Juvencus

Gaius Vettius Aquilinus Juvencus, known as Juvencus or Juvenk, was a Roman Spanish Christian and composer of Latin poetry in the 4th century.

Of his life we know only what St. Jerome tells us. He was a Spaniard of very good birth, became a priest, and wrote in the time of Constantine I.

From one passage in his work (II, 806, sq.) and from St. Jerome's Chronicle it must be inferred that he wrote about the year 330. His poem, in dactylic hexameters, is entitled Evangeliorum libri (The Gospels). It is a history of Christ according to the Gospels, particularly that of St. Matthew. He goes to the other Evangelists for what he does not find in St. Matthew — as the story of the Infancy, which he takes from St. Luke. He follows his model very closely, "almost literally", as St. Jerome says.

The whole problem for him is to render the Gospel text into easy language conformable to the tradition of the Latin poets, and borrowed especially from Virgil. His task permits of little originality beyond that exhibited in new words composed, or derived, according to familiar types (auricolor, flammiuomus, flammicomans, sinuamen), elegant synonyms to express the Christian realities (tonans for "God", genitor for the Father, spiramen for the Holy Ghost, uersutia for the Devil), or, lastly, archaic expressions. The language is correct and the verses well constructed, but there is little colour or movement. A few obscurities of prosody betray the period in which the work was written. The whole effect is carefully wrought out.

In the prologue, Juvencus announces that he wishes to meet the lying tales of the pagan poets, Homer and Virgil, with the glories of the true Faith. He hopes that his poem will survive the destruction of the world by fire, and will deliver him, the poet, from hell. He invokes the Holy Spirit as the pagans invoked the Muses or Apollo.

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