[Previous: book 3 lines 969-1020]
Book 4 begins. Joseph and John are pleading Jesus's case before Pilate. Book 3 was given over to Joseph explaining to Pilate how Jesus came to be born. Now he stops, and all eyes turn to John.
“Hic iuvenis, facie quo tum non gratior alter,------------
puberibusque annis erat ingrediente iuventa,
multa priùs veniam praefatus, multa recusans,
verba diu premit; inde animo mortalia linquens
paulatim, oblitusque hominem, penetralia Divûm [5]
mente subit, cœlum peragrans; fruiturque beato
cœlituum aspectu, omnipotentique aetheris aura,
admissus superam depasci lumine lucem;
inque Deo tota defixus mente moratur.
qualis, ubi alta petens terris aufertur ab imis, [10]
alituum regina, vagas spatiata per auras
dat plausum gyro, atque in nubila condituralis;
aethereâ iamque illa plagâ levis instat, et acrem
intendens aciem, criniti lumina solis
suspicit, obtutuque oculos fixa haeret acuto. [15]
lllum adeô tacitum interea mirantur: in unum
versi omnes velut exanimum, somnoque gravatum;
et crebri excutiunt: demum sibi redditus ipse
cum gemitu ex imo sic fari pectore cœpit:
“Principio Pater omnipotens rerum sator et fons, [20]
ingens, immensus, solus regnabat ubique.
Nondum sidereos mundi procuderat orbes:
Nondum mundus erat, necdum ibant tempora in orbem;
nullaque coeruleo radiabant lumina coelo.
Quicquid erat, Deus illud erat, quodcumque, ubicunque [25]
complexus circùm, penitus sese omnis in ipso.
Filius huic tantùm, quem non effuderat ulla
vel dea, vel solito mortalis foemina partu:
ipse sed æternus genitor conceperat illum
aeternum æternus (dictu mirabile!) mente. [30]
Haud olli terreni artus, moribundave membra,
sed sine corpore erat, Patris alta ut mente supremi
conceptum, arcanoque latens in pectore VERBUM,
quod nondum in volucres vox edita protulit auras;
omnipotens verbum, finisque et originis expers; [35]
quo mare, quo tellus, quo constat maximus æther.
utque pater Deus, æquè etiam Deus unica proles.
At geminos tu proinde Deos fuge credere porrò;
numen idem simul ambobus, Deus unus uterque est.
Quinetiam, quo inter se ambo iunguntur, amorem [40]
(namque ab utroque venit conspirans mutuus ardor)
omnipotens æquè numenque Deumque vocamus,
afflantem maria, ac terras, cœlique profunda;
afflatu quo cuncta vigent, quo cuncta moventur:
tresque unum esse Deum, ter numen dicimus unum. [45]
“Quove magis mirere, Deus, quem cernimus ipsi
factum hominem, atque hominum mortali corpore cretum
non minùs, ac priùs, aetherea nunc regnat in aula
cum genitore, pari simul omnia numine torquens.
Nempe locis nullis, spatiis non clauditur ullis; [50]
omnibus inque locis idem omni tempore praesens,
suffugiens nostras acies, sensuque remotus,
cuncta replet Deus, ac molem se fundit in omnem.
Lux humiles veluti perfundens lumine terras
solis ab orbe venit, suppostaque circuit arva; [55]
non tamen aethereo divisa ab sole recedit
illa usquam, quamvis longinquas ambiat oras.
Nec sine sole suo est lux, nec sine luce sua sol.”
“This young man, than whom none was finer—------------
a beautiful youth, hardly more than a boy—
demurred, repeatedly: recused himself,
long stood silent, his soul far from mortal things
leaving mankind bit by bit to penetrate [5]
the inner godhead, mentally roaming the skies
seeing the radiant ethereal omnipotence
where angels circle the light of the light.
And there he stopped his mind, fixed on God.
It was as if, raised from depths to the sky, [10]
the queen of birds explored the air’s wide spaces
rejoicing in her way and hiding in the clouds;
as she works upwards, heaven is nearby
and, intent, she fixes her eye on the bright sun
directly, and does not release it from her gaze. [15]
Everyone marvelled at this man’s silence
as if he were lifeless, or heavy with sleep.
They shook him vigorously and he was restored
to himself. He sighed deeply, and began to speak:
“At first, the omnipotent Father, source and [20]
shaper of all, ruled alone, immense, unique.
The stars, in their world-circling spheres, were not yet:
The world was not yet, nor yet the orb of time;
no lights shone in the cerulean heavens.
Whatever was, was God, all and everywhere [25]
the complex of all, in the absolute itself.
Only his son was there, not brought forth from
any goddess, nor any mortal woman:
but eternally made, by the eternal
creator in (amazing!) his eternal mind. [30]
Without earthly limbs or mortal shape, the child
was bodiless, his high father’s conception
hidden inside His divine breast—the WORD,
yet to be voiced upon the wandering air;
omnipotent Word, no beginning or end; [35]
that made sea, and earth, and the high sky—as
God was father, so too was God the son.
But do not believe these are two gods;
the two are the same, and both are one God.
And moreover, the love that links these two [40]
(for each breathes each in mutual ardor)
is also God, equally omnipotent and
divine, inspiriting seas and deep skies;
interpenetrating and moving all things:
these three are God; this oneness we call threefold. [45]
“What will amaze you: this same God we have seen
in the shape of a man, a mortal body grown
no less celestial than before, ruling
with his father, divine mover of all things.
For no space and no place can contain him; [50]
present in all locations and at all times—
though he evades us, remote from our senses,
yet does God fill all things, grounding all matter.
As light pours over the humble lowly earth
flowing from the sun’s circle onto the fields; [55]
and returning to the sun, never divided
even though it extends over distant land.
Not without sun its light; not without light its sun.”
I wasn’t quite sure what line 23’s orbis temporis, the orb of time (literally ‘the orb of times’, so presumably all times: ‘the orb of the ages’ perhaps) was, exactly. So I looked into it. Hoo, boy. There’s a lot on this.
Ancient philosophical views of time offer both linear and cyclic models for this phenomenon. The linear mode of time is pivotal for [Ovid] … a cyclical understanding of time is manifest in the image of the revolving years (annui uolentes, orbis temporis) and in references to the progression of seasons [in Vergil] … predicting a return to a golden era Augustan poets transform the linear order of the ages into a cycle whose repetition implies an eternal continuity. The notion of continuity without temporal bounds characterises the Roma aeterna trope. [Anja Wolkenhauer, ‘“Time as such”: chronotopes and periphrases of time in Latin epic’, in Christiane Reitz and Simone Finkmann (eds) Structures of Epic Poetry: Vol. I: Foundations (De Gruyter 2019), 217]Wolkenhauer points to Aeneid 1:234, 3:284 and 6:744. She could have cited other Vergilian moments too.
Otherwise John’s weirdly narcoleptic spiritual envisioning, here, marks an important shift in tone. The previous three books have been largely blended of narrative and piety. This introduces a new mystical idiom by turns grandly vatic and milkily obscure. That’s mysticism for you, I guess. Milton takes from Vida the idea that God and Jesus, being coeternal, must have hung out together before the universe was even created.
There’s a fair bit of incantatory shuffling around of key mystic signifiers, like the three repetitions of ‘aeternus’ in line 29-30 (ipse æternus genitor conceperat illum/aeternum æternus mente) or the snake-biting-its-tail last line, there. Quite fiddly to translate, actually. I appreciate that this mystery is central to Christianity, and don't mean to snark; but one is entitled, I think, to ponder how pagan Pilate would receive this: ‘there are two Gods, Father and Son, but don't you dare think of them as two Gods they are one God except that there's a third God who is also one God so there are three but there's one actually, clear?’
Vida is, of course, following John's gospel in its Christology: for it is John who depicts Jesus as divine, preexistent, and identified with the one God. The capitalised ‘VERBUM’ of the (significant, surely) line 33 is central too: John 1:1's very famous, very difficult-to-parse In principio erat Verbum, et Verbum erat apud Deum, et Deus erat Verbum; identifying Jesus as ὁ λόγος, a Greek word which means ‘Word’, ‘Discourse’, or ‘Reason’. Or maybe something else:
Gordon Clark (1902–1985), a Calvinist theologian and expert on pre-Socratic philosophy, famously translated Logos as ‘Logic’: ‘In the beginning was the Logic, and the Logic was with God and the Logic was God.’ He meant to imply by this translation that the laws of logic were derived from God and formed part of Creation, and were therefore not a secular principle imposed on the Christian world view.At the head of the post: John the Evangelist, a miniature from the Grandes Heures of Anne of Brittany, Queen consort of France (from around 1510). It's an interesting image, actually ‘In art,’ it seems, ‘John is traditionally depicted in one of two distinct ways: either as an aged man with a white or gray beard, or alternatively as a beardless youth. The first way of depicting him was more common in Byzantine art, where it was possibly influenced by antique depictions of Socrates; the second was more common in the art of Medieval Western Europe.’
In medieval works of painting, sculpture and literature, Saint John is often presented in an androgynous or feminized manner. Historians have related such portrayals to the circumstances of the believers for whom they were intended. For instance, John's feminine features are argued to have helped to make him more relatable to women. Likewise, Sarah McNamer argues that because of John's androgynous status, he could function as an “image of a third or mixed gender” and “a crucial figure with whom to identify” for male believers who sought to cultivate an attitude of affective piety, a highly emotional style of devotion that, in late-medieval culture, was thought to be poorly compatible with masculinity.This is the context in which we should read Vida's opening lines here, and their emphasis on the extraordinary youth and beauty of John.
[Next: lines 59-79]
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