SOURCE: "The Influence of Vergil on St. Jerome and on St. Augustine," The Classical Weekly, Vol. 17, No. 22, April 7, 1924, pp. 170-75.

[In the following essay, originally delivered as a lecture in 1923, Coffin explores the deep influence of Vergil on Jerome's writings and claims that, through his knowledge of Vergil, "Jerome really constitutes a link between the classical times and the Middle Ages. "]

It is impossible to read the works of the Christian Latin writers Without being impressed by the extent to which they were influenced, both in language and in ideas, by the works of Vergil. This influence is shown through all periods of the Christian Church; indeed, a convenient index of the classicism of any Church writer is the use which he makes of Vergil. Since Jerome and Augustine represent the best in ecclesiastical prose of the first five centuries, it will be convenient to indicate the extent of the Vergilian tradition in the Christian Church by showing how these two great writers were affected by the works of the great pagan poet.

Eusebius Hieronymus—or Jerome, as he is more usually called—was born in Stridon, on the borders of Dalmatia, about 340. His parents were Christians, so that early in life he imbibed the spirit of Christianity both by precept and by example. While still a young man, he went to Rome, where he studied under the celebrated grammarian Donatus. After completing his studies under Donatus, he studied theology at Treves, and then returned to Rome to become the confidential adviser of Pope Damasus. After that Pontiffs death, Jerome adopted a rigorously ascetic mode of life, and founded a monastery at Bethlehem, where he spent the remainder of his days.

As an author Jerome was both prolific and versatile. Perhaps his best known work is his translation of the Bible, a monument of learning and studious application. Besides this magnificent piece of erudition he composed several commentaries on the Scriptures, some controversial works, a work entitled De Viris Illustribus, and a number of letters, more than one hundred of which have been preserved.

As a writer Jerome stands among the first of the Christian Fathers. His style is clear and vivid, not too much tainted by rhetorical exaggeration. Indeed, it is so good that, in the estimation of some critics, he, rather than Lactantius or Ambrosius, deserves the title of 'Christian Cicero'. He was a strongly original writer. His style served as a model for succeeding generations of patristic authors, and yet that style depends for much of its beauty and effect upon reminiscences of the Classics. These reminiscences show that Jerome's knowledge of the classical authors was most extensive. Vergil and Horace, Sallust and Suetonius, Cicero and Quintilian, Terence, Lucan, Persius, not to mention lesser personages such as Valerius Maximus, are all as familiar to him as the books of the Bible. His acquaintance with the Greek authors was not so wide, but one finds traces of Aristotle, Homer, Hesiod, Plutarch, and Plato. Almost on every page of Jerome one finds citations from the pagan writers, quotations to establish some point of fact, or simply a phrase from one of the poets woven into the thread of his discourse. Much of the richness of Jerome comes from these classical echoes.

Chief among his classical models was Vergil. Here we are confronted by the same strange contradiction which we meet in other writers, especially in Tertullian. In spite of his profound knowledge of the pagan writers, in spite of his dependence upon them for all sorts of stylistic ornaments, nevertheless Jerome cannot quite reconcile the study of the pagans with true Christianity, and therefore decries the reading of the pagan authors, especially Vergil.

The ancient writers had been rebuked because they were pagans, and yet their works were carefully studied, and they must have been regarded by the educated Christians as men of great enlightenment. The patristic writers were obliged to study the pagan authors, partly to refute them, partly because they were the basis of all culture. Again and again the pagans are quoted as authorities even on matters of theological dogma. Jerome had said of Vergil (Commentarius in Micheam: see Vallarsi's edition of Jerome, 6.518 [Venice, 1766]), that he was 'not the second but the first Homer of the Romans', and yet, in a letter to Damasus (Epistle 21, page 123, Hilberg), he censures those priests who lay aside the Gospels and the prophets and read comedies, who recite the amorous words of bucolic poetry, and have Vergil ever in their hands, and take a sinful delight in that study which for children is a matter of necessity. But his own frequent reminiscences of Vergil show that it was impossible to dispel the words of the poet from his mind. For example (Commentarius in Ezechiel, Chapter 40: compare Migne, Patrologia Latina, 25, Column 375), in describing the darkness of the catacombs where many of the martyrs were buried, he says, 'Here one can move only step by step, and in the gloom one is reminded of Vergil's phrase Horror ubique animos, simul ipsa silentia terrent'. And yet, when excited by emotions of reverence and piety, he exclaims (Epistula ad Eustochium 1.12), 'What has Horace to do with the Psalter, or Vergil with the Gospel, or Cicero with the Apostle?' Some of Jerome's adversaries, in their eagerness to catch at any excuse for discrediting him, reproved him for this inconsistency. When he established a school in which grammar and rhetoric were taught, with Vergil as a background, his opponent Rufinus, casting Jerome's own words in his teeth as a rebuke, attacked him viciously for being so derelict in his duty as to allow young students to read pagan authors.

Of all the pagan authors, Vergil affected Jerome most deeply. For instance, we find Vergil quoted in a discussion of the rhetorical figure aposiopesis; as an authority for the fact that incense came from Sheba; and on the subject of placating gods that they might not injure men. Parallelisms are noted between a Scriptural expression and a Vergilian phrase. So, for instance, in the Commentary on Jeremiah 6.4, Vae nobis, quia declinavit dies, quia longiores factae sunt umbrae vesperi, he quotes as a parallel Vergil, Ecl. 1.82-83 et iam summa procul villarum culmina fumant, maioresque cadunt altis de montibus umbrae. Similarly, in commenting on Jeremiah 18.14, Nunquid deficiet de petra agri nix Libani? aut evelli possunt aquae erumpentes frigidae et defluentes?, he quotes Vergil, Ecl. 1.59-60, 63, Aen. 1.607-609.

Besides these examples, there are dozens of instances, especially in the Letters, where Vergil is quoted to fill out a phrase; in these he is sometimes referred to by name, sometimes characterized as poeta gentilis, or by some equally general appellation. Frequent, too, are the instances where the Vergilian phrase appears without any hint that a quotation is being used: iterum iterumque monebo, numero deus inpare gaudet, non omnia possumus omnes, dux femina facti, and many others. Sometimes the Vergilian idea is repeated in different words, as etiam quae tuta sunt pertimescam, an evident reflection of omnia tuta timens, Aeneid 4.298.

One important fact must, however, be remarked here. Vergil is quoted as an authority on literature, art, science, prosody, mythology; in these fields his ideas are freely borrowed, and his phrases are generously used, but he is never quoted on questions specifically pertaining to the Christian faith. Indeed, Jerome girds at those Christians who quote pagan writers in support of Christian doctrines. Jerome really constitutes a link between the classical times and the Middle Ages; he is thoroughly saturated with profane learning, but for religious authority he relies exclusively on sacred sources. We have his unequivocal statement that he did not believe in Vergil as a Messianic prophet. In a letter to Paulinus (Epistle 63, page 454, Hilberg), he throws ridicule upon those who look upon Vergil as a Christian without Christ, and treats the whole matter as childish:

… Quasi non legerimus Homerocentonas et Vergiliocentonas ac non sic etiam Maronem sine Christo possimus dicere Christianum quia scripserit

iam redit et virgo, redeunt Satumia regna, iam nova progenies caelo demittitur alto,

et matrem loquentem ad filium

nate, meae vires, mea magna potentia solus,

et post verba salvatoris in cruce

talia perstabat memorans, fixusque manebat.

Puerilia sunt haec et circulatorum ludo similia, docere, quod ignores, immo, ut cum Clitomacho loquar, ne hoc quidem scire, quods nescias.

The Vergilian tradition in Jerome is quite evident and easy to trace. He had been trained in the schools of rhetoric where Vergil was the great model, the consummation of all that was best in Latin style. Hence it is that Vergil appeals to him first of all as a literary figure. The belief in Vergil's universal knowledge is not evident in Jerome, as it is in some of the other ecclesiastical writers, but there does appear some hint of his authority in secular matters, whether in poetry or prose, grammar or rhetoric, mythology or science, that is to say, in all the first elements of culture. Jerome mocks at the belief in Vergil as a Messianic prophet, and never mentions him as a worker of wonders, and yet he is so profoundly influenced by him, that, Churchman as he was, he did not hesitate to quote the pagan poet as casting light even on the Holy Scriptures. He seems to be in doubt just how far a Christian can use the pagans and still be a Christian, and consequently invokes the authority of Vergil only on secular matters, but even so there may be detected in him a shadowing forth of that universal authority which Vergil was later to have in matters both secular and sacred. Jerome will not admit the infallibility of Vergil; his ascetic Christian spirit felt a repugnance toward some of the expressions of pagan sentiment: hence it is that in his writings the tradition of Vergil is not so fully rounded as it later became'. It must also be observed that Jerome does not inveigh against the pagan writers as such; he does not deny their educational value; what he does oppose is the tendency of some of the priests to let themselves be influenced by the pagans to the exclusion of everything else. In the development of his philosophy and his theology he was chiefly influenced by the Scriptures, but in matters outside this domain, in the field of general knowledge, of art, science, mythology, polite learning generally, he was powerfully influenced by the pagan Classics, and chief among his models was Vergil, the most influential figure in the history of poetry.

In considering the influence of Vergil on Augustine, we are met by different conditions. Augustine's experience of life was different from Jerome's, and their theological notions were not the same; it is therefore not surprising that they should show in a different degree the influence of the classical authors whom they had both studied.

Augustine is one of the mightiest figures in the history of the Church. Three of his predecessors, Lactantius, Ambrosius, and Jerome, had been decorated with the title of 'Christian Cicero', honoris causa, but here we have one who has been deemed worthy of the name of 'Christian Plato'. He was born at Tagaste, in Numidia, in 354. His father had been a pagan and his mother a Christian, but he for some time belonged to the sect of the Manicheans. While still a young man he went to Rome, and was from there called to Milan to teach rhetoric. While in Milan he fell under the sway of Ambrosius, and in 387 he allowed himself to be baptized. After leaving Milan he returned to his native town, and remained there until called to the priesthood at Hippo, where in 395 he became bishop.

Such was the unflagging industry of Augustine that, in spite of his exacting duties as bishop, he was the most prolific of all the Christian writers. There are more than one hundred titles of works, chiefly theological, which belong to Augustine, besides a considerable number of letters. Of these works it will be sufficient to emphasize two, which are important not only as theology, but as world literature, the Confessiones, and the treatise on The City of God, De Civitate Dei. The Confessiones, one of the earliest autobiographies of which we have any trace, gives a moving description of his spiritual unfolding from his early youth to his episcopate². The City of God, on the other hand, is a more philosophical work. It was composed as a rejoinder to those of the pagans who had asserted that the evils which had sapped the strength of Rome, and humbled her empire to the dust before the unkempt hordes of Alaric, were the result of Christianity and nothing else. In this book, a universal defence of his faith, Augustine concentrated all the vast stores of his learning and his eloquence. Professor Mackail (Latin Literature, 276) has called the book "the epitaph of the ancient civilizations".

As a stylist, Augustine is a notable figure, far surpassing those patristic writers who preceded and followed him³. In those of his works which are addressed to the learned world he uses, so far as was then possible, the classical speech, while in the discourses intended for the people he modifies his language to adapt it to a popular audience. All of Augustine's writings are characterized by passionate expression, and by originality of style.

Like most of the other Church writers, Augustine was profoundly influenced by his intensive study of the Classics. He drew material from the following authors: Claudian, Ennius, Horace, Lucan, Persius, Terentianus Maurus, Terence, Valerius Soranus, Vergil, Homer, Apuleius, Cicero, Aulus Gellius, Justinus, Labeo, Livy, Plato, Pliny, Plotinus, Pomponius, Porphyry, Sallust, L. Annaeus Seneca, Tertullian, and Varro. This list indicates on his part the possession of a truly formidable body of learning. Indeed, he had read and stored away in his vast memory all that was best in the literary productions of Greece and Rome, and he used the material freely in the composition of his own works. One thing that Augustine had in common with Jerome was that chief among his classical models was Vergil.

For example, in the De Civitate Dei Vergil is quoted about seventy times, more frequently than all the other writers combined. Augustine must have had by heart the whole of the Vergilian corpus. He quotes from all of Vergil's works, but the quotations from the Aeneid are the most numerous. In the De Civitate Dei he quotes Vergil for Roman history and mythology, for the grandeur and importance of Rome, for the impotence of the gods to defend their worshippers, and the need of the worshippers to protect the gods. He quotes him with satiric reference to the fact that the gods are troubled by the morals of mortals, and for the decadence of the moral spirit in Rome. For the dangers and laxity of the pagan religions he quotes the favorite poet of the Romans against themselves, where those who died by their own hand are represented as suffering in the underworld. He also quotes Vergil in a spirit of reproof in a discussion of magic arts. He quotes him to show that the Brutus who slew his own son was infelix. A Vergilian line is used to describe perfect composure of mind, and another is introduced to show how Porphyry had refuted one of the doctrines of Vergil in regard to the necessity imposed upon purified souls to taste of Lethe. He quotes from the Fourth Eclogue as prophetic of the coming glories of the kingdom of Christ. He rebukes Vergil for declaring that all the evils of the mind come from the body. On the same topic he quotes the words of Aeneas to his father on the possibility of men's souls returning to their bodies. He quotes Vergil, calling him nobilissimus eorum poeta, in a discussion of the stature of the men of former times. In a discussion of the message which God sent through the angels, Vergil is quoted together with the Bible. Lines of Vergil are adduced in a discussion whether Saturn was a man or not; and in another place Vergil's authority is invoked on the history of the early kings of Rome. On the subject of the end of the world and the falling stars he cites the Vergilian line facem ducens multa cum luce cucurrit. In a discussion of miracles he says that, if it were possible for the priestess of the Massylian race to stop the flow of water, change the course of the stars, and call up the spirits of the departed, as Vergil declares in the Aeneid (4.487), how much more probable is it that God can perform miracles, which, though well within His power, are nevertheless incomprehensible to the heathen? In treating of the views of the Platonists, who declared that there were no sins without punishment, but that penalties were established for all sins, either during life or after death, he quotes Vergil, though only to refute him. He quotes him also on technical matters, such as etymology. Frequently, too, the same quotation is used more than once⁴.

The condition just reviewed in the De Civitate Dei obtains also in the rest of Augustine's work, though the number of actual quotations is not so large. All through his varied writings he quotes Vergil more than he does any other author; and just as he knew the pagan authors better and used them more often than any other ecclesiastical writer knew them or used them, so his use of Vergil is more extensive than that found anywhere else in the history of Christian Latin literature.

Augustine's acquaintance with Vergil had begun early. In speaking of his early education he says (Confessiones 1.20), cogebar tenere Aeneae nescio cuius errores. For a long time he was in the habit of reading Vergil every day, but, when he was forty-three years old, a sudden access of asceticism caused him to deplore the days in which he let himself 'weep for Dido because she slew herself for love, though at the same time I was ummoved to tears when dying to Thee, 0 God, my life, ah, wretched man that I was' (Confessiones 1.20).

He is so entranced with the Trojan story that he says (Confessiones 1.22)… esset dulcissimum spectaculum … equus ligneus plenus armatis et Troiae incendium "atque ipsius umbra Creusae" (compare Aeneid 2.772). He says in another place (Confessiones 1.27) that he was obliged to declaim Vergil—a regular exercise in the Schools. Proponebatur enim mihi negotium animae satis inquietum praemio laudis et dedecoris vel plagarum metu, ut dicerem verba lunonis irascentis et dolentis, quod non posset "Italia Teucrorum avertere regem". He describes there the school exercises in which 'we were forced to follow in the footsteps of the poets, and to tell in prose what the poet had said in his verses; and that one excelled who pretended to be affected by wrath or grief like the character whom he was impersonating, and clothed his thoughts in the most fitting words'. Augustine says that he was accounted very skilful at this exercise, and indeed we can tell from his works that he was a singularly penetrating and consistent student of the great classic writers.

Augustine not only believed thoroughly in Vergil as a Messianic prophet, but even went so far as to declare that there were among the pagans several prophets who foretold the coming of Christ. This declaration appears in a general form in several places, notably in his work, Contra Faustum, Book 13, Chapters 1, 2, 15, 17. In the Epistulae ad Romanos Incohata Expositio, Chapter 3, he says:

Fuerant enim et prophetae non ipsius, in quibus etiam aliqua inveniuntur, quae de Christo audita cecinerunt, sicut etiam de Sibylla dicitur; quod non facile crederem nisi quod poetarum quidam in Romana lingua nobilissimus antequam diceret ea de innovatione saeculi, quae in Domini nostri Jesu Christi regnum satis concinere et convenire videantur, praeposuit versum, dicens "Ultima Cumaei iam venit carminis aetas". Cumaeum autem carmen Sibyllinam esse nemo dubitaverit.

With this compare the statement in De Civitate Dei 10.27:

De quo etiam poeta nobilissimus poetice quidem, quia in alterius adumbrata persona, veraciter tamen, si ad ipsum referas, dixit … scelerum tamen manere vestigia, quae non nisi ab illo Salvatore sanantur, de quo iste versus expressus est. Nam utique non hoc a se ipso se dixisse Vergilius in eclogae ipsius quarto ferme versu indicat, ubi ait "Ultima Cumaei iam venit carminis aetas", unde hoc a Cumaea Sibylla dictum esse incunctanter apparet.

In Epist. 258.5, he has much the same thing:

Nam omnino non est, cui alteri praeter dominum Christum dicat genus humanum . Quod ex Cumaeo, id est ex Sibyllino carmine, se fassus est transtulisse Vergilius.

Lactantius had made considerable use of the Sibylline books in discussing the tangled question of the Fourth Eclogue, but in no other author do we find such continued insistence on that Eclogue with its supposed prophecy of the Christ as we find in Augustine.

Augustine not only believed in Vergil as a prophet, but he believed him to have imitated certain passages of the Bible. This was not a new theory. Tertullian had declared that all the poetical and philosophical ideas of Greece and Rome were either borrowed or adapted from the Old Testament, and Jerome had in several instances indicated a supposed parallel between Vergil and the Bible. Similarly Augustine, in De Civitate Dei 15.19, definitely says that Vergil had imitated the Scriptures: Imitatus namque est poeta ille litteras sacras, in quibus dicitur domus Jacob iam ingens populus Hebraeorum (compare Aen. 1.284; 3.97). Again, in De Civitate Dei 21.27, we find this:

Mirari autem soleo etiam apud Vergilium reperiri istam Domini sententiam, ubi ait: "Facite vobis amicos de mammona iniquitatis ut et ipsi recipiant vos in tabernacula aetema" . Cui est et illa simillima: "Qui recipit prophetam in nomine prophetae, mercedem prophetae accipiet; et qui recipit iustum in nomine iusti, mercedem iusti accipiet, . Nam cum Elysios campos poeta ille describeret, ubi putant habitare animas beatorum, non solum ibi posuit eos, qui propriis meritis ad illas sedes pervenire potuerunt, sed adiecit atque ait: "Quique sui memores alios fecere merendo" , id est, qui promeruerunt alios, eosque sui memores promerendo fecerunt. Prorsus tamquam iis dicerent, quod frequentatur ore Christiano, cum se cuique sanctorum humilis quisque commendat et dicit "Memor mei est", atque id ut esse possit promerendo efficit.

In addition to these direct quotations from Vergil, there are numerous instances where Augustine has used Vergilian imitations or allusions in discussing questions of mythology, natural phenomena, and scientific subjects. For instance, Vergil is referred to on the subject of Jupiter and his place in the pantheon, on Juno as sister and wife of Jove, and on the subject of her hatred for Aeneas. Neptune is, according to Vergil, the ruler of the seas, and the builder, with the aid of Apollo, of the walls of Troy. Pluto is king of the underworld, and his dominions are guarded by Cerberus; in this connection is also brought in the Vergilian picture of the Elysian Fields. The Vergilian version of the legend of Proserpina is also adduced; so are the legends of Mars, Rhea Silvia, Venus and Adonis, Mercury as the inventor of letters and the messenger of the gods, Minerva in her various aspects of Tritonia, Diana, or Luna, and patroness of the arts and creator of the olive tree, of Cybele, of the Fates, and of Janus. The demigods, such as Proteus, Hercules, and Rhadamanthus, appear in Augustine as they do in Vergil, and the picture of the Homeric heroes is also drawn from him. Other subjects, the knowledge of which Augustine may have derived from Vergil, are the functions of the rivers Phlegethon and Lethe, the spontaneous generation of bees, and the use of the celebrated incense from Sheba. These last named references are hardly in the nature of direct quotations, but the Vergilian idea is incorporated with a very slight change of wording.

In addition to these direct or indirect adaptations of Vergil, there are hundreds of instances where only the use of a rare or poetic phrase betrays the Vergilian origin. Such phrases as manibus cruentis, tam dira cupido, ortus et obitus, preces et vota, aspera et dura, the list of which could be extended almost indefinitely, show that Augustine's mind was so thoroughly saturated with the words of Vergil that the Vergilian phrases had become an integral part of his own vocabulary.

To recapitulate, Augustine makes the widest use of Vergil of any of the Christian writers. To Augustine, Vergil is a universal and omniscient authority. He is quoted not only on questions of fact, but on questions of doctrine. The poet's testimony is accepted on matters of mythology, geography, science, art, indeed on all questions of general knowledge. In addition to all this, the Messianic prophecy plays in Augustine a much larger rôle than in the other ecclesiastical writers; indeed Augustine extends the doctrine to include others than Vergil. The only phase of the Vergilian tradition which Augustine does not mention is that which assigned to the poet magical powers, and this tradition does not appear in the literature until the twelfth century. The Aeneid is quoted or referred to more often than any other single work, but the Eclogues and the Georgics play a by no means insignificant part. The poems of the Appendix Vergiliana are never referred to; whether this omission is due to accident or to design it is impossible to say.

Augustine does not indulge in heated denunciation of the pagan writers as did so many of his predecessors. It is true that twinges of conscience had brought him to the point of regretting his early studies in the pagan Classics. We find him using such terms as fumus et ventus … inania nugarum to describe these studies; once he speaks of poetica falsitas, and even goes so far as to say (De Civitate Dei 1.4) Vergilius poetarum more mentitus est, but this is only a transient sentiment, for Augustine continued to read Vergil. These few adverse comments by no means express his real opinion of the great Roman poet. What he really thought of him is indicated by the fact that he openly calls him nobilissimus poeta, and still more by the fact that he used him more than he did any other ancient author.

Notes

¹ On the later tradition of Vergil see e.g. the article by Professor K. F. Smith, THE CLASSICAL WEEKLY 9.178-182, 185-188.

² On this autobiography see Professor Charles J. Goodwin, THE CLASSICAL WEEKLY 17.134-135.

³ Compare E. Norden, Die Antike Kunstprossa (1898), 2.621.

⁴ Compare S. Angus, The Sources of the First Ten Books of Augustine's De Civitate Dei (Princeton University Dissartation, 1906).