The reader and the resurrection in Prudentius

In Prudentius, the bodily resurrection becomes a figure for poetic immortality. Just as the author believes that his God will one day raise him from the dead, he expects and invokes a Christian reader to authenticate and authorise the fragile verbal records of a poetry that is insistently human and fallen. In other words, Prudentius’ metapoetics are perfectly in sync with his theology. After (I) presenting Prudentius’ transformation at the end of his Praefatio and setting out the terms and scope of the argument, this article (II) shows how the author puts himself at the mercy of his readers and patrons in the Peristefanon poems and then (III) considers the body and the resurrection in the Liber Cathemerinon. A short section (IV) on fictionality and belief opens up the argument, and a conclusion (V) advances it through a reading of the end of De opusculis suis. This metapoetic reading of Prudentius reveals that the author's hopes for an afterlife are expressed in and through the creative imagining of poetic and fictional scenes

Hymnus, Enkomion oder Psalm? Schattengefechte in der neutestamentlichen Wissenschaft

For much of the 20th century scholars tried to reconstruct various cultic hymns beneath the surface of NT texts. With the rise of rhetorical criticism the focus of research has shifted to the properties of epideictic rhetoric. Exegetes, therefore, often tend to contrast ‘encomia’ with ‘hymns’ or ‘psalms’. To avoid any shadow boxing one has to consider which descriptive language would fit best the texts. A brief examination of ancient hymnic traditions and their treatment in rhetoric demonstrates that while encomia interact strongly with hymns each genre has its own characteristics; hymns, whether in poetry or prose, consist especially of praise of divinities and are addressed to divinities. Future formgeschichtliche analysis has to distinguish carefully between ‘hymn’ (in a narrow sense), ‘hymnic praise’ and ‘encomion’ (which does not refer particularly to divine beings). In early Christian literature, as far as it relates to the textual surface, we find beside hymns to God only a few hymns directed to Christ. Nevertheless Christ's divine status is praised with rich hymnic rhetorical devices. This amazing tension corresponds exactly with what we call ‘Christological monotheism’