THE CREDIBILITY OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY, OR, THE PRINCIPAL FACTS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT CONBY PASSAGES OF ANCIENT AUTHORS WHO FIRMED WERE CONTEMPORARY WITH OUR Saviour, THE PRINCIPAL FACTS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT CONFIRMED, &c. PART II. CHAP. CXXVI. PRUDENTIUS. 1. AURELIUS PRUDENTIUS CLEMENS, an elegant Latin poet, descended of an honourable family, was born at Saragossa in Spain, in the year 348, when Fl. Salia, or Salias, was consul. He wrote the preface to his Cathemerinon, in the fifty-seventh year of his age; as he says himself in that preface, where his other writings also are briefly enumerated: consequently he is well placed as flourishing about the year 405. с 2. I put below Gennadius's chapter of Prudentius, in < Prudentius, vir seculari literaturâ eruditus, composuit Atroxaiov, [Aiπtuxov,] de toto Veteri et Novo Testamento, personis exceptis. Commentatus est autem his book of Illustrious Men, published in 494; and 1 refer tod some learned moderns, such as are desirous of a more particular account of this writer. e 3. Some have thought that Prudentius was consul; but without any good reason. Others have supposed that he was præfect of the Prætorium, or præfect of Rome: but there is no full proof of either. Gennadius, however, says, that he had a military employment at court. What Prudentius says of himself, in the forementioned preface, I transcribe below: from whence it appears, I think, that for a while he studied the law, and was a pleader; and that he had been a civil magistrate in some cities: after which he took to the profession of arms, and was honoured with some high military preferment under the emperor, either Theodosius, or Honorius: and, before he was very old, he retired from the world. 4. Prudentius celebrates, in his poems, our Lord's nativity, and the circumstances of it; and also, his miracles, death, and resurrection. in morem Græcorum Hexaëmeron de Mundi Fabricâ usque ad conditionem primi hominis, et prevaricationem ejus. Composuit et libellos, quos Græcâ appellatione attitulavit, Apotheosis, Psychomachia, Hamartigenia, id est, de Divinitate, de Compugnantiâ Animæ, De Origine Peccatorum. Fecit et in Laudem Martyrum, sub aliorum nominibus, invitationem ad Martyrium, librum unum, et Hymnorum alterum: speciali tamen intentione adversus Symmachum, idololatriam defendentem. Ex quorum lectione agnoscitur Palatinus miles fuisse. Gennad. de V. I. cap. 13. d Cav. H. L. T. i. Fabr. ad Gennad. cap. 13. ap. Bib. Ec. Voss. de Hist. Lat. l. ii. c. 10. Tillem. Mem. T. x. Du Pin. Bib. T. iii. p. 5. J. Le Clerc. Bib. Univ. T. xii. p. 135-193. Pagi. Ann. 405. n. 19. Cantharis infusa lympha fit Falernum nobile. Nuntiat vinum minister esse promtum ex hydriâ. Ipse rex sapore tinctis obstupescit poculis, &c. Cathem. Hymn. ix. ver. 19, &c. Vid. et Cath. Hymn. xii. 5. There is a book, called his Enchiridion, consisting of small poems, celebrating many remarkable events of the Old and the New Testament. Those of the New are taken out of the gospels, the Acts, and the Revelation. 6. Some have hesitated about the genuineness of that work, because it is not taken notice of by Prudentius in the preface before cited: nevertheless, it is particularly mentioned by Gennadius, by the title of Diptychon. Whether it be genuine, or not, the same things occur in the other unquestioned writings of Prudentius. 7. In particular, the Revelation is plainly referred to in some of the hymns in the Cathemerinon. And he seems to have supposed, that St. John had his visions in sleep. 8. I add one thing more: Prudentius considers martyrs as intercessors; and hopes, through them, to obtain of Christ the forgiveness of his sins. 8 Bis duodena senum sedes, pateris citharisque, Enchir. Num. 49. seu ult. Alpha et cognominatus: ipse fons et clausula Omnium, quæ sunt, fuerunt, quæque post futura sunt. Arcana per soporem Quam clara, quam tacenda, Evangelista summi Fidissimus magistri, |