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The Homeric Centos
OXF OR D STU DI E S I N L ATE AN T IQUIT Y
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The Homeric Centos

Homer and the Bible Interwoven
Anna Lefteratou
The Homeric Centos
Homer and the Bible Interwoven
A N NA L E F T E R AT OU
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Lefteratou, Anna, 1980– author.
Title: The Homeric centos : Homer and the Bible interwoven / Anna Lefteratou.
Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2023] |
Series: Oxford studies in late antiquity series |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022060579 (print) | LCCN 2022060580 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780197666555 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780197666579 (epub) |
ISBN 9780197666586
Subjects: LCSH: Eudocia, Empress, consort of Theodosius II,
Emperor of the East, –460. Homerocentones. | Classical literature—Influence. |
Homer—Influence. | Christian literature—Influence. | LCGFT: Literary criticism.
Classification: LCC PA3972.E86 L44 2022 (print) | LCC PA3972.E86 (ebook) |
DDC 883/.01—dc23/eng/20230320
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022060579
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022060580
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197666555.001.0001
Printed by Integrated Books International, United States of America

Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Abbreviations ix
Unweaving Crossweave Poems 1

Patchwork Poetry 1
The Approach of this Book 4
1. Homerocentones biblici 7
1.1 Ancient Centos 8
1.2 Homeric Centos 17
1.3 Biblical Centos 37
1.4 Summary 50
2. M
ulierum virtutes 53
2.1 Contexts 54
2.2 Virgin Motherhood 57
2.3 Female Witnesses 70
2.4 The Empress and the Others 96
2.5 Summary 102
3. De fructu lignorum 105
3.1 Contexts 107
3.2 Creation and Fall 114
3.3 Beginnings 128
3.4 Summary 134
4. C
rucifixus etiam pro nobis 137
4.1 Contexts 139
4.2 Pilate 145
4.3 Crucifixion 153
4.4 Descent 162
4.5 Summary 179
Reweaving Eudocia’s Web 184
Classicizing Poetry 185
Biblical Poetry 188
Eudocia’s Biblical Homeric Cento 194
Notes 197
Bibliography 273
Index of Locorum 303
Index of Rerum 309
Acknowledgments
This book-length project was generously funded by the German Research

Foundation, DFG/Temporary Positions for Primary Investigators and warmly
hosted by the Classics Department at Heidelberg University from 2016 to 2019.
What began as an investigation of the “Classical Past and the Christian Future
of Late Antique Christian Poetry, GZ: LE 3709/1–1” led to a much-needed
monograph on the Homeric Centos. Michele Cutino and the GIRPAM group
at the Faculté de Théologie Catholique/Strasbourg provided a stimulating en-
vironment for the final phase of the project. Like all journeys, this one was full
of detours, hardships, surprises, separations, and reunions. Some people I must
thank individually as this project would not have been possible without them.
I am extremely indebted to Gianfranco Agosti, who has been enormously sup-
portive of this project from its conception to the end, and who provided me—a
newcomer to Late Antiquity in 2010—with a warm welcome. The study follows
in his footsteps and would never have come to fruition without his year-long
work on the poetry of the same era. I am also deeply thankful to Ewen Bowie, a
teacher, mentor, friend, and meticulous reader of one of the earlier drafts of this
book. I can merely hope that this one is an improvement over the first manu-
script on the novels. I am also enormously grateful to Fotini Hadjittofi, Eftychia
Stavrianopoulou, Helen van Noorden, Athanassios Vergados, and Anke Walter
for their useful feedback, advice, and encouragement during various phases of
the project. The completion of the manuscript would not have been possible
without the support and proficiency of Irina Oryshkevich, who patiently “un-
picked” my non-native prose and “rewove” it into idiomatic English while chal-
lenging me to think deeper about my argument. Needless to say, all remaining
inaccuracies are my own. I have also had the pleasure to discuss Eudocia with
Fran Middleton, who kindly shared with me a draft of her own excellent forth-
coming monograph. My gratitude also extends to the engaged audiences at
the Heidelberg Forschungskolloquium, the Cambridge Classics, and PWiP
Seminars, and in Strasbourg, particularly to Claire Jackson, Thomas Kuhn-
Treichel, Lea Nicolai, and Arianna Rotondo. Last but not least, I would like to
thank Stefan Vranka, the editor of this series, for his support and patience during
difficult times as well as the OUP reviewers for their helpful and extremely con-
structive feedback.
Parts of Chapters 1, 2, and 3 have been published previously as separate
shorter articles: “Stitching with Homer. Contextualizing the Homeric Centos
viii Acknowledgments
within the Quotation Habit in the Imperial and Later Periods,” Byzantion
2019, 89: 331–58; “The Lament of the Virgin in the I Homeric Centos: An
Early Threnos,” in The Genres of Late Antique Christian Poetry, ed. F. Hadjittofi
and A. Lefteratou (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020), 275– 92; “Deux chemins
d’apprentissage: le didactisme dans les Centons homériques,” in Poésie, bible et
théologie de l’Antiquité tardive au Moyen Âge (IVème-XVème s.), ed. M. Cutino
(Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020), 201–20. Meanwhile, three new books on Eudocia
have appeared: an Italian translation of the centos with commentary by Rocco
Schembra, Centoni Omerici: il Vangelo secondo Eudocia (Alessandria: dell’Orso,
2020); Brian Sower, In Her Own Words: The Life and Poetry of Aelia Eudocia
(Cambridge, MA: Centre of Hellenic Studies/ HUP, 2020); and Karl Olav
Sandnes’ Jesus the Epic Hero (Plymouth: Lexington Books, 2022) that tackles the
poem from a theological perspective. Although library closures during the pan-
demic made it difficult to consult the first in a timely manner, I did have access
to B. Sower’s book, which is almost identical to his 2008 dissertation without
updated materials. I saw K. O. Sandnes’ manuscript too late in the editing process.
While the research for this project was conducted mainly in Heidelberg, the
manuscript was completed several years later, 871 km to its northwest, across the
channel, in post-Brexit Cambridge. The text was polished between two residen-
tial moves and many hours of home-schooling in a third language. I dedicate this
book on our tenth (plus one) anniversary to my partner Oleg Brandt, who has
spent the past couple of years helping with parenting, listening patiently to all
I had to say about Late Antiquity and Eudocia, and learning how to bake a lemon
drizzle cake.
Abbreviations
For classical authors, see Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD4); for biblical authors,
see mainly The SBL Handbook of Style2 by the Society of Biblical Literature and
G. W. H. Lampe, occasionally adapted; for repeated authors, editions, and translations,
see below. The translations of the Homerocentones is mine; other translations unless oth-
erwise stated are also mine.
AAPil. Apocrypha Acta Pilati recensio A and B; Tischendorf, C. ed. 19872.

Evangelia Apokrypha. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag; English
translation by Schneemelcher, W. New Testament Apocrypha: Gospels
and Related Writings, vol. 1. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox
Press; French translation by Bovon, F. & Geoltrain, P. 1997. Écrits
apocryphes chrétiens, vol. 1. Paris: Gallimard.
ACO Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum; Schwartz, E. & Straub, J. ed. 1914.
Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum, Berlin, Leipzig: de Gruyter.
ad Il. [Scholia, commentaries, etc.] on the Iliad.
ad Od. [Scholia, commentaries, etc.] on the Odyssey.
AP Anthologia Palatina.
Bas. Hex. Basilii Caesariensi Homiliae in Hexaemeron; Giet, S. ed. 1968. Basile de
Césarée, Homélies sur l’Hexaéméron (SC 26). Paris: du Cerf.
C. Contra.
CCSG Corpus Christianorum Series Graeca.
Chr. Pat. Christus Patiens; Tuilier, A. ed. 1969. Grégoire de Nazianze. La passion
du Christ (SC 149), Paris: du Cerf.
CN Ausonii Cento/Carmen nuptialis; Green, R. ed. 1991. Ausonius. The
Works of Ausonius. Oxford: Clarendon.
Comm. Commentary.
CPr Cento Probae; text and English translation by Schottenius-Cullhed,
S. 2016. Proba the Prophet. The Christian Virgilian Cento of Faltonia
Betitia Proba. Leiden: Brill.
CSCO Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium.
Cypr. Eudociae Augustae, De Sancto Cypriano, Ludwich, A. ed. 1897.
Eudociae Augustae, Procli Lycii, Claudiani carminum Graecorum
reliquiae, Leipzig: Teubner; see also the Italian translation by Bevegni,
C. 2006. Eudocia Augusta: Storia di San Cipriano. Milano: Adelphi
(with the additional verses).
Cyr. Alex. In Jo Commentary in John’s Gospel; Pusey, P. E. ed. 1872. Sancti Patris
Nostri Cyrilli Archiepiscopi Alexandrini, in S. Joannis Evangelium.
Oxford: Clarendon; English translation by Maxwell, D. R. & Elowsky,
J. C. 2013. Cyril of Alexandria: Commentary on John. Downers Grove,
IL: IVP.
x Abbreviations
DIR De Imperatoribus Romanis (online) https://roman-emperors.sites.luc.

edu /Leiden: Brill.
DJG Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels; Green, J. B., Brown, J. K. & Perrin
N. ed. 2013. Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, Downers Grove, IL:
IVP.
ELQ Iuvenci Evangeliorum Libri Quattor; Marold, K. ed. 1866. C. Vettii
Aquilini Iuvenci libre evangeliorum IIII. Leipzig: Teunber.
Ephr. Syr. Ephraem Syrus (in the CSCO series).
Eustath. ad Il. Eustathius ad Iliadem; van der Valk, M. ed. 1971–1987. Eustathii
archiepiscopi Thessalonicensis commentarii ad Homeri Iliadem
pertinentes, vols. 1–4, Leiden: Brill.
Eustath. ad Od. Eustathius ad Odysseam; Stallbaum G. ed. 1970. Eustathii
archiepiscopi Thessalonicensis commentarii ad Homeri Odysseam, 2
vols. Leipzig: Weigel /Hildesheim: Olms.
GNO Gregorii Nysseni Opera, https://brill.com/view/db/gnoo?language=en.
Leiden: Brill.
Greg. Naz. Arc. Gregorii Nazianzeni, Poemata Arcana; text, commentary, and English
translation by Moreschini, C. & Sykes, D. ed. 1997. Poemata Arcana
by St. Gregory of Nazianzus. Oxford: Clarendon.
h (Mythological and Christian) hymns.
HC Homerocentones; Schembra, R. ed. 2007. Homerocentones (CCSG) 62.
Turnhout: Brepols.
I HC the first edition of Homeric Centos in Schembra 2007. See also
the Italian translation and commentary by Schembra, R. ed. 2006.
La prima redazione dei centoni omerici: traduzione e commento.
Alessandria: dell’ Orso; Usher, M. D. ed. 1999. Homerocentones
Eudociae Augustae. Lipsia: Teubner.
II HC the second edition of Homeric Centos in Schembra 2007. See also
the Italian translation and commentary by Schembra, R. 2007b.
La seconda redazione dei centoni omerici: traduzione e commento.
Alessandria: dell’ Orso; cf. also the French edition, translation, and
commentary by Rey, A.-L. ed. 1998. Centons homériques. Paris: du
Cerf.
HC a, HC b, HC c the three shorter editions of Homeric Centos in Schembra 2007.
HE Historia Ecclesiastica.
Hes. Op. Hesiodi Opera et Dies; West, M. L. ed. 1976. Hesiod Works and Days.
Edited with prolegomena and commentary. Oxford: Clarendon.
Hes. Theog. Hesiodi Theogonia; West, M. L. ed. 1966. Hesiod. Theogony. Edited
with prolegomena and commentary. Oxford: Clarendon.
Hom. Homiliae (homiletic works).
Hom. Il. Homer, Iliad; Allen, T. W. ed. 1931. Homeri Ilias, vols. 2–3, Oxford:
Clarendon; English translation by Lattimore, R. 20113. The Iliad of
Homer. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
Hom. Od. Homer, Odyssey; von der Mühll, P. ed. 1962. Homeri Odyssea, Basel:
Helbing & Lichtenhahn; English translation by Lattimore, R. 20072.
The Odyssey of Homer2. New York: Harper.
Abbreviations xi
Lampe Lampe, G. W. H. 1961. A Patristic Greek Lexicon. Oxford: Clarendon.

LSJ Liddell, H. F. & Scott, R. 19969. A Greek–English Lexicon. Revised and
augmented throughout by H. S. Jones. Edited with Revised Supplement.
Oxford: Clarendon.
Met. Pss. Ps.-Apollinarii, Metaphrasis Psalmorum; Faulkner, A. ed. 2020b.
Metaphrasis Psalmorum. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nonn. Par. Nonnus’ Paraphrasis; Scheindler, A. ed. 1881. Nonni Panopolitani
Paraphrasis S. Evangelii Ioannei. Lipsia: Teubner; English translation
by Hadjittofi, F. forthcoming. ‘Nonnus of Panopolis: Paraphrase of the
Gospel According to John’ in Collected Imperial Greek Epics, vol. 3,
Kneebone E. & Avlamis P. ed. Berkeley, LA: University of California
Press.
NT New Testament; Nestle, E. & Aland, K. 196328. Novum Testamentum
Graece. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft; English translation follows
NRSV =New Revised Standard Version English translation of the Old
and New Testaments (Mt =Matthew, Mk =Mark, Lk =Luke, Jo =John).
OCD4 Hornblower, S., Spawforth, A., & Eidinow, E. 2012. Oxford Classical
Dictionary Fourth Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Or. Sib. Oracula Sibyllina. For Books 1–2 see Lightfoot, J. L. ed. 2007. The
Sibylline oracles: with introduction, translation, and commentary of the
First and Second Books. Oxford: Oxford University Press; for Books
3–14 see Geffcken, J. ed. 1902. Die Oracula Sibyllina. Leipzig, Berlin: De
Gruyter.
Orig. C. Cels. Origenes, Contra Celsum; Borret, M. ed. 1967–1976. Origène Contre
Celse. 4 vols (SC 132, 136, 147, 150, 227). Paris: du Cerf.
PG Patrologia Graeca Cursus Completus. Series Graeca, 162 vols., Minge, J. P.
ed. Paris 1857–1886.
Procl. Proclus Diadochus.
Procl. Const. Proclus’ of Constantinople, homilies, text and English translation by
Constas, N. 2003. Proclus of Constantinople and the cult of the Virgin in
Late Antiquity. Leiden: Brill.
Ps Psalms; Rahlfs, A. ed. 19712 (19351). Septuaginta, vol. 2, 9th edition.
Stuttgart: Württemberg Bible Society.
Ps.- Pseudo (pseudepigraphic texts).
SC Sources Chrétiennes, Turnout: Brepols.
SEG Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, 1923–present, online: https://
www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/research/research-projects/humanities/
supplementum-epigraphicum-graecum. Leiden: Brill.
TLG Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, online http://stephanus.tlg.uci.edu/. Irvine,
CA.
Vis.D. Visio Dorothei in Bodmer Papyrus 29; Kessels, A. H. M. & Van Der Horst,
P. W. ed. 1987. “The Vision of Dorotheus (Pap. Bodmer 29): edited with
introduction”. Vigiliae Christianae 41 (4): 313–59.
Unweaving Crossweave Poems
Patchwork Poetry
One of the best known “centos” of modern poetry lies undoubtedly at the end
of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, 1922. At the work’s majestic apocalyptic closure,
we read “What the Thunder said” followed by a series of literary fragments from
which Eliot’s own poetry and aesthetics are crafted:
What the thunder said: —

I sat upon the shore (423) J. Weston, From Ritual to Romance, p. 38
Fishing, with the arid plain behind me ibid. ch. “The Fisher King”
Shall I at least set my lands in order? Is 38:1: “Thus saith the Lord, set thine house
London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down in order: for thou shalt die, and not live”
Poi s’ ascose nel foco che gli affina Children’s nursery rhyme, My Fair Lady
Quando fiam uti chelidon—O swallow swallow Dante, Purgatorio 26, 148
Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie Pervigilium Veneris, 90
These fragments I have shored against my ruins (430) G. de Nerval, El Desdichado, 2
Why then I’ll fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe. —
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata. T. Kyd, The Spanish tragedie, Act 4
Shantih shantih shantih Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
ibid.
The modern term for this kind of composition is “collage,” that is, a
poem that composes from lines drawn from other poems, with or without
interpolations, to make one’s “own.”1 Ultimately, both one’s “own” and the
“borrowed” lines matter. Eliot’s command of his models, for example, is as
important as the program of The Waste Land’s “interpolated” line 430, which
summarizes the literary and aesthetic agenda of this allusive and highly re-
flexive work constructed out of fragments and ruins. These are expressed in the
revelatory tone of the Upanishad, which, fused with both Isaiah and Dante’s
Purgatorio, grant the poem its overarching sacred and apocalyptic character,
while merging it with secular narratives, such as those of Nerval and Kyd,
and even a child’s nursery rhyme. Deconstructed here is traditional religion,
but not the quest for the spiritual. The poem reuses lines of texts that are em-
blematic of their mytho-religious and apocalyptic potential and plays with the
reader’s intertextual and cultural expectations. Although not all of the poem’s
parallel texts are immediately recognizable, the apocalyptic and prophetic tone
The Homeric Centos. Anna Lefteratou, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2023.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197666555.003.0001
2 The Homeric Centos
is nonetheless stark, not least because the quotes from the Bible and Dante’s
Purgatorio belong to the classics of Western apocalyptic imagery and litera-
ture. Additionally, the lines drawn from Nerval and Kyd, even if not instantly
discernible to all readers, nonetheless align the narrator of the poem (430) with
legendary medieval figures and are bound together by the poem’s well-known
nursery rhyme (426).
However, such cut-up techniques are used not only to recall grand themes.
Excerption and reuse have usually thrived in parody. Compare, for example, the
pastiche technique of T. S. Eliot’s finale to Thunder in the following short poem
What the Camel Said, 1948 entitled Pastitsio by Giorgos Seferis, the influential
translator of The Waste Land into Modern Greek:
Τί είπε η γκαμήλα (Τετράδιο Γυμνασμάτων Β´, 1948, Παστίτσιο)
. . . Κάθισα σ’ ένα πάγκο χαζεύοντας (contra, i.e., revisiting Eliot’s: shore)

Τάχα θα ’ρθει κανείς για πασατέμπο —
Τα κόκκινα μήλα, τα πράσινα φύλλα μ’ αρέσουν πολύ, (echoes of erotic poetry—cf. apple)
μ’ αρέσουν πολύ
«Κάθε φορά που πέφτουν τα μεσάνυχτα το λύνω» N. Lapathiotis, Τα Σαββατόβραδα 1922
Πότε θα πιάσω το κοτσύφι—Ώ κότσυφα, κότσυφα (5) (contra: swallow—both birds are black)
«Ενθάδε κείται ο Ταρσεύς μη γήμας» Anthologia Palatina 7.309
Με τα στραγάλια αυτά πέρασα τ’ απόγεμά μου. —
«Έχω ακατάλυτα μαλλιά και δόντια». Πάλι μαλακίζεται A. Melachrinos, Έξαρση ΙΙ.
ο μπαγάσας. —
Evlendirelim. Nerede bulalim. Suradam buradan bulalim. I. Venezis, Aιολική γη, (Turkish)
Tamam Tamam Tamam (10) (Turkish “all is fine”; contra: Shantih)
By stitching together lines from other works, Seferis’ poem not only imitates
Eliot’s technique in The Waste Land, but also parodies the poem by transposing
it into a lighter, humorous register. Here Thunder does not speak; we no longer
encounter a shore and a fallen Fisher King, but rather, in the Turkish refrain, a
lazy camel driver in the aftermath of the 1922 catastrophe in Asia Minor. Seferis’
manner of appropriating the text resembles Eliot’s, but he uses it to parodic ef-
fect: subverting the lines of Lapathiotis’ elegy (which hint at the “loosening” of
heartache) he endows them with sharp sexual connotations. At the same time,
however, he relies on the line in Venezis’ novel to deepen the poem’s tone of the
poem and allude to a popular theme in Greek literature, that of “lost homelands.”2
This nostalgia for a greater past combined with the pettiness of the present echo
the stylistic differences not only between Seferis and his Greek models, but also
between his Pastitsio and Eliot’s finale.
These two poems serve as examples of the ways in which authoritative re-
ligious and secular narratives are revisited and intertextual appropriations—
at the level of thematic or literal quotation— prompts specific audience
responses. On the one hand, Eliot’s poem shows that a detailed knowledge of
all intertexts is not a prerequisite for comprehending his poem’s medieval and
apocalyptic under-and overtones. Lines from the Bible or Dante undoubtedly
reveal something of The Waste Land’s poetic vision and serve as an overarching
umbrella for the lesser known echoes in the poem. By contrast, the exoticism
of the citations in Romance languages (427–429, Italian, Latin, French), the
English archaisms (431), and the oracular tone of Sanskrit contribute to the re-
velatory texture of the base hypotexts.3 On the other hand, Seferis’ subversion
of Eliot’s finale shows that the technique of verbatim quotation or “pastiche”
can also be used to parodic ends. It also implies that intertextual appropria-
tion differs from verbatim quotation. In his poem, Seferis does not quote a
single line from The Waste Land. Instead, he transfers the text to another to-
nality,4 though The Waste Land remains the reader’s chief hypotext. The two
poems prove that the technique can be used either in a part of a larger compo-
sition, as in the case of Eliot, or in a shorter work whose entirety it, as in that
of Seferis, thereby indicating that the margin between technique and genre is
narrower than commonly thought. They also reveal that the reader plays a cru-
cial rule in identifying and generating meaning in poems constructed out of
poetic fragments. Most importantly, the reclamation of key, culturally loaded
hypertexts, such as the Bible, the Upanishads, or Dante by Eliot, and of Eliot
along with Ilias Venezis by Seferis, are of primary importance to our under-
standing of both the religious/spiritual and worldly concerns of these poems.
What traditional religion cannot offer to Eliot’s deconstructed and increasingly
secularized world, Eliot’s poetry cannot offer to Seferis’ description either of
the universe after the 1922 Destruction of Smyrna in the Greco-Turkish War
(1919–1922) and the Second World War.
The intertextual appropriation of culturally and religiously loaded texts, ver-
batim quotation, intergeneric dialogue, and audience response are all features
important to the literary analysis presented in this book, which, in fact, is an
unprecedented attempt to contextualize the First Edition of Homeric Centos
(hereafter, I HC), a biblical epic in Homeric hexameter, within the cultural mi-
lieu of Late Antiquity and with a regard for its intellectual, literary, and religious
aspects. Today, what today we call centos—κέντρωνες, or κέντρα—are poems,
typically, though not exclusively Christian in content, which are composed with
a technique that flourished from the third to the seventeenth century that evoked
stitching, weaving, and needlework.5 Their authors draw lines chiefly from
Virgil (in the Latin-speaking world) or from Homer (in the Greek-speaking
world) to compose new poems, both secular and Christian, which are known
as Virgilian and Homeric centos, respectively. Homeric Centos, the focus of this
analysis, “are poems made up entirely of verses lifted verbatim, with, occasion-
ally, only slight modification, from the Iliad and Odyssey.”6 Virgilian centos are
ones with lines copied verbatim from the Aeneid, Georgics or Eclogues. Homeric
Cento refers to multilayered poems that are woven together with at least two
interlinked strands: the “wrap,” the biblical theme of the poem, and the “weft,”
the Homeric material reused to centonize the Bible, produce a composite textus,
a Homerokentron.
The Approach of this Book
Today, more than thirty-three years since the publication of Michael Roberts’s
magisterial 1989 Jeweled Style, the number of studies on late antique poetry, both
Christian and secular, has exploded. Although most of these have focused prima-
rily on the Latin authors,7 some have also been devoted to the Greek ones, espe-
cially their chief representative, Nonnus of Panopolis.8 The time is thus ripe for
re-contextualizing the first edition of Homeric Centos within the framework of Late
Antiquity and re-evaluating it with an eye for the biblical poetry of that period.9
The present study aspires to examine the first and longest edition of the Homeric
centos, which date roughly to the first half of the fifth century, to peel back the
layers of its thick textual fabric and contextualize it within the literary and religious
milieu of Late Antiquity. By unpicking and unweaving the poem’s Homeric and
biblical strands,10 the present reading will show that the Homerocentones amount
to a biblical poem representative of the late antique reception of Homer and bib-
lical exegesis, and one which, intriguingly, reveals a distinct female focus.
To achieve its goals, the study combines traditional philological approaches11
with intertextual and narratological methodologies,12 taking into account
gender13 and historico- cultural dimensions,14 which have been routinely
examined in studies of late antique poetry but less so in cento poetry, especially
the Homerocentones. The analysis it offered opts for a holistic reading of the I HC
and opens new areas of study. On the one hand, in addition to Homer, namely
the Iliad, the Odyssey, the book looks at the reception of Homer in Late Antiquity,
both in and outside the classroom, and considers other important non-Homeric
classical intertexts in the I HC, the most prominent of which being didactic
poetry and drama. For this reason, each Homeric line is examined within its
broader late antique context. On the other hand, the analysis goes beyond the
biblical canon to examine the reception of the Old and the New Testaments in
two consecutive chapters and surveys the impact of Christian exegesis of se-
lect passages, of the apocryphal literature, and visual/material culture (as per
Roberts’ analysis) on the poem. It thus attempts to understand the challenges of
versifying the Old as opposed to the New Testament, the differences in the poetic
reception of the two Testaments, and the impact of the earlier Christian and the
fifth-century dogmatic debates on the I HC.15 Moreover, the approach followed
here examines the select passages with respect to Homer and the Bible not only
intertextually but also intratextually,16 thus illustrating both the poem’s seamless
approach to its topic and its overarching poetic design. Finally, the present study
considers from an intertextual and mainly gendered narratological perspec-
tive a selection of similar excerpts from the two major editions of the Homeric
centos, the I HC and the II HC, and demonstrates the many possibilities that the
Homeric text provided to those wishing to refashion biblical extracts which, in
fact, is pivotal to our understanding of the exegetical and poetic aspirations of
the I HC as well as its gendered focus and its possible attribution to the Empress
Eudocia (401–460 CE).
Although the book draws on all the methodologies mentioned above, each of
its chapters resort to those best suited to its focus on a particular topic, such as
the reception of Homer, the depiction of women, or the intertextual and exeget-
ical issues entangled in the transposition of the Old and the New Testaments into
Homeric hexameter. Thus Chapter 1 (“Homerocentones Biblici”), for example,
shows why the poem is no less Homeric than it is biblical, discusses the scholar-
ship bias that has led to the I HC’s classification with Homeric rather than with
biblical poetry, and scrutinizes arguments regarding its Homeric and biblical in-
tertextuality. Shown here is how the I HC, albeit representing the conventional
practice of Homeric reuse, goes beyond the classroom to echo the rhetorical
and highbrow reception of the epics, but also displays a distinctive taste for par-
ticular books that were not part of the canon. Insofar as biblical is concerned,
this chapter contextualizes one of the poem’s prefaces, the so-called Apologia by
Eudocia, within the context of both late antique biblical verse—above and be-
yond the short-lived Edict of Julian17—and the gradual Christianization of pagan
culture.18 In doing so, it argues that unlike other stark programmatic statements
that expand on Christian motivation, the Apologia balances between Homeric
style with biblical themes. Chapter 2 (“Mulierum virtutes”) discusses the female
perspective of the poem by comparing the I HC to the II HC and providing in-
depth studies of their eminent female characters. Women, both idealized and
not, it argues, are part of a re-oriented late antique religious and cultural focaliza-
tion. While the first part of the chapter demonstrates the importance of women in
the I HC vis-à-vis II HC, the second part examines the influence of Marian liter-
ature in general as well as its impact on elite women in the court of Theodosius II.
In its conclusion, Chapter 2 revisits the poem’s Eudocian authorship. Chapter 3
(“De fructu lignorum”) focuses on two illustrative Old Testament topics in the
Book of Genesis, the Creation and the Fall, and explores the exegetic and generic
stance of the poem’s opening. The argument here is that that the poem begins in
the didactic revelatory tone of the kind found in other hexametric revisions of
Genesis, such as the Sibylline Oracles and Gregory’s dogmatic poems, that are
part of a longer didactic Christian reception of Genesis. The didactic tone Old
Testament subsides but is typologically revisited in the prelude to the Savior’s
incarnation, which, at the Homeric level is marked by a programmatic reuse of

the two now interlaced Homeric proems: that of the Iliad’s for the Fall, and of the
Odyssey’s for Christ’s soteriological agenda. Chapter 4 (“Crucifixus pro nobis”)
tackles a New Testament theme, the narration of Christ’s passion. Its aim is to
show how Homer was reworked to take into account the new Christian meaning
of κλέος (“renown”) and heroism, as well as to illustrate the Christological
stance of the I HC in a period marked by heated conflicts over dogma. Select
allusions to Nonnus’ Paraphrasis of St. John’s Gospel, wherever relevant, indi-
cate the difference in the I HC’s exegetical and aesthetic agenda and probably
reveal a slight inclination toward a two-natures Christology.19 Finally, the study’s
substantial conclusion (“Reweaving”) ravels together the various strands of the
Homerocentones analyzed in the book and evaluates the poem within the cultural
milieu of the first half of the fifth century.
1
Homerocentones biblici
centones apud grammaticos vocari solent, qui de carminibus Homer

seu Vergilii, ad propria opera more centonario ex multis hinc inde
compositis in unum sarciunt corpus, ad facultatem cuiusque materiae.
According to the grammarians, centos should be called [the poems]

that in cento manner borrow [lines] from the poems of Homer or
Virgil into their own and from many they stich them together into a
single body, depending on the aptitude of the material.
Isidore, Etymologies, 1.39
Ἐν τῷ περὶ μεθόδου σοι δεινότητος διδάσκει

ὁ Ἑρμογένης κόλλησιν ὁμοῦ καὶ παρῳδίαν,
λέγων ὡς καὶ ἀμφότερα γλυκαίνουσι τοὺς λόγους
Μάθε δὲ τί ἡ κόλλησις καὶ τί ἡ παρῳδία.
Ἂν άλλαχόθεν λάβῃς τι καὶ μίξῃς τοῖς σοῖς λόγοις,
εἴτε πεζὸν ἢ μετρικὸν κόλλησιν κάλει τοῦτο . . .
Καὶ τὸ εἰς Ὁμηρόκεντρα ῥηθὲν εὐφυεστάτως,
“σκαιῇ Παῦλον ἔχεν· ἑτέρηφι δὲ λάζετο Πέτρον”
With The Method of Eloquence Hermogenes instructs you, | what is

collage and simultaneously what parody looks like | and states that
both of these make orations sweeter. | Learn then what is a collage
and also what is parody. | If you draw something from elsewhere and
mix it in your speeches, | whether in prose, whether in verse, you
should call this a collage. . . . As is the ingenious verse in Homeric
Centos, | “he [Jesus] took on his left-hand Paul; and Peter [stone,
ἑτέρηφι δὲ λάζετο πέτρον, Ιl. 16.734] on his right”
Tzetzes, Chiliades 8.196, 94–100, 110–111.
In the sixth century, Isidore of Seville was acquainted with the definition of cento
as a poetic patchwork of various strands from Homer or Virgil into a single poetic
work (ex multis . . . in unum sarciunt) in the manner of cento (more centonario).
In the twelfth century the erudite Ioannes Tzetzes could even distinguish
The Homeric Centos. Anna Lefteratou, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2023.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197666555.003.0002
between collage and parody:1 parody he says is about tweaking the content, pas-
tiche is about reuse. Although both are about reclaiming, the content, the effect
is different. This is also what we observed in the earlier reuse of prior models in
Eliot’s The Waste Land and Seferis’ revision in his Pastitsio. In paraphrasing the
Hermogenic corpus Tzetzes uses examples from Oppian alongside the Homeric
Centos, which shows his familiarity with a long tradition of reclaiming and
rewriting. The definition of cento in Isidore’s sixth-century explanation, comes
long after its first specimens first appeared, and Tzetzes’ theoretical underpin-
ning even later. With the exception of Ausonius᾽ programmatic theorization of
cento in his Carmen Nuptialis that will be discussed below, ancient grammarians
while aware of what more centonario /κέντρωνος δίκη meant, they seldomly felt
the need to provide a precise classification of it. Cento as a technique was part
of the ancient audience’s culture of excerption, quotation, and reuse which ap-
plied both on the reception of Homer and of the Bible. It pointed to a closer yet
not entirely different appropriation mode of culturally important works into
new works and evolved around the same principles of imitatio, aemulatio, and
variation, name creative imitation, competitive emulation, and inventive vari-
ation, of the classics.2 This chapter traces the evolution of Homeric centos into
Biblical centos and examines the ancient audiences’, as opposed to that of the
early modern editors’, reception of secular and Christian centos (Section 1.1),
the techniques of excerpting and reusing Homer in the Empire (Section 1.2),
and the apologetic motivation of the centonists within the context of classicizing
Christian poetic production (Section 1.3) in Greek and Latin.
1.1 Ancient Centos
Those who have been working on the Homeric Centos since the turn of the mil-
lennium are fortunate to have at their disposal a well-established text far more
complete than the earlier Teubneriana of the I HC in the Iviron 4464 manuscript
used by Mark Usher and the still useful edition of the II HC in the Paris. suppl. gr.
388 manuscript edited by André-Louis Rey.3 It was Rocco Schembra who took
on the Herculean task of meticulously editing all the available versions of the
Homeric Centos: a long version referred to in Schembra as the first (Conscriptio
Prima, I HC, 2354 lines); and a shorter one referred to as the second (Conscriptio
Secunda II HC, 1948 lines); and three very short versions: Conscriptio A (HCa,
622 lines), Conscriptio B (HCb, 653 lines), and Conscriptio Γ (HCc, 738 lines).4
He has thus made available for further study a difficult and elusive text that had
hitherto been poorly edited.5 Rey published the II HC in Paris. suppl. gr. 388 with
a French translation as well as useful, albeit brief notes. The 1999 Teubner edition
by Usher6 is based on Stephanus’ 1578 edition as well as a single manuscript from
Homerocentones biblici 9
the monastery of Iviron from Mt. Athos (Iviron 4464) that transmits only 1455 of
the 2354 lines of the I HC in Schembra.7
Our modern perception of centos as a liminal category, both as excerption
technique and also genre, emerge from their fate in the Byzantine and early
modern transmission. The compilers of the Byzantine manuscripts edit the
centos with the help of a variety of texts, which impacted their reception as ei-
ther Homeric appendices or Christian poems. In Byzantine manuscripts they are
inserted among a collection of epigrams (A),8 presented on their own (C, H), or
combined with other works, both Christian (e.g., Psellos, Theodoret in X), and
pagan (N, Ps.-Phocylides, Batrachomyomachia), and almost always together with
the Homeric citations from which they are derived (A, M). The editio princeps of
the I HC was published by Aldus Manutius in Venice between 1501 and 1504,
thirty years after the first 1488 edition of Homer by Demetrius Chalcocondyles,
and around the same time as the Aldine Homer of 1505. This testifies to the gen-
eral humanist interest in classical antiquity, but surprisingly, as Rocco Schembra
notes, Aldus Manutius published the I HC as an independent and autonomous
work alongside other Christian poems, not as an appendix to the Homeric
epics.9 These editions probably reflect influence of early modern Christian hu-
manism.10 Thus, editors of the seicento printed the Homerocentones mainly
alongside Christian works, such as Proba’s Cento and Nonnus’ Paraphrasis.11
In the next century, the rise of scientific reasoning, the religious debates, and
philological practice especially with respect to the Homeric Question, probably
contributed to the “Homericization” of the Centos.12 Accordingly, from the 1617
Jacob Stoer edition onward,13 the Homerocentones were published as appendices
to Homeric epics. In modern times, the 1999 edition of the I HC, which is the
current Teubner, is Usher’s revision of Henricus Stephanus’ edition of 1578. The
II HC has not been in the limelight. Edited in 1897 by Arthur Ludwich after an
earlier version of 1893, it included only Eudocia’s works cum testimoniis14 as well
as the fragmentary Blemyomachia.15. This overview of these early editions shows
just how difficult it is to classify them as either Homeric or biblical poems. By
contrast, for an ancient audience, centos were a malleable material, evocative
of centuries of Homeric excerption and reuse practice, or even plagiarism, still
firmly embedded in late antique poetics.16
1.1.1 The Matrix of Centos
The following is not an exhaustive analysis of the origins and development

of cento poetry, nor does it aspire to analyze its elusive ancient or modern
definitions, which have been treated excellently elsewhere.17 This concise sum-
mary focuses on the reception of centos from the ancient reader’s perspective.18
Rather than drawing up a history of ancient centos or offering a new definition,

it will highlight their multifaceted characteristics, which, though not classified,
would have been familiar to their late antique audiences, which would have
reacted both positively and negatively to these experimental compositions.
Ancient centos vary extremely in terms of both their themes and lengths, as well
as their manner of engaging with their models.
Size-Contextualization: This can be compact, extending to a mere 131 lines,
as in the case of the Carmen nuptialis, or long(er), like the I HC, which exceeds
2354 lines. Their size reflects on their contextualization. Centos may appear as
stand-alone compositions, as in the examples above, or be embedded in prose
works (i.e., prosimetrum), such as Petronius’ Satyricon 132, where they are 9 lines
long, or in Dio Chrysostom’s Alexandrian Oration 32.82–84, where they are 38
lines long.19
Technique: Centos may be composed entirely out of borrowed verses or they
may include interpolated verses by the author;20 they may be constructed from
non-consecutive lines but occasionally quote three or more consecutive verses
from the same passage;21 they—especially those labeled as Homeric, Virgilian, or
Euripidean—may consist of lines borrowed from a single author, or may draw on
various authors, such as the cento described in Lucian’s Symposium (17), which
incorporated Homeric, Pindaric, Anacreontic, and Hesiodic verses!22 If drawn
from the same author they usually allude to a variety of works by this author and
not a single poem.
Themes-Genre: These can be mythological or Christian— parodic, as in
the case of Ausonius’ Carmen nuptialis, subversive but serious, as in that of
Hosidius Geta’s Medea or Alcesta, but also Christian such as Proba’s Cento or the
Homerocentones. Although the centos usually allude to the genre from which
they derive their lines because of their theme, their generic stance is not solely
epic, narrowly conceived. The source of the borrowed lines also had an impact
on their generic appeal, as in the case of the didactic Georgics, for example,
which “constitute a leading reminiscence” in the recasting of Genesis in Proba’s
Cento.23 Similarly, the “dramatic” parts of the Aeneid and especially the tragi-
cally fashioned Dido underscore Hosidius’ dramatic and dialogic cento Medea.24
Indeed, the Aeneid was by intention an “intergeneric pyrotechnic.”25 By contrast,
Homeric centos draw lines only from the archaic Homeric epic, which, at first
sight, appears a less promising and versatile source. Despite the lack of versatility
of the Homeric intertext, its reuse in the I HC shows that it could be adapted to a
generic and multifarious reworking of epic poetry, as we shall see in the didactic
and dramatic echoes in it.
The surviving Christian centos are slightly more homogenous than their
counterparts inspired by mythology. They tend to be poetic transpositions of bib-
lical texts into both prose and meter rather than “invented” poems,26 while they
are not paraphraseis of specific texts either, as for example Nonnus’ Paraphrasis
of St John’s Gospel or the Metaphrasis of the Psalms attributed to Apollinaris of
Laodicea. Proba’s Virgilian Cento, for example, recounts Genesis and the canon-
ical Gospels; the I HC, in turn, is comprised of translations in verse of parts of
Genesis and important passages from the canonical and apocryphal gospels.
Christian centos are classicizing poems that belong to the burgeoning genre of
classicizing poetry that often (but not solely) drew on biblical texts.27 The con-
tent of biblical centos varies: both Proba’s Cento and the I HC include narrations
of the Fall, the plan for Salvation, and the incarnation, ministry, passion, and
Resurrection of Jesus, while other editions of the Homeric Centos omit Genesis
and diverge significantly in the choice of and length of passages, especially with
respect to Jesus’ miracles they chose to narrate. We know that by the fifth cen-
tury, epic poetry—including centos—was composed in writing28 and performed
orally.29 The lack of book sections and the emphasis on self-contained episodes
in the Homeric Centos based on Gospel pericopes, highlighted for example by
typical introductory lines about the coming of dawn or the arrival of another
suppliant, as we shall see in Section 1.2.1.3, also betray the late antique taste for
shorter epyllion-like sections even within larger epic compositions that could
be performed in different time frames.30 Late Antiquity is famous for its pen-
chant for variation, ποικιλία, which, prima facie, may seem antithetical to the
formularity of Homeric epics, especially since the author of the I HC was prob-
ably a near contemporary of Nonnus, whose magnum opus, the Dionysiaca, is
the epitome of poikilia.31 Yet as I will show below, even when reusing the standard
Homeric constituents, such as Homeric verses and type scenes, these poems are
not archaic but late antique poetic compositions. This is because of their peculiar
relation to their source inspiration texts, Homer and the Bible. The transposition
of a biblical story into cento poetry simply added to the layers of intertextuality
inherent in the technique. The cento poem thus stands in dialogue with both the
texts (Homer or Virgil) that offer it verses for re-composition and their ancient
reception, as well as its theme text (the Bible) and its exegesis. Albeit a transposi-
tion, the recomposed cento poem is, in fact, a new poem, endowed with its own
intertextual affiliations and poetic and aesthetic aspirations.32 This complex in-
tertextual entanglement and the interplay between tradition, imitation, and in-
novation lie at the core of cento poetics and are typical of late antique poetry in
general, and of cento poetry in particular.
In a seminal article, Klaus Thraede coined the useful terms Usurpation and
Kontrastimitation to denote modes of adapting a verse into a new context. In
the case of Usurpation, reused lines are adapted to fit a new Christian context
without highlighting that adaptation. In that of Kontrastimitation, the “original”
line or set of lines are used to emphasize the disparity between themselves and
the new content, and often to suggest the superiority of the Christian vis-à-vis
the pagan reading.33 The perception of these nuances, however, required a more
or less close knowledge of the original text.34 These texts were crafted from the
currency of Graeco-Roman paideia35 and addressed to those who shared it.
While adaptations, deployed either as imitationes and/or as aemulationes, are
found throughout ancient literature of various periods and diverse genres, Late
Antiquity provided fertile ground for the consolidation of this extreme tech-
nique of literary reuse and appropriation.36 Such self-conscious and highlighted
interchange between old and new illustrates the “cumulative aesthetic” of Late
Antiquity that also dominated material culture.37 According to Jaś Elsner this
cumulative aesthetic consisted of “a kind of creative syncretism of collected
fragments . . . an ‘aesthetics of discontinuity’ or ‘dissonant echoing’ in which the
different fragments are synthesized in a dense and textured play of repetition
and variation: not only do the seams show, but they are positively advertised.”38
The Arch of Constantine is probably the most expressive imperial monument
constructed out of architectural re-semanticized spolia—evidence either of
continuity and/or discontinuity—in a new context. The repurposing of pagan
temples and their transformation into churches is another: for example, the
Temple of Aphrodite in Aphrodisias was thoroughly disassembled and all its
materials reassembled to build the new Christian basilica. Similarly, with its
Kontrastimitation and Usurpation of classical and biblical narratives, the late an-
tique cento too participates in the self-conscious adaptation of the past to new
ends.39
At the intertextual level, and when seams do show, while being fully aware
that more nuanced terms have been proposed to differentiate between the
levels of allusive engagement,40 I have opted against inventing a new metalan-
guage specifically adapted to the needs centonic compositions. Certainly, lines
drawn verbatim from an original have a closer intertextual relationship with
their “source.” However, overemphasizing the debt of the Homerocentones to
Homer risks reading the poem as a compilation of Homeric formulae and down-
play the centos’ biblical and late antique context. For example, Usher wrote his
1998 monograph in a time when the Parryan paradigm was still reverberating
in Homeric studies: formulae were an important ingredient of archaic oral com-
position and the focal point of scholarly analysis.41 Academic interest recently
has moved beyond formularity and oral composition, even in Homeric studies,42
and centers instead on the conscious citation and repetition of earlier text. On
the other hand, the toolkit of intertextuality, especially when applied from its
application on Latin literature with its strong emulative tint, may prove less de-
tailed for the study of centos and partially assert their mythological rather than
biblical models.43 The amalgamation of a highly literary culture, the constrains
of oral performance, and above all the intercultural and interreligious dialogue
detected in Christian epic verse in Late Antiquity encourage holistic approaches
to this kind of poetry. Taking, for example, a departure from Ausonius’ or Proba’s
centonic compositions, with their abundance of self-reflexive material that I dis-
cuss below, may bias the expectations of a reader of Homeric centos. I have tried
instead to read the Homerocentones as a classicizing Homeric-inspired poem,
similar to Quintus of Smyrna’s Posthomerica and Nonnus’ Dionysiaca. It may
be that some centos invite more precise metalanguage than others, in particular
when these include more nuanced para-and meta-textual remarks.44 However,
not all centos are equally articulate about their authors or compositional tech-
nique. Furthermore, the plurality of centonic themes and excerption techniques
discussed above advise against a strict categorization. Centos are a flexible cate-
gory and addressing them as a specific field of late antique poetry may underplay
their contribution to the larger corpus of late epic poetry.
This study is based on the hypothesis that an ancient audience would have
read/heard a cento and a non-cento poem alike, aware of the more demanding
intertextual intricacies but nonetheless familiar with similar decoding inter-
and intra- textual approaches. While acknowledging the more theoretical
scholarly contributions, I will instead use the more standard terminology
in classics for denoting intertextual relations so as not to prioritize the rela-
tionship of the hypotext (Homer) with the hypertext (I HC) to the detriment
of other possible models. For exact references to specific verses and passages,
I use the term “allusion”; for less concrete but still text-based reminiscences,
I use the term “intertext”; broader evocations of other texts and themes I label
“echoes” or “reminiscences”; for references that allude to genre as well, I use
the term “intergeneric”; for formulae-related textual reminiscences, I use the
term “interformularity”; while for allusions within the same text I use the term
“intratextuality.”45 I also retain the terms Usurpation and Kontrastimitation
proposed by Kurt Thraede to illustrate the relationship of the hypertext, while
acknowledging the cento poem’s less than binary relation with its hypotext, as
argued by Aaron Pelttari.
Should a comprehensive definition of the cento technique be necessary, then
the following may serve as a preliminary definition. Cento is a late antique tech-
nique for composing chiefly literary/artistic works or poems out of phrases/lines
borrowed verbatim from one or more earlier “model” poems, sometimes with
the addition of consecutive or interpolating lines of the author’s own composi-
tion. The range of possible combinations and the reuse of the cento material to
serve a variety of ends (depending on length, theme, source material, and in-
tended genre, differences in quotation practice), suggest an intertextual com-
plexity that is characteristic of the cumulative poetics of Late Antiquity and
illustrate the taste for challenging, multi-layered and open-ended texts among
readers of the time. Christian centos adapt prose texts from the biblical canon
and beyond (including apocryphal narratives and biblical prose commentaries)
to the cento technique by borrowing lines from earlier, non-Christian high-

brow poetry. The cultural milieu of Late Antiquity thus encouraged a reading of
Christian Homeric centos through the lens of literary spoliation: these poems
are full of archaic and historically and culturally loaded verses that have been
detached from their original sources, which are nevertheless recognizable in the
new whole, thereby reflecting the tradition of the classicizing Christian poetry of
the period. As we shall see, late antique testimony on centos lays particular stress
on the multi-layered readings that cento poems enable.
1.1.2 Ancient Audiences
Ancient audiences were well acquainted with the ideas of verbatim quotation, di-
rect borrowing, and reuse. Recent scholarship on the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite
shows that the poem—formulaic as it may be—revisits lines of the Iliad.46
Furthermore, quotation thrives in satire and comic revision: Aristophanes puts
together lines that he draws from famous dramatists and mixes with his own,47
while the Satyricon includes a poem constructed out of Virgilian lines48 that are
interpolated into the prose narrative. Working in a more serious vein, Chariton
of Aphrodisias combines two lines describing Helen and Penelope in his own de-
scription of Callirhoe as the faithful yet fatefully beautiful heroine of his novel.49
These techniques of re-appropriation paved the way for subsequent antique
centos, though the theorization of the cento technique did not occur until much
later. This early evidence of its use nonetheless illustrates the response anticipated
from the audience: Aristophanes’ spectators, for example, were expected to grasp
these allusions (at least in terms of style and meter), even if they were unable to
pinpoint the exact source of the quote. The ability to do so would become easier
from the Hellenistic era onward due to the systematization of the Graeco-Roman
educational system, which encouraged the re-use of classical literature and po-
etry, in particular (e.g., excerpts from Homer, Euripides, and Menander), in the
writing, arguing, performance, and discussion of complex philosophical, moral,
political, or aesthetic issues. Yet though the school system encouraged the mem-
orization, copying, and quotation of canonical poems, there was no technical
term for a poetic composition of this kind. All the same, the audience’s acquaint-
ance with the aforementioned quoting techniques indicates that ancient hearers
and readers knew at least their Homer or Virgil by heart.50
The terms later used to designate the procedure of extracting a Homeric line
and reusing it in another epic are κέντρον, κέντρων, or cento. The Greek noun τὸ
κέντρον means anything with a pointy edge (e.g., a goad, spear, sting, instrument
of torture, pin, or needle); the masculine noun ‘ὁ κέντρων᾽, used in the common
Byzantine phrase κέντρωνος δίκην or in Latin “more centonario” (“composed in
the manner of a cento”), denotes something or someone bearing the marks of the
κέντρον. This could be an animal, a human (slave), or a patchwork of elements,
often composed of textiles, such as rags, or even a poetic compilation. The Latin
cento is first used by Plautus in his Epidicus 455 as a literary metaphor for a patch-
work and is part of a longer tradition that metapoetically associates weaving
with poetry. Beginning with Penelope’s and Helen’s famous looms, and contin-
uing with the Ps.-Aristotelean Peplos, a prose work that brings together heroic
epitaphs,51 and the quilt imagery of Clement’s Stromateis (“Patchwork”)52 and
Optatian’s textile artwork, and even Theodoret’s dialogue Eranistes, alluding pre-
cisely to its mix-match nature, centos have long been associated with fabric, with
textus and texere, a metaphor used both by male and female poets.53
It is late in the second century that centonic poems begin to be more widely
attested. Irenaeus of Lyon, for example, writes a short cento on the twelfth labor
of Hercules by reusing several Homeric lines to exemplify the misunderstandings
that emerge from the pastiche quotation of the Bible by—in his view “heretical”—
exegetes.54 Tertullian, in turn, turns to a (mythological) cento to illustrate the
way in which exegetes of the Bible misinterpret its contents.55 Although Irenaeus
and Tertullian seem to use the cento as an analogue for misuse and misreading,56
by the late fourth and early fifth century, Jerome appears to be disturbed by the
fact that biblical misinterpretation resembles centonic pastiche and that some
exegetes are interpolating Virgilian or Homeric lines to support their interpre-
tation. Even Virgil and Homer, if deployed accordingly could be considered as
evoking a Christian message. This, he claims, runs the risk, especially in the un-
derstanding of the uneducated masses who are incapable of recognizing the de-
gree of textual reuse, manipulation, and distortion that is inevitable in this kind of
literary practice.57 Jerome’s argument is more subtle than that of his predecessors
in that it differentiates between technique (pastiche), content (intended Christian
meaning/exegesis), and misinterpretation (secular poetry used for exegesis).58
Another characteristic approach is that of the historian Socrates, who, in
discussing Julian’s School Edict in June 362, reports that the Emperor has found
worthy opponents in the two Apollinarii, father and son,59 as their work offers ev-
idence of the reverse phenomenon, namely, the stylistic classicization of Christian
poetry, and insists that training in classical paideia ought to be used for similar apol-
ogetic ends.60 Sozomen, probably writing after Socrates in the mid-fifth century,
by which time Christian poetry had already been more successfully classicized,
seems more open to the form.61 Although neither author mentions cento poems
in his history, both refer to revisions of biblical texts in hexameter, among other
meters, while Sozomen reports that Apollinaris, emulating Homer’s rhapsodies,
transposed the Ἑβραϊκὴν ἀρχαιολογίαν62 into 24 books. Socrates’ critique is in a
vein similar to Jerome’s, a warning against excess. Sozomen, by contrast, betrays a
fondness for these virtuoso revisions, and, interestingly, comments on the readerly
habitus and subsequent expectations: as he points out, people are used to reading
heroic epic in hexameter, but not the Acts in the guise of Platonic dialogues.63 In
sum, what all these theologians and historians seem to worry about is the danger
(though, for some, like Sozomen, this means the excitement) that arises from the
aesthetic reclamation and re-or misinterpretation of earlier poetry by the average
(more or less, incompetent) reader due to their limited deductive abilities.64
In fact, the complexities of such a kind of poetry, as Aaron Pelttari wonder-
fully highlights, are typical of the versatility and intelligence expected by late an-
tique audiences, which were challenged by these open, fluid texts. As the cento was
theorized only later, its aims and techniques in an earlier period can be deduced
solely from the poems themselves, with Ausonius as the chief example. The famous
passage in his Preface to Carmen nuptialis defines the cento as a ludic, witty, and unse-
rious work, written as a pastime, and ridicules as inept the poet who draws more than
two consecutive lines from the “source” poem. One may recall here Seferis’ parody-
transposition of Eliot’s poem to a “lighter” tonality. This much-quoted definition of
the cento, elegant as it is, does not hold true for all late antique centos or even those
by Ausonius, most probably because the two-line limit was already a challenge.65 It is
particularly inapplicable to Christian centos, which include programmatic prefaces
and proems that, as we shall see, contain information on the style, aesthetics, and
ideological motives of classicizing poetry, but show less concern for Ausonian duos.
Sozomen’s testimony, however, demonstrates the popularity of classicizing po-
etry in the fifth century as well as its highly experimental quality, of which centos are
probably among the most adventurous specimens. Certainly Christians may have
known of earlier biblical hexametric poetry, such as that of the Hellenistc Jewish
poets Theodotus and Philo cited in Eusebius Evangelical Preparation 9.22 nad 37.
But cento was more daring. Isidore of Seville defines the cento in the seventh cen-
tury and shows an awareness of the difficulties of adapting Homer and Virgil.66
In the eighth century, the grammarian Heliodorus defines the noun “ὁ κέντρων”
as a song-patchwork (ἑρραμένην ᾠδήν) associated to a wrap (περιβόλαιον) in
his scholia on the first-century Dionysius Thrax, offering as an example his own
six-line Homeric cento—a poem on Echo’s alleged words to Pan when fleeing.
According to this commentator, cento is related, but not identical to the rhapsody,
which he uses as an overarching term for poetic compositions that involve making
wholes out of parts.67 A later scholiast on Aristophanes’ Clouds defines “κέντρων”
as a rag used for saddling donkeys, a meaning also found in the tenth-century Suda
lexicon.68 In the second half of the twelfth century, Eustathius goes so far as to for-
mulate a fascinating anachronism; noticing the formulaic character of Homeric
poetry, the erudite bishop—perhaps to the surprise of the modern, but not an-
cient Homeric scholar—concludes that it is like a textile, stitched together from
various lines by talented seamstresses—rhapsodes and centonists alike—who have
“woven” the various threads together (ῥάπτω +ᾠδή) into a poetic whole.69
As centos were popular throughout the Middle Ages (even the sister and
namesake of Eudocia, the sister of Empress Zoë Porphyrogenita, is credited with
writing one) and beyond, Eustathius’ observations are important for the modern
scholar, primarily for their information on the practice of Homeric centos in his
time.70 Although he claims that centos did not exist in Homer’s era (τὰ ὕστερον
Ὁμηρόκεντρα), he emphasizes the continuity between the archaic bard and the
cento poet. Surprisingly, Eustathius does not even mention the Christian con-
tent of centos, which was presumably unproblematic in his own time, as op-
posed for the poem’s modern editors. For Eustathius writing in a period of early
Humanism the biblical poems are part of an ongoing and seamless rhapsodic
tradition with a “Homeric” touch that adds to their stylistic appeal, thus coming
a long way since Irenaeus’ earlier denigration. Homer is part of the scholar’s pai-
deia, and centos happen to be one of its seams.
1.2 Homeric Centos
When a cento poet was faced with the task of transposing the Bible into Homeric
hexameter, they were backed by a long tradition of Homeric reception.71 Far
from randomly stitching together “relevant” Homeric lines “from memory,” the
selection of suitable lines for centos required a long process of reading, pains-
taking memorization,72 excerption, quotation, and commentary (on) the poet,
traces of which can be found in both pagan and Christian texts from the Imperial
era onward.73 Although not all lines used in Homeric centos are drawn from
prominent passages, most of those used to frame the re-composed Gospel would
arguably have been recognizable to the readers of the time due to the importance
of Homer to the elites and their shared paideia. Studying with a grammatikos,
their children would have learned to read and copy Homeric “maxims,” that
is, lines with gnomic and didactic content.74 They would also have consulted a
plethora of dictionaries, glossaries, anthologies, and mythographical handbooks
that facilitated the reading/teaching and memorization of the epics. Some lines,
such as several gnomae,75 would also have been available in other media and
used in non-Homer-related contexts, such as proverbs, for example. Others were
granted a second life after being counted among models for rhetorical genres
in the progymnasmata, demonstrating, as Rafaella Cribiore suggests, the entan-
glement of poetry and rhetorical prose and the importance of Homer to high
and late imperial declamation.76 In short, thorough knowledge of Homeric and
Homericizing language and style, shared between the poet and his/her audience,
enabled the deciphering and appreciation of the “new” cento poem.
One of the most characteristic examples of this kind, undeservedly omitted
from most discussions of Christian centos, is Dio’s speech to the Alexandrians,
Oration 32, sections 82–85, which was recently analyzed in detail by Gilles
Tronchet.77 After quoting Iliad 23.368–372, the passage on the funeral games in
honor of Patroclus, the rhetor taunts his Alexandrian audience about their fond-
ness for spectacles.78 This is not the place to analyze in depth Dio’s passage,79
but simply to highlight the technical touches that are useful to the analysis of
the Christian cento. The passage is a humoristic reworking of the chariot race in
the funeral games, one that undermines the heroic Homeric context in order to
accommodate the gossipy Alexandrian crowd.80 Equally parodic is the mono-
logue of the horse, which borrows lines not only from the famous speech by one
of Achilles’ horses but also from the hero’s own periautologia, a speech of self-
praise, to Polydorus.81 The latter, which is quoted in ancient rhetorical manuals,
is here reworked to comic effect as Achilles’ horse impersonates their master.82
As far as the cento technique is concerned, there are several divergences from the
Ausonian aesthetic.83 The “Iliadic centos” are a blend of the Homeric and Dio’s
own text in a ratio of 36:6. The cento is constructed from chariot-related lines and
other evocative verses describing battle-scenes in which similes, formulaic lines,
and gnomic verses play a vital role. Ausonian duos are likewise transgressed as
three consecutive Homeric lines, quoted in 10–12,84 while two consecutive lines
are quoted elsewhere (e.g., 1–2, 5–6). These citations are aimed at an audience
that knows the Iliad well, but the repetitive formulae and the widespread use of
gnomic verses (e.g., 20) make the decipherment easier. It is in the same spirit that
certain famous passages are also condensed (31–32 ~ Il. 21.108 and 110) through
the omission of one line (Il. 21.109). These are what Sean Adams calls “composite
citations,”85 that is, quotations that summarize a given passage by giving the first
and last lines and often omitting some in between, though with the expectation
that the audience will recall the full passage. Of course, Dio would not have been
aware of Ausonius’ rules on the cento but his use of earlier imperial Homeric
quotation as an example is illuminating for our study of the reprise of Homer
in Late Antiquity with regards to readerly expectation and compositional conti-
nuity as it shows the fluidity of the technique.
It is within a similar cultural context that we need to understand the popu-
larity of the magical use of Homer in the so-called Homeromanteion, a collection
of Iliadic and Odyssean lines that were given as answers to specific requests for
consultation and assistance. The Homeric lines in the Homeromanteion are more
disconnected than those in cento poems and suggest a kind of bibliomancy: a
quasi-random, tarot-like approach to the Homeric text.86 Andromache Karanika
has tried to associate the Homeromanteion technique with that of the Homeric
Centos, arguing that the compositional technique and performative pragmatics
(with its focus on orality) of the former recall those of the latter. The content
and the theme of the Homeromanteion and the Homeric Centos, however, en-
courage quite different combinations,87 and Karanika’s presentation of Homer as
the Theologian in both poems is problematic especially for the Homerocentones,

a point to which we shall return later. Nonetheless the excerption technique
reveals the impact of the cultural and readerly expectations reflected in the recep-
tion of Homeric text.88 The following section focuses precisely on the audience’s
expectations when faced with Homeric language and style within a late antique
context.
1.2.1 Formulaic Composition
Formulae are often spotlighted in studies of the translation of Homer into

Christian centos as they are one of the basic epic ingredients which epic poets,
from Hellenistic times onward, redefine in order to re-claim and innovate hex-
ametric poetry.89 Yet, though Mark Usher rightly observes the formularity of
Homeric centos, he over-stresses its impact on the oral composition of the poem
and reads the centos according to methodological approaches used in the study
of Archaic epics. Through his approach to “interformularity,” Egbert Bakker has
shown that in addition to their compositional utility, formulae play an allusive
role even in orally composed poetry.90 Unlike Hellenistic epic, which smooths
out and occasionally subverts Homeric formularity, late antique poetry con-
sciously revamps the “feeling” for formulae and transforms them from “a com-
positional method . . . into an interdiscursive stylistic feature.”91 Formulae were
among the topoi of late antique engagement with Homer at the school level and
were thoroughly refashioned in the epic poetry of the period. With reference
to Quintus’ Posthomerica, Francis Vian, for example, observes that formularity
(typical scenes, gnomic, ekphrasis, etc.) highlights the scholastic quality of the
poem by making it more accessible. While this is true, neither Quintus’ epic nor
the later ones by Nonnus lack sophistication as they move beyond the needs
of the classroom and rhetorical training.92 Despite their archaizing style, later
epics conform to the late antique aesthetic of epic composition, stressing poikilia
alongside formularity and highlighting moralistic/didactic tendencies while
maintaining a poetic agenda.93 This is also the case of the I HC and its engage-
ment with Homeric formularity in Late Antiquity.
1.2.1.1 Formulaic Characterization
In general, characters in the I HC, as in Homer, tend to be introduced with ster-
eotypical clusters or word. Here we will focus on two illustrative cases: Jesus and
Judas. Presented as the subject of the poem, Christ is the being about whom
the poet’s heart wishes to sing in order to help their audience “recognize” the
one who is God and man alike: θεὸν ἠδὲ καὶ ἄνδρα, a Homeric rendering of the
second and third chapters of the Nicene Creed.94 Already in the proem of the
I HC, he is presented as the Lord: ὃς πᾶσι θνητοῖσι καὶ ἀθανάτοισιν ἀνάσσων,

a line repeated with variations.95 He is also god-like and a mediator to the di-
vine, as evident from the frequent address: εἰ μὲν δὴ θεός ἐσσι, θεοῖό τε ἔκλυες
αὐδῆς.96 His intercession is wonderfully illustrated in the etymological word-
play used in the epithet that typically introduces him elsewhere as: θεοκλύμενος
θεοειδής. Whereas in the Odyssey, Theoclymenus is a seer with a nomen loquens,
in the Christian poem the Christianization of his name probably designates him
etymologically as one to whose opinion God listens.97
Judas is introduced with the Leitmotif: ὃς κακὰ πόλλ’ ἔρδεσκεν, ὅσ’ οὐ
σύμπαντες οἱ ἄλλοι.98 The line, originally used for Oeneus by Phoenix, became
proverbial for an individual deserving divine punishment and is patterned on
and/or inspired by the earlier instance in which the first hemistich appears,
namely, the punishment of Oeneus by Artemis.99 Since Oeneus neglected the
offerings due to the goddess, the verse is used not only to associate Judas with
sin and hybris, but also on two occasions to introduce Satan, thus to make Judas
Satan’s pawn.100 The formula thus underscores the deeper involvement of Satan
in the arrest and Crucifixion of Jesus, one that is evident in apocrypha but not
in the canonical sources, where Judas appears to act out of greed and takes all
the blame.
1.2.1.2 Formulaic Lines
If we move from characterization to lines that do not refer to character, we
may observe two trends. First, the I HC sometimes draws on a non-formulaic
Homeric line and turns it into a formulaic one; and second, it sometimes recycles
traditional formulae. I HC 919, for example, is a phrase that appears once in the
Iliad 20.58: γαῖαν ἀπειρεσίην ὀρέων τ’ αἰπεινὰ κάρηνα; but in the Archaic epic
γαῖα tends to be clustered together with the adjective ἀπείρων.101 Porphyry, a
late antique reader, provides a list of adjectives for describing the vastness of the
earth,102 but, for stylistic reasons, Quintus uses the rare adjective ἀπειρέσιος
more often than he does its synonyms ἀπείριτος and ἀπείρων.103 It appears,
therefore, that the selection of this particular line conforms to the late antique
predilection for variations in the original formulaic clusters, which, in turn, be-
come formulaic through repetition. Similarly, a line used once in Homer to de-
scribe gleaming copper weapons—Il. 19.36: αἴγλη δ’ οὐρανὸν ἷκε, γέλασσε δὲ
πᾶσα περὶ χθών—is reclaimed in an entirely new, and this time epiphanic, con-
text in I HC 290, where it is used for the Star of Bethlehem, and in I HC 460 for
the Epiphany. The II HC recycles the verse in a similar context, but also adds the
line to the scene of the Ascension, where Jesus appears seated next to his Father
in resplendent glory, and thus connects the three epiphanic moments.104 In this
way, the line became formulaic in the I HC and contributed to the inter-and
intratextuality generated by formulae across the editions of Homeric centos.
That said, Homeric formulae were also reused without alteration, as, for ex-
ample, was the line describing the arrival of multitudes: ὅσσά τε φύλλα καὶ
ἄνθεα γίγνεται ὥρῃ.105 Yet this is not merely a formulaic Homeric line, but one
that also appealed to imperial writers from Lucian to Synesius and beyond.106
In other words, it was a stereotypical line that became proverbial and, from the
Imperial era onward, could be used to adorn any learned reference to crowds
and multitudes. The verse for describing chattering crowds—ὧδε δέ τις εἴπεσκεν
ἰδὼν ἐς πλησίον ἄλλον—is used in Homer and the I HC more than once, and
also appears frequently in Homeric dictionaries, thereby becoming part of the
shared Homeric style.107 Formulaic in nature, the line was manipulated and al-
ready used three centuries prior to Eudocia, in Dio’s “Iliadic cento.”108
1.2.1.3 Typical Scenes
Mark Usher argued that the centonist patterned the “typical scenes” on the ma-
trix and logic of the Homeric ones, and that any variations that may appear are
the product of this accommodation.109 Indeed, the author of the I HC was well
aware of what a typical scene would be and used the Homeric material accord-
ingly. Yet, while they did adapt the Homeric, and often unavoidably stereotypical
material to the Christian theme, they did so in accordance with the late antique
aesthetics of poikilia. Several type-scenes—a messenger scene, a congregation
scene, a banquet/feasting scene, and most commonly, a supplication scene can
be found in Homeric centos.110 Here, I focus on the supplication scene, both be-
cause it is the most recurrent type as the ministry of Jesus includes ten miracles
of healing.
I break the supplication scene down to four thematic kernels: the opening/
arrival of Jesus at the place of healing, the suppliant’s appeal, Jesus’ reply and
the cure he effects, and the closure.111 There are three possible “introductions”
to these supplication scenes: one that stresses the coming of light, another that
underscores the midday context, and yet another that is based on the arrival of
an Odysseus-like beggar. Other, unsystematic introductions are possible as well.
For example, as Jesus arrives at dawn in Capernaum, a beggar approaches him
at I HC 635, 637 ~ Od. 2.1, 18.1: ἦμος δ’ ἠριγένεια φάνη ῥοδοδάκτυλος ἠώς.
The healing of the paralytic at the Portico of Solomon likewise takes place early
in the morning at I HC 702 ~ Od. 19.433: ἠέλιος μὲν ἔπειτα νέον προσέβαλλεν
ἀρούρας. The resurrection of Jaïrus’ daughter also takes place at dawn I HC 735
~ Il. 9.707: αὐτὰρ ἐπεί κε φανῇ καλὴ ῥοδοδάκτυλος ἠώς; similarly, Lazarus’ res-
urrection at I HC 1237~ Il. 11.735: εὖτε δὲ ἠέλιος φαέθων ὑπερέσχεθε γαίης. In
this last case, dawn is explicitly set in contrast to the darkness surrounding the
dead Lazarus.112 Midday is represented by Christ’s meeting with the Samaritan
woman, I HC 1053 ~ Il. 8.68: ἦμος δ’ ἠέλιος μέσον οὐρανὸν ἀμφιβεβήκει. The
settings of these events at dawn and midday highlight the epiphanic symbolism
of these passages.113 Five out of ten narratives begin with a reference to the course
of the sun and light. This is not a mere reprise of possible Homeric openings
for the action that follows,114 but a tendency that can also be observed in the
practice of imperial and later quotation.115 Aside from its function as a temporal
marker, the light of the sun is also important to the symbolic interpretation of
these miracles. Dawn and midday both allude figuratively to the arrival of the
Messiah,116 which is why, on the day of the Crucifixion, the poet describes Dawn
as the first woman to mourn—a wonderful personification or prosopopoeia—
yet another feature typical of late antique poetry.117 When these episodes are
introduced with different lines, we should attribute this to the poet’s conscious
attempt to achieve poikilia through formularity.
A second typical opening for supplication scenes is the intertextual recollection
of Odysseus’ arrival at his palace in Ithaca disguised as a beggar that is alluded to
in several places across the poem, and which evokes the soul’s Platonizing quest
before its reunion with/return to Christ, the heavenly haven.118 It is within this
context that the paralytic at Capernaum is introduced as a common mendicant,
at I HC 637 ~ Od. 18.1: ἦλθε δ’ ἐπὶ πτωχὸς πανδήμιος, ὃς κατὰ ἄστυ;119 the blind
Bartimaeus as yet another lamenting beggar at I HC 852 ~ Od. 21.327: ἀλλος δ’
αὖτις πτωχὸς ἀνὴρ ἀλαλήμενος ἐλθών, and the demoniac from Gerasa as a vag-
abond, I HC 859 and 931 ~ Od. 21.327: ἀλλ’ ἄλλος τις πτωχὸς ἀνὴρ ἀλαλήμενος
ἐλθών.120 All these suppliants are described as addressing Jesus in a state of grief,
but their lamentations, though clearly possessing a formulaic core based on the
repetition of the imperative κλῦθι, are characterized by poikilia. The paralytic at
Capernaum cries out in I HC 659: κλῦθί μοι, ὃς χθιζὸς θεὸς ἤλυθες; addressing
Jesus in I HC 833, the man with the withered hand states: κλῦθι, ἄναξ, ὅτις ἐσσί·
πολύλλιστον δέ σ’ ἱκάνω; yet another variant is in the imperative as the blind
man’s utterance in Ι HC 868: κέκλυ⸣θι ⸢νῦν καὶ ἐμεῖο⸣, ⸤μάλιστα γὰρ ἄλγος
ἱκάνει.121 In addition, some of these beggars and suffering outcasts seem subtly
to “recognize” Jesus as a god through the recurrent formula for Christ—εἰ μὲν δὴ
θεός ἐσσι, θεοῖό τε ἔκλυες αὐδῆς—that is often used in the poem so as to high-
light a person’s implicit testimony that Jesus is the Lord.122 As in the allusions to
Homeric descriptions of dawn above, these slight variations indicate that despite
the formularity of the supplication scene, it is still subject to the aesthetics of
poikilia.
Christ’s response and the closure of these episodes present a similar stylistic
variation. To draw merely one example from the three Odyssean figures above—
as soon as the paralytic stops speaking, Jesus takes his right hand, delivers a
monologue,123 and the two spend the remaining time until evening in prayer.124
A reference to time—sunset—closes some of these miracles as well; the Wedding
at Cana, for example, ends with the participants falling asleep, as does the story
of the feeding of the multitude.125 Elsewhere, the blind man and the attending
crowds spend the entire day praising God.126 In the case of the paralytic, the
scene ends with an account of the astonished crowds and their comments, as in
the case of the Gerasene demoniac or the resurrection of Lazarus.127
That said, there are also exceptions that seemingly confirm the canon. Most
characteristically, the resurrection of the daughter of Jaïrus ends with a close-
up of the joy of the parents, an intimate and empathetic indoor scene,128 one
that stands in strong contrast to the outdoor, crowd-filled scenes of the other
miracles. Accordingly, the passage describing the healing of the Haimorrhoousa
ends with a snapshot of her weaving inside her chambers, which I shall discuss in
detail below.129
1.2.2 Gnomae
Another important and recognizable category of Homeric centos are lines that
are loaded with gnomic content and that fit the moralizing/didactic quality of
late antique epic and the reuse of Homer in particular as a paraenetic text.130
A characteristic instance of this type is the line describing the power of the divine
and the inability of mortals to “grasp” it: ἀργαλέος γάρ τ’ ἐστὶ θεὸς βροτῷ ἀνδρὶ
δαμῆναι.131 In the Odyssey, Menelaus ponders how he, a mortal, can subdue
the divine shape-shifter Proteus. Nonetheless, the passage has a long afterlife in
Platonic works, in which Socrates often associates his interlocutors to Proteus
and habitually compares the quest for truth to the capture of the polymorphous
Man of the Sea.132 In addition wise holy men in imperial literature are often asso-
ciated with Proteus,133 so that by the time the I HC was composed, a the(i)os aner
could be unproblematically likened to a seer. The line appears twice in the I HC,
first to describe Herod’s failure to seize and kill baby Jesus, and afterward in the
tirade of Pontius Pilate, who implicitly recognizes Jesus as God,134 contrasting
the two powerful statesmen. In both cases, the line amounts to a description of
the human inability to comprehend a divine epiphany and seemingly conforms
to the Platonic use of the passage to describe someone who becomes a victim of
the limitations of mortal knowledge.
Another famous gnomic phrase is the one uttered by the Samaritan Woman,
who asks Jesus about his origins by means of the periphrase, namely whether he
makes his descent from an oak or a stone: οὐ γὰρ ἀπὸ δρυός ἐσσι παλαιφάτου
οὐδ’ ἀπὸ πέτρης.135 The line is well known not only in its Homeric form—it
appears in the dialogue between the disguised beggar Odysseus and Penelope—
but also in its adaptation by Plato.136 It is a line, in other words, of proverbial
and metaphoric import, and was reclaimed as such by imperial writers such as
Plutarch.137 However, due to its reuse by Plato, the line had greater allegorical
appeal to Christian writers. So, for example, Clement of Alexandria used it to
describe the implausibility of the pagan belief that mankind originated in oak
trees and stones, and thus inaugurated a tradition that continued throughout
Late Antiquity.138
1.2.3 Jeweled Style
1.2.3.1 Ekphrasis
Likewise, typical of later epic is the poem’s predilection for jeweled ekphraseis.139
Although ekphraseis already appear in Homer, ekphrastic passages became the
aesthetic beacons of Hellenistic and subsequent poetry. The description of a boat
in I HC 735–745 is an intriguing example of a meticulously crafted digression
that elaborates on a very brief passage in the Gospel,140 which is also inspired
from rhetorical manuals but with an interesting late tinge:
αὐτὰρ ἐπεί κε φανῇ καλὴ ῥοδοδάκτυλος ἠώς, 735 ~ Il. 9.707, from Diomedes’ exhortation
ἄκρον ἐπὶ ῥηγμῖνος ἁλὸς πολιοῖο θέεσκεν. 736 ~ Il. 20.229, Dardanus’ filly foals
τόφρα δὲ καρπαλίμως ἐξίκετο νηῦς εὐεργὴς 737 ~ Od. 12.166, Odysseus’ ship passing the Sirens
σπερχομένη· τοίων γὰρ ἐπείγετο χέρσ’ ἐρετάων 738 ~ Od. 13.115, the Phaeacian ship, Odysseus asleep
ἐν δ’ ἄνεμος πρῆσεν μέσον ἱστίον, ἀμφὶ δὲ κῦμα 739 ~ Il. 1.481, Odysseus’ boat returns from Chrysa
στείρῃ πορφύρεον μεγάλ’ ἴαχε νηὸς ἰούσης. 740 ~ Il. 1.482, ibid.; return of Chryseis to Chryses
ἡ δ’ ἔθεεν κατὰ κῦμα διαπρήσσουσα κέλευθον, 741 ~ Il. 1.483, ibid.
τώς κε μάλ’ ἀσφαλέως θέεν ἔμπεδον· οὐδέ κεν ἴρηξ 742 ~ Od. 13.86, the Phaeacian ship, Odysseus asleep
κίρκος ὁμαρτήσειεν, ἐλαφρότατος πετεηνῶν. 743 ~ Od. 13.87, ibid.
ὣς ἡ ῥίμφα θέουσα θαλάσσης κύματ’ ἔτεμνεν, 744 ~ Od. 13.88, ibid.
ἄνδρα φέρουσα θεῷ ἐναλίγκια μήδε’ ἔχοντα. 745 ~ Od. 13.89, ibid.
Thus, when the beautiful rosy-fingered Dawn appeared, | he ran along the seaside of the surging sea, |
when swiftly a beautifully crafted ship was sailing in, rapidly; | so much in haste the hands of the
rowers in haste; | the wind was blowing the middle sail, and from both sides |the stem the purple wave
was roaring as the boat went by. | And the boat was running against the waves making its way, | and
thus was sailing very safely indeed; not even a falcon | could keep up with it, the lightest of birds. |
Thus, it was sailing across the waves of the sea swiftly, | carrying a man with a god-like mind.
The first line introduces the pending miracle of the resurrection of Jaïrus’
daughter with the symbolic image of Dawn; next, it associates the young dead
woman with Chryseïs, who, like the resurrected daughter, is soon to be returned
to her parents, and Jesus with Odysseus, as a man of woes. On a structural level,
the passage is conspicuously packed with boat-related centos, inspired especially
from Odyssey 13, Odysseus’ return on board the Phaeacian ship. This is a popular
passage in the Progymnasmata, as a model on how to compose a propemptikos
logos (a farewell speech to someone being escorted away).141 The corresponding
passage from Odyssey begins with a four-line simile of the horse chariot,142
which is here replaced with one line 736, Dardanus foals, an image praised for its
ekphrastic power.143 The war–peace imagery in Homer are evoked by the chariot
versus the boat and allude to Odysseus’ war and sea woes, all now forgotten as
he sleeps blissfully on his way home. By contrast, the cento ekphrasis elaborates
on the description of the boat and gives details that increase the vividness of the
image by combining two sailing scenes together, Chryseïs’ and Odysseus’: the
rowers, the keel, the blown sail, the alliteration of rho to allude to the sea water at
I HC 740–742,144 add to the image of the speedy boat from the Odyssey,145 that
now resembles more a late antique description of the Christian ship, the symbol
of the cross.146
Another innovative touch is found in the symbolic description of the River
Jordan in I HC 447–452, which develops as follows:
ὣς εἰπὼν ὁ μὲν ἦρχ’, ὁ δ’ ἅμ’ ἕσπετο ἰσόθεος φώς. 447 ~ Il. 11.472, Menelaus and Ajax
ἐς ποταμὸν δ’ εἰλεῦντο βαθύρροον ἀργυροδίνην, 448 ~ Il. 21.8, Achilles steps into the Scamander
ἀλλ’ ὅτε δὴ πόρον ἷξεν ἐϋρρεῖος ποταμοῖο, 449 ~ Il. 14.433, Hector next to the Scamander
ὃς πολὺ κάλλιστος ποταμῶν ἐπὶ γαῖαν ἵησι, 450 ~ Od. 11.239, Enipeus in Thessaly
καί μιν⸥ ⸤ἀπο πρὸ φέρων λοῦσεν ποταμοῖο ῥοῇσι, 451 ~ Il. 16.679, Apollo rinses Sarpedon’s body
κρύπτων ἐν δίνῃσι βαθείῃσιν μεγάλῃσιν. 452 ~ Il. 21.239, Scamander hides the Trojans
So he (John the Baptist) started to speak and behind him followed the God(like) Man. | And they
stepped down into the deep crossing of the silver-streamed river; | but when He arrived at the ford of
the broad river, | which is the fairest river upon Earth | John brought Him forth and baptized him in
the river’s streams | submerging Him entirely in the deep whirlpools of the river.
The lines evoked here also appear in lists in the Scholia and rhetorical treatises;
their grouping suggests that they may have been used by readers as mnemonic
aids for improving their understanding of the Homeric text.147 The carefully
balanced passage (2:1:2) consists of a short ring-composition built around the
kathodos-anodos theme of Achilles’ battle in the Scamander.148 In lines 448–449,
both the hero’s descent into the river and his bloodthirstiness touch on the topos
of death through Kontrastimitation, since Jesus, unlike Achilles, accepts death
willingly for the sake of humanity. In contrast, Xanthus’ efforts to salvage some of
Achilles’ victims, as recounted in lines 451–452, resonate throughout Usurpation
along with the Christian baptismal imagery of the centos. Between these themes,
is line 450, which references the beauty of Enipeus, evokes the holiness of the
River Jordan and links it to Olympus. The selection of particular lines reveals the
poem’s conscious reclamation of Homer rather than other more popular options.
Eustathius, reports that some Christian centonists used a less famous river in
Elis, called Iardanos, due to the name’s similarity to that of the River Jordan,
Ἰορδάνης ποταμός.149
1.2.4 Similes
For late antique poets and audiences, similes were a means of achieving vivid-
ness, energeia and variation, poikilia.150 Homeric similes in the I HC are reworked
with an eye toward variation but also toward their contemporary appropriation.
A typical example is the reuse of the simile of the wasp in Iliad 16 in the scene of
the Crucifixion below:
αὐτίκα δὲ σφήκεσσιν ἐοικότες ἐξεχέοντο 1830 ~ Il. 16.259, Myrmidons’ attack

εἰνοδίοις, οὓς παῖδες ἐριδμαίνουσιν ἔθοντες, 1831~ Il. 16.260, ibid.
αἰεὶ κερτομέοντες, ὁδῷ ἔπι οἰκί’ ἔχοντες. 1832 ~ Il. 16.261, ibid.
νηπίαχοι· ξυνὸν δὲ κακὸν πολέεσσι τιθεῖσιν. 1833 ~ Il. 16.262, ibid.
They surged out at once like wasps | at the roadside, which children tend to provoke, | always stirring
them up, as they take the road home. | Senseless ones; who committed a sin shared by many.
The Christian poem describes the assault on Jesus and compares the crowds
with Patroclus’ Myrmidons, who, after a long break, are deployed to fight with
Patroclus in command. The simile shows the Myrmidons swarming like wasps
trying to protect their offspring, fierce in their attack and fury.151 While bees and
wasps are used interchangeably elsewhere in Homer’s text to denote swarms of
armies, the imperial Life of Homer praises the poet for having depicted wrath
and a vengeful spirit at this particular moment through the image of wasps.152
Quintus of Smyrna too uses it no fewer than three times to describe fierce and
vindictive battles in the Posthomerica, thereby highlighting the simile’s ekphrastic
potential.153 The wasp is also the animal representing Archilochus’ iambic in-
vective to Gregory of Nazianzus,154 in which the Pharisees’ attack on Jesus, as
we shall see in Chapter 4,155 resembles his persecution by the High Priests. By
revisiting and quoting the full simile at length, then, the cento poem establishes a
link between the Homeric simile and its contemporary use in the invective.
A different kind of simile compares Judas to the solitary mountain lion, one
of the many beast similes used for the traitor. Comparisons with wild animals
highlight the resemblance of man’s and beast’s savagery. In our case, Jesus, as the
Lamb of God, is the herbivore victim of his carnivorous assailant. It is Achilles’
cruelty that is used to foil Judas, who is portrayed by Jesus as the raw-flesh-eating
lion (I HC 1475 ~ Il. 24.207: ὠμηστής) or seeking to devour his blood (I HC 1474
~ Il. 22.70: ὅς κ’ ἐμὸν αἷμα πιών). These lines are drawn from Priam’s monologue
from the wall of Troy: as he watches Hector’s murder by Achilles, he foretells the
sack of Troy and imagines his cadaver being devoured by his hounds. Another
line used to describe Judas’ swiftness in malice is a typical adjective used for
Achilles and his negative Iliadic foil, Dolon I HC 1487 ~ Il.10.316: ποδώκης.156
Judas then is a valiant opponent, ominous in his wrath like Achilles and dan-
gerous in his wickedness like the spy Dolon. Intratextually, the latter model,
the reader is reminded, was also used to describe the machinations of Juda’s in-
stigator, Satan, who like Dolon carries the very name of deceit, δόλος.157 Thus
Judas’ treason is introduced with lines that draw heavily on Achillean character-
istics that are perceived as negative, fierce, swift, and savage.
These comparisons prepare the ground for two longer lion similes in the scene
of the Last Supper. To describe Judas’ entry the poem uses a block of lines, origi-
nally belonging to Sarpedon’s aristeia. Juda arrives as a famished solitary moun-
tain lion: I HC 1527-1528 ~ Il. 12.299-300: βῆ ῥ’ ἴμεν ὥς τε λέων ὀρεσίτροφος,
ὅς τ’ ἐπιδευὴς | δηρὸν ἔῃ κρειῶν, κέλεται δέ ἑ θυμὸς ἀγήνωρ | μήλων πειρήσοντα
καὶ ἐς πυκινὸν δόμον ἐλθεῖ (“he went onward like some hill-kept lion, | who for
a long time has gone lacking meat, and the proud heart is urgent upon him, | to
get inside of a close steading and go for the sheepflocks”). This simile was pop-
ular in antiquity and deemed worthy of a hero,158 but in the Christian poem the
lion’s might is Csubverted. Here it is reclaimed to describe Judas’ treason and
wickedness since the reader knows that he has already plotted with the Pharisees
(I HC 1493). The negative connotations are furthered through allusions from
the Odyssey that give these lines its ominous tonality: both Menelaus and
Agamemnon compare the latter’s treacherous murder by Aegisthus upon his
homecoming to the slaughter of an ox in the safety of the stable. The victorious
king, the shepherd of people par excellence (Od. 4.532: ποιμὴν λαῶν), becomes
the prey—the shepherd becomes cattle (Od. 5.535, 11.118: ὣς . . . βοῦν ἐπὶ
φάτνῃ). The simile had a long tradition in the quotation practice of the Empire
as it encapsulated the untimely and treacherous death of a valiant hero in the
safety of his home.159 Though this line originally does not refer to any lions, the
centonist revises and relays it to the series of lion-related imagery used for Judas
above: instead of τίς (Od. 5.35) the I HC 1537 has λίς (“lion”).
αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ δείπνησε καὶ ἤραρε θυμὸν ἐδωδῇ, 1536 ~ Od. 5.95 (Hermes) or 14.11 (Odysseus in disguise)
δειπνήσας ὡς λίς τε κατέκτανε βοῦν ἐπὶ φάτνῃ. 1537 ~ Od. 4.535 Agamemnon (nostoi) and 11.411 (Nekyia)
So when he dined and gladdened his heart with food | he killed him after feasting, like the lion the ox
in the manger.
This creative adaptation of the Homeric verse shows how important the lion
analogy is for the characterization of Judas. It also demonstrates the technique
through which the poet scans the Homeric material and collects lists of lion-
related lines, even “inventing” ones if these fit the scope aim: through Usurpation,
Judas appears cruel, like Achilles, ferocious, yet shrewd, like Dolon, and, above
all murderer, like Aegisthus. An additional deviation from the use of the simile
in the heroic context, where it underlines heroic valiance par excellence, is the
Christian reconceptualization of the theme of devouring: unlike the beast that
feasts on flesh and blood (αἷμα πιών . . . ὠμηστής) the blood Jesus’ especially
in the Last Supper scene is eucharistic. Thus, the banquet-related terminology
(δειπνήσε . . . δειπνήσας) in these lines would have stressed the paradox of Judas’
crime beyond his cruelty: even though he dined with Christ and communicated
his salvific flesh and blood, he nonetheless betrayed him, a crime greater than
that of Aegisthus. Still, the blood Judas sheds would become salvific for man-
kind irrespective, or even because of, Judas’ betrayal. Through Kontrastimitation,
much unlike the heroic universe, in the Christianized lion simile the wild beast
does not prevail but the ox, the carnivore’s fierceness is overcome by the sacrifi-
cial Lamb of God.160
1.2.5 Ὀδυσσείας B’
The examples above show that the I HC is not a “Homeric” poem in the sense
of being an archaic epic, but a late antique revision of Homer transposed into a
classicizing Christian register. Homeric epics were part of the school curriculum,
but the practice of quoting them extended beyond the classroom. Below I will ex-
pand on the reception of Book 2 of the Odyssey that shows that the centonist was
revisiting themes and books familiar beyond the classroom, but certainly within
the parameters of composing a Christian poem. Book 2, which does not seem to
have been popular in the papyri, provides ample material both as quotation of
specific lines and thematically for banquets and assemblies in the Christian poem
and, above all, the background for discussing the themes of Jesus’ Sonship,161 his
nostos, and the matter of human sin, vividly embodied by Telemachus, Odysseus
and the suitors.
The I HC offers far more evidence on Homer’s late antique readers than on the
state of the Homeric text in its reader’s time. As Raffaella Cribiore has shown with
the help of evidence drawn chiefly from papyri, the most popular books among
ancient readers were Iliad 1–6, especially Books 1 and 2, followed by Books 5
and 6, and finally Book 11. Although the Odyssey is less frequently represented
in papyri as it was not a major focus of standard education, Cribiore’s findings
reveal a predilection for the Iliadic sequels in the Odyssey, namely, Books 4 and
11.162 If we compare the number of lines drawn from each book of the Iliad and/
or the Odyssey, for example, we can observe that at least 95 of the lines reused in
all editions of the Homeric Centos are in Book 1 of the Iliad and that some of these
are reused more than once. Second place goes to Books 2 and 24, with 89 and 91
centos, respectively, third goes to Books 5 and 9 with 72 and 77, respectively, and
fourth to Books 6, 8, 10, and 16, each of which provides the I HC with between 60
and 70 centos, some more than once. The least popular Iliadic book in the I HC
is Book 12, which supplies material for only 18 centos. As for the Odyssey, Book
4 is the most admired with 120 centos to its credit. Indeed, it is quoted even more
often than is the popular Iliadic Book 1. Second place falls to Book 2 with 81
quotations, while third goes to Books 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 19, each of which is cited be-
tween 60 and 70 times. The least popular is Book 21, which is the source of fewer
than 20 citations. While these numbers indicate the lines used at least once in the
course of a total of 6,315 lines, namely in all the editions of Homeric Centos, the
difference in the lines selected by individual editions is not massive.163 Despite
their schematic and abstract nature, these figures more or less chime with the
popularity of the Homeric poems and specific books in the Imperial period.164
Thus, the popularity of the first six and especially the first two books of the Iliad
and the popularity of Book 4 of the Odyssey are confirmed, though it may come as
a surprise that the second most popular Odyssean book is not Book 11, a sequel
to the Iliad, but rather Book 2, which is part of the Telemachy. The discrepancy
between Cribiore’s findings and Schembra’s observations makes this a good case
study of the approach used to analyze numerical information, but what needs
to be stressed is that these numbers should not be treated as precise, since given
the kind of composition that this is, it would be easy for lines to drop out during
their transmission. The close examination of the re-cycling of the Odyssey’s Book
2 below further illustrates that numbers are only one part of the story. It also
shows that specific narratives and their readership invited a more “personalized”
reading and excerption of Homer’s text that differs from that of the classroom.165
Noteworthy too is that 81 lines of the Odyssey’s Book 2 are quoted at least once
in all 6,315 lines of the Homeric Centos in Schembra’s edition. Of these, 66 are
reused at least once in the 2,354 lines of the I HC.166
Table 1.1 Odyssey Book 2 in the Centos
Citations Od. I HC Context Notes
1. 1 635 Ἦμος δ’ ἠριγένεια φάνη ῥοδοδάκτυλος Ἠώς form./day–night

2. 5 636 βῆ δ’ ἴμεν ἐκ θαλάμοιο θεῷ ἐναλίγκιος ἄντην form./movement
3. 6 688 αἶψα δὲ κηρύκεσσι λιγυφθόγγοισι κέλευσε form./congregation
4. 9 2,259 αὐτὰρ ἐπεί ῥ’ ἤγερθεν ὁμηγερέες τ’ ἐγένοντο form./congregation
5. 13 538 τὸν δ’ ἄρα πάντες λαοὶ ἐπερχόμενον θηεῦντο. form./congregation
6. 36 1,363 οὐδ’ ἄρ’ ἔτι δὴν ἧστο, μενοίνησεν δ’ ἀγορεύειν form./congregation
7. 37 383 στῆ δὲ μέσῃ ἀγορῇ· σκῆπτρον δέ οἱ ἔμβαλε χειρὶ
8. 38 228 κῆρυξ Πεισήνωρ, πεπνυμένα μήδεα εἰδώς form./angels—
prophets,
9. 264 Christianization
10. 368
11. 40 1,792 ὦ γέρον, οὐχ ἑκὰς οὗτος ἀνήρ, τάχα δ’ εἴσεαι αὐτός time/prolepsis
12. 56 107 βοῦς ἱερεύοντες καὶ ὄϊς καὶ πίονας αἶγας form./banquet
13. 62 2,133 εἴ μοι δύναμίς γε παρείη Telemachus about
the suitors/Hades
14. 63 2,134 οὐ γὰρ ἔτ’ ἀνσχετὰ ἔργα τετεύχαται, οὐδ’ ἔτι καλῶς about demons
15. 64 2,135 οἶκος ἐμὸς διόλωλε· νεμεσσήθητε καὶ αὐτοί
(continued)
Table 1.1 Continued

16. 81 710 δάκρυ’ ἀναπρήσας· οἶκτος δ’ ἕλε λαὸν ἅπαντα form./supplication

17. 107 1,392 prt. καὶ ἐπήλυθον ὧραι form./time passing
18. 108 1,241 καὶ τότε δή τις ἔειπε γυναικῶν, ἣ σάφα ᾔδη The treacherous
handmaiden/the
19. 1,783 καὶ τότε δή τις ἔειπε γυναικῶν, ἣ σάφα ᾔδη Gate keeper
20. 112 195 αὐτὸς σῷ θυμῷ, εἰδῶσι δὲ πάντες Ἀχαιοί mor./admonition
21. 118 1,002 κέρδεά θ’, οἷ’ οὔ πώ τιν’ ἀκούομεν οὐδὲ παλαιῶν Penelope/
Haimorrhoousa
22. 150 1,276 ἀλλ’ ὅτε δὴ μέσσην ἀγορὴν πολύφημον ἱκέσθην form./congregation
23. 157 1,767 τοῖσι δὲ καὶ μετέειπε γέρων ἥρως Ἁλιθέρσης Christianization
24. 170 476 οὐ γὰρ ἀπείρητος μαντεύομαι, ἀλλ’ ἐῢ εἰδώς prophecy: Odysseus
and Jesus’ return
25. 171 404 καὶ γὰρ κείνῳ φημὶ τελευτηθῆναι ἅπαντα prophecy: Jesus’/
Odysseus’ arrival
26. 230 1,788 μή τις ἔτι πρόφρων ἀγανὸς καὶ ἤπιος ἔστω moral. Regarding the
sinners
27. 230 110 μή τις ἔτι πρόφρων ἀγανὸς καὶ ἤπιος ἔστω
σκηπτοῦχος βασιλεύς, μηδὲ φρεσὶν αἴσιμα εἰδώς
28. 231 111 ἀλλ’ αἰεὶ χαλεπός τ’ εἴη καὶ αἴσυλα ῥέζοι
29. 232 112
30. 236 1,641 ἕρδειν ἔργα βίαια κακορραφίῃσι νόοιο Suitors/Pharisees
31. 1,784 ἕρδειν ἔργα βίαια κακορραφίῃσι νόοιο The gatekeeper to
Peter
32. 254 1,793 οἵ τέ οἱ ἐξ ἀρχῆς πατρώϊοί εἰσιν ἑταῖροι Odysseus’
supporters/neutral
33. 258 2,037 οἱ μὲν ἄρ’ ἐσκίδναντο ἑὰ πρὸς δώμαθ’ ἕκαστος form./congregation
34. 262 659 prt κλῦθί μευ, ὃ χθιζὸς θεὸς ἤλυθες ἡμέτερον δῶ form./supplication
35. 271 1,957 εἰ δή τοι σοῦ πατρὸς ἐνέστακται μένος ἠΰ, Telemachus’/Jesus’
οἷος κεῖνος ἔην τελέσαι ἔργον τε ἔπος τε, Sonship
36. 272 1,958
37. 273 772 οὔ τοι ἔπειθ’ ἁλίη ὁδὸς ἔσσεται οὐδ’ ἀτέλεστος prolepsis, Athena’s
prophecy/positive
38. 279 1,723 οὐδέ σε πάγχυ γε μῆτις Ὀδυσσῆος προλέλοιπεν neutral
39. 283 130 οὐδέ τι ἴσασιν θάνατον καὶ κῆρα μέλαιναν The suitors/the sinners
40. 298 535 prt βῆ δ’ ἴμεναι form./movement for
Peter
41. 778 prt βῆ δ’ ἴμεναι
42. 303 698 Τηλέμαχ’ ὑψαγόρη, μένος ἄσχετε, μή τί τοι ἄλλο Charact. Antinous/
ἐν στήθεσσι κακὸν μελέτω ἔργον τε ἔπος τε The paralytic
43. 304 699
44. 305 1,436 ἀλλὰ μάλ’ ἐσθιέμεν καὶ πινέμεν, ὡς τὸ πάρος περ form./banquet
Table 1.1 Continued

45. 310 1,415 prt Ἀντίνο’, οὔ πως ἔστιν ὑπερφιάλοισι μεθ’ ὑμῖν Charact. Antinous/
δαίνυσθαί τ’ ἀκέοντα καὶ εὐφραίνεσθαι ἕκηλον Judas
46. 311 1,416
47. 323 1,746 οἱ δ’ ἐπελώβευον καὶ ἐκερτόμεον ἐπέεσσιν form./The suitors/
the assailants
48. 1,896 οἱ δ’ ἐπελώβευον καὶ ἐκερτόμεον ἐπέεσσιν
49. 324 1,752 ὧδε δέ τις εἴπεσκε νέων ὑπερηνορεόντων form./The suitor/ the
assailants
50. 1,901
51. 2,097
52. 331 1,949 ἄλλος δ’ αὖτ’ εἴπεσκε νέων ὑπερηνορεόντων form./ ibid.
53. 344 2,284 κληϊσταὶ δ’ ἔπεσαν σανίδες πυκινῶς ἀραρυῖαι Odysseus’ return/
Jesus’ Resurrection
54. 353 616 δώδεκα δ’ ἔμπλησον καὶ πώμασιν ἄρσον ἅπαντας The Cana Jars
55. 367 145 οἱ δέ τοι αὐτίκ’ ἰόντι κακὰ φράσσονται ὀπίσσω prolepsis
56. 372 267 θάρσει, μαῖ’, ἐπεὶ οὔ τοι ἄνευ θεοῦ ἥδε γε βουλή form./supplication
57. 1,329 θάρσει, μαῖ’, ἐπεὶ οὔ τοι ἄνευ θεοῦ ἥδε γε βουλή Ibid.
58. 376 2,208 ὡς ἂν μὴ κλαίουσα κατὰ χρόα καλὸν ἰάπτῃ Penelope/Magdalene
59. 379 619 αὐτίκ’ ἔπειτά οἱ οἶνον ἐν ἀμφιφορεῦσιν ἄφυσσεν The Cana Wedding
60. 384 2,236 καί ῥα ἑκάστῳ φωτὶ παρισταμένη φάτο μῦθον form./speech
61. 388 633 δύσετό τ’ ἠέλιος σκιόωντό τε πᾶσαι ἀγυιαί form./day-time
62. 397 1,607 οἱ δ’ εὕδειν ὤρνυντο κατὰ πτόλιν, οὐδ’ ἄρ’ ἔτι δἠν form./sleep
63. 398 2,608 εἵατ’, ἐπεί σφισιν ὕπνος ἐπὶ βλεφάροισιν ἔπιπτεν form./banquet-
sleep/at the Garden
of Gethsemane
64. 404 1,771 ἀλλ’ ἴομεν, μὴ δηθὰ διατρίβωμεν ὁδοῖο form./movement
65. 406 1,009 καρπαλίμως· ὁ δ’ ἔπειτα μετ’ ἴχνια βαῖνε θεοῖο Epiphany:
Telemachus/ Blind
66. 1,291 καρπαλίμως· ὁ δ’ ἔπειτα μετ’ ἴχνια βαῖνε θεοῖο Ibid. Lazarus
Aside from attesting to the popularity of this particular book in all editions of
the Homeric Centos, this does not tell us much about the use to which it was put,
but a closer look at the kind of lines recycled may help explain the predilection
for it across all editions. Book 2 contains useful formulaic lines for describing the
passage of time, for the time frame within which an action must be concluded,
and particularly for prolepsis in the form of prophecies. It also offers basic the-
matic staples such as verses for describing outdoor gatherings and indoor ban-
quet scenes, as well as some famous moralizing lines. In addition, it provides
important foils for characters of the Christian narrative, such as Telemachus,

Antinous, Penelope, the wicked handmaiden, or the loyal friend. Most impor-
tantly, however, Book 2 contains useful lines for describing epiphany and the re-
lationship of Son to Father across the poem as I will discuss below.
1.2.5.1 Time and Assemblies

The passage of time is often highlighted with a typical verse, I HC 1392~ Od.
2.107: καὶ ἐπήλυθον ὧραι. The arrival of night is equally stereotypical, Ι HC 633
~ Od. 2.388: δύσετό τ᾽ ἠέλιος σκιόωντό τε πᾶσαι ἀγυιαί, while the beginning
of the book offers the popular verse on Dawn (Od. 2.1), which I HC 635–636
combines with Odyssey 1.5 (used of Telemachus) to create: ἦμος δ’ ἠριγένεια
φάνη ῥοδοδάκτυλος Ἠώς | βῆ δ’ ἴμεν ἐκ θαλάμοιο θεῷ ἐναλίγκιος ἄντην). This
composite citation is used to describe Jesus as he sets out to heal the paralytic.
Important elements revisited in the cento poems are the proleptical statements
in Book 2 that foreshadow the return of Odysseus; for example, Telemachus’ dis-
closure to Peisenor regarding who has ordered the assembly is placed into the
mouth of the female gatekeeper in her address to Peter, she intimates that the
offender is nearby, I HC 1793 ~ Od. 2.40: οὐχ ἑκὰς οὗτος ἀνήρ. Eurycleia’s an-
ticipation of the suitors’ conspiracy against Telemachus is revisited in God’s ad-
vice to his Son during their discussion of the plan of the Salvation (I HC 145
~ Od. 2.367). Accordingly, Mentor-Athena’s premonition of the happy outcome
of Telemachus’ plan is reclaimed by Jesus to presage the resurrection of Jaïrus’
daughter that describes the messenger’s path as fruitful, I HC 772 ~ Od. 2.273: οὔ
τοι ἔπειθ’ ἁλίη ὁδὸς ἔσσεται οὐδ’ ἀτέλεστος.
Telemachus’ undertakings in Ithaca before his departure offer much material
suitable to the setting of Jesus’ public ministry. The arrival of clear-voiced heralds
is used in the orders given to those responsible for filling up the jugs at Cana, I
HC 688 ~ Od. 2.5: αἶψα δὲ κηρύκεσσι λιγυφθόγγοισι κέλευσε; the description
of the gathering crowds is revisited in the Baptist’s setting but also in the Last
Supper and the reunion, I HC 382, 1360, 2259 ~ Od. 2.9: οἱ δ’ ἐπεὶ οὖν ἤγερθεν
ὁμηγερέες τ’ ἐγένοντο. Other lines revisit the themes of public humiliation
and mockery, e.g., the suitors’ mockery is used for different types of mocking
crowds, young men, or assailants during the Crucifixion, I HC 368 ~ Od.
2.323–324: οἱ δ’ ἐπελώβευον καὶ ἐκερτόμεον ἐπέεσσιν· ὧδε δέ τις εἴπεσκε νέων
ὑπερηνορεόντων.167 A most characteristic case is the Christianization of the for-
mula used for the wise herald Peisenor which is reclaimed for the angel Gabriel,
I HC 228, 264 ~ Od. 2.38: κῆρυξ Πεισήνωρ, πεπνυμένα μήδεα εἰδώς. Intriguingly
these are stereotypical lines that ancient commentators also collected in their
discussions of Homeric formulae and reused as such in the Homeric Centos,168
demonstrating thus the sensitivity of the epics’ readers to their compositional
technique.
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Valentinian document in, does not quote Fourth Gospel, ii. 117 n.
1, 177;
MS. of, and its provenance, ii. 134, 135;
heavens of Ineffable One and First Mystery not described in, ii.
146;
Melchizidek seldom mentioned in, ii. 148 n. 1;
thought by some the Interrogations of Mary, ii. 157;
doctrine of interpretation in, ii. 157 n. 2;
appears at first sight entirely Ophite, ii. 158;
but more clearly Valentinian, ii. 159, 160, 161;
Authades of, compared to Valentinus’ Demiurge, ii. 162 n. 2;
Adamas of, compared to Valentinus’ Diabolos, ii. 163;
nearness of Parusia dominant in part of, ibid.;
description of Millennium in, ii. 164;
lesser initiates must give passwords and seals, ii. 165, 169;
mystery of the First Mystery is Baptism, ii. 168-170;
mystery of the Ineffable One is the Eucharist, ii. 170-171;
supreme revelation of book union with Jesus, ii. 171;
“Mysteries of Light” not described in P.S. proper, ii. 173;
open to all the world, ii. 174;
Egyptian character of book (Maspero), ii. 175-177;
probably by Valentinus, ii. 178;
read by Fathers?, ii. 179;
astrology condemned in, ii. 185;
cryptogram between 1st and 2nd vols of, ii. 188 n. 2;
fragment in Bruce Papyrus links P.S. with Texts of Saviour, ii. 192,
193;
parent work on which all the others based, ii. 194;
Apelles’ teaching as to body of Jesus from same source as, ii.
219;
twelve hours theory of, like that of Tun-huang treatise, ii. 293 n. 2;
quoted, i. 195 n. 1; ii, 54 n. 2, 78, 92 n. 3, 144 nn. 3, 4, 5, 8, 145 n.
1, 146 nn. 2, 3, 147 n. 5, 148 nn. 1, 2, 3, 149 nn. 1-5, 151 n. 3,
152 nn. 1, 2, 154 n. 1, 155 nn. 1, 4, 156 nn. 1, 4, 161 nn. 1, 3, 4,
162 n. 3, 163 n. 2, 164 nn. 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 165 n. 1, 167, 168, 169
n. 2, 170, 171, 173, 174, 175, 182 n. 2, 184 nn. 1, 4, 185 nn. 1,
2, 188, 193 n. 4, 194 n. 1, 292 n. 2, 293 n. 2.
See Petermann, Schwartze
Plato, alone of ancients sees Socrates’ monotheism, i. 11;
says few real initiates in mysteries, i. 65;
chief authority for charlatanism of Orpheotelestae, i. 140;
creator of, not jealous, i. 149 n. 1;
his ideas the paradigms of perceptible things, i. 198;
God of, too high to touch matter, ii. 42;
says souls given daemons as guides through life, ii. 110 n. 1;
Marcion never alludes to Logos of, ii. 214;
quoted, i. 65, 140, 149 n. 1; ii. 110 n. 1
Pleroma, the, word Church apparently used by Ophite writer for, ii.
43;
Ophite Christos descends from, to Sophia, ii. 59;
Ophite, consists of Father, Son, Mother, and Christos, ii. 64;
the same in Diagram, ii. 68;
perfect Ophites share in, ii. 76;
Valentinus’, originally consists of twenty-eight members, ii. 104 n.
1;
Christos and Holy Spirit added to, after Fall of Sophia (Valentinus),
ii. 105;
Stauros partly within and partly without (id.), ii. 105 n. 2;
Ectroma called Sophia Without (id.), ii. 106;
Jesus the Joint Fruit of (id.), ii. 106 n. 2, 110, 113, 117, 159 n. 3;
four “places” outside (id.), ii. 108;
Pneumatics to enter into (id.), ii. 110 n. 2;
Christos and Holy Spirit remain within (id.), ii. 114;
projects another thirty aeons (id.), ii. 144 n. 8
Pliny, solar monotheism of, i. 118;
his account of Essenes, i. 155;
quoted, i. 155 n. 1
Plutarch, his monotheism (Dill), i. lvii;
makes Zoroaster 5000 years before Trojan War, i. lxii;
a chief source of our knowledge of Eastern religions, i. 9;
authority for meeting of Philip and Olympias, i. 22;
his contempt for oracles of foreign gods, i. 23;
legend of Osiris and his de Iside et Osiride, i. 33-35, 43, 48;
does not conceal identification of Dionysos with Osiris, ii. 65 n. 4;
says water the emblem of Osiris, i. 68;
gives episode of Isis as swallow, i. 70 n. 1;
puts festival of Birth of Horus at spring equinox, i. 71;
identifies Greek Typhon with Egyptian Set, i. 105;
Dionysos of, once human, but deified for merit, i. 144 n. 3;
Osiris and Set neither gods nor men but great daemons, ii. 16;
acquainted with Persian religion, ii. 214 n. 2;
says worship of Mithras first introduced into Rome by Cilician
pirates, ii. 228, 229;
describes Persians as sacrificing to Hades, ii. 239;
calls Mithras μεσίτης, ii. 249;
equates Hades with Ahriman, ii. 255;
thinks evil must have separate principle of its own, ii. 289 n. 3;
quoted, i. 22, 23, 48, 70 n. 2, 144 n. 3; ii. 16, 214 n. 2, 228, 229,
249, 255, 289 n. 3.
See Dionysos, Hades, Theopompos of Chios
Pluto, name of Hades, i. 40, 47, 48;
ruler of Hades, called in magic Huesimigadôn, i. 99, 100;
one of the gods of Samothrace, i. 136 n. 2;
in Orphic hymn to Persephone, i. 142, 143.
See Hades
Pneuma, name of Valentinian Sophia, ii. 109
Point, the Little or Indivisible, source of everything in universe ap.
Simonians, i. 194 n. 3;
and ap. Basilides, ii. 90 n. 5;
referred to in Bruce Papyrus, ii. 292 n. 1
Polycleitos, his statue of Dionysos with attributes of Zeus, i. 125 n. 2
Pomoerium, Alexandrian gods expelled from, temp. Tiberius, i. 78
Pompeii, Isium at, when founded, i. 53
Pompey the Great, suppression of Cilician pirates by, ii. 229
Pontus, birthplace of Marcion, ii. 9, 204;
and of Mithridates, ii. 204;
Tertullian’s rhetorical exaggeration as to, ii. 204 n. 3;
its kings claim descent from Persian heroes, ii. 225 n. 1
Porphyry, the neo-Platonist, says Egyptian magicians threaten gods,
i. 104 n. 3;
his account of Essenes copied from Josephus, i. 155;
describes books on Mithras worship, ii. 236;
says Mithraic cave represents universe, ii. 247, 249;
says Mithraists teach metempsychosis, 257;
gives “eagles” as name of Mithraist Fathers, ii. 265 n. 2;
says High Priest of Mithras may only marry once, ii. 268;
quoted, i. 104 n. 3, 155; ii. 236, 249, 265 n. 2, 268
Poseidon, the god, Greek type of, on Indian coins, i. 17 n. 2;
of Homer, shares empire with Zeus, i. 46;
cattle and horses sacrificed to, i. 95;
on Mithraic monuments, ii. 238.
See Neptune
Powers, the Three Triple. See Tridynami
Praedestinatus, heresiology of, its sources, ii. 10 n. 1;
describes “rabbling” of Ophites by Christian bishops and mob, ii.
77
Praetextatus, Vettius Agorius, his rank in Mithraism, ii. 268;
one of the last Pagan noblemen, ii. 358.
See Paullina
Praxidice, Orphic epithet or variant of Persephone, i. 142
Precept, the First, in Pistis Sophia perhaps personification of Jewish
Torah, ii. 141;
highest spirit in Treasure-house, ii. 147;
power passed into Confusion originates in, ii. 164
Preller, says that Orpheus is a “collective” person, i. 121 n. 1
Prepon, the heresiarch, a Syrian teaching in Rome, ii. 9;
follower of Marcion who thinks Jesus intermediate between good
and evil, ii. 220
Priests, state officials in Persia and Egypt, i. 24;
of Greek confraternities, i. 25;
greed of Egyptian, i. 28;
always powerful in Africa, i. 31;
their disastrous rule in Egypt, i. 31, 32;
hereditary, of Mysteries, i. 39;
native Egyptian, keep aloof from Alexandrian, i. 51;
of Isis on Herculaneum frescoes, i. 68, 69;
importance of, in Alexandrian religion, i. 76, 77;
secular and regular, in same, i. 79, 80;
break up of Asiatic and Egyptian colleges of, spreads magic, i.
107;
necessity of, among Gnostics, ii. 22;
temporal power of Anatolian, ii. 29;
Cybele’s eunuch, ii. 31;
high priests of Magic Papyri, ii. 34 n. 4;
mention of, among Naassenes, ii. 66;
among other Ophites, ii. 77;
Valentinians probably frequent orthodox, ii. 125;
of Marcionites, ii. 205;
of Persians, the Magi, ii. 233, 234;
of Cybele, ally themselves with Mithraists, ii. 258;
of Mithras called “Father,” ii. 261;
qualifications and duties of Mithraic, ii. 267, 268;
like modern churchwardens, ii. 273;
Manichaean, called sons of knowledge, ii. 312;
organization of neo-Manichaean, ii. 330
Proclus, the neo-Platonist, gives Isis’ assertion of eternity and
virginity, i. 63;
identifies Bendis with Persephone, i. 137;
makes all gods contained in Dionysos, i. 146 n. 1;
makes man come from tears of gods, ii. 153 n. 2, 176;
quoted, i. 63, 137 n. 2; ii. 153 n. 2
Prohegumeni, the Two Forerunners of the Treasure-house in the
Pistis Sophia, ii. 149
Prophthasia, Alexander at, said to receive grapes from Greece, i. 4
n. 1.
See Farrah
Proserpine, Isis called Stygian P. by the Sicilians, i. 56;
Lucius at initiation treads threshold of, i. 62.
See Persephone
Prunicos, or the Substitute, name of Sophia among early Ophites, ii.
45, 59.
See Achamoth, Sophia
Psammetichos, King of Egypt, letter of Nephotes to, on
lecanomancy, i. 101
Psyche, name of Valentinus’ Demiurge, ii. 109
Ptah, the god, one of oldest gods of Egypt, i. 32;
priesthood of, in early times, i. 33;
Ptolemy Epiphanes called the beloved of, i. 51
Ptah-Seker-Osiris, the god, triune deity of Saitic period, i. 33; ii. 195
Ptolemy I Soter, called Saviour-god, i. 18;
his wisdom in choosing and ruling Egypt, i. 28, 29;
his preparationsfor its defence, i. 29, 30;
decides to found syncretic religion uniting Egyptians and Greeks, i.
30;
his court and capital both Greek, i. 44;
his Museum and its “stuffed capons,” i. 45;
his dream as to Serapis-statue, i. 48, 77;
Egyptians reject his religious schemes, i. 51;
success of his religion outside Egypt, i. 52, 53, 54;
five centuries between him and Apuleius, i. 76;
seizes Jerusalem, i. 151;
colonizes Samaria with “Macedonians,” i. 177
Ptolemy II Philadelphus, Asoka’s mission to, i. 20;
attribution of foundation of Museum to, erroneous (Bouché-
Leclercq), i. 44 n. 2
Ptolemy IV Philopator, decline of Egyptian power after, i. 151
Ptolemy V Epiphanes, his coronation at Memphis (Rosetta Stone), i.
51
Ptolemy VI Philometor, petitions to, of Ptolemy son of Glaucias, i. 79
Ptolemy IX Physcon, expels philosophers from Museum, ii. 88
Ptolemy, the son of Glaucias, recluse in Serapeum, i. 79. See
Kenyon
Ptolemy, the Valentinian, his theory of the Cosmocrator as the
creation of the Demiurge, ii. 108 n. 1;
a leader of the Italic School, ii. 119;
his letter to Flora, ii. 131
Punjab, part of, in Persian Empire, i. 1
Purser, Louis Charles, collects authorities on Orpheus, i. 121 n. 1
Puteoli, temple to Serapis at, 100 B.C., i. 53
Pythagoras, pupil of Pherecydes of Syros, i. 124;
says our souls part of world-soul, i. 129;
his theory of transmigration, ibid.
Pythagoreans, the, all early Orphic poems ascribed to, i. 122;
Orphics take transmigration from, i. 127;
find withdrawal from world necessary to salvation, i. 129;
Jews take Ecpyrosis from (Hippolytus), i. 155 n. 2
Quadratus, his lost Apology for Christianity, ii. 202, 203 n. 1
Ra, the god, corporation of priests of, earliest in Egypt, i. 31;

the sun-god, i. 31, 63;
Osiris invoked with him in Book of Dead, i. 32;
legend of, and Isis, i. 38 n. 2; ii. 37 n. 1;
increase of power of, with XIIth Dynasty, i. 63 n. 1;
the serpent Apep his enemy, ii. 78
Ramsay, Sir William, F.R.S., has revived Alexandrian alchemist’s
dream of transmutation, i. 45
Ramsay, Sir William Mitchell, says name of Christians not mentioned
by classic writers, i. 1 n. 1;
all gods of mysteries forms of One, i. 56 n. 4;
date of Hadrian’s visit to Egypt, i. 86 n. 5;
thinks Anatolian Jews coalesce with natives, ii. 28;
state of Phrygia in Ist cent., ii. 29;
characteristics of Anatolian religion, temp. Apostles, ii. 29, 30, 67
n. 3;
importance of Mother of Gods due to matriarchate, ii. 40;
many names of divine pair worshipped in Phrygia, ii. 67 n. 1;
androgyne nature of same and symbol of double axe, ibid.;
quoted, i. 1 n. 1, 56 n. 4, 86 n. 5; ii. 28 n. 3, 29 n. 5, 30 nn. 1, 2, 3,
31 n. 1, 40 n. 3, 67 n. 3
Raphael, the archangel, name of, in Magic Papyri and O.T.
Apocrypha, ii. 34;
in Diagram name of terrestrial daemon, ii. 70;
planet Mars connected with, ii. 75 n. 1
Rawlinson, Canon George, on government of Persian Empire, i. 2 n.
2, 3 nn. 2, 3
Rawlinson, Sir Henry, Omen Tablets in Cuneiform Inscriptions of
W.A., i. 114 n. 1
Rayet, M. Octave, shows identification of Demeter and Persephone
from inscription and vases, i. 46 n. 1
Reade, Winwood, his Martyrdom of Man quoted, i. 11 n. 3, 149 n. 2;
ii. 2, 3, 227 n. 1
Reformation, the German, sects of, compared to Gnostics, ii. 19;
dissidents near to, strictly Christian, ii. 20;
like makers of, Marcion appeals to Scripture, ii. 207;
Manichaeism may have survived till, ii. 357;
leaves Church stronger than before, ii. 360
Reinach, M. Salomon, Orphic password discussed by, i. 134 n. 1
Renaissance, the, Hecate still goddess of sorcerers through Middle
Ages and, i. 147;
sorcerers of, use words of Mass, ii. 267
Renan, Joseph Ernest, warlike characteristics of great goddesses, i.
58;
describes policy of Church of Rome as to Pagan customs, i. 85;
abundance of diviners and sorcerers in Rome of Nero, i. 108;
says Bar Coziba called Monogenes (George the Syncellus), i. 124
n. 3;
account of War of Extermination (Derenbourg), i. 163 n. 1;
revolt of Jews under Trajan, i. 172 n. 1;
says Gnosticism attacks infant Church like croup, ii. 21;
his interpretation of Caulacau, ii. 94 n. 3;
quoted, i. 83 n. 1, 85 n. 1, 124 n. 3, 163 n. 1; ii. 21 n. 1, 94 n. 3
Réville, Albert, his controversy with Gladstone on Genesis, i. liii;
quoted, i. 93 n. 4
Revillout, Eugène, thinks words in Egyptian spell, adaptation of
those of the Mass, i. 87;
to true Gnostic all religions merely veils, ii. 18;
quoted, i. 87 n. 3; ii. 18 n. 4
Rhacotis, Egyptian name of site of Alexandria, i. 44
Rhamnusia, a name of Nemesis identified with Isis, i. 56
Rhapsodists, the, their theogony, i. 123;
Orphic poems recited by, at games, i. 135, 136;
Ophites probably get lines of Homer and Pindar from, ii. 83
Rhea, the goddess, the earth-goddess sometimes called Cybele,
Demeter etc., i. 124, 126;
mother of Attis, i. 139 n. 1; ii. 54
Rhodes, worship of Alexandrian gods at, i. 52
Rhodo, refutes Tertullian’s slanders against Marcion, ii. 218;
his quotation from Apelles the Marcionite, ii. 219;
other Marcionite leaders mentioned by, ii. 220
Ritschl, his theory that both St John Baptist and Jesus were
Essenes, i. 156 n. 1
Rochat, E., on dates of birth and death of Manes, ii. 279 n. 1, 282 n.
2;
on authenticity of Acta Archelai, ii. 280 n. 3;
on Manes’ father Fatak or Patecius, ii. 285 n. 2;
on authenticity of letter to Marcellus, ii. 288 n. 2, 289;
on Mandaites as descendants of Mughtasilah, ii. 305 n. 1;
quoted, ii. 279 nn. 1, 3, 280 n. 2-6, 281 nn. 1, 3, 5, 282 n. 2, 283
nn. 1, 6, 285 nn. 2, 4, 286 nn. 3, 5, 287 n. 2, 289, 305 nn. 1, 3
Rogers, Dr Robert William, exposes Winckler’s and Jeremias’ astral
theory, i. 115 n. 1
Romans, the, take over Greek pantheon en bloc, i. 17;
frustrate Antiochus Epiphanes’ attack on Egypt, i. 151;
their toleration for Jewish religion and customs fruitless, i. 163;
punish Palestinian towns for rebellion, temp. Vespasian, i. 170;
receive orgiastic worship of Cybele, ii. 30 n. 3;
their long struggle with Persians, ii. 225-227;
their severe laws against Manichaeism, ii. 278, 356
Rome, becomes monarchical as she acquires world-power, i. 15;
welcomes Euhemeristic theory, i. 19;
Alexandrian gods obtain a foothold in, i. 53;
their worship becomes an established church in, i. 79;
gathering of charlatans in, temp. Nero, i. 108;
Orphic gold plates found at, i. 131;
Simonians numerous in, i. 199;
all heretics attracted to, ii. 203
Roots, the six of Simon Magus, i. 180;
expression used by Empedocles and Athamas the Pythagorean, i.
197
Rosetta Stone, the, marks turning of Ptolemies to ancient Egyptian
gods, i. 51
Roxana, wife of Alexander the Great, i. 5, 12
Rutilianus, accomplice and dupe of Alexander of Abonoteichos, i. 24
Sabaoth, used in Hebrew spell identifying Yahweh with Zeus and

Serapis, i. 106;
name belonging to a secret theology (Origen), ii. 34, 35;
Ophite ruler of planetary sphere (Irenaeus), ii. 47;
the same in Diagram, ii. 69;
address to, ii. 73;
name recurs in Pistis Sophia, ii. 158
Sabaoth the Good, the Great, soul of Jesus on Incarnation received
from (Pistis Sophia), ii. 139, 149;
the emanation of Jeû and acts through messenger (P.S.), ii. 149;
why so called, ii. 149 n. 2;
appears in Bruce Papyrus, ii. 193
Sabaoth the Good, the Little, messenger or substitute of Great
Sabaoth, ii. 149;
his action at Incarnation, ii. 149 n. 2;
identified with Gate of Life, ibid.;
appears in Texts of Saviour, ii. 149 n. 2, 187;
gives cup of perception to righteous soul in same, ii. 187, 309 n. 2
Sabaoth Adamas, in Pistis Sophia a wicked power, ii. 149 n. 2;
in Texts of Saviour ruler of Wicked Aeons, ii. 182;
in same bound with his subjects to Sphere, ii. 182;
his “receiver” Jaluha gives cup of oblivion to soul, ii. 187
Sabazius, the god, comes into Greece before Alexander, i. 17, 137;
a Phrygian god called “Lord of all” and son of Cybele, i. 137;
rites of, described by Demosthenes, i. 138;
identified with Attis and Adonis, i. 139 n. 1;
for Orphics, a form of Dionysos, i. 145;
Phrygia seat of worship of, ii. 28;
called Pappas, ii. 57;
male aspect of androgyne deity of Anatolia (Ramsay), ii. 67 n. 3
Saboï, cry of initiates in Sabazian mysteries, i. 138
Sabos, in Orphic hymn possibly name of Iacchos, i. 138 n. 2
Saclas or Asaqlun, son of King of Darkness among Peratae and
Manichaeans, ii. 329
Sadducees, dominant party among Jews, i. lv, 162;
a “philosophic” sect (Josephus), i. 151;
their sympathy with Hellenism, i. 162
Salathiel, The Apocalypse of, part of Fourth Esdras called, i. 167
Salmon, Dr George, his theory of forgery of Gnostic documents, i. lxi
n. 1; ii. 11 n. 2;
on authorship of Clementines, i. 178 n. 1;
on discovery of Philosophumena, ii. 11 n. 2;
thinks return of worlds to Deity rather than salvation of mankind
aim of Gnosticism, ii. 42 n. 2;
his interpretation of name of Ialdabaoth, ii. 46 n. 3;
and of Caulacau, ii. 94 n. 3;
Marcion’s life described by, ii. 204;
on early establishment of Marcion’s heresy, ii. 207;
quoted, i. 178 n. 1; ii. 11 n. 2, 41 n. 1, 42 n. 2, 94 n. 3, 204 n. 2,
205 n. 3, 206 nn. 3, 5, 207 nn. 3, 4, 222 n. 1
Salome, speech of Jesus to, in Gospel of Egyptians, i. 196 n. 2;
questions of, in Pistis Sophia, ii. 157
Samarcand, modern name of Maracanda, a foundation of
Alexander’s, i. 5 n. 3
Samaria, Simon Magus’ deeds in, i. 176, 178, 191 n. 3;
re-colonized by Alexander and Ptolemy Soter, i. 177;
destroyed by John Hyrcanus, and rebuilt by Gabinius and Herod
the Great, ibid.;
its mixed population of Semites and Persians, i. 197
Samaritans, the, hatred between Jews and, i. 177;
religion of, temp. Christ, ibid.;
reverence of, for Pentateuch, i. 184 n. 2;
Simon said to appear to, as the Father, i. 192;
appeal of Simon’s doctrines to, i. 202
Sammael, a name of Ophite Ophiomorphus, ii. 52;
identified with Satan in Ascension of Isaiah, ii. 69 n. 2, 75 n. 1
Samothrace, seat of Cabiric Mysteries, i. 61, 136 n. 2;
the god of, called Adam, i. 137 n. 1, 139 n. 1; ii. 54 n. 6
Sandracottus. See Chandragupta
Sapor or Shâpûr I, the Shah, exiles Manes from Persia, ii. 281
Sarapis or (Lat.) Serapis, the god, his recluses or monks, i. 20, 80,
86;
charlatans round altars of (Plutarch), i. 23;
purification of religion of, i. 24;
typical statue of, i. 49;
Modius distinctive attribute of, i. 50;
Ptolemy compels Egyptians to take him into their temples
(Macrobius), i. 52;
early temple to, at Puteoli, i. 53;
“Sarapis alone is Zeus,” i. 55;
all Greek and foreign gods included in, i. 56;
merciful and compassionate to man, i. 58;
friend of man in next world, i. 59, 60;
initiation into “nocturnal orgies” of (Apuleius), i. 64;
special hymn and air addressed to, i. 68, 72;
identified with Osiris (Minucius Felix), i. 70;
April festival of, i. 71;
Oracle of, at Alexandria, i. 77;
identified with Asklepios, i. 78, 87;
statue of, in Alexander Severus’ lararium, i. 82;
statue and temple of, at Alexandria destroyed by Christians, i. 84;
ritual of, adapted to Christian use, i. 85;
joint worship of, and Christ (Hadrian), i. 86;
trinity of, Sarapis, Isis, and Horus, i. 88;
the “Great God” (Mag. Pap.), i. 101, 104, 125 n. 3;
representation of, on scarab used in Jewish spell, i. 106, 107;
identified with Sun, i. 118;
books buried in tombs of worshippers of (Ael. Aristides), i. 132 n.
3;
Simon Magus may have borrowed from religion of, i. 198;
Phrygian deities identified with, ii. 31;
appears as Zeus on Mithraic monument, ii. 238 n. 2;
splendour of worship of, contrasted with that of Mithras, ii. 269
Sargon, King of Akkad, astrological tablets going back to reign of, i.
113, 114
Sarmizegetusa, Mithraic monument at, ii. 264
Sarrebourg, Mithraic monument at, ii. 264
Satan, cosmocrator or world-ruler to Essene initiates (Kohler), i. 153
n. 4;
Marcion called the first-born of, ii. 10;
maker of the body in Gnosticism, ii. 54 n. 2;
enemy of world-creating angels and god of Jews (Saturninus), ii.
89;
cosmocrator in system of Valentinus, ii. 108;
active agent of matter in that of Marcion, ii. 210;
composite form of, in that of Manes, ii. 291;
antagonist of Manichaean First Man, ii. 293;
imprisonment of Manichaean, after Ecpyrosis, ii. 297;
called Hummâma by later Manichaeans, ibid.;
and Great Archon, ii. 298;
and Sindîd, ii. 304.
See Sammael
Saturn, the planet, presides over category of terrestrial things, i. 116;
soul of dead reincarnated when S. in certain position (Texts of
Saviour), i. 118 n. 1;
one of seven heavens in Ophite system, ii. 48;
connection in Diagram between S. and demon Michael, ii. 75;
set over 360 rulers of wicked powers (Texts of Saviour), ii. 182;
in Mithraism soul descends through sphere of, ii. 256;
lead associated with, ii. 257 n. 4;
in same, lowest initiate’s soul will return to sphere of, ii. 265
Saturninus or Saturnilus, the heresiarch, a native of Antioch, ii. 9;
his Docetism, ii. 17;
confusion as to name of, ii. 20 n. 1;
a follower of Simon Magus and predecessor of Basilides and the
Nicolaitans (Epiphanius), ii. 25 n. 5;
makes god of Jews one of the seven world-creating angels
(Irenaeus), ii. 47 n. 3;
denounces marriage and procreation as work of Satan, ii. 89;
Valentinus later than (Epiphanius), ii. 93 n. 3
Saulasau, mystic name of secondary world used by Ophites, ii. 94 n.
3
Saviour, The Texts of the, time of reincarnation dependent on
planetary motions, i. 118 n. 1; ii. 185 n. 2;
affinity of male and female soul explained, i. 195;
sexes united at the length, i. 196 n. 2;
rebellion of half the Twelve Aeons in, ii. 48 n. 4, 152 n. 1;
body of man made by evil daemons, ii. 54 n. 2;
place of punishment of wicked souls above the earth, ii. 69, 182 n.
1;
planet Jupiter ruler of the Five Planets, ii. 73 n. 1;
the angel Zarazaz called by name of demon Maskelli, ii. 75 n. 1,
148 n. 3;
the Serpent of Outer Darkness the Outer Ocean, ii. 78, 155 n. 4,
166 n. 2;
repeats Basilides “one in 1000 and 2 in 10,000,” ii. 92 n. 3, 172;
many members of the Ineffable One, but one body, ii. 145 n. 2;
Jeû the First Man overseer of the Light and Legate of First
Precept, ii. 147 n. 5;
the Books of Jeû written by Enoch in Paradise, ibid.;
Melchizidek Great Receiver of the Light, ii. 148 n. 2, 154 n. 1;
Great Sabaoth the Good and Gate of Life, ii. 149 n. 2;
Great Iao the Good, leader of Middle, ii. 149 n. 3;
Virgin of Light has seven virgins for assistants, ii. 150;
Barbelo called βδελλη in, ii. 151 n. 4;
the Kingdom of Adamas opposite the place of the Virgin of Light, ii.
152 n. 1;
Ialdabaoth in, one of the torturers in hell, ii. 155 n. 3;
says Baptisms and Chrism lead soul into Place of Light, ii. 167 n.
1;
renunciation of the world leads to Mysteries of the Light, ii. 167 n.
2;
thaumaturgic Eucharist of, ii. 172 n. 3, 192;
sacraments called Mysteries of Light, etc., ii. 173 n. 1;
the MS. of, described, ii. 180;
cannot be Valentinian, ii. 180 n. 3;
gives prayer of Jesus in unknown tongue, ibid.;
puts souls of Patriarchs in Place of Jabraoth, ii. 182 n. 2;
extracts from other documents probably mixed with, ii. 182 n. 3,
183 n. 2;
threefold division of soul into Power, Moira and Counterfeit of the
Spirit, ii. 184;
no division of mankind into pneumatic, psychics and hylics in, ibid.;
magic recommended for conversion of heathen, ii. 185;
Pistis Sophia mentioned in, as daughter of Barbelo, ii. 186;
Orphics’ cups of oblivion and memory reappear in, ibid.;
unknown words of prayer of Jesus in, like those of Marcus’
baptismal formula, ii. 189;
sacraments of Bruce Papyrus resemble those of, ii. 193;
degradation of belief in, ii. 194;
returns to native Egyptian ideas, ii. 195-198;
fear of hell sanction of belief in, ii. 198;
quoted, i. 118 n. 1, 195 n. 1, 196 n. 2; ii. 54 n. 2, 75 n. 1, 78 nn. 4,
5, 92 n. 3, 145 n. 2, 147 n. 5, 148 nn. 1, 3, 149 n. 2, 150 nn. 2,
3, 5, 152 n. 1, 154 n. 1, 155 nn. 3, 4, 166 n. 2, 167 nn. 1, 2, 172
nn. 3, 4, 173 n. 1, 180 nn. 1-4, 182 nn. 1-3, 183 nn. 1-3, 184 n.
4, 185 nn. 1, 2, 186, 187, 198, 199
Saviours, the Twelve, furnish spotless souls for the Twelve Apostles
(Pistis Sophia), ii. 136, 147
Saviours, the Twin, “the boy of a boy” (Pistis Sophia), ii. 142, 171;
reappear in Texts of Saviour and Bruce Papyrus, ii. 193;
functions of, never alluded to, ii. 355 n. 2
Sayce, Prof. A. H., his translation of omen or astrological tablets
from Nineveh, i. 114
Sches-Hor, the, royal tribe of earliest invaders of Egypt, i. 36
Schmidt, Dr Carl, his text and translation of Pistis Sophia and Bruce
Papyrus, ii. 13 n. 2, 190
Schmiedel, Dr P. W., revives Tübingen theory that Simon Magus is
St Paul, i. 179 n. 3;
his mistake about Menander, i. 199 n. 7;
on community of goods, ii. 2 n. 3
Schwartze, Maurice G., transcriber and translator of Pistis Sophia, ii.
18, 134
Scythia, in story of Manes probably means Turkestan, ii. 285;
Addas disciple of Manes missionary to, ii. 352
Scythianus, father of Manes in Christian tradition, ii. 285;
identified with Patecius or Fatak (Kessler), ii. 285 n. 2;
may represent non-Aryan Medes, ii. 286
Sebaste, name of Samaria when rebuilt by Herod, i. 177
Secrecy, of Mysteries of Eleusis very strict, i. 41;
as to burial of Dionysos at Delphi, i. 47;
as to names of God and Goddess of Eleusis (Foucart), i. 47 n. 1;
of initiation into Mysteries of Isis, i. 62;
of Alexandrian doctrine that Osiris god of dead, i. 64 n. 3;
observed as to contents of chest carried in procession of Isis, i. 73;
reason for, as to Mysteries of Eleusis, their foreign origin (Foucart),
i. 130 n. 1;
or jealousy, i. 139 n. 2;
of tenets of Hellenizing Jews, i. 175 n. 2;
as to Dying God not observed by Cretans, ii. 16:
of Gnostics as to their opinions, ii. 18;
of Basilides’ followers, ii. 92, 189;
of Manichaeans, ii. 356
Secunderabad, preserves name of Alexander, i. 5
Secundus, the Valentinian, a leader of the Italic School, ii. 119;
imagines “a right and left tetrad, i.e. light and darkness”
(Hippolytus), ii. 147 n. 4
Seistan, part of Persian Empire, i. 1;
Alexander when in, said to receive grapes from Greece, i. 4 n. 1
Seker or Socharis, the god, a very ancient deity in Egypt, i. 32;
dreary life in next world of his worshippers, ii. 195
Seleucus I Nicator, grants privileges of citizenship to Jews in all cities
of his Empire, ii. 28;
affection of Persians for, ii. 224
Seleucus II Callinicus, defeated by Parthians under Arsaces, ii. 224
Semele, mother of Dionysos on his second or third incarnation, i. 40
n. 4, 42, 145;
in Alexandrian religion Dionysos called the fruit of the vine S.., i.
64 n. 3;
Dionysos son of S., Zagreus re-born, i. 125
Seneca, last speech of, ii. 87
Sepher Jetzirah and Sepher Zohar, books of VIth or VIIth century A.D.,
ii. 35.
See Cabala
Septuagint, the, familiarizes Jews with Old Testament, i. 157;
belongs to Western Diaspora, ii. 53 n. 2.
See Peshitto
Serapeum, the, Egyptian, at Memphis separated from Greek, i. 51;
Athenian, facing the Acropolis, i. 52;
oracle of Serapis at Alexandrian, i. 55;
represented on Herculaneum fresco (von Bissing), i. 68 n. 1;
Bryaxis’ statue in, i. 78 n. 2;
recluse in S. of Memphis, i. 79, 80;
destruction of Alexandrian, i. 83-85
Serapis. See Sarapis
Serpent, Dionysos begotten by Zeus in form of, i. 42;
live, used in Sabazian rites, i. 138;
in Orphic poems represents earth, i. 145 n. 2;
Ophites = worshippers of, ii. 26 n. 4;
“Bull father of serpent,” etc., ii. 39;
external Ocean figured as, ii. 49;
in Asia Minor emblem of goddess’ husband, ii. 49. n. 3;
emblem of Dionysos and soul of world, ii. 50, 55;
called “Michael and Sammael” (Ophites), ii. 52;
taught to coil round Eucharistic bread (Ophites), ii. 61;
called Leviathan in Diagram, ii. 70, 77;
Christian mob kill Ophite, ii. 77;
drops out of Ophite teaching, ii. 78;
enemy of sun-god in Egypt, ibid.;
“serpent and dove,” ii. 135 n. 3;
death figured as seven-headed, ii. 156 n. 3;
Outer Darkness s. with tail in mouth, ii. 183;
part of, in Mithraic Tauroctony, ii. 245;
represents earth on Mithraic monuments, ii. 247, 250;
“the World-ruler, the Great S.” in Magic Papyrus, ii. 256.
See Tarentum
Set, the god, murderer of Osiris, i. 33;
defeated by Horus, i. 34;
his wife Nephthys comes over to Osiris, i. 35;
Perabsen returns to worship of, i. 36;
aided in war by Ethiopians, i. 37;
the “Osiris whom S. murdered” in Magic Papyrus, i. 92 n. 2;
Typhon Greek equivalent of (Plutarch), i. 105;
magician threatens to tear S. limb from limb, i. 125 n. 3;
like Osiris, a great power or daemon (Plutarch), ii. 16;
sect of Sethiani possibly named after him, ii. 74 n. 4
Seth, Ophites accept Genesis’ account of, ii. 52;
of Sethiani may be Sitheus of Bruce Papyrus, ii. 76 n. 4;
Manichaean or Mandaite story of, ii. 304
Seth, The Paraphrase of, Apocrypha used by Sethiani, i. 175; ii. 53
n. 3;
and by Ophites, ii. 79
Sethiani, the, sect derived from Orphics (Hippolytus), i. 175;
Simonians and they, only Gnostic sects not admitting Jesus’
divinity, ii. 15 n. 1;
their connection with Ophites, ii. 27, 76;
Ialdabaoth appears in system of (Theodoret), ii. 46 n. 3;
a Jewish but apparently non-Christian sect, ii. 53, 76.
See Linus
Severus, Caius Julius, Hadrian’s general, lays waste Palestine, i.
170
Severus, the Emperor Septimius, imitation of Alexander temp., i. 14
n. 1
Shamash, the god, sun-god of Chaldaeans identified with Mithras, ii.
241
Shâpûr. See Sapor
Shapurakan, the, of Manes quoted, ii. 307
Shem, identified by Moses of Chorene with Zervan, i. lx
Sheol, dreariness of Jewish, i. 58, 150;
Gentiles to be swallowed up by (Enoch), i. 161
Sheshonq or Shishak, King of Egypt, suzerain of Solomon, i. 31
Shilluks, the, Nilotic tribe who worship secondary god, but not
Supreme Being, ii. 39 n. 5
Shimnu, Buddhist Devil appearing in Khuastuanift, ii. 335 n. 1
Shishak. See Sheshonq
Sibyl, the, announces decline of worship of Serapis and Isis, i. 86;
Jewish forgeries in name of, i. 173
Sicarii or Zealots, escape before Fall of Temple to Africa and commit
outrages, ii. 5 n. 3
Sicilians, the, call Isis “Stygian Proserpine,” i. 56
Sicily, scene of Rape of Proserpine (scholiast on Hesiod), i. 40;
Isis-worship brought into, by Hiero II, i. 53;
Orphic gold plates found in, i. 131;
Demeter and Persephone tutelary deities of, i. 135
Sidon, Mithraic monuments at, ii. 261 nn. 1, 4
Sige or Silence, female consort of Bythos in Valentinian system, ii.
96, 98;
called also Charis or Grace, ii. 96 n. 5
Simon of Cyrene, crucified instead of Jesus (Basilides), ii. 17
Simon Magus, accused of magic by Hippolytus, i. 110;
thinks souls attracted into bodies by sexual desire, i. 153 n. 3;

The Homeric Centos Homer and The Bible Interwoven Oxford Studies in Late Antiquity Series Anna Lefteratou Full Chapter

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The Homeric Centos: Homer and the

Bible Interwoven (OXFORD STUDIES IN

History and Identity in the Late Antique Near East

Explaining the Cosmos

Universal Salvation in Late Antiquity

The Poetics of Late Antique Literature

Rome’s Holy Mountain

The Homeric Centos

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

© Oxford University Press 2023

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

You must not circulate this work in any other form

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Printed by Integrated Books International, United States of America

Unweaving Crossweave Poems  1

This book-​length project was generously funded by the German Research

AAPil. Apocrypha Acta Pilati recensio A and B; Tischendorf, C. ed. 19872.

DIR De Imperatoribus Romanis (online) https://​roman-​emper​ors.sites.luc.

Lampe Lampe, G. W. H. 1961. A Patristic Greek Lexicon. Oxford: Clarendon.

What the thunder said: —​

Τί είπε η γκαμήλα (Τετράδιο Γυμνασμάτων Β´, 1948, Παστίτσιο)

. . . Κάθισα σ’ ένα πάγκο χαζεύοντας (contra, i.e., revisiting Eliot’s: shore)

The Approach of this Book

incarnation, which, at the Homeric level is marked by a programmatic reuse of

centones apud grammaticos vocari solent, qui de carminibus Homer

According to the grammarians, centos should be called [the poems]

Ἐν τῷ περὶ μεθόδου σοι δεινότητος διδάσκει

With The Method of Eloquence Hermogenes instructs you, | what is

1.1 Ancient Centos

1.1.1 The Matrix of Centos

The following is not an exhaustive analysis of the origins and development

Rather than drawing up a history of ancient centos or offering a new definition,

to the cento technique by borrowing lines from earlier, non-​Christian high-

1.1.2 Ancient Audiences

1.2 Homeric Centos

the Theologian in both poems is problematic especially for the Homerocentones,

1.2.1 Formulaic Composition

Formulae are often spotlighted in studies of the translation of Homer into

I HC, he is presented as the Lord: ὃς πᾶσι θνητοῖσι καὶ ἀθανάτοισιν ἀνάσσων,

1.2.3 Jeweled Style

αὐτίκα δὲ σφήκεσσιν ἐοικότες ἐξεχέοντο 1830 ~ Il. 16.259, Myrmidons’ attack

Table 1.1 Odyssey Book 2 in the Centos

Citations Od. I HC Context Notes

1. 1 635 Ἦμος δ’ ἠριγένεια φάνη ῥοδοδάκτυλος Ἠώς form./​day–​night

Table 1.1 Continued

16. 81 710 δάκρυ’ ἀναπρήσας· οἶκτος δ’ ἕλε λαὸν ἅπαντα form./​supplication

Table 1.1 Continued

important foils for characters of the Christian narrative, such as Telemachus,

1.2.5.1 Time and Assemblies

Quadratus, his lost Apology for Christianity, ii. 202, 203 n. 1

Ra, the god, corporation of priests of, earliest in Egypt, i. 31;

Sabaoth, used in Hebrew spell identifying Yahweh with Zeus and

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Unweaving Crossweave Poems 1

This book-length project was generously funded by the German Research

DIR De Imperatoribus Romanis (online) https://roman-emperors.sites.luc.

What the thunder said: —

to the cento technique by borrowing lines from earlier, non-Christian high-

1. 1 635 Ἦμος δ’ ἠριγένεια φάνη ῥοδοδάκτυλος Ἠώς form./day–night

16. 81 710 δάκρυ’ ἀναπρήσας· οἶκτος δ’ ἕλε λαὸν ἅπαντα form./supplication

1.2.5.1 Time and Assemblies