Faltonia Betitia Proba

From the volume of a 2011 Berlin conference on ways of looking at late antiquity:  Marco Formisano and Therese Fuhrer, eds., Décadence, Winter (Heidelberg) 2014, 171-97.  Includes readings from two Virgilian centos:  the Biblical cento of Proba and Ausonius' Cento Nuptialis.

It is very likely that the De ecclesia, the only one among the hundred
Christian centos handed down by the Codex Salmasianus, dates back to the
first half of the fifth century CE, a period of turmoil in the Christian theological
discussions, based on significant aspects of the doctrine.
It is well-known that the majority of the lines is constituted by a sermo of
a sacerdos, that, during a liturgical ceremony, exposes the most significant of
the human and divine aspects of Christ’s life, from the Incarnation to the Last
Judgment, with the aim of urging the believers to sacrifice their lives for their
faith.
The section, consisting of ll. 51-67, has as its theme the Descensus Christi
ad inferos, in the period between his death and resurrection, to bring back to
heaven the souls of the just. This theme was to enjoy both a literary (at least
until Dante, in the Fourth Canto of the Inferno) and iconographic success, but
it does not find a reliable reference in the “orthodox” Scriptures, since the
most significant testimony on the theme is offered by the apocryphal Gospel
of Nicodemus. The Descensus Christi, in the light of the literary reworking
proposed by the author of De ecclesia, echoes the pattern of Aeneas’s catabasis.
Hence it appears that this section derives from the Sixth Book of the Aeneid.
This text, apparently peaceful and predictable in terms of literary form,
adumbrates the reflection on a long-lasting theological debate, certainly well
known by the author of De ecclesia, who strives to defend the content of his
poem from the risk of heretical contamination (and this can motivate, in more
than one case, some daring reinterpretations of the Virgilian model).
As witnessed by Augustine’s letters (especially the Epistula CLXIV ad
Euodium), one of the issues entailed in the theological dispute concerned the
number of those who Christ, after his Descensus, would lead to salvation
once returned to heaven. Augustine argues that, for some, Adam would be the
only one released from the underworld, while for others also the Saints of the
Old Testament would have been saved.
The exegesis of ll. 58, 62 and 64 clearly indicates the position of the author
of De ecclesia, a supporter of the more flexible thesis, faithful to Augustine’s
interpretation.

In Proba the Prophet: The Christian Virgilian Cento of Faltonia Betitia Proba Sigrid Schottenius Cullhed offers an in-depth study and reappraisal of the Cento of Proba and its reception. Proba's poem belongs to the few extant Latin texts from Antiquity penned by a woman writer, and one of the oldest Christian Latin poems. Schottenius Cullhed surveys and challenges common preconceptions and biographical constructions of the poem's author and early readers, and examines their impact on interpretations and evaluations of the text. The author also develops and puts to use an alternative model for understanding the poem and convincingly shows how the Virgilian source texts form a complex net of internal and external biblical typologies within the Cento.

While such early Christian writers as the author of the Pastoral epistles and Tertullian (De cultu feminarum) take a decidedly negative view of Eve as the one who introduced sin into the world, and employ this as a way of enforcing gendered discourses and restrictive practices in the early church, other literary sources, as well as material artifacts made by or for women, indicate that women in early Christianity created and promoted their own, more complex and redemptive narratives about the biblical first woman. Two key texts to be considered are: (1) the Life of Adam and Eve (in its Greek, Latin, and other versions), which draws together diverse traditions about the first parents, some of which may have originated as instructive stories told by mothers and grandmothers to children and grandchildren (Tromp 2004: 219; Arbel 2012: 72); and (2) the Virgilian Cento de laudibus Christi by the poet Faltonia Betitia Proba, an aristocratic Roman Christian woman who pieced together lines from Virgil to re-tell the biblical stories of creation and the life of Jesus. In these texts, Eve appears as a complex individual who is not merely a culpable, cautionary figure but also, and more predominantly, a positive role model as a teacher, devoted spouse, visionary prophetess, and recipient of divine redemption. This alternative imaginary provides a context for reading the iconography of Eve on such early Christian objects as (1) a 4th century North African clay oil lamp with the figure of Eve by herself; (2) a 4th century gold-glass medallion on which Eve resembles the portrayed female owner and is shown being “healed” by Christ with his wonder-working staff (the only known instance of such an image); (3) an early 4th-century funerary plaque at Velletri on which the female deceased appears beside the unique vignette of Eve and Adam joining right hands (dextrarum iunctio), highlighting their marital concordia rather than the Fall or sin; (4) the double-frieze “Trinity” sarcophagus at Arles, likely made for the burial of the woman portrayed with her husband at the center, whose portraits appear immediately below a vignette of Christ speaking individually with Eve and separately with Adam, and beside a scene of Eve’s creation and blessing by the Trinity. These and many similar figured artifacts constituted visual means of participating in redemptive discourses about Eve and womanhood—discourses that represented an alternative to negative views of Eve dominant in patristic writings, as well as to the prevalent ascetic definitions of womanhood centered on figures such as Thecla. They give evidence of women who found personal meaning in identifying themselves with Eve as a complex figure, capable of not only transgression but also repentance, authentic piety, wise teaching, familial devotion, and revelatory insight. By identifying with Eve through narrative and image, women articulated their place in the divine economy and their self-concept as recipients of divine redemption, knowledge, and blessing.

El artículo hace un análisis literario y teológico de Cento Virgilianus, dilucida quién es su autor, desvela los contenidos bíblicos de la obra y sus referencias virgilianas, al tiempo que analiza cómo se hilvanan en el texto todos estos datos.