Poetry and suffering: Metrical paraphrases of Eucherius of Lyons’ Passio Acaunensium Martyrum (original) (raw)

Poetry and Exegesis in Premodern Latin Christianity, 2007

Abstract

Eucherius narrates in his Passio Acaunensium Martyrum that during the persecution under Diocletian a whole army of Christian soldiers from the Egyptian Thebais, under their leader Mauritius, was killed at Acaunum in the Swiss Alps. The soldiers died as martyrs because they refused to obey the emperor's order to fight against fellow-Christians. This brief prose narrative had a textual transmission and manifested its influence both in places of worship and an iconographic tradition up to the late Middle Ages. A further aspect of the Passio's reception manifests itself in various versifications of this story that have so far attracted any attention and is the topic of this investigation. The poetic paraphrases of Venantius Fortunatus, Walafrid Strabo, and Sigebert of Gembloux are analysed. The most important changes in these paraphrases in comparison with their prose hypotext are further highlighted. Keywords: Christian; Egyptian Thebais; Eucherius; Passio Acaunensium Martyrum ; Sigebert of Gembloux; Venantius Fortunatus; Walafrid Strabo

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