Seve'rus Sanctus
Works
Pastoral
the writer of an amoebaean pastoral of considerable merit, extending to 132 lines, in choriambic metre.
The subject relates to a murrain among cattle, which, after sweeping over Pannonia, Illyria, and Belgica, was devastating the pastures of the country where the scene is laid; that is, probably Gaul (see 5.22).
The speakers who open the dialogue are Buculus and Aegon, both pagans; and these are afterwards joined by Tityrus, a Christian. Buculus recounts, with deep grief, the disease and death by which his oxen had been visited. While Aegon is condoling with him, and marvelling that, although many of their neighbours had been afflicted by this calamity, some had remained altogether uninjured, Tityrus, one of those who had escaped, comes up, and, on being questioned, declares that he attributed the preservation of his property to the sign of the cross impressed upon the foreheads of his flocks, and to the worship of Jesus, which he himself practised, at the same time recommending his friends to adopt the faith which he professed, as the only sure safeguard and remedy. Buculus, convinced by his arguments, and hoping to avert the pestilence from his herds, agrees to become a convert, Aegon also expresses his willingness to receive the truth, and both, conducted by Tityrus, proceeded to the city, for the purpose of offering homage at the shrine of Christ.
With regard to the author little, or rather nothing, is known; for every particular recorded with regard to him, resolves itself into a vague conjecture. Ausonius mentions a
Flavius Sanctus as his kinsman (
Parental. xviii. xix), and Sidonius Apollinaris (
Sid. Ep. 8.11) speaks of his friend
Sanctus, who had been bishop of Bordeaux; but the composer of the eclogue now under consideration, is commonly supposed to be the same with
Sanctus, a friend of Paulinus Nolanus, to whom that prelate addresses his twenty-sixth epistle, while Pithou proceeds a step farther, and maintains that he is also the rhetorician Endeilichius, whom Paulinus names in a letter to Sulpicius Severus (
Ep. ix. comp. Sirmond,
ad Sidon. Apoll. Ep. 4.8). Accordingly, he published the second edition of the pastoral in his "Epigrammata et Poemata Vett.," &c. (Paris, 1590), as
Carmen Severi Sancti, id est, Endeilichi Rhetoris, de Mortibus Boum ; and, since that period, scholars, according to their conviction, have adopted one or other, or both of these titles.
From the internal evidence afforded by the piece itself, we are led to conclude that it belongs to the beginning of the fifth century; and that the pestilence to which it refers, is the same as that which entered Italy along with Alaric, in A. D. 409. Beyond this we can hardly venture to advance.
Editions
First published by P. Pithou in his "Veterum aliquot Galliae Theologorum Scripta" (4to. Paris, 1586) as, Severi Rhetoris et Poetae Christiani Carmen Bucolicum. The second edition is (Paris, 1590), named above.
It will be found also in the Bibliotheca Patrum Max., fol. Lugd. 1677, vol. vi. p. 366;
in the Bibliothieca Patrum of Galland, fol. Venet. 1788, vol. viii. p. 207, and
in Wernsdorf's P. L. M., vol. ii. p. 217. It has been published separately by Weitzius, 8vo. Francf. 1612;
with the notes of Weitzius and Seberus, 8vo. Lug. Bat. 1715 and 1745;
by Richter, 4to. Hamb. 1747; and
by Piper, 8vo. Gott. 1835.
Further Information
A dissertation on Severus Sanctus is contained in Wernsdorf,
Poet. Lat. Min. vol. ii. p. 53, seqq., comp. vol. iv. pt. 2. pp. 806, 812, vol. v. pt. 3. p. 1449; and in the edition of Piper.
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W.R]
