Greek christian poetry in classical forms the codex of visions from the bodmer papyrus and the melding of literary traditions

GREEK CHRISTIAN POETRY IN CLASSICAL FORMS: THE CODEX OF VISIONS FROM THE BODMER PAPYRI AND THE MELDING OF LITERARY TRADITIONS Kevin James Kalish A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE FACULT

GREEK CHRISTIAN POETRY IN CLASSICAL FORMS: THE CODEX OF

VISIONS FROM THE BODMER PAPYRI AND THE MELDING OF

LITERARY TRADITIONS

Kevin James Kalish

A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY

June 2009

UMI Number: 3356722

Copyright 2009 by Kalish, Kevin James

All rights reserved

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ABSTRACT This dissertation presents a new chapter in the story of Christian culture’s

engagement with classical literary culture The Codex of Visions, part of the Bodmer

Papyri discovered in upper Egypt in 1952, provides the material for my study This codex contains previously unknown and anonymous Greek Christian poems dating from the mid-fourth to the mid-fifth century The nature of the codex is eclectic, and I base my analysis on four narrative poems from the codex These poems, though composed according to classical prosody and employing archaic diction, nonetheless deal with Christian themes, from visions of heaven to retellings of Bible episodes I argue that these poems show how Christian poets in Late Antiquity melded Christian and classical traditions to form a new type of poetry

Chapter One gives an introduction to the codex and provides background information on Christian poetry in Late Antiquity and the classical tradition The

“Vision of Dorotheus,” a poem that recounts a vision of heaven narrated by a Roman soldier, is the subject of Chapter Two In a poem on Abraham and the Sacrifice of Isaac (Chapter Three), the poet imagines what Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac would have said to each other before the sacrifice Chapter Four discusses two poems on Cain and Abel Cain’s lament evokes monologues from Greek tragedy, whereas Abel, in

Hades, paraphrases Psalm 101 and looks forward to the coming of his savior The poems on Abraham, Cain, and Abel take rhetorical devices as their starting points:

characterization (ethopoiia) and paraphrase are used as the basis for poetic

experiments in retelling Biblical episodes

An important conclusion from this study is that these poems imitate the poetry

of Gregory of Nazianzus, the fourth-century bishop, theologian, and poet Since we know that Gregory composed most of his poetry in the 380s, this establishes a more

precise date for these poems Subsequently, these poems from the Codex of Visions

provide a glimpse of how Christian poetry developed after Gregory’s classicizing poetry and before the emergence of new poetic forms in the sixth century with the poetry of Romanos the Melodist

ABBREVIATIONS

Abbreviations for papyri follows the Checklist of Editions of Greek, Latin, Demotic, and Coptic Papyri, Ostraca, and Tablets found online at

<http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/papyrus/texts/clist.html>

LSJ A Greek-English Lexicon, ed H.G Liddell, R Scott, and H.S

Jones (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996)

LXX Septuaginta, ed Alfred Rahlfs (Stuttgart: Deutsche

Bibelstiftung, 2006)

PG Patrologia Graeca, ed J P Migne (Paris, 1857—)

PGL A Patristic Greek Lexicon, ed G.W.H Lampe (Oxford:

Clarendon Press, 1961) OCD Oxford Classical Dictionary, ed Simon Hornblower and

Antony Spawforth, 3rd ed (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996)

in Classics Stratis Papaioannou agreed to serve as an outside reader, and his

perspective and careful comments have helped immensely Beyond my committee, many at Princeton and beyond offered guidance and suggestions My first stab at the

“Vision of Dorotheus” came about during a seminar taught by Constanze Güthenke, and little did I know then the direction that paper would take me Raffaella Cribiore encouraged me to take on this project when I was a student at the Summer Seminar in Papyrology sponsored by the American Society of Papyrologists (Columbia

University 2006); she has provided the much need papyrological expertise throughout the process AnneMarie Luijendijk, since her arrival at Princeton, has answered many papyrological questions Towards the end of the process, Eileen Reeves was

instrumental in answering procedural questions and helping me find teaching Valerie Kanka offered much needed assistance with administrative details

Support of various types, as well as continual inspiration, came from the Program in Hellenic Studies at Princeton University Hellenic Studies provided financial support with a Stanley J Seeger Fellowship as well as a home away from home I have also benefited from financial support in Comparative Literature with the Joseph E Croft ‘73 Summer Fellowship, (2004, 2005) and the Mary Cross Summer Fellowship (2004) The Center for the Study of Religion, with their Graduate

Research Award, provided funding and a forum for presenting an earlier version of Chapter Two The Byzantine Studies Association of North America encouraged my efforts with their Graduate Student Prize

Numerous friends at Princeton also deserve my thanks Matt Milliner

graciously read the entire dissertation and offered valuable feedback Many have read portions or offered feedback on various talks based on this dissertation But most of all it is the friendship that I cherish My thanks go out to, among others: Craig

Caldwell, Jack Tannous, Richard Payne, Dan Schwartz, David Michelson, Petre Guran, Nebojsa Stankovic, Scott Moringiello, Leah Whittington, Dawn LaValle, Alana Shilling, Nick Marinides, Andrew Hui, and Christian Kaesser

Most of all I wish to thank my family My parents, in addition to all the support and love they have offered, instilled in me the sense of dedication and

perseverance to see this project to its conclusion To them and to my siblings I offer

my thanks My wife Erin has learned more about early Christian poetry than she ever wanted to know Her love, support, and editorial expertise have made all of this a reality My daughter Elizabeth has helped in ways she can barely imagine Much of this was written as we awaited her birth Since then, she has offered much need

diversions and a reminder that scholarship needs to be balanced with time playing outside To Erin and Elizabeth I dedicate this work

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT III ABBREVIATIONS V ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS VI TABLE OF CONTENTS IX

CHAPTER ONE: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE CODEX OF VISIONS FROM THE BODMER

PAPYRI AND THE MELDING OF LITERARY TRADITIONS 10

CHAPTER TWO: A TRIP TO HEAVEN RETOLD IN HOMERIC VERSE BY A ROMAN IMPERIAL GUARD: THE “VISION OF DOROTHEUS” (P.BODM 29) 31

CHAPTER THREE: VISUALIZING DIALOGUES: THE IMAGINED SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM, ISAAC, AND SARAH IN “TO ABRAHAM” (P BODM 30) 66

CHAPTER FOUR: GIVING A VOICE TO THE DEAD: ETHOPOIIA IN THE POEMS ON CAIN AND ABEL (P BODM 33 AND 35) 119

CONCLUSION 156

APPENDIX ONE 168

WORKS CITED 169

CHAPTER ONE: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE CODEX OF VISIONS

FROM THE BODMER PAPYRI AND THE MELDING OF LITERARY

TRADITIONS

HOMER’S ISLAND OF CALYPSO AND THE CHRISTIAN PARADISE

In an anonymous poem from the Bodmer Papyri addressed to the righteous (πρὸς δικαίους), the life of Christian virtue is recommended because it will bring the faithful follower to paradise God himself, so writes the poet, has brought the

unnamed martyr whom he loves to Ogygia, the Homeric island where Calypso dwelt: 1

1 ll 1-4 For the text of the poem, see André Hurst and Jean Rudhardt, Codex des Visions: Poèmes

Divers, Papyrus Bodmer 30-37 (Munich: Saur, 1999)

2 Hurst and Rudhardt suggest as an alternative ὃν φ[ιλέ]ει̣, which makes more sense

3 It is standard in these poems to spell Christ with an eta, something that will be discussed further in

Chapter Two

to the island Ogygia, on account of (his) martyrdom,

leading (him) to the holy paradise; for the sake of Christ’s commands

he died, he who was plentiful in wisdom.]

It comes at first as a surprise to see the Christian paradise linked with an island that in Homer is a sensuous paradise Ogygia is the island where Odysseus spends a few years with the nymph Calypso before finally returning home This poem from the Bodmer Papyri, with its use of elegiac distichs and archaizing diction, attempts to create a classicizing piece of Christian writing Thus, the reference to Calypso’s island may be the classicizing impulse gone too far Tertullian famously asked what Athens has to do with Jerusalem; we might wonder what Ogygia has to do with

paradise

This poem from the Bodmer Papyri is not the only example of “Ogygia” taking

on different meanings “Ogygia” takes on a range of possible meanings in

post-classical Greek Among Christian authors, it can mean simply ‘immense,’ as in Basil

of Seleuciensis: Ἀλλ’ ἐπειδὴ καὶ τὰ τῶν ἔργων ὠγύγια (‘because of the greatness

of the deeds’).4 It also comes to mean ‘archaic’ or ‘primitive’, because of a primeval and antediluvian king Ogygus, who was sometimes associated with Thebes in Egypt (but also Athens and Boeotia) Ignatius the Deacon,5 in his life of Nicephorus I, Patriarch of Constantinople, says: δέον τὸ τῆς παραδόσεως Ὠγύγιον

4 Basil of Seleuciensis, Sermones, ed J.-P Migne, vol 85, Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series

Graeca (PG) (Paris: 1857-66), 461 line 51

5 born ca.770–80, died after 845

ἐνστερνίσασθαι σέβας (‘one must embrace the ancient worship of tradition’).6

According to a tradition handed down via the Hellenistic poet Lycophron and his 12thcentury Byzantine commentator Tzetzes and recounted by the editors of this poem, Ogygia was also associated with the Isles of the Blessed where heroes went after their deaths.7 The tradition that Tzetzes recalls is a complicated one; suffice it to say, some ancient sources placed Ogygia in the West, and thus associated it with the Isles of the Blessed, which were also placed in the far West There is no indication that Tzetzes knew the poems from the Bodmer Papyri, but clearly a tradition of exegesis

transmitted this seemingly obscure understanding of Homer’s Ogygia as a stand-in for paradise The poem from the Bodmer Papyri offers our earliest evidence of this

Christian reading of Ogygia

As these few examples suggest, by Late Antiquity the island of Calypso had come to mean something different from what it meant in Homer This poem expects a knowledge of mythological interpretation and exegesis on the part of the reader or auditor When this poem from the Bodmer Papyri uses Ogygia, it is something more than a poor attempt to write classicizing Christian poetry or a misunderstanding of source texts The imagery and allusions at work in this poem, while at first baffling, demonstrate a sophisticated reading of both pagan and Christian literature One could

6 See Ignatius the Deacon, Vita Nicephori, ed Carl De Boor, Opuscula Historica (Lipsiae: Teubner,

even call such obscure language deliberate obscurity, perhaps a kenning; it forces one

to pause and work out how Ogygia can stand in for the Christian paradise

This brief moment from one of the poems from the Bodmer Papyri highlights the issues to be covered in this dissertation These poems from the Bodmer Papyri meld the classical tradition with Biblical exegesis; a Christian heaven is talked about but in the language and meter of the pagan past Seemingly obscure references and imagery turn out to convey a tradition of interpretation The verse form and frame of reference is classicizing, but the poets nonetheless write about Christian themes

THE CODEX OF VISIONS AS A NEW CHAPTER IN THE HISTORY OF

CLASSICIZING GREEK POETRY

The history of Christian poetry composed in classical forms is a long and varied story When the emperor Julian (361-363) forbade Christians from teaching in the schools, the Apolinarii (father and son) recast Scripture into classical forms—or so the historians Sozomen and Socrates tell us.8 While Julian’s ban may have given the

8 Sozomen, Historia ecclesiastica V.18; Socrates Historia ecclesiastica III.16 For more on this see Michael Roberts, Biblical Epic and Rhetorical Paraphrase in Late Antiquity (Liverpool: Francis Cairns, 1985), 4; K Thraede, "Epos," in Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum, 999ff The works

of the Apolinarii do not survive; the Homeric Psalter attributed to Apollinaris is a fifth-century

work See Joseph Golega, Der homerische Psalter Studien über die dem Apolinarios von Laodikeia

zugeschriebene Psalmenparaphrase (Ettal: Buch-Kunstverl, 1960) Eusebius and Clement of

Alexandria mention Hellenistic Jewish paraphrases; the Exagoge of Ezekiel the Tragedian survives

in part See Ezekiel, The Exagoge of Ezekiel, ed Howard Jacobson (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1983)

initial motivation, it cannot explain the entire phenomenon, especially as these

classicizing Christian poems continued to be written well after Julian’s brief reign Latin poets led the way in this literary phenomenon of the Biblical epic with Juvencus, the first we know of who recast portions of the Bible as epic poetry. 9 Following suit, the Greek authors (ps.) Apollinaris,10 Nonnos, and Eudocia11 all engage in this

practice Certainly by the fifth century there is a real vogue for composing epic poems based on portions of the Bible in Homeric or Vergilian meters In addition, late

antique authors were not the only ones to attempt to meld classical forms and

Christian narrative in their poetry This tradition continues at least until Paradise Lost, John Milton’s monumental poem that intertwines the classical tradition of epic

with the Christian narrative of salvation history

Although this history of classicizing poetry has been recounted many times, poems from the Bodmer Papyri provide a new chapter—and perhaps one of the

earliest chapters The Bodmer Papyri itself is a unique collection This group of papyri codices was discovered in upper Egypt in 1952, though its precise provenance remains

9 Roberts, Biblical Epic and Rhetorical Paraphrase in Late Antiquity See also Roger Green, Latin

Epics of the New Testament: Juvencus, Sedulius, Arator (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006);

Carl P E Springer, The Gospel as Epic in Late Antiquity (Leiden: Brill, 1988)

10 Golega, Der homerische Psalter

11 Mary Whitby, "The Bible Hellenized: Nonnus' Paraphrase of St John's Gospel and 'Eudocia's' Homeric Centos," in Texts and Culture in Late Antiquity, ed J H D Scourfield (Swansea: Classical

Press of Wales, 2007)

unknown.12 It has the pagan Greek ‘classics’—parts of the Iliad and plays by

Menander—as well as scriptural texts (both Old and New Testament books),

apocryphal texts (Shepherd of Hermas, Nativity of Mary, St Paul’s third letter to the

Corinthians), and other Christian literature One codex in particular from the Bodmer

Papyri, known as the Codex of Visions, presents previously unknown Christian poems

all composed in classical meters

This anthology of anonymous poems, the Codex of Visions, forms the basis for

the present study I specifically address those poems that engage in narrative and paraphrase; the other poems, of a hortatory and didactic nature, will be the subject of future work Paleographic criteria and the format of the codex puts the papyrus at the second half of the fourth century or the beginning of the fifth century, but the six different hands make it difficult to be more precise.13 The papyrus is not the

autograph copy of the poets: for example, corrections are made above certain lines, which suggests the scribes knew other versions of the poems Although the text

12 For an overview of the contents of the Bodmer Papyri, as well as details concerning the date and

possible provenance of this collection, see Rodolphe Kasser, "Bodmer Papyri," in The Coptic

Encyclopedia, ed A S Atiya (New York: 1991); Rodolphe Kasser, "Introduction," in Bibliotheca Bodmeriana: The collection of the Bodmer Papyri (Munich: K G Saur, 2000)

13 Rodolphe Kasser, Guglielmo Cavallo, and Joseph Van Haelst, "Nouvelle description du Codex des

Visions," in Papyrus Bodmer 38, ed A Carlini (Cologny-Genève: Foundation Martin Bodmer,

1991), 123-24 Cavallo suggest the beginning of the 5 th century, while Van Haelst argues for the second half of the 4 th century

survives in Egypt, it could have been written elsewhere and then circulated and was copied in Egypt

These poems have only recently appeared in print and their interpretation has only just begun In 1984 Hurst, Reverdin, and Rudhardt published the “Vision of Dorotheus” (P Bodm 29)14 a narrative poem recounting the vision of heaven

experienced by a poet called Dorotheus His vision imagines a heaven with God, Christ, and angels, but the heavenly realm look suspiciously like the Roman imperial court In 1999 Hurst and Rudhardt published the remaining poems from the codex,

giving it the title Codex of Visions.15 Many of the poems from the Codex of Visions

recast Biblical episodes These poems take part in Christian exegesis, but they do this

in classical meters and use archaic diction One poem (“To Abraham”, P Bodm 30) imagines what Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac might have said before the sacrifice Two separate poems imagine the speeches of Cain and Abel (“What would Cain have said having slain Abel,” P Bodm 33, and “What would Abel have said after being slain”

P Bodm 35) With the publication of these poems, an early and formative stage in this encounter between Christian exegesis and classical poetry has been recovered I

14 André Hurst, O Reverdin, and Jean Rudhardt, Papyrus Bodmer 29: Vision de Dorothéos, Papyrus

Bodmer 29 (Cologny-Genève: Foundation Martin Bodmer, 1984)

15Hurst and Rudhardt, Codex des Visions: Poèmes Divers On account of the two vision narratives, the

“Vision of Dorotheus” and the first three visions of the Shepherd of Hermas, the editors have called

it the Codex of Visions While 70% of the codex is vision narratives, this title does not account for

the other poems These shorter pieces often are concerned more with the underworld than with heaven

intend to show what this encounter looked like and the ways in which these new poems change our understanding of Christian poetry in Late Antiquity

While these poems are similar to the Biblical epics in style and meter, they are shorter pieces and focus on one particular episode; or, as is the case with the “Vision

of Dorotheus”, they apply the style of Biblical epic to the unlikely genre of vision narratives Since the poems on Cain and Abel present themselves as rhetorical

exercises—the practice of characterization (ethopoiia)—some have suggested that this

codex was either produced or used in a school setting.16 In addition, the six different scribal hands, something that one does not often find, argue for this provenance Joseph Van Haelst first suggested the idea of the text coming from a school of

advanced learning in Panopolis.17 Raffaella Cribiore points out that advanced students and scholars who could not afford more expensive copies would copy entire works in their own hands:

The Bodmer papyri exemplify this tendency: whole codices containing

Christian works and Menander’s comedies were copied, with mistakes

and corruptions of every kind, by students—or perhaps sometimes by

teachers—in fluent but somewhat unprofessional handwriting These

texts originated in a Christian school of advanced learning in Panopolis,

16 Jean-Luc Fournet, "Une éthopée de Cạn dans le Codex des Visions de la Fondation Bodmer,"

Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 92 (1992)

17 Kasser, Cavallo, and Van Haelst, "Nouvelle description du Codex des Visions," 108, 18, 24

where religious works were studied side by side with traditional

authors.18

Kasser concurs with this hypothesis, suggesting that the likely owner of this codex

“would no doubt be a scriptorium teacher, progressively building up a respectable and

varied library to suit the needs and tastes of his customers and pupils.”19

Others have seen these poems as coming from a religious community The case for the Bodmer Papyri coming from a monastic setting was made most strongly

by James Robinson. 20 This interpretation has been accepted and promulgated in various works,21 even while the editors of the Bodmer Papyri have raised serious objections on a number of accounts.22 As Jean-Luc Fournet observed in his discussion

18 Raffaella Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 200

19 Kasser, "Introduction," LV

20 James M Robinson, The Pachomian Monastic Library at the Chester Beatty Library and the

Bibliothèque Bodmer (Claremont: Institute for Antiquity and Christianity, the Claremont Graduate

School, 1990)

21 Eldon J Epp, "New Testament Papyri and the Transmission of the New Testament," in Oxyrhynchus:

A City and Its Texts, ed A K Bowman (London: Egypt Exploration Society, 2007), 323; Harry Y

Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts (New Haven:

Yale University Press, 1995), 173

22 See Kasser, "Bodmer Papyri," 49 See also the refutation of Robinson’s views in Kasser, Cavallo, and Van Haelst, "Nouvelle description du Codex des Visions," 105 note 5

of the Cain and Abel poems, these poems, as examples of ethopoiia exercises, argue

against the idea of the codex coming from a monastic setting. 23

The context for these texts does not have to be either a school or a monastery Another option is that this collection belonged to a wealthy collector Kasser suggests that the collector might have been a Martin Bodmer of Late Antiquity (the collector after whom the collection is named), “a rich landowner, with a taste for old favorites and the new writings of the time.” Gianfranco Agosti argues that these compositions

are not like the usual school texts, especially since ethopoiia is used for exegesis; he suggests that they may be from a community interested in pagan paideia as well as

Christian culture.24 Based on the archaic language of the poems and the use of learned allusions to both classical authors and contemporary ones, we can assume that these texts were produced and enjoyed by an audience that would appreciate and understand

the display of paideia evident in the poems While we know little about how poetry

was performed or circulated during this period, we do have one revealing anecdote When Arator held a public recital of his retelling of the Acts of the Apostles in

Vergilian hexameters, it lasted four days “because of the constant repetitions that they demanded with manifold applause.”25 The crowd, consisting of religious, lay, and

23 See Fournet, "Une éthopée de Cạn dans le Codex des Visions de la Fondation Bodmer," 253

24 Gianfranco Agosti, "L'etopea nella poesia greca tardoantica," in Ēthopoiia: la représentation de

caractères entre fiction scolaire et réalité vivante à l'époque impériale et tardive, ed Eugenio

Amato and Jacques Schamp (Salerne: 2005), 45

25 For the Latin text recounting this episode and father discussion, see Green, Latin Epics of the New

Testament: Juvencus, Sedulius, Arator, 391-92

even various people from the congregation, gathered in the church of St Peter ad Vincula for this poetry reading Evidently people enjoyed this kind of poetry and its performance could take place in settings outside of the school, even in a church—but,

notably, not as part of a liturgical service

RHETORIC, THE SCHOOL ROOM, AND POETRY

Whether or not this codex was the product of a school, the typical exercises of the schoolroom inform how one reads these poems The poems on Cain and Abel most directly show how the practices of the schoolroom shaped the crafting of verse, but all of the narrative poems exhibit traces of the rhetorical school to some degree

The preliminary exercises called progymnasmata formed the minds of students As Cribiore has said, the progymnasmata “were meant to warm up his muscles, stretch his

power of discourse, and build his vigor.” 26 The student encountered these exercises at the advanced level, the rhetorical school The list and sequence of exercises differ in the various surviving handbooks, but among the exercises we find the following:

fable (mythos), narrative (diêgêma, diêgêsis), anecdote (khreia), maxim (gnômê), refutation (anaskeuê), confirmation (kataskeuê), common-place (topos), encomion (enkômion), invective (psogos), comparison (synkrisis), characterization (ethopoiia,

prosôpopoeia), description (ekphrasis) thesis or proposition (thesis), law (nomos) and paraphrase (paraphrasis).27

Since the structure of education in antiquity has been dealt with thoroughly elsewhere,28 I will turn instead to the role of poetry in the schoolroom As students advanced to the rhetorical school, the final stage in one’s education, the emphasis was supposed to turn to prose The purpose of rhetorical training, after all, was to prepare

to take part in civic life in the public sphere, where oratory predominated Creating poets was not the primary goal of the school system Yet, as Cribiore observes, poetry was more common in schools than once thought.29 In another place she dispels the idea that the use of poetry in the rhetorical school was only an Egyptian phenomenon:

Far from pointing to an eccentric phenomenon and to the exclusive

predilection of the Egyptians from poetry, they are symptomatic of the

fact that poetry was cultivated in schools of rhetoric anywhere, even

though school examples outside of Egypt are hard to come by.30

27 Kennedy, Progymnasmata: Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition and Rhetoric, xiii Paraphrase is

not mentioned in Kennedy’s discussion here, but paraphrase is used in Theon

28 See Raffaella Cribiore, Writing, Teachers, and Students in Graeco-Roman Egypt (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996); Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt See also Teresa Morgan, Literate Education in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1998)

29 Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt., 230

30 Raffaella Cribiore, The School of Libanius in Late Antique Antioch (Princeton: Princeton University

Press, 2007), 162

A recent collection of essays on ethopoiia corroborates Cribiore’s point Ethopoiia

changes from a rhetorical exercise limited to the schoolroom to a device common to

poetry Agosti traces the ways in which poetic ethopoiia begins to appear already in

the first and second centuries AD;31 furthermore, one finds this exercise in

characterization at work in many longer poems.32

That this rhetorical device in particular should give rise to poetic compositions

should come as no surprise Aelius Theon, in his Progymnasmata 33 says that

prosôpopoeia (the term he uses to cover all types of characterization exercises) are

good practice for writing a variety of works: “characterization is not only practice for writing history, but it is also useful for oratory, for dialogues, and for poetry; even in our daily life it is most useful for our conversation with others It is extremely helpful for understanding prose writings.”34 The practice of composing imagined speeches serves as a training ground for an array of uses from the literary to the quotidian The

31 Agosti, "L'etopea nella poesia greca tardoantica," 36ff

32 Ibid., 45ff

33 Aelius Theon, Progymnasmata, ed Michel Patillon and Giancarlo Bolognesi (Paris: Belles Lettres,

1997) Previously, Theon was considered the earliest, but recent work has suggested a later date (1st

century AD or later); see Malcolm Heath, "Theon and the history of the progymnasmata," Greek,

Roman and Byzantine Studies 43 (2003/2004)

34 Theon, Progymnasmata, 60.19-31 See also Ruth Webb, "The Progymnasmata as Practice," in

Education in Greek and Roman Antiquity, ed Yun Lee Too (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 306

progymnasmata are not ends in themselves, but instead they form the thoughts and the

language—that is, they shape how students think about literary composition.35

The Cain and Abel poems use the device of ethopoiia for the crafting of

monologues; these poems represent only one voice and take on the persona of the Biblical character In “To Abraham”, multiple voices are imagined As Theon

observed, the practice of imagining isolated speeches prepares one for writing

dialogues “To Abraham” conjoins imagined speeches of Abraham, Sarah and Isaac

We see Theon’s words put into action as ethopoiia leads to the construction of a

dialogue But the dialogue is not fully developed; since little back and forth occurs

between the speakers, it might be better to call this “dialogized ethopoiia.” Even the

“Vision of Dorotheus” incorporates elements of ethopoiia as it imagines what a

Roman imperial guard would have said if transported to heaven

POETRY IN LATE ANTIQUITY

After a decline in the production of poetry in the second and third century, a revival of poetry occurred in Late Antiquity.36 Poetry even takes over areas that were

35 Webb, "The Progymnasmata as Practice," 290

36 Much of the following discussion is indebted to Alan Cameron, "Poetry and Literary Culture in Late

Antiquity," in Approaching Late Antiquity The Transformation from Early to Late Empire, ed

Simon Swain and Mark Edwards (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 328 A recent book

situates the poems from the Codex of Visions within the context of late antique poetry from Egypt;

unfortunately it came out too late to incorporate in the present study See Laura Miguélez Cavero,

once the domain of prose Louis Robert shows that dedications composed in prose during the second and third centuries came to be composed in classicizing elegiacs or hexameters in the fourth century.37 Why this resurgence of interest in poetry? For one thing, poetry was a means to preserve culture; and, perhaps more importantly, it was

also a way to manifest culture (paideia) As Alan Cameron states, “poetry was

paideia in its most concentrated form.”38

In the late fourth century, Gregory of Nazianzus produced a massive amount of poetry—much of it autobiographical, some of it didactic, some hortatory—and almost all of it in ancient meters.39 A prolific writer, Gregory of Nazianzus wrote poems in almost every ancient meter and genre, and so he is a fitting point of comparison when investigating late antique Greek Christian poetry Although he was not the only poet around, his writings came to dominate in the Byzantine school curriculum.40

Intellectual Biography (Crestwood, N.Y.: St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2001)

40 On the early reception of Gregory, see Jennifer Nimmo Smith, A Christian's guide to Greek culture:

the Pseudo-Nonnus commentaries on sermons 4, 5, 39 and 43 by Gregory of Nazainzus, Translated

texts for historians v 37 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2001), xxxiii On the Byzantine

reception, see Robert Browning, "Homer in Byzantium," Viator 6 (1975): 16-17

Subsequently, he offers the modern scholar the greatest resources for comparison since so much of his poetry survives Gregory is often known, at least in modern scholarship, for his autobiographical poems,41 but he also composed many classicizing poems on Biblical themes Among his “Dogmatic Poems,”42 one finds poems that recount the Decalogue of Moses (in dactylic hexameters, PG 37.476), the miracles of Elijah and Elisha (in iambic trimesters, PG 37.477), and the genealogy of Christ (in

dactylic hexameters, PG 37.480), as well as many others

Gregory’s poetry also highlights important aspects of the transformation of poetry in this period His poems on Biblical subjects are but one example of this transformation His avoidance of strict adherence to classical strictures on prosody is another indication Cameron summarizes the issue as follows:

41 The way Gregory is read today and how he was read in Byzantine differ significantly, as modern scholarship has been more interested in the autobiographical elements For a good discussion of the changing ways Gregory has been read, see the introduction in Preston Edwards, "'Epistamenois agoreuso: on the Christian Alexandrianism of Gregory of Nazianzus" (Dissertation, Brown

University, 2003)

42 I follow the classification given in the only complete edition of Gregory’s works to date, although a

new complete edition is in process See Gregory of Nazianzus, Carmina, ed J.-P Migne, vol

37-38, Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Graeca (PG) (Paris: 1857-66) These divisions are a modern construction; references will include both volume/column from Migne and the traditional

breakdown of Poemata Theologica (Book 1), which contains Poemata Dogmatica (1.1) and

Carmina Moralia (1.2) and Poemata Historica (Book 2), which contains Carmina De Seipso (2.1)

and Poemata Quae Spectant Ad Alios (2.2)

Yet given the fact that in everything but prosody Gregory shows considerable technical competence, his ‘false’ quantities (a characterization that reveals our own classicizing perspective) are not really likely to be the result of ignorance The explanation of the paradox is surely that he deliberately ignored classical quantities when

it suited him.43

Gregory’s willingness to diverge from the traditions of the past serves as a model for

what the poets from the Codex of Visions are doing Moreover, Cameron’s way of

discussing Gregory’s “false quantities” indicates a major change in approaches to the literature of this period No longer is all change and transformation viewed as

deviation Whitmarsh, in discussing the creation of canons of taste, notes how in previous scholarship “all post-classical literature was perceived to be derivative.”44Recent scholarship has taken a different approach, and new models have provided

43 Cameron, "Poetry and Literary Culture in Late Antiquity," 338-39

44 Tim Whitmarsh, Ancient Greek Literature (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2004), 12 Scourfield sums up

the situation as follows: “the view from the twenty-first century reveals in the fourth a period that in its variety, creative experiment, and, above all, productivity, can only be regarded as flourishing Modern scholarship has nonetheless displayed a tendency to regard the literature of Late Antiquity

as something essentially second-rate.” J H D Scourfield and Anna Chahoud, Texts and Culture in

Late Antiquity: Inheritance, Authority, and Change (Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 2007), 2

ways to approach late antique literature without the blinders of nineteenth-century

“classicism.”45

At issue in these poems from the Codex of Visions, as with much of late

antique poetry, is the question of originality and imitation Often the very terminology

is colored with notions of this literature being derivative, as when words such as plunder, pastiche, or ‘mere imitation’ are used I suggest that an apt and fitting term for this convergence of traditions and the emergence of new forms and new

vocabulary is “melding.” This term, itself a combination of two different terms—

“melt” and “weld”—vividly demonstrates what these poets do in their compositions Different words come together in new combinations to give birth to previously

unheard-of phrases, and formerly pagan terms are invested with Christian meaning Poetic forms like epic meter become the vehicle for mediations on Biblical episodes Moreover, “melding” offers a more symbiotic model that avoids the problems of unidirectional influence and dependence

IMPORTANCE OF CODEX OF VISIONS

What then is the significance of the Codex of Visions? While other poets from

the period—such as Gregory of Nazianzus and Nonnos—present us with polished, refined verse that has had a long manuscript history, these poems provide something else The sometimes imperfect use of archaic verse and the oftentimes perplexing

45 On this change in methods, see Jakov Ljubarskij, "Quellenforschung and/or Literary Criticism:

Narrative Structures in Byzantine Historical Writings," Symbolae Osloenses 74 (1999)

imagery are among the many qualities that make the Codex of Visions so interesting:

these poems show the tradition of classicizing Christian poetry at its early,

experimental stage Since these poems survive only in this codex, they present us with access to the imaginative world of late antique poets feeling their ways towards new poetic traditions We know almost nothing of the identity of the author or authors, the date of composition, where the poems where written, or the context in which these poems were read or performed or studied But we have the poems Thus any

discussion must give heed to the poems as poems since they hide from us so much else

Consequently, my primary purpose in this dissertation is to unpack the

meaning of these poems by exploring the poetic language I focus on the ways in which metaphor and imagery work and how the poets weave a web of allusions and intertextual borrowings Likewise, I examine the ways in which exegesis and

paraphrase operate within a poetical text My approach is, following Geoffrey Hill,

“to trace and find out the whole ‘drift, and occasion, and contexture of the speech, as well as the words themselves.’”46 I present an analysis and interpretation of four

poems from the codex The Codex of Visions presents poems (and one work of prose)

of varying types, but my concern here is with the narrative poems While the other poems, primarily of a didactic character, also deserve further exploration, they are only used as comparanda in the present work I draw attention to the hybrid nature of

46 Geoffrey Hill, The Enemy's Country: Words, Contexture and Other Circumstances of Language (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991), 23 Hill is himself quoting from Hobbes, On Human

Nature

the poems Although composed in epic verse and written in a deliberately archaizing fashion, these poems also engage in the exegesis of Biblical texts Likewise, these poems reveal characteristics usually associated with liturgical poetry In addition, I

situate the poems from the Codex of Visions within the broader story of Christian

poetry in Late Antiquity One new argument presented in this dissertation is that these poets knew the poetry of Gregory of Nazianzus A number of complex allusions demonstrate that these poets may be called the first ‘school’ of Gregory

A standard view of Greek Christian poetry goes like this In the fourth and fifth centuries, Christian poets like Gregory of Nazianzus, Synesius, and the school of Biblical epic poets attempted “to unite the classical and Christian spirit in their verse.” This is how Maas and Trypanis describe it in their edition of Romanos. 47 After this failed attempt, classical poetry was abandoned as a model for religious poetry—

though it remained part of elite literary culture—and other influences gave rise to the great flowering of hymnody in the sixth century, seen especially in the work of

Romanos the Melodist.48 This portrayal is obviously a straw man, but the assumptions behind it color many discussions of Greek poetry in Late Antiquity Certainly the vogue for writing in classical meters petered out amongst religious poets, and Syriac poetry played an undeniably significant role in the shaping of Byzantine hymnody

47 Romanus, Cantica, ed Paul Maas and C A Trypanis (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), xiii

48 For the texts of Romanus, see Ibid; Romanus, Hymnes, ed José Grosdidier De Matons (Paris:

Editions du Cerf, 1964) On the place of Romanus in the history of liturgical poetry, see José

Grosdidier De Matons, Romanos le Mélode et les origines de la poésie religieuse à Byzance,

Beauchesne Religions (Paris: Beauchesne, 1977)

But was the chasm so vast between someone like Gregory of Nazianzus and

Romanos? It would be surprising if there were not some hybrid forms and poetic experiments that came in between these two bookends

The poems from the Codex of Visions show characteristics of both of these

traditions They use classical forms, but they also use devices common to liturgical poetry: acrostics, imagined speeches of Biblical characters, and paraphrases of the Psalms Biblical texts are often their starting point, but then they improvise from there These poems look backwards and forwards: the classical tradition is retained but also transformed, while Biblical episodes are rewritten in fresh and playful ways In these poems we see the first inklings of poetic developments that will become the hallmark

of medieval literature Allegorical exegesis gives rise to readings of Biblical scenes that at first seem obscure; indeed the poets take delight in that which is difficult and requires work Likewise, chronology is not adhered to, but a poetics of prolepsis is at work Future events are seen as already having occurred Indeed, these poems, as hybrid forms, serve as a bridge between the two traditions of classicizing and liturgical poetry By crossing this chasm, the story of Christian poetry changes The poems

from the Codex of Visions challenge us to rethink how Christian poetry developed

CHAPTER TWO: A TRIP TO HEAVEN RETOLD IN HOMERIC VERSE BY

A ROMAN IMPERIAL GUARD: THE “VISION OF DOROTHEUS”

(P.BODM 29) INTRODUCTION

Religious vision narratives are nothing new in the world of late antique

literature.49 In this regard, the “Vision of Dorotheus” (P.Bodm 29) from the Bodmer Papyri seems like yet another vision of a trip to heaven Except this trip is told by a Roman soldier who describes a heaven that does not look much different from the late Roman imperial court Moreover, the poem employs archaizing verse, making the

“Vision of Dorotheus” one of the earliest surviving examples of a Greek Christian poem composed in the meter and language of classical epic The fragmentary text contains many gaps (of 343 lines, only 22 are fully intact), and questions concerning authorship, date, or provenance remain difficult to answer Part of the Bodmer Papyri discovered in 1952,50 the “Vision of Dorotheus” was first published in 1984,51 and a

50 See Chapter One for more on the Bodmer Papyri and the Codex of Visions

51 Hurst, Reverdin, and Rudhardt, Papyrus Bodmer 29: Vision de Dorothéos

revised edition appeared in 1987.52 Recent scholarship, though arriving at this by different means, places the “Vision of Dorotheus” in the mid to late fourth century.53

With the recognition that we are limited in what we can know for certain about the date and provenance of the poem, I want to leave aside these issues for the moment and proceed to other aspects of the poem that have not been discussed This chapter will explore instead the literary aspects of the poem.54 Authorship has been a concern

in previous scholarship, but only in so far as scholars have attempted to correlate the Dorotheus of the poem with a known person from the period Instead I will show how Dorotheus can be read as a literary character, a fictive “I” retelling his vision

Connections with Gregory of Nazianzus reveal how the poet was part of a broader tradition, and these moments of intertextuality may suggest other ways to situate the poem in its historical context

52 P W Van Der Horst and A H M Kessels, "The Vision of Dorotheus (Pap Bodmer 29)," Vigiliae

Christianae 41 (1987): 313-59 Because of the improvements made to the text, quotations will be

from this edition, but translations will be my own, unless otherwise noted

53 For a summary of previous scholarship on the date of the poem, see Jan N Bremmer, The Rise and

Fall of the Afterlife: The 1995 Read-Tuckwell Lectures at the University of Bristol (London:

Routledge, 2002), Appendix 3

54 Here I am indebted to Gianfranco Agosti, who has led the way in studying the “Vision of Dorotheus”

in its literary context In particular, the following has proved extremely useful: Gianfranco Agosti,

"I poemetti del Codice Bodmer e il loro ruolo nella storia della poesia tardoantica," in Le Codex des

Visions, ed André Hurst and Jean Rudhart (Genève: Librairie Droz, 2002)

Finally, I will argue that the poem contains previously unnoticed elements of parody The impulse to archaize was a common drive amongst poets of all stripes from Hellenistic times and beyond But the “Vision of Dorotheus” uses archaic verse

to relate a vision of heaven, and ascents to heaven were not traditionally topics for epic verse It is not strictly a cento or biblical paraphrase, since it is not constructed entirely of verses from Homer nor does it take for its subject matter an episode from the Bible It also differs from the work of Gregory, whose poetry deals with many topics but not dream visions Even so, it works within the same milieu as Gregory and the biblical epic poets Straddling these different genres, the “Vision of Dorotheus” creates a hybrid by adapting the formal structure of epic poetry for the unlikely

purpose of relating a vision narrative At a time when Homeric centos where on the rise and Christian poets were taking up the poetry of the past, the “Vision of

Dorotheus” uses archaizing verse for an unlikely purpose This mixing of an archaic verse form with an unusual vision of heaven raises the question: can a vision narrative

of a Christian heaven be told in the meter and language of Homer? Or does such an attempt instead result in parody? Indeed, it seems that the poem parodies vision narratives, in particular Gnostic ascents to heaven

when sleep overcame him A vision comes to the sleepy soldier, who now finds himself in a palace again as the gatekeeper, but it is a heavenly palace: the court of a Roman emperor is transferred to heaven The characters one expects to find in heaven are there—Christ, Gabriel, and other angels—but it is an unusual heaven The heavenly ranks do not look all that different from the late Roman military Heaven is

populated with ranks such as praepositus, domesticus, tiro, biarchus, ostiarius and primicerius The narrator here shows his familiarity with late Roman military and

administrative offices Dorotheus undergoes a transformation and receives a position

of honor He becomes a tiro (recruit) among the praepositi at the palace near the biarchoi (commissary-generals): “π̣[ραιπο]σίτοισι δόµοισιν ἔην τίρων ἄγχι

βιάρχων” (l 43) After Dorotheus receives this position of honor, he becomes overly proud and goes beyond the doorway that he is supposed to guard Here the text is especially corrupt, but we gather that Dorotheus falsely accuses an old man before Christ He regrets his mistake and asks for the dream to stop Christ, smiling,

chastises Dorotheus for forsaking his position at the gate and orders him to be

punished by scourging Dorotheus is placed in prison, and Gabriel supervises the gruesome scourging of Dorotheus After the flagellation, Christ brings Dorotheus back to his previous position at the gate Because of the blood that covers him,

Dorotheus must wash himself Then Christ instructs him to be baptized, and

Dorotheus chooses the name Andreas because he wants to make up for his lack of

courage The following section is difficult to reconstruct, but after instruction from Christ, Dorotheus is again placed as guardian of the gate although he asks God that he

be made a veredus (l.310)—i.e he asks to be sent far way At the end Dorotheus

returns to his original earthly position as gatekeeper, though he is now clothed with a

cloak, an orarium, a glittering girdle or belt, and he wears breeches (ll 332-3) The

vision ends and the poet tells how all this was placed on his heart so that he should sing of it year after year

In the first few lines of the narrative, one already sees how Homeric language

interweaves with Christian theology:

Ἤ µάλα µοι τῷ ἀλιτρῷ ἀπ᾽οὐρανόθ[εν θε]ὸς ἁγνὸς

Χρηστόν, ἄγαλµα ἑοῖο, δῖον φάος ὤπ[ασε κόσ]µῳ,

ἵµερον ἐν στήθεσσι διδοὺς χαρίεσσα[ν ἐπ᾽ ὄι]µην (lines 1-3)

[To me, a sinner, the holy God sent from Heaven

Christ, his image, the brilliant light sent to the world

who put the charming desire for song in my breast]

The second line evokes the Gospel of St John (Ἦν τὸ φῶς τὸ ἀληθινόν, ὃ φωτίζει πάντα ἄνθρωπον, ἐρχόµενον εἰς τὸν κόσµον John 1:9), but in the “Vision of Dorotheus” the light is not the standard Koine “φῶς” but the archaic Aeolic form,

“φάος.” Moreover, this poem uniquely combines two epic words (δῖον φάος) to render St John’s “τὸ φῶς τὸ ἀληθινόν” The pure God (θεὸς ἁγνὸς) has dispatched

Christ from heaven—Christ the image of God, a divine light— to the world for me

(the narrator), a sinner Again, with the phrase “ἄγαλµα ἑοῖο” a Christian idea is rephrased in the language of epic St Paul describes Christ as the “image of God,” εἰκὼν τοῦ θεοῦ (2 Corinthians 4:4) In the “Vision of Dorotheus”, Christ is an

“ἄγαλµα ἑοῖο,” an “image of him [God],” which looks archaic and proper to epic because of the old form of the pronoun (ἐός) and the form of the archaic genitive ending (-οῖο) The word “ἄγαλµα” as a term for image, however, is not common to classical epic but rather to later prose.56

Much of the seemingly archaic diction in this poem is actually based on

Hellenistic models, such as Apollonius of Rhodes or even Quintus of Smyrna The poem is full of such combinations of genuinely archaic epic forms alongside newer formulations (such as the seemingly epic adverb “τοίως,” which is found in late epic writers such as Apollonius of Rhodes, but not in Homer) Even though the poet does not hesitate to incorporate Roman military terms, the actual words of the New

Testament are virtually absent: here the poet seems determined to depict God in the language of epic The “Vision of Dorotheus” is hard to classify: on the one hand, it is highly imitative and archaizing; on the other hand, it is very contemporary and

56 “ἄγαλµα” is not used in reference to Christ It is used on occasion to refer to the divine image in man See PGL

57 The adjective ἀλιτήριος is used by some patristic authors: see examples in the PGL

occurs frequently in Gregory’s poetry.58 In his poem “Peri Tou Patros” (the first of the

Poemata Arcana) he writes “φεύγετε, ὅστις ἀλιτρός”(l.9) This phrase is itself an allusion to Callimachus’ “Hymn to Apollo”, “ἑκὰς ἑκὰς ὅστις ἀλιτρός” (In Apollinem

l.2).59 After Gregory “Ἀλιτρός,” a word uncommon in the New Testament and early Christian literature, then becomes a word loaded with significance among the

Christian poets paraphrasing the Bible in epic verse It is almost a catchword marking their work as part of the tradition of Greek Christian poets The first line of the

Metaphrasis Psaltorum (attributed to Apollinarus), though it looks rather unlike the

Septuagint translation (“Μακάριος ἀνήρ, ὃς οὐκ ἐπορεύθη ἐν βουλῇ ἀσεβῶν”) highlights how the word becomes part of the tradition of Biblical epics: “ Ὄλβιος, ὅς τις ἀνὴρ ἀγορὴν δ᾽ οὐ νίσσετ᾽ ἀλιτρῶν.”60 In turn, Nonnus uses it in his

Paraphrase of St John a number of times, as in the following example: “θνητὸς ἀνὴρ

in the same metrical position as in Callimachus (“Commentary,” 131)

60 Psalm 1.1 Apollinaris of Laodicea, Apolinarii Metaphrasis Psalmorum, ed Arthur Ludwich (Leipzig:

Teubner, 1912) Though attributed to the fourth century father and son duo, the Apolinarii, who famously attempted to render the whole of the Bible into Classical forms during the reign of Julian,

this paraphrase is likely a fifth century work See Golega, Der homerische Psalter

καὶ ἀλιτρός.” 61 As this Homeric word enters the lexicon of the Greek poets, does it remain simply an allusion to its classical past? The “Vision of Dorotheus” gives an early instance, alongside Gregory of Nazianzus, of how the word transforms.62 This line in the “Vision of Dorotheus” is not an isolated instance: it appears a number of times in various forms both in the “Vision of Dorotheus” and in the other poems of the codex.63 Ἀλιτρός no longer means ‘jerk’ (the closest equivalent to its sense in

Homer); now it takes on the significance of ‘sinner’ with all the implications of

Christian theology When the poet of the “Vision of Dorotheus” writes of God

sending Christ to him, a sinner, the tenor of ‘ἀλιτρός’ has undergone a change

In tracing the transformation of this one word, one must ask: is the poet

alluding to any poetic ancestors (Gregory of Nazianzus—more like a contemporary, Callimachus, or even Homer) or is the poet a passive receptacle of previous poetry?

Or put another way, are these instances accidental parallels coming from a poet

steeped in the school curriculum, or does the poet manipulate the material in order to draw attention to how these references are refashioned? Take for instance the

61 9.83 Nonnus, Paraphrasis S Evangelii Ioannei, ed Augustin Scheindler (1881) A team of Italian

scholars is preparing new editions of Nonnus’s paraphrase, many of which have already appeared, though not for the section in question

62 A similar point is made by Hurst, Reverdin, and Rudhardt, Papyrus Bodmer 29: Vision de Dorothéos,

38 The editors do not, however, take into account how other Christian poets make use of this word

63 “Vision of Dorotheus” ll 1, 96; Le Seigneur à ceux qui sofffrent 10; Eloge] du Seigneu Jésus 6;

Adresse aux Justes 98 For the other poems from the codex, see Hurst and Rudhardt, Codex des Visions: Poèmes Divers

flagellation of Dorotheus The poet describes Christ’s anger as Dorotheus is put into prison While Christ sits in a court like a Roman emperor, he acts with rage, more in line with the heroes in Homer Not one but two interwoven Homeric similes illustrate Christ’s rage:

ἔστη] δ᾽ ὥσ[τε] λέων κραδίην γναθµοῖσι τανύσσας

θήγ]ω̣ν λευκὸν ὀδόντ᾽, ἅµ᾽ ἐκέκλετο µ᾽ ἐµβαλέεσθαι

[‘He stood there like a lion straining its wrath, with his jaws

whetting his white fangs—he then ordered that I be thrown in’]

(ll 140-141)

Kessels and van der Horst observe in their commentary that the first simile, of

the lion’s jaws, recalls Od 16.175, when Athena transforms Odysseus from his

beggarly appearance and sets straight his jaw (“γναθµοὶ δ᾽ ἐτάνυσθεν”) The

following image, of the lion grinding his teeth, comes from a depiction in the Iliad of a

boar whetting his tusks in anticipation of an attack (“θήγων λευκὸν ὀδόντα µετὰ

γναµπτῇσι γένυσσιν,” ‘whetting his white fangs with his bent jaws’ Il 11.416)

Kessels and van der Horst suggest that the poet has “degenerated” the line from the

Odyssey and mingled it with the description of the boar from the Iliad; at another point

they call this method the “thoughtless reception of a Homeric passage.”64 But is there another way to approach this? It seems unlikely that this melding of images results from ‘thoughtless reception’ and that these parallels emerge without intention

64 Van Der Horst and Kessels, "The Vision of Dorotheus (Pap Bodmer 29)," 352 n 140, 358 n, 295