Osservazioni sull'Inno VIII del Cathemerinon di Prudenzio

The eight Hymn of Prudentius’ Cathemerinon presents some didactic features whose aim is to put the Christian practice of fasting in a spiritual vision of moderate ascetism. Therefore it’s praised, since the beginning of the Hymn, the merciful pedagogy of Christ which doesn’t impose to his faithfuls a discipline disproportionate to their strenght. In the following description of the figure of the Good Shepherd can be recognised an antithetical allusion to Virgil’s Georgics where the shepherd, to save the flock from the contagion, kills the ill sheep: the Good Shepherd, at the opposite, heals the ill sheep and brings her back to the fold, which in Prudentius’ Hymn is described with a clear allusion to Heaven. The figure of the shepherd though in the figurative arts of Late Antiquity has a symbolic meaning which embrace as much the heathen’s field as the christian’s one, so Prudentius’ Hymnì obtains an effective communicativeness by just using an imagine that could evocate for both Christians and Heathens the aspiration to serenity and afterlife peace.