1.
Historiae Evangelicae Libri IV.Historiae Evangelicae Libri IV., published about
A. D. 332, a life of Christ in hexameter verse, compiled from the four
evangelists. The narrative of St. Matthew is taken as the groundwork, the additional facts
supplied by the three others are interwoven in their proper places, the whole thus forming a
complete harmony of the Gospels. The liberal praises bestowed upon Juvencus by divines and
scholars, from St. Jerome down to Petrarch, must be understood to belong rather to the
substance of the piece than to the form under which the materials are presented. We may
honour the pious motive which prompted the undertaking, and we may bestow the same
commendation upon the laborious ingenuity with which every particular recorded by the sacred
historians and frequently their very words, are forced into numbers; but the very plan of
the composition excludes all play of fancy and all poetical freedom of expression, while the
versification, although fluent and generally harmonious, too often bids defiance to the laws
of prosody, and the language, although evidently in many places copied from the purest
models, betrays here and there evident indications of corruption and decay. The idea that
this production might be employed with advantage in the interpretation of the Scriptures,
inasmuch as it may be supposed to exhibit faithfully the meaning attached to various obscure
passages in the early age to which it belongs, will not, upon examination, be found to merit
much attention.
Editions
The Editio Princeps of the
Historia Evangelica was printed at Deventer in
Holland, 4to. 1490.
It is included in the
Poetarum veterum Eccles. Opera of G. Fabricius, fol.
Basil. 1564; in the
Opera et Fragmenta vet. Poet. Lat. of Maittaire, fol.
Lond. 1713; in the
Bibliotheca Patr. Max. Lugdun. 1677, vol. iv. p. 55; and
was published separately with a collection of commentaries, by Reuschius, 8vo. Lips.
1710.
2.
Liber in GenesimLiber in Genesim, in 1541 hexameters, divided into as many
chapters as the original; an attempt, it would appear, to render the study of the Old
Testament more generally popular by clothing it in a metrical dress, the plan and execution
being in every respect similar to the Historia Evangelica.
For a long period the first four sections alone were known to exist, and were variously
ascribed by different critics to Tertullian, Cyprian, or Salvianus of Marseilles; but the
entire book, together with the real author, were made known in the beginning of the
eighteenth century, from a MS. of the eleventh century, and published by
Durand. (See below.)
Editions
The
Liber in Genesim first appeared in its complete form in Martene et
Durand,
Scriptorum et Monumentorum Amplissima Collectio, fol. Paris,
1723, vol. ix. p. 14, from whence it was reprinted, along with the
Historia
Evangelica, in the
Bibliotheca Patrum of Galland, fol Venet. 1770,
vol. iv. p. 587.