Category: From Antiquity to Middle Age: cultural bridgebuilders

Christianity in North Africa, From Antiquity to Middle Age: cultural bridgebuilders

Fulgentius the Mythographer: mythological metaphores

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In late Antiquity, the people of the Mediterranean world were wondering how to make sense of the ancient myths and legends that had been at the foundation of their culture for centuries, now that they were Christian and no longer believed in the gods of their ancestors. Fulgentius, a North African author of the Vandal era, wrote several books in which he suggests an allegorical reading of Greco-Roman myths, drawing a moral and spiritual message from them.

A hidden message behind myths of another age

The world of ancient mythology is a supernatural world, full of magic, fantastic creatures, talking animals and men changed into animals or into stone. Also, in the mythological universe, the gods who live among men have very human passions: they are murderers, rapists, adulterers, thieves, liars, and commit all sort of crimes. The most reasonable men of the time, especially the philosophers, have always been embarrassed by the absurdity and immorality of these myths. To provide an explanation, they tried to discern a deeper meaning behind those imaginary stories.

Neoplatonic philosophers were especially active in reexamining the ancient myths at the light of their more sophisticated understanding of the world, to find a hidden sense behind their words.

Odysseus and Circe

Their method is best explained by an example. In Homer’s Odyssey, the hero Odysseus and his companions land on the island of the sorceress Circe. When Odysseus’ companions, in their hunger, precipitate themselves on Circe’s table, she changes them all into pigs. Odysseus, on his way to save his companions, meets the god Hermes, who gives him a magical plant, together with instructions of how to triumph of the sorceress. The magical plant protects Odysseus against Circe’s magic. In the end, Circe agrees to return his companions to their human form. For the Neoplatonics, the change of Odysseus’ companions into pigs represents human degradation: when we give in to our primary impulses, to corrupting sensual pleasures, we become like wild animals. Odysseus, on the other hand, is protected by the knowledge of the wise, which gives him the strength to resist the destructive magic of the sorceress.

Ymagines Fulgencii: medieval images inspired by Fulgentius the Mythographer

Allegorical reading of myths became even more prominent in the Christian era. It allowed the Christians in the Greco-Roman world to reclaim possession of the old pagan myths, in which they discovered moral lessons, teaching them how to live a virtuous life, and even spiritual lessons, on God and his plan for them. One of the most prominent authors who developed this Christian allegorical reading of mythological texts was the North African Fulgentius the Mythographer.

Who was Fulgentius the Mythographer?

Fabius Planciades Fulgentius was a North African Christian author, who lived and wrote in the Vandal era, from the 5th to the 6th Centuries CE. Very little is known of his life, not even where in North Africa he lived. His writing style in Latin, his knowledge of Greek and his mastery of classical authors and popular cults indicate he was probably a trained rhetorician or grammarian. He understood the Libyc language and could read the Libyc alphabet, which shows he probably had Amazigh origins. The prologue of his Mythologies mentions that he was married.

Fulgentius of Ruspe

Since the Middle Age, certain scribes identified Fulgentius the Mythographer with Fulgentius of Ruspe, a North African bishop who lived in the same era, and was the leader of the North African Christian resistance against Vandal Arianism. However, this identification is contested by modern specialists.

Fulgentius the Mythographer’s work is traditionally dated from the late 5th and early 6th Century. However, a passage of his work resembles a verse of Corippus, another North African author who wrote around 550, after the Byzantine reconquest. Some specialists believe that he quotes Corippus, which would mean that he wrote after him. Others believe he is older than Corippus, and the resemblance is a pure coincidence. If he indeed does quote Corippus, this would prove that Fulgentius the Mythographer cannot be identified with Fulgentius of Ruspe, as the latter died in 527.

Fulgentius the Mythographer’s work was very popular all through the Middle Age, and had a strong influence on medieval Christian mythographers.

Fulgentius the Mythographer’s works

The most well-known work of Fulgentius the Mythographer are his Mythologies, a series of three books, with 50 chapters altogether. Each chapter tells a myth, and then interprets it allegorically, drawing a moral and spiritual message from it. For his interpretation, he uses etymologies of character names, which are often highly doubtful; but this was common at the time. In his prologue, the author explains that he wanted to strip the classical Greek myths of all their fictitious elements, in order to reveal the obscure truths they contain. While he had a Christian motivation, the lessons he draws from the myths are quite general and can be applied to any public.

Virgil Mosaic, Hadrumetum (Sousse)

In another work, Fulgentius the Mythographer exposes an allegorical reading of the Aeneid of Virgil, which he sees as an allegory of all human life. In this book, he ghost of Virgil appears to the author, together with the Muses (goddesses of art), to explain the truths contained in the Aeneid. Virgil addresses the author on a condescending tone, and makes fun of the readers’ tendency to read his poem literally, without grasping the deeper meaning behind his words. Allegorical interpretations of Virgil were already common (including one by the Roman African grammarian Aelius Donatus), but Fulgentius the Mythographer was the first one to do this in a Christian perspective.

Fulgentius the Mythographer also wrote an Explanation of obsolete words, which gives an explanation of 62 ancient Latin words appearing in classical literature, as well as a historical book, On the Ages of the World and Men.

Statius

Finally, an allegorical reading of the Thebaid, a poem by the 1st-Century Roman poet Statius, was also attributed to Fulgentius the Mythographer, probably by mistake: this work was written later, during the Middle Age. Its author imitates Fulgentius the Mythographer’s writing style. Statius was a contemporary of the first Christians, and a medieval tradition without any historical base, mentioned in Dante’s Divine Comedy, claims that he secretly converted to Christianity, and that his works contains a hidden Christian message.

Roman North Africa, From Antiquity to Middle Age: cultural bridgebuilders

Priscian of Caesarea: a North African grammarian in Constantinople

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Priscian of Caesarea was a 6th-Century grammarian. Born in Caesarea (Cherchell), Mauretania, he taught Latin grammar in Constantinople, the new Imperial capital.

Priscian of Caesarea, relief, bell tower of Florence, Italy, by Luca della Robbia

Priscian was born around 470, in Caesarea (Cherchell), Mauretania. He was probably of Greek origin. Although he was a Christian, his works contain many references to ancient Greek mythology.

Emperor Anastasius, Priscian’s mecene

At the time, North Africa was occupied by the Vandals. As a young man, Priscian fled his native region and settled in Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, where he taught grammar. Anastasius, the Byzantine Emperor at the time (491-518), led a policy of welcoming Romans who had been uprooted by the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Priscian wrote a panegyric of Anastasius, praising his good will towards those refugees.

The most well-known of Priscian’s works was his Institutes of grammar, a systematic exposition of Latin grammar, in 18 books. In this work, Priscian uses quotes of Latin authors as examples of the grammatical rules he exposes. Those quotes preserved fragments of authors whose work would otherwise be lost.

The Institutes of grammar were used during all the Middle Age to teach Latin, together with the Ars Grammatica, written by Aelius Donatus, another North African grammarian: Aelius Donatus was used as an introduction, while Priscian, whose work was more detailed, served for deeper study.

Roman North Africa, From Antiquity to Middle Age: cultural bridgebuilders

Aelius Donatus: a Roman African grammarian

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Aelius Donatus was a 4th-Century North African grammarian. His works on Latin grammar played an important role in the teaching of Latin in the Middle Age.

Statue of Aelius Donatus, Schöner Brunnen (Beautiful Fountain), Nürnberg, Germany

Aelius Donatus was born around 310-320, in Roman Africa, maybe Tipasa. He made his career in Rome, as a grammarian and rhetorician, from 354 to 363. After he retired, he devoted himself to writing. He was close to the philosopher Marius Victorinus, who was also from Roman Africa. He died around 380.

Jerome of Stridon, a disciple of Aelius Donatus

Aelius Donatus’ career spans the time when Christianity gradually supplanted classical paganism as the majority religion in the Roman world. North Africa was one of the most strongly Christian regions in the Empire, and Aelius Donatus was certainly in contact with Christians since his youth. Unlike his friend Marius Victorinus, who converted to Christianity in his old age, Aelius Donatus remained pagan all his life. This didn’t prevent him from influencing the Christian Church: he was the preceptor of the Church Father Jerome of Stridon, who is known mostly for his masterful translation of the Christian Bible into Latin – a task for which Aelius Donatus’ grammar lessons were certainly very useful.

The small booklets, mostly grammar books, printed with wooden blocks before the invention of the industrial printing press by Gutenberg, were called “donats” after Aelius Donatus

Aelius Donatus’ most famous work was his Ars Grammatica, a grammatical treatise that became the most largely used Latin grammar book for over a thousand years, playing a major role in the standardization of the Latin language. The Ars Grammatica was taught in schools, in parallel with the works of Priscian, another later grammarian, who was also North African.

Next to his grammatical works, Aelius Donatus wrote a commentary of the playwright Terence, another Roman African author. His commentary highlights the links between Terence and the Greek playwright Menander. He was also the author of a biography of the poet Virgil, and of a commentary of the Aeneid. Another more famous commentary of the Aeneid, often attributed to him, was actually written by another author, Tiberius Claudius Donatus, who lived around 50 years later, but drew inspiration from Aelius Donatus’ work.

Roman North Africa, From Antiquity to Middle Age: cultural bridgebuilders

Martianus Capella: The North African Author Who Influenced the Medieval World

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Translation: Ibrahim Ait Dami

Martianus Capella was a Neoplatonic author of the early Fifth Century, hailing from Madauros (M’Daourouch) in Roman Africa. His work established the concept of the “seven liberal arts,” which profoundly influenced the educational system throughout the Middle Ages.

Born in Madauros, Numidia, Martianus Capella shared his birthplace with another influential Romano-African writer: Apuleius, the author of the first Latin novel. Martianus Capella authored his texts in the early fifth century, following the sack of Rome by the Visigoth king Alaric I in 410, an event he explicitly mentions, but prior to the Vandal conquest of North Africa in 429.

His main work, On the Marriage of Philology and Mercury, is an allegorical tale. The book recounts the union between Mercury, the god of commerce, and Philology, the personification of the love of letters and scholarship, whom the gods elevate to the status of a goddess. As a wedding gift, the couple receives seven young maidens who are destined to serve Philology. Upon being introduced, each maiden delivers an exposition on the core principles of the science she represents.

Martianus Capella wrote during a period when the Roman Empire had been largely Christianized. The fact that he drew inspiration from mythology does not necessarily dictate that he was a pagan, as Christian authors similarly extracted allegories of human wisdom from the mythological universe. However, the complete absence of Christian references gives the distinct impression that the author was indeed pagan, rather than Christian, a characteristic that did not hinder his work from achieving immense popularity within the medieval Christian world.

Martianus Capella’s writings remained highly popular over the ensuing centuries and left a deep imprint on the Middle Ages, particularly within the realms of education and pedagogy. Under this classical educational framework, the seven “liberal arts” were eventually divided into the trivium (rhetoric, grammar, and logic) and the quadrivium (astronomy, arithmetic, geometry, and music).

From Antiquity to Middle Age: cultural bridgebuilders, Roman North Africa

Macrobius: the last great Roman African writer

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Macrobius was a 5th-Century Latin writer from North Africa. He is considered as one of the main “bridge” authors whose works enabled the transmission of the cultural heritage of Antiquity to the following centuries, through the crises that shook the Roman world during his time.

Macrobius presents his works to his son

Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius was born around 400 and wrote at the beginning of the 5th Century. Almost nothing is known of his life, not even where he was born or where he lived during his career as a writer. He wrote that he was born “under a foreign sky”, that is, for the Romans, outside Italy. The fact that he was more familiar with Latin than Greek, as well as other internal clues in his work, led most specialists to believe he was probably from Roman Africa. Macrobius was a pagan, living in a Roman Empire that already had a large Christian majority. He was probably related to Symmachus, the prefect of Rome, who was the leader of the pagan resistance to the Empire’s Christianization. He had a son, Eustathius, to whom he dedicates his works.

Macrobius wrote two books that are still available today. His main work, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, was one of the most-quoted books during the Middle Ages, and one of the main sources on Neoplatonic thought at this time. In Cicero’s Dream of Scipio, the great Roman general appears to his grandson Scipio Aemilianus, to reveal him his future destiny and that of his country, show him the rewards that await virtuous men after their death, and give him a description of how the universe functions and man’s role in this universe. Macrobius comments this dream, and exposes several Neoplatonic theories on the origins and the signification of dreams, the mystical properties of numbers, the nature of the soul, astronomy, and music. Among other things, he writes that the sun is twice as big as the earth. His main sources are the Neoplatonic philosophers Plotinus and Porphyry.

His other major work, the Saturnalia, are an account of the discussions in the house of a rich aristocrat, on a vast diversity of historical, mythological, and grammatical topics. He quotes the opinion of older authors, like Virgil and Cicero, on those topics.

Macrobius, together with the 6th-Century authors Cassiodorus and Boethius, is considered as one of the authors of Late Antiquity whose works enabled the transmission of the Greek-Roman cultural heritage into the Middle Ages.