno ex ore salutat\nPrimus, et infantem non natus nuntiat infans\nIam nostrum vagire sibi : nam pusio nondum\nNorat, et ora Deo reserabat garrula Christo.\nPromite secretos fastus : date, pandite librum,\nEvomuit, spirante Deo, quem sanctus Esaias.\nPercensere libet, calamique revolvere sulcos,\nSidereis quos illa notis manus aurea duxit.\nIte hinc, dum rutilos apices submissus adoro,\nDum lacrimans veneror, dumque oscula dulcia figo.\nGaudia concipiunt lacrimas, dant gaudia fletum.\nAdvenit promissa dies, quam dixerat iste\nAdfore versiculus, quum Virgo puerpera, teste\nHaud dubie sponso, pacti cui cura pudoris,\nEdidit, Emmanuelque meum me cernere fecit.\nEstne Deus iam noster homo? Versatur et adstat","t":"Why do you refuse? Why do you shake your empty head, unbelieving one?\nThe angel announces with holy mouth that this will be: are you willing\nto believe, and to open your ear to angelic speech?\nThe holy Virgin herself believed the warning of the flashing minister,\nand therefore, believing, conceived Christ.\nFor Christ comes to those who believe: the doubtful heart\nunder wavering faith he scorns, withdrawing the honor.\nVirginity and ready faith drank Christ into the womb\nof the heart, and, about to bear him, hid him in untouched recesses.\nBelieve what the angel, sent from the Father’s throne, says.\nOr, if your dense hearing does not take in the clear voice from the stars,\nhear what an old woman, pregnant by her husband,\ncries out, believing, and at last listen soberly.\nWonderful faith! The child, enclosed in an aged womb,\nis the first to greet the virgin-born Lord from his mother’s mouth,\nand, an infant not yet born, announces that our infant\nis already wailing for him: for the little boy did not yet\nknow [how to speak], and yet opened a chattering mouth to Christ God.\nBring out the secret records: give, open the book\nwhich holy Isaiah poured out as God breathed into him.\nI would like to review it, and to unroll the furrows of the pen\nwhich that golden hand drew with starry marks.\nGo away, while I bow and adore the glowing letters,\nwhile I venerate them in tears, and fix sweet kisses on them.\nJoys conceive tears, joys give weeping.\nThe promised day has come, which that little verse\nhad said would come, when the Virgin in childbirth,\nwith her betrothed as witness beyond doubt, who cared for the modesty of the pact,\nbrought forth, and made me see my Emmanuel.\nIs God now our man? He dwells and stands","f":"Prudentius, <i>Apoth.</i> 1.571 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 571–600; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-apotheosis/1-571)."},"prudentius-apotheosis/1.601":{"o":"Nobiscum, nomenque probat; versumque vetustis\nObscurum saeclis praesenti inluminat ore.\nEstne Deus, cuius cunas veneratus Eous,\nLancibus auratis regalia fercula supplex\nVirginis ad gremium pannis puerilibus offert?\nQuis tam pinnatus rapidoque simillimus austro\nNuntius, aurorae populos, atque ultima Bactra\nAttigit, inluxisse diem lactantibus horis,\nQua tener innupto penderet ab ubere Christus?\nVidimus hunc, aiunt, puerum per sidera ferri,\nEt super antiquos signorum ardescere tractus.\nDiriguit trepidans Chaldaeo in vertice pernox\nAstrologus, cessisse anguem, fugisse leonem;\nContraxisse pedes lateris manco ordine Cancrum;\nCornibus infractis domitum mugire iuvencum,\nSidus et Hircinum laceris marcescere villis.\nLabitur hinc pulsus Puer hydrius; inde Sagitta ;\nPalantes Geminos fuga separat : improba Virgo\nProdit amatores tacitos in fornice mundi.\nQuique alii horrificis pendent in nubibus ignes,\nLuciferum timuere novum: rota lurida solis\nHaeret, et excidium sentit iam iamque futurum,\nSeque die medio velandam tegmine glauco,\nSplendoremque poli periturum nocte diurna,\nOrbe repentinis caput obnubente tenebris.\nHunc ego non cumulem myrrhaeque et turis et auri\nMuneribus ? Scio, quem videam, quae dona rependam.\nHunc ego non venerer? qui caelo visus, humique\nInventus rex, atque Deus moderatur utrumque\nNaturae specimen, tumuloque inferna refringens","t":"with us, and proves his name; and with his present face\nhe lights up the verse that was obscure to ancient ages.\nIs he God, whose cradle the man of the East venerated,\nand, suppliant, offers royal dishes on gilded plates\nto the Virgin’s lap and the child’s swaddling clothes?\nWhat messenger so winged and so like the swift south wind\nreached the peoples of the dawn and farthest Bactra,\nthat the day had shone out, in the hours of suckling,\non which tender Christ hung on an unwed breast?\n“We saw this boy,” they say, “carried through the stars,\nand blazing above the ancient tracts of the constellations.”\nThe astrologer, awake all night on a Chaldean height, stiffened in fear\nthat the serpent had yielded, the lion had fled,\nthe Crab had drawn in his feet in a maimed order of his side,\nthe Bull, tamed, his horns broken, bellowed,\nand the star of the Goat withered with torn hair.\nHere the Water-boy slips away, driven out; there the Arrow;\nflight separates the wandering Twins; the shameless Virgin\nbetrays her silent lovers in the vault of the world.\nAnd the other fires that hang in the dreadful clouds\nfeared the new Morning Star: the pale wheel of the sun\nsticks, and feels destruction about to come at any moment,\nand that it will be veiled at midday with a gray covering,\nand the brightness of the sky will perish in a night by day,\nas sudden darkness clouds its head and orb.\nShall I not heap on him gifts of myrrh and incense and gold?\nI know whom I see, what gifts I should give back.\nShall I not venerate him, who, seen in heaven and found\non earth as king and God, governs both\nforms of nature, and, breaking the kingdoms of the underworld from the tomb,","f":"Prudentius, <i>Apoth.</i> 1.601 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 601–630; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-apotheosis/1-601)."},"prudentius-apotheosis/1.61":{"o":"Stringere mortiferi vitalia germina ligni.\nQuandoquidem tristes purgantur sanguine culpae.\nErgo nihil visum, nisi quod sub carne videndum\nLumen, imago Dei, Verbum Deus, et Deus ignis,\nQui sentem nostri peccaminis corporis implet.\nNam lucis Genitor, Verbi sator, auctor et ignis\nCreditur extra oculos, ut Apostolus edocet auctor :\nQui negat intuitu fontem deitatis adiri :\nCredite, nemo Deum vidit, mihi credite, nemo.\nVisibilis de fonte Deus, non ipse Dei fons\nVisibilis, cerni potis est qui nascitur, at non\nInnatus cerni potis est: latet os Patris illud,\nUnde Deus: qui visibilem se praestitit olim,\nTale aliquid formans in sese, quale secuta est\nPassio, quae corpus sibi vindicat; ardua nam vis\nEst impassibilis ; quoniam natura superni\nIgnis ad horrificas nescit descendere poenas,\nNec capit humanis angoribus excruciari,\nPura, serena, micans, liquido praelibera motu,\nSubdita nec cuiquam, dominatrix utpote rerum :\nCui non principium de tempore, sed super omne\nTempus, et ante diem maiestas cum Patre summo,\nImmo animus Patris, et ratio, et via consiliorum,\nQuae non facta manu, nec voce creata iubentis,\nProtulit imperium patrio ructata profundo.\nHanc igitur non flagra secant, non sputa salivis\nAdspergunt, alapis non vexat palma relisis,\nNec perfossa cruci clavorum vulnera figunt.\nHis adfecta caro est hominis, quam femina praegnans","t":"gathering the life-giving shoots of the death-bearing tree,\nsince sad sins are cleansed by blood.\nSo nothing was seen except what was to be seen under flesh:\nthe Light, the image of God, the Word, God, and God fire,\nwho fills the bramble of our body’s sin.\nFor the begetter of light, the sower of the Word, the author of the fire too\nis believed to be beyond the eyes, as the Apostle, the authority, teaches,\nwho denies that the fountain of the godhead can be approached by sight:\nbelieve, no one has seen God; believe me, no one.\nGod from the fountain is visible; the fountain of God itself\nis not visible: he who is born can be seen, but\nthe unborn cannot be seen: that mouth of the Father is hidden\nfrom which God comes; who once made himself visible,\nforming in himself something like what followed,\nthe passion, which claims a body for itself; for the lofty power\nis impassible, since the nature of the heavenly fire\nknows not how to descend to dreadful punishments,\nnor can it be tortured by human anguish,\npure, serene, flashing, free in clear motion,\nsubject to no one, as mistress of things:\nwhich has no beginning from time, but is a majesty above all\ntime, and before the day, with the supreme Father;\nnay rather, the Father’s mind and reason and the way of his counsels,\nwhich, not made by hand nor created by the voice of one commanding,\nbrought forth his command, uttered from the Father’s depth.\nThis, then, no scourges cut, no spittle sprinkles,\nno palm harasses with dashing slaps,\nno wounds of nails pierce it on the cross.\nThese things affected the flesh of the man, which a pregnant woman","f":"Prudentius, <i>Apoth.</i> 1.61 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 61–90; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-apotheosis/1-61)."},"prudentius-apotheosis/1.631":{"o":"Regna, resurgentes secum iubet ire sepultos?\nCaelum habitat, terris intervenit, abdita rumpit\nTartara. Vera fides; Deus est, qui totus ubique est.\nNumquid vana viros aut mens aut lingua fefellit?\nNumquid fortuitis frustrantia dona dederunt\nCasibus? aut caeco votum sub honore dicarunt?\nQuae porro caussa aut ratio, submittere colla\nAnte pedes Mariae, puerique crepundia parvi;\nSi tantum mortalis erat, nec summa potestas\nImplebat teneros divinis flatibus artus?\nSed iam tolle Magos, tus, aurum, myrrhea dona,\nQuae verum docuere Deum: praesepia, pannos,\nMatris adoratum gremium, facem sideris ardens:\nIpsa Deum virtus, factorum et mira loquantur.\nInsanos video subito mitescere ventos\nQuum iubeat Christus : video luctantia magnis\nAequora turbinibus tranquillo marmore tendi\nImperio Christi : video calcatus eumdem\nQuum patitur gurges tergum solidante liquore.\nIpse super fluidas plantis nitentibus undas\nAmbulat, ac presso firmat vestigia fluctu :\nIncrepat ipse notos, et flatibus otia mandat.\nQuis iubeat saevis Aquilonibus, Ite, silete\nCarceribus vestris, amploque facessite ponto,\nSit nisi Caelipotens, Aquilonum conditor idem?\nNinguidus agnoscit Boreas, atque imbrifer Eurus\nNimborum dominum, tempestatumque potentem;\nExcitamque hiemem verrunt ridente sereno.\nQuis pelagi calcarit aquas? quis per vada glauca\nGressibus impressis spatiatus triverit udum","t":"bids the buried rise and go with him?\nHe dwells in heaven, comes among the earth, bursts the hidden\nunderworld. True is the faith: he is God, who is wholly everywhere.\nDid a vain mind or tongue deceive those men?\nDid they give gifts frustrated by chance events,\nor dedicate a vow under a blind honor?\nWhat cause then, or reason, was there to bow their necks\nbefore the feet of Mary and the rattles of the little boy,\nif he was only mortal, and the highest power\ndid not fill his tender limbs with divine breaths?\nBut now take away the Magi, the incense, the gold, the gifts of myrrh,\nwhich taught that he is true God; the manger, the swaddling clothes,\nthe adored lap of the mother, the burning torch of the star:\nlet his very power and the wonders of his deeds speak God.\nI see the mad winds suddenly grow gentle\nwhen Christ commands; I see seas struggling with great\nwhirlwinds stretched into a tranquil marble surface\nat Christ’s command; I see the same flood allow itself\nto be trodden, its liquid making its back solid.\nHe himself walks over the flowing waves with shining feet,\nand makes his footsteps firm on the pressed wave;\nhe himself rebukes the winds, and orders rest to the blasts.\nWho would command the savage North Winds, “Go, be silent\nin your prisons, and withdraw from the wide sea,”\nunless he be the Lord of heaven, the same who founded the North Winds?\nSnowy Boreas and rainy Eurus recognize\nthe lord of the storm clouds and the master of tempests,\nand sweep away the roused winter as the clear sky smiles.\nWho could tread the waters of the sea? Who, walking about\nthrough the gray shallows with pressed steps, could wear the wet","f":"Prudentius, <i>Apoth.</i> 1.631 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 631–660; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-apotheosis/1-631)."},"prudentius-apotheosis/1.661":{"o":"Non submersus iter, sola pendulus, et pede siccus,\nAequoreae nisi factor aquae? qui Spiritus olim\nOre superfusus patrio volitabat in undis\nNondum discretis, nec certo litore clausis.\nSustinuit gressum domini famulus liquor, ac se,\nMobilitate carens, solidos substrinxit ad usus.\nQuid diversa Dei memorem facta inclita Christi,\nAltius inspecta quem maiestate, negator,\nHaud dubitans hominem, tute ipse fatebere Numen?\nInlevit caecos oculos, et lumina limo\nReddidit, humectam sacro sputamine terram\nContrectans digitis. Luteum medicamen operta\nNox habuit ; tenebras obducta uligo removit.\nInsuper ostendit quonam caligo lavacro\nExpurganda foret: variis Siloa refundit\nMomentis latices, nec fluctum semper anhelat,\nSed vice distincta largos lacus accipit haustus.\nAgmina languentum sitiunt spem fontis avari,\nMembrorum maculas puro ablutura natatu.\nCertatim interea roranti pumice raucas\nExspectant scatebras, et sicco margine pendent.\nHoc limum iubet impositum de fonte lavari\nChristus, et infusa vultum splendescere luce.\nNorat enim limo sese informasse figuram\nAnte tenebrosam, proprii medicamen et oris\nAdiecisse novo, quem primum finxerat, Adae.\nNam sine divino Domini perflamine summi\nArida terra fuit, nulli prius apta medelae:\nSed postquam liquidus caelesti Spiritus ore","t":"road without sinking, hanging on his soles, and dry of foot,\nunless the maker of the sea’s water? he who once, as Spirit,\npoured forth from the Father’s mouth, hovered over the waters\nnot yet separated, nor enclosed by a fixed shore.\nThe liquid, as a servant, bore its master’s step, and,\nlacking motion, bound itself for solid use.\nWhy should I recall the various famous deeds of God the Christ,\nwhom you, denier, though you do not doubt he is man,\nwill yourself confess to be divine when his majesty is examined more deeply?\nHe smeared blind eyes, and gave back sight by clay,\nhandling with his fingers earth moistened with holy spittle.\nThe covered night held the clay remedy;\nthe moisture spread over it removed the darkness.\nMoreover he showed in what washing the darkness\nwas to be cleansed: Siloam pours back its waters\nat various moments, nor does it always pant with a flow,\nbut by distinct turns its pool receives abundant draughts.\nThe crowds of the sick thirst for the hope of the greedy fountain,\nto wash away the blemishes of their limbs by a pure swim.\nMeanwhile, vying with one another, they await the hoarse springs\nfrom the dripping pumice, and hang on the dry edge.\nChrist bids this clay, put on, to be washed in the fountain,\nand the face to shine with light poured in.\nFor he knew that he had formed the figure from clay\nbefore, in darkness, and had added the remedy of his own mouth\nto the new Adam whom he had first fashioned.\nFor without the divine breath of the supreme Lord\nthe earth was dry, fit before for no healing:\nbut after the clear Spirit from the heavenly mouth","f":"Prudentius, <i>Apoth.</i> 1.661 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 661–690; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-apotheosis/1-661)."},"prudentius-apotheosis/1.691":{"o":"Virgineam respersit humum, medicabilis illa est.\nInde trahit succum, lentoque humore salutem\nImbuit, infunditque diem baptismate lota.\nCaecus adest, oculis iam Christi ex ore retectis,\nSeque luto et nitidis lucem sumpsisse fluentis\nClamat, et auctorem stupefacta per oppida monstrat:\nAuctorem lucis, largitoremque dierum,\nNon dedignatum medicae purgamen aquai\nCorpore sub proprio monstrare errantibus aegris.\nMillibus ex multis paucissima quaeque retexam,\nPaullatim relegens, totus quae non capit orbis.\nQuinque in deserto panes iubet, et duo pisces\nAdponi in pastum populis, qui forte magistrum,\nNon revocante fame, stipabant undique saeptum,\nImmemoresque cibi, vicos, castella, macellum,\nOppida, mercatus, et conciliabula, et urbes\nRespuerant, largo contenti dogmate vesci.\nMulta virum strato fervent convivia feno,\nCentenos simul accubitus iniere sodales;\nSeque per innumeras infundunt agmina mensas,\nPisciculis (iam crede Deum) saturanda duobus,\nEt paucis, crescente cibo, per fragmina crustis.\nAmbesis dapibus cumulatim adgesta redundant\nFercula, bissenos micarum molibus implent\nPost cenam cophinos : crudus conviva resudat\nCongeriem ventris, gemit et sub fasce minister.\nQuis cumulare potest epulas in grandia parvas?\nQuis, nisi qui corpus, pastum quoque corporis omnem\nCondens ex nihilo, nulla exsistente creavit\nMundum materia? non sicut sculptor ab aeris","t":"sprinkled the virgin ground, it became able to heal.\nFrom there it draws sap, and steeps health with sticky moisture,\nand, washed in baptism, pours in daylight.\nThe blind man is here, his eyes now uncovered by Christ’s mouth,\nand he cries that he has taken light from clay and shining streams,\nand shows the author through the astonished towns:\nthe author of light and the giver of days,\nwho did not disdain to show the cleansing of healing water\nin his own body to the sick who wander.\nOf the many thousands I shall recount a very few,\ngoing over little by little the things the whole world cannot hold.\nIn the desert he bids five loaves and two fishes\nbe set out as food for the peoples who, as it happened,\nwith hunger not calling them back, were crowding round their master on every side,\nand, forgetful of food, had spurned villages, forts, market,\ntowns, fairs, gatherings and cities,\ncontent to feed on abundant teaching.\nMany banquets of men seethe on the strewn hay;\ncompanions lay down in hundreds at a time;\nand the crowds pour themselves through countless tables,\nto be filled (now believe him God) by two little fishes\nand a few loaves, the food growing through the fragments.\nWhen the feast is eaten, the dishes overflow heaped up;\nafter supper they fill twelve baskets with masses of crumbs:\nthe guest, overfed, sweats out the heap in his belly,\nand the servant groans under the load.\nWho can heap small food into great?\nWho, but he who, founding from nothing the body and all the body’s food,\ncreated the world with no matter existing?\nNot as a sculptor from the rubble of bronze","f":"Prudentius, <i>Apoth.</i> 1.691 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 691–720; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-apotheosis/1-691)."},"prudentius-apotheosis/1.721":{"o":"Rudere decoctam consuescit vivere massam.\nSed Deus omnipotens orbem sine semine finxit.\nNil erat omne quod est: nil id procedere et esse,\nAtque novum fieri, mox et grandescere, iussum est.\nParvum de nihilo primum fuit: addita parvo\nIncrementa modis auxerunt omnia plenis.\nErgo ego quum videam manibus sic crescere Christi\nParva alimenta hominum, possum dubitare per ipsum\nExiguas rerum species, elementaque mundi\nEx nihilo primum modica, et mox grandia sensim\nCrevisse, ex modicis quae consummata videmus?\nAc ne post hominum pastus calcata perirent,\nNeve relicta lupis, aut vulpibus, exiguisve\nMuribus in praedam nullo custode iacerent :\nBis sex adpositi, cumulatim qui bona Christi\nServarent gravidis procul ostentata canistris.\nSed quid ego haec autem titubanti voce retexo,\nIndignus qui sancta canam ? Procede sepulcro,\nLazare, dic, cuius vocem tellure sub ima\nAudieris: quae vis penetraverit abdita leti,\nQuod, quum te Christus penitus nigrante profundo\nImmersum vocat, ut redeas, ceu proximus audis,\nNec remoratus ades? Quae tam vicina Charybdis\nRegna tenebrarum tenui distantia fine\nConiungit superis ? ubi Taenara tristia vasto\nIn praeceps deiecta chao, latebrosus et ille\nAmnis inexpletis volvens incendia ripis?\nAnte fores tumuli, quas saxa immania duro\nObice damnarant, scopulis substructa cavatis,\nStat Dominus, nomenque ciet frigentis amici.","t":"is accustomed to make a mass, smelted down, come alive.\nBut almighty God fashioned the world without seed.\nAll that is was nothing: that nothing was ordered to come forth and to be,\nand to be made new, and soon to grow great.\nAt first there was a little from nothing: increases added to the little\nenlarged all things to full measure.\nSo when I see small food for men thus growing\nin the hands of Christ, can I doubt that through him\nthe tiny forms of things and the elements of the world,\nat first small from nothing, and soon little by little great,\ngrew, which we see completed from small beginnings?\nAnd lest, after men’s meal, the remains should perish trampled,\nor lie as prey, left with no guard, to wolves or foxes\nor little mice,\ntwelve were appointed to keep in heaped-up abundance\nthe goods of Christ, displayed far off in laden baskets.\nBut why do I recount these things with stammering voice,\nunworthy to sing holy things? Come forth from the tomb,\nLazarus, tell whose voice you heard beneath the lowest earth;\nwhat power penetrated the hidden places of death,\nthat, when Christ calls you to return, though you were deeply sunk\nin the darkening abyss, you hear as if he were close by,\nand are present without delay? What so near Charybdis\njoins to the world above the kingdoms of darkness, separated\nby a thin boundary? where grim Taenarus is cast headlong\ninto the vast chaos, and that hidden river\nrolling fires with insatiable banks?\nBefore the doors of the tomb, which huge rocks had condemned\nwith a hard bar, built up of hollowed stones,\nstands the Lord, and calls the name of his cold friend.","f":"Prudentius, <i>Apoth.</i> 1.721 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 721–750; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-apotheosis/1-721)."},"prudentius-apotheosis/1.751":{"o":"Nec mora : funereus revolutis rupibus horror\nEvomit exsequias gradiente cadavere vivas.\nSolvite iam laetae redolentia vincla sorores,\nSolus odor sparsi spiramen aromatis efflat,\nNec de corporeo nidorem sordida tabo\nAura refert, oculos sanie stillante solutos\nPristinus in speculum decor excitat, et putrefactas\nTincta rubore genas paullatim purpura vestit.\nQuis potuit fluidis animam suffundere membris?\nNimirum qui membra dedit; qui fictilis ulvae\nPerflavit venam madidam; cui tabida gleba\nTraxit sanguineos infecto humore colores.\nO mors, auritis iam mitis legibus? o mors\nSurda prius, iam docta sequi quocumque iubetur,\nCui tantum de te licuit? convicta fatere\nEsse Deum, solus qui me tibi praeripit, Iesum.\nAbde negatores Christi : nemo invidet, abde :\nUtere sorte tua. Blasphemis nocte tenendis\nPerpetua, plebem iustorum capta resolve :\nQui norunt hominem, atque Deum sic dicere Christum,\nUt verus, summusque Deus mortalia gestet.\nIpse gerit, quod struxit opus, nec ferre pudescit\nFactor, quod peperit: corpus loquor, atque animae vim.\nFinxerat hoc digitis, animam sufflaverat ore.\nTotum hominem Deus adsumit, quia totus ab ipso est,\nEt totum redimit, quem sumpserat; omne reducens,\nQuidquid homo est : istud tumulis, ast illud abysso.\nOccurrit dubitans hic dissertator, et illud\nObiicit: anne fides capit, ut substantia flante\nInspirata Deo cruciatum sentiat, utque","t":"Without delay the funereal horror, its rocks rolled back,\nvomits out a living funeral, the corpse walking.\nLoosen now, glad sisters, the fragrant bonds;\nonly the smell of the sprinkled spice breathes out its breath,\nnor does the filthy air bring back a reek\nfrom bodily corruption; the former beauty rouses the eyes,\nloosened with dripping gore, into seeing again, and purple\nlittle by little clothes the rotted cheeks, tinged with red.\nWho could pour back the soul into the flowing limbs?\nSurely he who gave the limbs; who breathed through the moist vein\nof the clay sedge; for whom the wasting clod\ndrew blood-red colors with infused moisture.\nO death, now gentle with laws that listen? O death,\ndeaf before, now taught to follow wherever you are commanded,\nwho had such power over you? Conquered, confess\nthat Jesus is God, who alone snatches me from you.\nHide away the deniers of Christ: no one grudges it, hide them:\nuse your lot. Keep the blasphemers in perpetual night,\nbut release the captured people of the righteous,\nwho know how to call Christ man and God in such a way\nthat the true and supreme God bears mortal things.\nHe himself bears the work he built, nor is the maker\nashamed to bear what he brought forth: I mean the body, and the force of the soul.\nHe had fashioned the one with his fingers, breathed the soul with his mouth.\nGod assumes the whole man, because the whole man is from him,\nand redeems the whole whom he had assumed, bringing back all\nthat man is: the one from the tombs, the other from the abyss.\nHere a doubting disputant meets me and objects this:\ndoes faith admit that a substance inspired by God’s breath\nshould feel torture, and that","f":"Prudentius, <i>Apoth.</i> 1.751 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 751–780; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-apotheosis/1-751)."},"prudentius-apotheosis/1.781":{"o":"Inferni petat ima poli, barathroque coquatur?\nCrede animam non esse Deum, sed crede creatis\nMaiorem cunctis: ipsam quoque crede creatam.\nFormata est namque ore Dei, quae non erat ante :\nSed formata habitu pulcherrima, pictaque rebus\nDivinis, et plena Deo, similisque creanti :\nNon tamen ipsa Deus, quoniam generatio non est,\nSed factura Dei est: solus de corde Parentis\nFilius emicuit : verus, verus Deus ille.\nConlatum est animae, subito ut, quae non erat, esset,\nIlle coaeternus Patris est, et semper in ipso,\nNec factus, sed natus habet quodcumque paternum est,\nHaec similis, velut umbra, Dei est. Sic ipse locutus\nFactor, utroque hominem meditans de figmine iunctim\nAedificare sui similem; sed non habet umbra\nQuod corpus solidum, cuius imitatio in umbra est:\nAtque aliud verum est, aliud simulatio veri.\nEst similis, saeclis quod non consumitur ullis:\nQuod sapiens, iustique capax, reginaque rerum\nImperat; ante videt, perpendit, praecavet, infit,\nArtibus et caelum sensu percurrere docta:\nHis animam similem sibi Conditor effigiavit,\nCetera dissimilem : quippe hanc comprendere promptum est,\nQuam modus et species determinat : at Deus ingens\nAtque superfusus trans omnia, nil habet in se\nExtremum, ut claudi valeat, sensuve teneri,\nIncomprensa manet virtus, cui linea deficit\nUltima, quam spatium non mensurabile tendit.\nErgo animam factam, magno et factore minorem,","t":"it should seek the depths of the infernal pole, and be cooked in the abyss?\nBelieve that the soul is not God, but believe that it is greater\nthan all created things: believe that it too was created.\nFor it was formed by the mouth of God, and did not exist before;\nbut it was formed most beautiful in its condition, and painted with divine\nthings, and full of God, and like its creator:\nyet not itself God, since it is not a begetting,\nbut it is the making of God: from the heart of the Parent\nthe Son alone flashed forth: he is true, true God.\nIt was conferred on the soul that it should suddenly be, which was not;\nhe is co-eternal with the Father, and always in him,\nnot made, but born, he has whatever is the Father’s;\nthe soul is like God as a shadow is. So the Maker himself spoke,\nplanning to build man from both materials joined\nin his own likeness; but a shadow does not have\nwhat the solid body has, whose imitation is in the shadow:\nand the true is one thing, the imitation of the true another.\nIt is like him in that it is not consumed by any ages;\nin that it is wise and capable of justice, and as queen of things\ncommands; it foresees, weighs, takes precautions, speaks,\ntaught to run through heaven with its sense and arts:\nin these the Founder fashioned the soul like himself,\nunlike in the rest: for it is easy to grasp it,\nsince measure and form bound it: but God, immense\nand poured out beyond all things, has nothing in himself\nthat is a limit, so that he could be enclosed or held by sense;\nhis power remains ungrasped, for which the last line is lacking,\nwhich a space not measurable stretches.\nSo the soul, made, and less than its great maker,","f":"Prudentius, <i>Apoth.</i> 1.781 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 781–810; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-apotheosis/1-781)."},"prudentius-apotheosis/1.811":{"o":"Maioremque aliis, atque omnibus imperitantem,\nCorruptela putris nascentem turbida carnis\nConcipit, ac membris tabentibus interfusam\nParticipat de faece sua : fit mixta deinde\nPeccandi natura luto, cum simplice flatu;\nSed fortasse animam, Domini quia fluxit ab ore,\nCompositam factamque neges, velut ipsa Dei pars,\n(Quod dictu scelus est) taetras trahat oblita culpas,\nEt pessum damnata ruens chaos intret opertum.\nSit res illa Dei ; non abnuo : pars tamen illa\nHaudquaquam dicenda Dei est, quae tempore coepit.\nNec prior, aut senior, quam primum plasma, putanda est.\nTunc etenim factam video, quum cordis amici\nIntravit germana domum, limique recentis\nHospita, et ipsa recens fraterna sedit in aula.\nIlla quidem flatus Domini est : sed spiritus et vis\nNon est plena Dei, tanto moderamine missa,\nQuanto flans voluit flandi servare tenorem.\nEst impossibile spectare profunda Sabaoth:\nSed speculum deitatis homo est. In corpore discas\nRem non corpoream sollers, interprete Christo,\nQui Patrem proprium mortali in corpore monstrat.\nPerspice quam varios fundamus ab ore vapores,\nSpiramus quoties animae sufflabilis auras:\nNunc flatum tepidum calor exhalatus anhelat,\nRorantes nebulas udis de faucibus efflans :\nQuum libet, in gelidum flabrali frigore ventum","t":"and greater than the others, and ruling over all,\nthe turbid corruption of rotting flesh conceives\nas it is born, and, poured into wasting limbs,\ngives it a share of its own dregs: then the nature of sinning\nis mixed with clay, together with the simple breath.\nBut perhaps, because the soul flowed from the mouth of the Lord,\nyou would deny that it was put together and made, as though it were a part of God\nthat (it is a crime to say it) drags foul sins, forgetful of itself,\nand, condemned, rushes to ruin and enters the hidden chaos.\nLet it be a thing of God; I do not deny it: yet it is by no means\nto be called a part of God, since it began in time.\nNor is it to be thought earlier or older than the first-formed creature.\nFor I see it made at the time when, as a sister, it entered the house\nof its friendly heart, and, guest of the fresh clay,\nitself fresh, sat in the brotherly hall.\nIt is indeed the breath of the Lord: but it is not the full\nspirit and power of God, sent with only so much measure\nas the breather wished to keep in the tenor of his breathing.\nIt is impossible to look on the depths of Sabaoth:\nbut man is the mirror of the deity. In the body you may learn,\nif you are skilful, a thing not bodily, with Christ as interpreter,\nwho shows his own Father in a mortal body.\nLook how varied are the vapors we pour from our mouth,\nas often as we breathe the breezes of the breathable soul:\nnow exhaled heat pants a warm breath,\nblowing out dewy mists from moist throats;\nwhen it pleases, into a cold wind with a breezy chill","f":"Prudentius, <i>Apoth.</i> 1.811 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 811–840; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-apotheosis/1-811)."},"prudentius-apotheosis/1.841":{"o":"Spiritus exsistit tenuis, et sibilat aer.\nAdde et distinctum, quem musica tibia flatum\nConcipit; aut ille est presso modulamine parcus,\nAut tumidum largo sublimat flamine bombum,\nAut raucus frangit modulos, aut lene susurrat,\nAut exile trahens sonitus producit acutos,\nAut murmur tenerum sublidit voce minuta.\nHaec quum te videas mortali in corpore posse,\nCur non Aeternum potuisse infundere credas,\nQualem animam voluit? praescriptis quam quia condens\nEfflavit, fuditque modis, sit facta necesse est.\nDenique multa sapit, sed non sapit omnia, nostrae\nVis animae, certum sapere ac praenoscere iussa.\nIam, cui certus inest modus, et cui nosse negatum est\nOmnia, factura est: nam condita et aucta probatur.\nCollige de simili, sitne haec factura. Creavit\nNempe manus Domini corpus mortale, lutumque\nComposuit digitis: numquid manus articulatim\nEst digesta Dei? numquid vola? numquid et ungues\nClaudere flexibiles? patulam seu tendere palmam?\nIsta figura manus nostrae est, quam non habet in se\nIncircumscriptus Dominus : sed tradita forma est,\nHumanis quae nota animis daret intellectum,\nUt per corpoream speciem plasmasse feratur\nCorporis effigiem: sic est plasmata vicissim\nFlatu incorporeo res flabilis, oris et esse\nFertur opus, tenuis per quod constructa refulsit\nForma animae, atque rudi factam se munere sensit.\nSi non est factura manus caro nostra ; nec oris\nEst factura anima, flatu et spiramine coepta;","t":"a thin breath comes forth, and the air hisses.\nAdd too the distinct breath which the musical pipe\ntakes in: either it is sparing with pressed melody,\nor it raises a swelling boom with abundant blast,\nor, hoarse, it breaks the measures, or whispers gently,\nor, drawing thin, it produces sharp sounds,\nor it lowers a tender murmur with a tiny voice.\nSince you see that you can do these things in a mortal body,\nwhy should you not believe that the Eternal could pour in\nsuch a soul as he willed? Since, founding it, he breathed it out\nand poured it in prescribed measures, it must be made.\nIn short, the force of our soul knows many things, but not all,\nbidden to know and foreknow a fixed amount.\nNow that which has a fixed measure, and which is denied knowledge\nof all things, is a thing made: for it is shown to be founded and increased.\nGather from a like case whether this is a thing made. The Lord’s hand\ncreated, indeed, the mortal body, and put together the clay\nwith his fingers: is God’s hand divided into joints?\nhas it a palm? has it nails, able to bend and close,\nor to stretch out an open palm?\nThat is the figure of our hand, which the uncircumscribed Lord\ndoes not have in himself: but a form has been handed down\nwhich, known to human minds, might give understanding,\nso that he is said to have formed the likeness of a body\nthrough a bodily appearance: so in turn a breathable thing\nwas formed by an incorporeal breath, and is said\nto be the work of his mouth, through which the slender form\nof the soul, built, shone out and felt itself made by an unwrought gift.\nIf our flesh is not the work of his hand, neither is the soul\nthe work of his mouth, begun by breath and breathing,","f":"Prudentius, <i>Apoth.</i> 1.841 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 841–870; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-apotheosis/1-841)."},"prudentius-apotheosis/1.871":{"o":"Inque locum deducta aliquem: namque omne quod hora\nNatalis profert, locus accipit: et locus ullus\nQuod cohibere potest, modicum est, nec in omnia fusum.\nEt quod tam modicum est, ut certa sede locetur,\nIam titubare potest, et quod titubaverit, intra\nNaturam vitii est : vitiosum denique tristem\nRecidit in poenam : Deus hoc, mihi credite, non est.\nAut, si maiestas animae est, ostendite quid sit,\nQuod lapsam, Christique inopem nova gratia inundat,\nSpiritus et Sanctus baptismate iustificatam\nNobilitat, famulaeque decus, quod defuit, addit.\nQuod quia praestatur meritis, meritisque negatur,\nAbsurde fertur Deus, aut pars esse Dei, quae\nDivinum, summumque bonum de fonte perenni\nNunc bibit obsequio, nunc culpa, aut crimine perdit;\nEt modo supplicium recipit, modo libera calcat.\nMiraris peccare animam, quae carne coactam\nSortita est habitare domum, quum peccet et ipse\nAngelus, hospitium qui nescit adire caducum\nCratis tabifluae? Peccat, quia factus et ipse est,\nNon genitus : quocumque modo sit factus, id unus\nScit factor Dominus: factum mihi credere sat sit.\nSolus labe caret peccati Conditor orbis,\nIngenitus, genitusque Deus, Pater, et Patre natus,\nSolus et, exceptus tormentum admittere triste,\nInviolatus agit, nec quidquam sentit acerbi.\nExsortem dic esse animam crucis atque doloris,\nSi culpae immunem, vacuamque a crimine nosti:\nQuae peccare valet, valet et succumbere poenae.\nIpsa quidem sincera fuit, dum conditur olim,","t":"and brought down into some place: for everything which the hour\nof birth brings forth, a place receives; and what any place\ncan contain is limited, not poured out into all things.\nAnd what is so limited that it is set in a fixed seat\ncan now totter, and what has tottered is within\nthe nature of fault; and, faulty, it at last falls\ninto sad punishment: this, believe me, is not God.\nOr, if the soul has majesty, show me what it means\nthat new grace floods it when fallen and without Christ,\nand the Holy Spirit ennobles it, justified by baptism,\nand adds to the handmaid the glory she lacked.\nSince this is granted to merits, and denied to merits,\nit is absurd to call God, or part of God, that which\nnow drinks the divine and highest good from the everlasting fountain\nby obedience, now loses it by fault or crime,\nand now receives punishment, now treads it underfoot, free.\nDo you wonder that the soul sins, which has been allotted\nto dwell in a house compacted of flesh, when even an angel sins,\nwho knows not how to enter the perishable lodging\nof a wasting frame? He sins because he too was made,\nnot begotten: in whatever way he was made, the one Maker,\nthe Lord, knows; let it be enough for me to believe he was made.\nOnly the Founder of the world is without the stain of sin,\nGod unbegotten and begotten, Father, and born of the Father;\nand he alone, exempt from admitting sad torment,\nlives inviolate, and feels nothing bitter.\nCall the soul exempt from torture and pain,\nif you know it to be immune from fault and free of crime:\nwhat can sin can also succumb to punishment.\nIt was indeed pure, when it was once founded,","f":"Prudentius, <i>Apoth.</i> 1.871 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 871–900; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-apotheosis/1-871)."},"prudentius-apotheosis/1.901":{"o":"Quae conlata rudem fecit vivescere limum:\nUtpote de liquido naturae semine primos\nAccipiens habitus, superoque expressa sereno.\nSed mox, ut gravido iussa est innectier arvo,\nSuavibus illecebris nimium blandita refrixit,\nDeque volutabris pretiosum polluit ignem,\nDum transgressa Dei positum fas improba calcat.\nHaec prima est natura animae : sic condita simplex\nDecidit in vitium per sordida foedera carnis.\nExin tincta malo peccamine principis Adae,\nInfecit genus omne hominum, quod pullulat inde :\nEt tenet ingenitas animarum infantia in ortu\nPrimi hominis maculas, nec quisquam nascitur insons.\nVitandus tamen error erit, ne traduce carnis\nTransfundi in subolem credatur fons animarum\nSanguinis exemplo, cui texta propagine vena est.\nNon animas animae pariunt, sed lege latenti\nFundit opus natura suum, quod parvula anhelent\nVascula, vitalisque adsit scintilla coactis,\nQuae quamvis infusa novum penetret nova semper\nFigmentum, vetus illa tamen de crimine avorum\nDucitur, inloto quoniam concreta veterno est.\nInde secunda redit generatio, et inde lavatur\nNaturae inluvies, iterumque renascimur intus\nPerfusi, ut veterem splendens anima exuat Adam.\nQuae quia materiam peccati ex fomite carnis\nConsociata trahit, nec non simul ipsa sodali\nEst incentivum peccaminis, implicat ambas\nVindex poena reas, peccantes mente sub una,\nPeccandique cremat socias cruciatibus aequis.","t":"which, when bestowed, made the rough clay come alive,\nas it received its first condition from the clear seed\nof nature, and was formed from the serene heaven above.\nBut soon, when it was bidden to be bound to the heavy field,\ntoo much flattered by sweet enticements, it grew cold,\nand defiled the precious fire with wallowing,\nwhile, transgressing, it wickedly trampled on God’s established law.\nThis is the first nature of the soul: so founded simple,\nit fell into vice through the filthy covenant of the flesh.\nThen, stained by the evil sin of the first man Adam,\nit infected the whole race of men that sprouts from there;\nand the infancy of souls holds at birth the inborn\nstains of the first man, nor is anyone born innocent.\nYet the error must be avoided of believing that by a shoot of the flesh\nthe fountain of souls is poured into the offspring,\nafter the pattern of blood, whose vein is woven by propagation.\nSouls do not beget souls, but by a hidden law\nnature pours out its work, so that the little vessels breathe,\nand a living spark is present in what has been compacted;\nwhich, though, poured in, it is always new as it enters a new\ncreature, is yet drawn old from the crime of the forefathers,\nsince it is bound up with unwashed old decay.\nFrom there the second generation returns, and from there\nthe filth of nature is washed, and we are reborn within,\nbathed, so that the soul, shining, puts off the old Adam.\nAnd since, joined to the flesh, the soul draws the matter of sin from its tinder,\nand is itself at the same time an incentive to sin\nfor its companion, the avenging punishment entangles both\nas guilty, sinning under one mind,\nand burns the partners in sin with equal tortures.","f":"Prudentius, <i>Apoth.</i> 1.901 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 901–930; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-apotheosis/1-901)."},"prudentius-apotheosis/1.91":{"o":"Enixa est sub lege uteri, sine lege mariti.\nIlle famem patitur, fel potat, et haurit acetum :\nIlle pavet mortis faciem, tremit ille dolorem.\nDicite, sacrilegi doctores, qui Patre summo\nDesertum iacuisse thronum contenditis, illo\nTempore, quo fragiles Deus est inlapsus in artus:\nErgo Pater passus ? quid non malus audeat error !\nIpse puellari conceptus sanguine crevit?\nIpse verecundae distendit Virginis alvum ?\nEt iam falsiloqua est divini pagina libri,\nQuae Verbum in carnis loquitur fluxisse figuram?\nAt non, qui Verbi Pater est, caro factus habetur.\nFige gradum, Scriptura, tuum : nil mobile et anceps\nAdfirmasse decet: Pater est, quem cernere nulli\nEst licitum : Pater est, qui numquam visus in orbe est,\nNec mundana inter radiavit lumina coram.\nVerbum conspicuum misit, missumque recepit\nQuum voluit : Verbo perstrinxit viscera purae\nVirginis, et Verbo struxit puerilia membra.\nIpse quidem in terris virtute et numine praesens\nSemper adest quocumque loci : nec pars vacat ulla\nMaiestate Patris ; nusquam est genitor Deus absens :\nPer Verbum sed semper adest ; atque inde Philippo\nChristus ait: « Tanto tecum iam tempore versor,\nEt Patrem te nosse negas, quem perspicis in me? »\nEst invisibilis donum Patris, edere natum\nVisibilem, per quem valeat Pater ipse videri;\nNec solis sanctorum oculis, sed lumine cassis.\nCaecorum caecos loquor, atra socordia quorum\nCorde tenebroso verum perpendere nescit.","t":"brought forth under the law of the womb, without the law of a husband.\nHe suffers hunger, drinks gall, and drains vinegar;\nhe fears the face of death, he trembles at pain.\nTell me, sacrilegious teachers, who contend that the throne\nof the supreme Father lay deserted at that time\nwhen God came down into fragile limbs:\ndid the Father, then, suffer? What would wicked error not dare!\nWas he himself conceived in a girl’s blood and did he grow?\nDid he himself swell the womb of the modest Virgin?\nAnd is the page of the divine book now false,\nwhich says that the Word flowed into the form of flesh?\nBut he who is Father of the Word is not held to have been made flesh.\nFix your step, Scripture: it is not fitting to have affirmed\nanything shifting and doubtful: the Father is he whom no one\nis allowed to see: the Father is he who has never been seen in the world,\nnor shone openly among worldly lights.\nHe sent the Word visible, and received him back when sent,\nwhen he willed: by the Word he touched the womb of the pure\nVirgin, and by the Word built the child’s limbs.\nHe himself, present on earth by power and divinity,\nis always present in every place: no part is empty\nof the Father’s majesty; nowhere is God the begetter absent:\nbut he is always present through the Word; and hence to Philip\nChrist says: “I have been with you so long a time,\nand do you say you do not know the Father, whom you see in me?”\nIt is the gift of the invisible Father to bring forth a Son\nvisible, through whom the Father himself can be seen;\nand not only by the eyes of the saints, but by those without sight.\nI speak of the blindest of the blind, whose black sloth\nknows not how to weigh the truth with darkened heart.","f":"Prudentius, <i>Apoth.</i> 1.91 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 91–120; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-apotheosis/1-91)."},"prudentius-apotheosis/1.931":{"o":"His crucibus Christus nos liberat, incorruptae\nMatris, et innocui gestator corporis. Unus\nNaturam poenae expositam, sed non vitiorum\nNaturam expositam contactibus induit Iesus.\nAtque ideo poenae nil debuit: intemeratus,\nFraude carens, omni culparum adspergine liber.\n(Quid peccatorum prosapia corpore in illo?)\nQuid Christi in membris peccati saeva satelles\nPoena ageret? quid mors hominis sine crimine posset?\nNimirum cassis conatibus, et sine nervis\nConcideret sterilis peccati fomite nullo.\nMors alitur culpa: culpam qui non habet, ipso\nPastus defectu mortem consumit inanem.\nSic mors in Domini consumpta est corpore Christi :\nSic periit, solitum dum non habet arida pastum.\nSuspice quapropter solum inculpabile Numen,\nVirtutem Patris et Christi; et iam desine nostrae\nInvidiam conflare animae, quod sit Deus, aut quod\nPortio parva Dei, quum Christo abscidere quidquam,\nEt resecare Deo partem, vel carpere tantum\nNumen non liceat, plenum sibi semper, et in se.\nEst operae pretium nebulosi dogmatis umbram\nProdere, quam tenues atomi compage minuta\nInstituunt : sed cassa cadit, ventoque liquescit\nAdsimilis, fluxu nec se sustentat inani.\nAerium, Manichaeus ait, sine corpore vero\nPervolitasse Deum, mendax phantasma, cavamque\nCorporis effigiem, nil contrectabile habentem.\nAc primum specta, an deceat quidquam simulatum\nAdsignare Deo, cuius mera gloria falsi","t":"From these tortures Christ frees us, he who bore an incorrupt\nmother and an innocent body. Jesus alone\nput on a nature exposed to punishment, but not a nature\nexposed to the contacts of vices.\nAnd so he owed nothing to punishment: undefiled,\nfree of deceit, free of every sprinkling of faults.\n(What had the line of sins to do with that body?)\nWhat could punishment, the savage attendant of sin, do\nin the limbs of Christ? What could death do to a man without crime?\nSurely, with vain efforts and without sinews,\nit would fall barren, with no tinder of sin.\nDeath is fed by guilt: he who has no guilt\nconsumes death, empty, starved by the very lack of food.\nSo death was consumed in the body of Christ the Lord;\nso it perished, while, dried up, it lacked its usual food.\nLook up, then, to the only blameless Godhead,\nthe power of the Father and of Christ; and now stop\nstirring up envy against our soul, as though it were God or\na small portion of God, since it is not lawful to cut anything from Christ,\nand to cut off a part from God, or to pluck so great\na Godhead, always full in itself and to itself.\nIt is worth while to expose the shadow of a cloudy doctrine,\nwhich slender atoms build with a tiny structure;\nbut it falls empty and melts like the wind,\nand does not hold itself up in its vain flowing.\nThe Manichee says that God flew about as an airy thing,\nwithout a true body, a lying phantom, the hollow\nlikeness of a body, having nothing that can be touched.\nAnd first look whether it is fitting to attribute anything feigned\nto God, whose pure glory admits nothing","f":"Prudentius, <i>Apoth.</i> 1.931 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 931–960; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-apotheosis/1-931)."},"prudentius-apotheosis/1.961":{"o":"Nil recipit. Membris hic se fallacibus aptans\nFingeret esse hominem ventosa subdolus arte?\nMentitus toties, quum diceret: Inveteratis\nDo veniam morbis, simul et peccata remitto.\nFilius est hominis, pestem qui pellere carnis,\nEt scelerum nexus laxare, ac solvere possit.\nSurge valens, surge innocuus, iam tolle grabatum :\nFilius hoc hominis iubeo. Dignusne videtur\nQui testis sibi sit, seque ac sua carnea norit?\nQuid? quum discipulos, hominis quod filius esset\nPassurus, fido iam praescius ore monebat?\nNonne fatebatur, se cum virtute paterna\nEsse hominem verum? quod si non credo, fefellit.\nSi natura Dei quae sit, Manichaee, requiris,\nOmne quod est, verum est. Nam si mendosus agit quid,\nNec Deus est: mendum divinus non capit usus.\nObiicis aeterno Domino, quod lubricus ad nos\nVenerit, adsimulans aliud, quam verus habebat.\nObmutesce, furor : linguam, canis improbe, morde\nIpse tuam, lacero consumens verba palato.\nLatranti obsistit Matthaeus, rabiemque refellit:\nQui notat omne genus carnalis stirpis, adusque\nCorporeum Christum, per sex septena virorum\nNomina descendens, et venam sanguinis alti\nEx atavis longo texens per stemmata filo.\nSeptimus hebdomadi venit superaddere sextae\nHunc numerum Christus, placidum qui conficit annum\nCuncta remittentem contractibus illaqueata\nMultimodis, hominemque hominis de morte levantem.\nImperfectus enim limus mortalis erat tunc:","t":"false. Would this one, fitting himself to deceptive limbs,\ncraftily pretend to be a man by windy art?\nHe would have lied so many times when he said: “To long-standing\ndiseases I grant pardon, and at the same time I forgive sins.\nIt is the Son of man who can drive out the plague of the flesh,\nand loosen and dissolve the knots of crimes.\nRise strong, rise innocent, now take up your bed:\nI, the Son of man, command this.” Does he not seem worthy\nto be a witness to himself, and to know himself and his fleshly nature?\nWhat of when, foreknowing, he warned his disciples with faithful mouth\nthat the Son of man would suffer?\nDid he not confess that with the Father’s power\nhe was a true man? If I do not believe this, he deceived.\nIf you ask, Manichee, what the nature of God is:\nall that it is, is true. For if it does anything deceitful,\nit is not God: divine practice admits no falsehood.\nYou object to the eternal Lord that he came to us\nslippery, pretending to be other than he truly was.\nBe silent, madness: bite your own tongue, wicked dog,\nconsuming your words with a torn palate.\nMatthew opposes the barker and refutes his rage:\nhe records the whole line of the fleshly stock, down to\nthe bodily Christ, descending through six times seven\nnames of men, and weaving the vein of high blood\nfrom the forefathers in a long thread through the pedigrees.\nChrist came as the seventh to add to the sixth week\nthis number, he who completes the peaceful year\nthat releases all things entangled in manifold\ncontracts, and raises man from the death of man.\nFor the mortal clay was then imperfect:","f":"Prudentius, <i>Apoth.</i> 1.961 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 961–990; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-apotheosis/1-961)."},"prudentius-apotheosis/1.991":{"o":"Vir solus perfectus adest atque integer Iesus,\nCui nihil ex septem septenis defuit, ex quo\nPerficeret mortale genus virtute perenni.\nHic ille est, nobis qui septima sabbata complet,\nUt caro nostra Deo tandem sociata quiescat,\nQuam bis terna malis vexabant sabbata noxis.\nCurramus notis gradibus, regumque sequamur\nProgeniem: Christum invenies de carne parentum\nEffluxisse hominum, qui sit de semine David,\nStirpe recensita numerandus sanguinis heres.\nQuid, quum sanctiloquus revoluto germine Lucas\nSursum versus agit seriem, scandente nepotis\nCorpore, perque atavos cursum relegente vetustos,\nSeptenos decies conscendit Christus in ortus\nEt duo : nam totidem doctores misit in orbem :\nDescensos nascendo gradus redeundo retexit,\nActus ad usque apicem terreni corporis Adam.\nInde parens Deitas recipit sua, nostraque mixtim,\nFitque Dei summi per Christum filius Adam.\nAerios proceres, Levin, Iudam, Simeonem;\nAerium David, magnorum corpora regum\nAeria, atque ipsam fecundae Virginis alvum\nAere fallaci nebulisque et nube tumentem.\nVanescat sanguis perflabilis, ossa liquescant\nMollia, nervorum pereat textura volantum.\nOmne quod est gestum, Notus auferat irritus, aurae\nDispergant tenues: sit fabula, quod sumus omnes.\nEt quid agit Christus, si me non suscipit? aut quem\nLiberat infirmum, si dedignatur adire","t":"the only perfect and whole man present is Jesus,\nwho lacked nothing of the seven sevens, by which\nhe might perfect the mortal race with everlasting power.\nThis is he who completes for us the seventh sabbath,\nso that our flesh, at last joined to God, may rest,\nwhich twice three sabbaths vexed with evil harms.\nLet us run through the known steps, and follow the offspring\nof kings: you will find that Christ flowed from the flesh\nof human ancestors, being of the seed of David,\nto be counted as heir of his blood when the stock is reviewed.\nWhat of when holy-tongued Luke, rolling back the lineage,\ndrives the series upward, as the descendant’s body climbs,\nand runs back the course through the ancient forefathers?\nChrist climbs through seventy and two births:\nfor he sent as many teachers into the world:\nthe steps he came down by being born, he retraced by returning,\ncarried right up to the summit of the earthly body, Adam.\nFrom there the parent Deity receives his own, and ours mixed with it,\nand through Christ Adam becomes son of the supreme God.\n[Make, then,] the patriarchs airy, Levi, Judah, Simeon;\nmake David airy, the bodies of the great kings\nairy, and the very womb of the fruitful Virgin\nswelling with deceptive air and mists and cloud.\nLet the blood vanish, blown through; let the soft bones\nmelt; let the texture of the flying sinews perish.\nLet the useless South Wind carry away all that was done, let thin breezes\nscatter it: let what we all are be a fable.\nAnd what does Christ do, if he does not take me up? Or whom,\nweak, does he free, if he disdains to take on","f":"Prudentius, <i>Apoth.</i> 1.991 (Lanfranchi 2:lines 991–1020; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prudentius-apotheosis/1-991)."}}