Eupolemius

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Under the name Eupolemius , a Latin poem from the High Middle Ages has come down to us, which belongs to the text genre of the Biblical epic and tells in allegorical form the Christian history of salvation from the fall of man to the resurrection of Jesus Christ .

Nothing is known about the author, he probably came from the German-speaking area. The time of creation of the work is set before the middle of the 12th century, possibly as early as the 11th century. A first partial publication was carried out by Georg Fabricius ( Schola antiquitatum christiano puerili , Basel 1564.)

The poetry in two books takes place in the city of Solima and is about the fact that Cacus, the opponent of Agatus, casts a spell over Antropus and his two sons. To save them, Agatus sends out Moses, who turns to Judas, the better of the sons, and tries to secure him in his wavering faith in Agatus and to withdraw from the service of Cacus. The second book describes the epic struggle of the Jebuseans against the Babylonians, in which numerous warriors and military leaders are killed. When Agate finally sends his son Messyas out, he is killed by Judas, but after three days he rises from the dead and takes over rule with his father.

The names of the protagonists speak for themselves . Agatus is a Latinized form of the ancient Greek word agathos for "good" and means God, Cacus is derived from kakos , d. H. “Bad” or “evil” and stands for the devil, Antropus stands for anthropos , the “man”, ie Adam, Solima for Hierosolyma (Jerusalem), Judas , Moses and Messyas are self-evident.

The first book has 684 verses, the second 779. In addition to the Bible, the work is formally based on the ancient epics and is written in typical Latin hexameters . The beginning of the poem alludes directly to the Aeneid ( Arma virumque cano ... - "I tell of deeds of arms and the man ...") and reads:

Contra Messyam violenti prelia Caci // Detestanda cano, dudum quem fortibus armis // In dominum pugnasse suum nimiumque potent // Instruxisse ferunt acies jebusea per arva, // Quae circa Solimam sita sunt. Non hic michi Clio, // Non michi Calliope, sed summa vocanda Sophia est. (“I tell of the despicable battles of the violent Cacus against Messyas, about whom you report that he fought against his master for a long time with great force of arms and that he has become overwhelmingly led his armies through the lands of the Jebuseans, which are near Solima. I don't have to Clio, the muse of historiography, not calliope, those of poetry, but wisdom. ")

The retold salvation story concludes with the verses:

Condunt regali corpus regale sepulcro. // Mirum, quod refero! // Iam tercia clarior omni // Sole dies oritur, cum Messyam redivivum // Veraces homines se vidisse in Galilea // Asseruere. Pius gaudens pater acciit illum // Inque trono meritum fecit regnare paterno. ("You are burying the royal body in a royal tomb. A miracle that I now report! On the third day, brighter than any sun, truth-loving men testify that they saw the Messyas, who had come back to life in Galilea. The pious father received him with joy and makes him ruler on his father's throne according to his merit. ")

literature

  • Karl Manitius : Eupolemius. The Bible poem . Böhlau, Weimar 1973 / Reprint 1996, ISBN 3-88612-069-4 ( Monumenta Germaniae historica: Sources on the intellectual history of the Middle Ages , Vol. 9.)
  • C. Ratkowitsch: Eupolemius - an epic from 1096? , in: Filologia Mediolatina 6/7, 1999/2000, pp. 215-271
  • Thomas Gärtner: On the poetic sources and the text of the allegorical biblical poetry of Eupolemius , in: German Archive for Research into the Middle Ages. 58, 2002, pp. 549-562

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