Literary Texture in Augustine and Gregory

Augustine made it his mission to refute every piece of Donatist writing he was able to acquire in the decade leading up to the 411 Council of Carthage. Throughout this period, he repeatedly emphasizes his need to counter Donatist arguments as often as possible, despite possible redundancy, in order to ensure that his arguments circulate widely (Un. De Bapt. 1.1) and that he cannot be accused of failing to address any Donatist argument (C. Cresc. 3.1.1).

In this paper, I draw attention to Gregory of Nazianzus’ 16 line elegiac carm. 1.1.11 (De incarnatione) to show how Gregory both presents himself as a pure Callimachean stylist and paints his theological opponent, Apollinaris of Laodicea, as a bombastic Homerides. Like much of Gregory’s poetry, carm. 1.1.11 is only beginning to receive scholarly attention. Both John McGuckin and Peter Gilbert have rendered the poem into English (McGuckin 1995 and Gilbert 2001), each rightly contextualizing the poem within the Apollinarian controversies of the 380s.

While Augustine’s appropriation of Vergil has received moderate scholarly attention (e.g. Bennett 1988; MacCormack 1998; Shanzer 2012), his reading of Horace has had almost none (but cf. the brief overview in Hagendahl 1967 and some scattered references in Courcelle 1968; Horace is unnamed in a list of Augustine’s “influences” in Marrou 1938).