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"The Christian Poet, PRUDENTIUS, in one of his hymns, has an elegant and beautiful address to these young sufferers for their Redeemer ; Hail, ye first flowers of the evangelical spring, cut off by the sword of persecution, ere yet you had unfolded your leaves to the morning, as the early rose droops before the withering blast.
The classics were allowed to perish, and their place was taken by Christian poets such as Prudentius or Juvencus, by moralizations of Aesop, patchwork compositions known as 'centos' on Scriptural themes, and the like. The scholars, therefore, who went to Italy and came home to the North carrying the new enthusiasm, had strenuous opposition to encounter.
The Ambrosian hymns remained the type of all the hymnic poetry of succeeding centuries. Even Prudentius, great poet as he was, was manifestly influenced in the choice of metre and the composition of the strophe by the Deus Creator omnium.... "St Ambrose did more than any other writer of his time to establish certain latent tendencies as characteristics of the Catholic spirit.
Pliny tells of a thunder-bolt having fallen into a lake, in which eighty-nine of these wonderful stones were soon afterwards found. Prudentius represents ancient German warriors as wearing gleaming CERAUNIA on their helmets; in other countries similar stones ornamented the statues of the gods, and formed rays about their heads.
Great was the delight of the canons at their powerful postulant and his son, and great the pains taken over the latter's education. The schoolmaster laid stress upon authors such as Prudentius, Sedulius, and Fulgentius. By these means the boy not only learnt Latin, but he also tackled questions of Predestination and Grace, glosses upon St. Paul, hymns and methods of frustrating the Arian.
Herbert states that Attila is represented on an old medallion with a Teraphim, or a head, on his breast; and the same writer adds: "We know, from the 'Hamartigenea' of Prudentius, that Nimrod, with a snaky-haired head, was the object of adoration to the heretical followers of Marcion; and the same head was the palladium set up by Antiochus Epiphanes over the gates of Antioch, though it has been called the visage of Charon.
With Tertullian, St Jerome, and St Augustine he was of course acquainted, but of Lactantius, Prudentius, Sedulius, St Fortunatus, Duns Scotus, Hibernicus exul, Angilbert, Milo, &c., he was obliged to admit he knew nothing even the names were unknown to him.
St. Athanasius tells the pagans, they have been witnesses themselves that the sign of the cross puts the devils to flight, silences oracles, and dissipates enchantments. This power of silencing oracles, and putting the devils to flight, is also attested by Arnobius, Lactantius, Prudentius, Minutius, Felix, and several others.
Augustine at Canterbury, and may be a copy executed in that house of one of the books sent from Rome. It is ornamented with 397 drawings, illustrating the text of the early books of the Bible. The largest miniature represents the building of the Tower of Babel. The Psychomachia of Prudentius is very beautifully written in red and black ink. There are 83 drawings.
It was on particular occasions, by the divine permission, that the Christians cast out devils, or silenced oracles, in the presence and even by the confession of the pagans themselves. And thus it is we should, it seems, understand the passages of St. Jerom, Eusebius, Cyril, Theodoret, Prudentius, and other authors, who said, that the coming of Christ had imposed silence on the oracles.
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