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Biblical Call and Classical Response: Intertextuality and Image-Text Relations in Henricus Engelgrave’s Sermon Books

In: Journal of Jesuit Studies
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Lukas Reddemann Seminar für Lateinische Philologie des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit, Universität Münster, Münster, Germany

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Abstract

This paper aims to explore the unique structure and function of the emblems in Henricus Engelgrave’s (1610–70) sermon books (Lux evangelica, Caeleste pantheon, and Caelum empyreum). The emblems serve as introductions to sermons for Sundays and feast days of the liturgical year; they include two mottos: one biblical quotation and a quotation from classical Roman poetry. Based on a selection of exemplary emblems, this paper demonstrates that the second mottos are not merely decorative additions, as has sometimes been argued. Rather, they constitute key features in Engelgrave’s emblematic conception as they provide allegorical and pictorial imageries that affect the picturae of the emblems, the expression of the moral purpose of the sermons, and the relationship between both. This article is part of the special issue of the Journal of Jesuit Studies on Jesuit emblems and emblematic edited by Walter S. Melion.

Introduction

The sermon collections written by the Flemish Jesuit Henricus Engelgrave (1610–70) rank among the most widely circulated Jesuit illustrated books of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Engelgrave entered the Society of Jesus in 1628 and became rector of the Jesuit colleges in Oudenaarde, Cassel, and Bruges, respectively. In the course of his life, he published three sermon books, each of which consisted of two volumes: The Lux evangelica (1648; 1652), the Caeleste pantheon (1657), and the Caelum empyreum (1668; 1670).1 The long and complex printing history, in particular of the Lux evangelica, illustrates the enormous and long-lasting success of his works.2 Engelgrave produced emblematic sermon books; that is to say, each sermon, based on the pericopes of the Sundays of the liturgy or Bible passages relating to feast days in the calendar of saints, is introduced by an emblem. In early modern homiletic practice, emblems often provided subjects, motifs, imageries, and models for allegorical and symbolic interpretation of Scripture.3 The specific combination of sermons and emblems, therefore, immediately concerns the connection between pictorial and textual images and their rhetorical and exegetical functions and, thus, addresses some of the key issues discussed in Jesuit rhetorical and image theory.4 Furthermore, for Engelgrave, the use of emblems also contributes to the primary objective of his sermons, which is to teach a moral lesson (“moralis doctrina”) based on Scripture.5

In Engelgrave’s publications, the particular structure of his emblems, which remained unaltered throughout his entire oeuvre, further complicates the multiple image-text relations. Each emblem consists of a pictura accompanied by two mottos: one short excerpt from the relevant biblical passage above the pictura, and a short quote from a classical Roman author below. A subscriptio in prose follows, either as a short sentence explaining the relationship between the mottos, the pictura, and moralis doctrina of the emblematic sermon (as in the Lux evangelica) or as a full argumentum introducing the basic concepts of the sermon, but not always explicitly and interpretatively linked to the pictura (as in the Caeleste pantheon and the Caelum empyreum).6

Drawing on thorough knowledge of classical literature for his classical mottos, Engelgrave invokes a broad scope of Roman poetry, mostly from the first century bce and the first century ce, such as the works of Virgil, Ovid, and Horace, whom he usually taps as his main sources, but also from Catullus, Claudian (fourth century), Juvenal, Lucan, Lucretius, Martial, Persius, Seneca (tragicus), and Tibullus. The variety of poetry quoted in the mottos of his emblems gives the impression of a well-read scholar who knew and worked with far more classical texts than only those that were regularly taught in Jesuit schools and colleges. The incorporation of classical quotes directly related to the pictura was not entirely unprecedented in the Jesuit emblematic tradition. For example, numerous emblems in the Imago primi saeculi (1640), a celebratory volume that commemorates the centenary of the Society of Jesus, incorporates mottos that either quote or refer to poems from classical antiquity.7 As has been pointed out, Engelgrave adopted and modified a number of the images in the Imago for the emblems in his Lux evangelica.8 Furthermore, Engelgrave refers not only to Scripture and to classical poetry and prose texts but also quotes the church fathers, medieval theologists, fellow Jesuits, contemporary scholars, and even vernacular poets, using their verba (sayings) in his meditations on the sermons introduced by the emblems. In the preface to the reader in the Caelum empyreum, Engelgrave explains that he has not employed this variety (“varietas”) of sources merely for the sake of technical eloquence. Rather, he has sought to promote a fuller understanding of the respective moral lessons drawn from Scripture.9

The application of extracts from Roman poetry as second mottos and Engelgrave’s specific purpose in utilizing them are what make the composition of Engelgrave’s emblematic sermons so unique in Jesuit emblematics. These classical quotes are constitutive components of virtually every one of his sermons; they are employed to generate a fruitful and often complex dialogue with the first motto, i.e., the biblical quotation. It has repeatedly been stated that both mottos are, more or less, alternative variants of the same general idea.10 However, in many cases, the quotations from classical poetry do not simply paraphrase or duplicate the Biblical phrase above the pictura; instead, they provide particular imagery for its emblematic interpretation and, consequently, an intellectual starting point for the following sermon. This usage serves to promote rich and complex interplay among the mottos, the pictura, the sermon, and the occasion of the respective feast. The following examples are offered to explain how the classical mottos in Engelgrave’s sermon books complicate, adapt, and particularize the image-text relation on which the emblem book as a genre is based; their layering onto sermons had a crucial effect on the exegetical function and moral purpose of his emblems. A closer examination of this distinctive feature of Engelgrave’s emblems should cast new light on the ways in which classical learning became a key constituent of the Jesuit emblematic tradition.

Hunting Souls: From Classical Reference to Pictorial Image

To establish that the extracts from classical poetry are active players in the process of image-making, it is useful to look at some examples in which not only the quoted words but also their original context is relevant for reading pertinent biblical passages. The emblem for the feast of the apostles Simon the Zealot and Judas Thaddaeus (October 28) in the second volume of the Caelum empyreum offers a good first example (Fig. 1). Simon and Judas are said to have evangelized Babylonia and Persia, where they suffered martyrdom. The first motto of Engelgrave’s emblem is taken from a chapter of the Book of Jeremiah (16:16) and pertains to the warning God addresses to the people of Jerusalem, whose conduct of life has angered him: “I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them down” (“Ecce ego mittam eis venatores et venabuntur”).11 Engelgrave introduces the well-known image of hunting in the argumentum and the sermon to signify evangelization. He applies this metaphor to Simon’s and Judas’ teaching and proclamation of the Christian message, calling them “sacred hunters of souls” (“sancti animorum venatores”).12 In this sense, the first motto of the emblem provides a verbal image of the apostles’ efforts to spread the Gospel and, as a result, a starting point for the subsequent sermon.

Figure 1
Figure 1

Emblem for the sermon of the feast of Simon and Judas (October 28), in Engelgrave, Caelum empyreum, 2:425.

Citation: Journal of Jesuit Studies 11, 1 (2024) ; 10.1163/22141332-11010004

The second motto quotes from the famous episode of the Calydonian boar hunt in the eighth book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses.13 That myth tells the story of a dangerous and monstrous boar sent to the region of Calydon by Artemis, goddess of the hunt, which an illustrious group of Greek heroes then hunts down. Although Engelgrave only cites one single verse (l. 333) from Ovid’s account of the beginning of the hunt, the other components of the emblem refer to elements of the very same short passage (ll. 329–33), which are referred to but not quoted word-by-word. The pictura depicts a hunting scene in which two dogs chase after a boar. Besides the obvious parallel that the prey animal is the same as in the Calydonian hunt, the image also recalls that the hunters “slipped the leashes from the dogs” (“vincula pars adimunt canibus”) at the start of the hunt.14 A closer look reveals that the landscape, too, as depicted in the pictura—a forest on the crest of a slope—follows the Ovidian model: “There was a dense forest […] rising from the plain and looking out on the downward-sloping fields” (“Silva frequens trabibus […] incipit a plano devexaque prospicit arva”, ll. 329–30). Furthermore, the forest described by Ovid not only forms a part of the pictorial image, but equally of the imago figurata that defines the relation between hunting and evangelization. In the argumentum, Engelgrave transforms Ovid’s “forest, that past ages had never touched” (“Silva […] quam nulla ceciderat aetas”) into those regions of the world where Simon and Judas proclaimed the teachings of the Gospel, places he describes as “a rough forest of barbarians and idols” (“horridam barbarorum et idolorum silvam”).15 In this context, the Ovidian verse cited by Engelgrave as the second motto actually underlines a further common feature of the Calydonian hunters and Simon and Judas, as they actively engage in dangerous activities: “they longed to come at their dangerous enemy” (“cupiuntque suum reperire periclum”, l. 333). For the apostles, the danger of the evangelical mission proved so fatal that the periclum in the second motto can be seen already to prefigure their martyrdom; Engelgrave further reverts to the theme of apostolic martyrdom in the following sermon, where he invokes the deaths of Simon and Petrus.16

Therefore, the motto taken from Ovid’s Metamorphoses serves two purposes: first, it contributes a vividly specific literary model for hunting imagery in the pictura, already adverted to in the first motto. Even though it quotes only a few words from the episode of the Calydonian boar hunt, the citation also operates collaterally, evoking other elements from the Ovidian story and setting. Second, it supplies a kind of tertium comparationis (danger) that mediates between the res picta (hunting) and the res significata (evangelization), thereby building a bridge to the theme of martyrdom and thus to the occasion of the respective feast.

A similar case in the second volume of the Lux evangelica can demonstrate how this particular method of image-making is further varied and complicated when other textual references come into play. The sermon for the twentieth Sunday after Pentecost takes as its starting point the episode of the healing of an official’s son in John 4:43–54.17 After Jesus cured the son of a serious disease, the official “and his whole household believed” (53). The first motto of the corresponding emblem (Fig. 2) solely consists of the word “infirmabatur” (46), which can be translated “he lay sick” or “he was physically weakened”. The pictura depicts a stag struck by an arrow that protrudes from a bloody wound in its body. The stag is running towards a pond fed by a spring. The subscriptio explains that the imago figurata is premised on a metaphor that establishes a connection to the Gospel episode, resembling in this respect the emblem we have just discussed: just as hunters use dogs, bows, and arrows to catch their prey, so God in his loving wrath sends diseases, using them to hunt down wayward persons and convert them back into believers.18

Figure 2
Figure 2

Emblem for the sermon of the twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, in Engelgrave, Lux evangelica, 2:766.

Citation: Journal of Jesuit Studies 11, 1 (2024) ; 10.1163/22141332-11010004

The imagery of hunting is again introduced through the second motto, which originates from an episode in the seventh book of Virgil’s Aeneid. After the Trojans arrive in Italy, Ascanius, the son of Aeneas, hunts down the tame stag of Silvia, daughter of the Latin Tyrrhus; this eventually leads to the war between the Trojans and the Latins.19 Engelgrave’s emblem mirrors several elements of the Virgilian passage, even though the motto does not cite them verbatim: it states that Ascanius’ arrow hit the stag after the animal, chased by hunting dogs, swam across a river; the overheated stag stopped to “relieve itself on a verdant bank” (“ripaque aestus viridante levaret,” l. 495).20 Whereas the arrow and the “verdant bank” appear in the pictura, and Engelgrave’s subscriptio mentions the hunting dogs (“molossos”), the second motto specifies additionally that Ascanius attracted divine aid in the decisive moment: when he aimed at the stag, “the divinity did not desert his unerring arrow” (“nec dextrae erranti deus abfuit,” l. 498).21 Whereas visual elements from the Virgilian description appear in the pictura, the aspect of divine support mentioned in the second motto alludes to the allegorical significance of hunting, a theme then developed in the subscriptio.

Another biblical reference, not part of the emblem itself but of the ensuing sermon, further expands upon the pictorial and allegorical aspects of the imagery. Quoting Psalm 41:2, Engelgrave states that diseases of the body make people desirous of Christ “just as a stag longs for springs of water” (“sicut cervus [desiderat] ad fontes aquarum”).22 Within the imagery of hunting, this reference draws the reader-viewer’s attention to the allegorical analogy between the wounded stag hurrying to a spring and the person struck by disease who turns to God. In contrast to the Virgilian episode, Engelgrave’s stag is not fatally wounded, as he explains in the sermon: just as the animal saves itself by hurrying to a spring and resting there, so the sick person who turns to God can be cured.23 The body of water in the pictura can thus be seen to follow Psalm 41 more than the passage from the Aeneid. The stag stands not on the banks of a flowing river, as in the Virgilian episode,24 but next to a small pond beside a spring: the “fontes aquarum” from the Psalm become part of the pictorial scenery. Therefore, the pictura combines a biblical reference and elements the second motto highlights.

Classical Texts as Exegetical Devices: Intertextual and Emblematic Dimensions of the Resurrection

These initial examples offer insights into the function of the excerpts from classical poetry in Engelgrave’s second mottos. As is apparent, Roman poetry is not used primarily as a source of universally applicable sententiae, and nor do the classical excerpts merely duplicate or paraphrase the biblical motto or describe the pictura; rather, they give specificity to the underlying imagery, enriching it, and in addition contribute particular components to the pictorial image. However, the embedment of Psalm 41 in the last case also demonstrates how the classical texts quoted in the second motto are not solely determinative of the image-making process, which instead takes place within a more complex network of intertexts. This network encompasses the two mottos and the texts from which they originate, as well as further references that only come up in the subscriptio, the argumentum, or the subsequent sermon.

Although not all of Engelgrave’s sermon collections covered exactly the same Sundays and feasts of the liturgical year, he addressed most of them at least twice within his entire oeuvre. This offered opportunities to develop different emblematic meditations on the respective occasions and biblical texts. In most instances, Engelgrave favored variation. He usually chose different excerpts from the pertinent Bible passage as the first mottos in any two emblems connected to the same feast and based on the same pericope. He combined them with various quotes from classical poetry as second mottos. However, a few exceptions to this general practice provide valuable insights into specific functions of the different mottos in the process of image-making.25 The two emblems for Resurrection Sunday in the two volumes of Engelgrave’s Lux evangelica will serve to clarify this point.26

The emblems relate to the scene in the Gospel of Mark where Mary Magdalene, Mary, mother of Jesus, and Salome go to anoint Jesus’ body; finding the tomb empty, they instead encounter an angel who, stating “he is not here,” announces the Resurrection (“non est hic,” Mark 16:6). Both emblems quote the angel’s testimony in the first motto, affirming the mystery of the Resurrection. The second mottos introduce allegorical imagery signifying the Resurrection and thereby provide a tool for transferring particular implications of it into the pictorial image. In this sense, the excerpts from classical poetry prove crucial to the multi-medial—which is to say, verbal and visual—process of image-making. The process can be construed as exegetical in discovering a more profound meaning in the angel’s observation “he is not here.” Furthermore, as will be shown, the choice of the second mottos and their allegorical imagery is key to the moral lessons the emblematic sermons intend to teach.

In the emblem for Resurrection Sunday in the second volume of the Lux evangelica (Fig. 3), the pictura depicts a flying silk-moth that has just emerged from its cocoon. The subscriptio explains the moral message of the emblematic sermon: “To rise together with Christ and walk in newness of life, we have to put off our old self by imitating a silk-moth.”27 Engelgrave refers to a passage in the Epistle to the Romans where Paul draws an analogy between the Resurrection of Christ and the sacrament of Baptism as a central turning point in every believer’s life.28 Paul describes this change as a “new form of life” (“novitas vitae”) in which the believer avoids sin and places himself in the service of God. As Engelgrave admits, he was not the first to use the hatching of a silk-moth as a metaphor for the Resurrection. In his Hexameron, Basil of Caesarea (fourth century) had introduced the symbol of the transformation of the silk-moth into Christian thought, soon followed by St. Ambrose (d.397).29 Maximilian Sandaeus (1578–1656), one of the great exponents of Jesuit image theory, connects the silk-moth to other animals that symbolize the resurrection, in his Theologia symbolica (1626).30

Figure 3
Figure 3

Emblem for Resurrection Sunday, in Engelgrave, Lux evangelica, 2:342.

Citation: Journal of Jesuit Studies 11, 1 (2024) ; 10.1163/22141332-11010004

In Engelgrave’s emblem, the counterpart to the angel’s announcement in the first motto is a quote from the lyrical poet Horace. In Odes, ii, 20, Horace discusses the general topic of immortality in the sense that a poet’s work can outlast him, surviving long after his death. He addresses his patron Maecenas, promising, I shall remain no longer on earth, but shall leave the cities of men […]. I whom you, my dear Maecenas, send for to be your guest, shall not die.”31 He envisages a symbolic metamorphosis in which the poet himself is turned into a swan and, flying aloft, achieves his own apotheosis.32 The second motto in Engelgrave’s emblem quotes the poet’s transformation: “I am changing into a white bird” (“album mutor in alitem,” l. 10). As occurs several times in the Lux evangelica, Engelgrave here adopts the composition of an emblem in the above-mentioned Imago primi saeculi (Fig. 4) but puts it into a slightly different context.33 In the Imago, the emblem comprises a pictura depicting a silk- moth and a variant of the Horatian quote. The title of this emblem reads “renewal of the spirit” (“renovatio spiritus”), an allusion to the three-day retreat whereby Jesuit aspirants twice yearly meditated on their life and renewed their vows.34 More generally, the renovatio spiritus, understood as a comprehensive program of spiritual renewal applicable to the Society of Jesus as a whole as well as to each of its members, was a key topic in Jesuit spirituality during the generalates of Claudio Acquaviva (in office 1581–1615) and Mutio Vitelleschi (in office 1615–45).35 Therefore, the Imago cites the Horatian line in a slightly different variant: “I am changing into a new bird” (“novum mutor in alitem”).36

Figure 4
Figure 4

Emblem for the Renovatio spiritus, in Imago primi saeculi, 200.

Citation: Journal of Jesuit Studies 11, 1 (2024) ; 10.1163/22141332-11010004

Engelgrave was well aware of the emblem’s context in the Imago as he also touches upon the theme of renovatio spiritus in the course of the sermon.37 However, he applies the topic of “renewal” to Christ’s resurrection through his use of the Epistle to the Romans and allusion to the original context of Horace’s Ode. Engelgrave not only corrects the quote (“album mutor in alitem”); in the course of the sermon, he also explains that the motto mentions a bird whereas the pictura depicts a moth. Like Sandaeus before him, he quotes St. Ambrose who described the moth’s metamorphosis “into the shape of a bird.”38 In his creative adaptation of the emblem in the Imago, Engelgrave directly links the pictura and the Horatian motto to the angel’s announcement in Mark 16 and thus to the miracle of the Resurrection. By referring to the overarching theme of immortality outlined in Horace’s ode, he not only points to the physical transformation of the bird/ silk-moth in the sense of their metamorphoses but also to the allegorical reading of this type of change as apotheosis. In these particular senses, the second motto of Engelgrave’s emblem points both to Christ’s transformed body and to his divine restoration to life after the crucifixion. It can therefore serve as an answer to and an explanation of the angel’s avowal “he is not here.”

Although it takes the very same biblical quote (“non est hic”) as its starting point and first motto, the emblem for Resurrection Sunday in the first volume of the Lux evangelica (Fig. 5) considers the subject in a completely different way. The subscriptio and the sermon explain that the Resurrection of Christ is unique in the sense that he is the only person who ultimately overcame death. Engelgrave cites a passage from De cardinalibus operibus Christi by the medieval theologian Arnaud de Bonneval (Arnoldus Carnotensis, twelfth century), who explains that others, such as Lazarus, also rose from the dead, though not by their own power; after resuming their former course of life, they eventually died.39 The moral lesson of the sermon is based on this idea of a “return to a regular way of life” and associates it with the notions of relapse or recurrence (“recidiva”). In his sermon, Engelgrave describes how many believers attend church only once a year, at Easter. At that time, they eschew sin, refraining from visits to taverns and prostitutes. However, after only a few days, they resume their previous habits, and their lives proceed exactly as they had.40 Engelgrave provides some examples of this ‘relapse’ into a sinful life: “On Easter, many say that ‘My God was crucified, and Jesus is the God of my heart,’ but only shortly after, the drunkard says, ‘Bacchus is my God’ […], the hot-tempered man says, ‘Mars is my God,’ and the brothel visitor says, ‘Venus is my Goddess,’”41 Further to illustrate shameful behavior in connection with Easter, Engelgrave refers to a passage from one of the Easter sermons of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (twelfth century). Bernard criticizes lovers of earthly delights (“amatores saeculi”) who only long for Easter Sunday because it signals the end of Lent, after which “they can unrestrainedly indulge in pleasures” (“ut liberius indulgeant voluptati”).42 In this spirit, the purpose of Engelgrave’s sermon for Resurrection Sunday and its moral message are unequivocal: they concern the parishioners’ conduct of life in the days immediately after the Easter Mass.

Figure 5
Figure 5

Emblem for Resurrection Sunday, in Engelgrave, Lux evangelica, i, 202.

Citation: Journal of Jesuit Studies 11, 1 (2024) ; 10.1163/22141332-11010004

In the pictura of the emblem, flying birds symbolize this moral “relapse.” On the right, birds return to their nests on the tower and gable of a building. On the left, we see a hand holding a wooden cross with two little bells and a bird on a leash tied to this cross. In the sermon, Engelgrave describes this scene as if it were part of a children’s game. At first, the bird can fly freely, but when it hears his master whistling or the little bells tinkling, it returns to the cross.43 According to Engelgrave, this represents the action of an evil spirit (“cacodaemon”), which causes people to sin and relapse into their erstwhile bad habits.

The second motto quotes Virgil’s eighth Eclogue and reads “they will come [back] to drink” (“venient ad pocula”), or literally, “to their cups” (“pocula”).44 On the level of the pictorial image, the quote describes the scene on the right side of the pictura, as it shows clay pots or vessels attached to the tower and the gable of the building in which the birds have built their nests. Consequently, the birds do, in fact, fly “back to their cups” or “vessels” (“pocula”). Even though the Virgilian quote may appear simply to paraphrase the pictura, a comparison with the original context further elaborates the relation between text and image. In the Eclogue, the respective passage is part of a song by the shepherd Damon, who laments that his beloved Nysa has married another man, Mopsus, with whom she is now spending her wedding night.45 Damon finds this marriage so absurd that he compares it to improbably, indeed, impossible alliances in nature: “To Mopsus is Nysa given! For what may we lovers not look? Griffins now shall mate with mares, and, in the age to come, the timid deer shall come with hounds to drink.”46 As a rejected lover, Damon evidently disapproves of the marriage of Nysa and Mopsus and, therefore, composes his song in the form of a mock epithalamium (wedding poem).47 Impugning the married pair, he introduces the conceit of deer that drink beside hunting dogs (“cum canibus timidi venient ad pocula dammae”), voicing his disappointment. For any reader of Engelgrave’s emblem aware of its original context, the second motto would be seen to prefigure the moralis doctrina of the emblematic sermon, for Damon rejects the idea of “coming [back] to drink” in the same way as the sermon condemns the relapse (“recidiva”) into sinful behavior.

Even if a reader missed the function of the quote in Virgil’s Eclogue, however, its wording would have been sufficient to indicate its connection with the moral lesson of the sermon. The Latin word “poculum” not only designates a cup as a physical object but in particular in its plural form “pocula,” it can also signify (heavy) drinking as a social event. The motto “rursus venient ad pocula” can therefore also be translated as “they will return to drinking” and exemplifies one key behavior against which the sermon explicitly argues (cf. “Bacchus is my God”). There is evidence that contemporaries specifically interpreted the emblem in this way. In the second volume of his vast inventory of symbolic figures, La philosophie des images (1683), the Jesuit emblem scholar Claude-François Ménestrier (1631–1705) considers the emblem to be directed specifically against drunkards (“devise contre ceux qui font sujets à l’ivrognerie”).48

Furthermore, Engelgrave adapts the scene from Virgil’s Eclogue by transferring it from deer to birds through the pictura. In this manner, he establishes a connection to further texts, pagan and biblical, that draw on the same imagery. For instance, he refers to an episode in Aelian’s Variae historiae (second/ third century ce). The Carthaginian general Hanno kept singing birds, teaching them to sing “Hanno is a God,” but when he set them free, they returned to their original, natural way of singing.49 Engelgrave also cites a scene from Virgil’s Georgics, which describes birds returning to their nests, and passages from the biblical prophets Hosea and Isaiah, who employ similar imagery.50

Most importantly, by employing birds in this emblem, Engelgrave creates a link between his various emblematic sermons for Resurrection Sunday and implicitly encourages readers to compare them.51 In addition to their biblical motto “non est hic,” the emblems in the two volumes of the Lux evangelica also have in common the figurative device of birds, which plays a central role in their imagery. And yet, although both emblems incorporate these elements, they fundamentally differ with respect to the moral lesson they teach. The moralis doctrina, the perspective on the Resurrection of Christ, and the explanation of the incontrovertible fact “he is not here”, diverge significantly and are developed in different ways as a function of the second motto. The quote from the Horatian Ode points to the general theme of immortality and collaterally to the mystery of the divinely transformed Christ. The reference to the Virgilian Eclogue draws attention, conversely, to the morality of believers who, even while aware of the Resurrection, refuse to forego their attachment to bad habits. In both cases, birds signify the processes at issue. The swan in the Horatian Ode, together with the silk-moth, represents the irreversible transformation of Christ, whereas the birds that return to their customary nests stand for Christians who fail to give up sin.

Conclusion

Employing these few examples, this paper initially explores the purpose of excerpts from Roman poetry used as second mottos in Engelgrave’s emblems. As I hope to have shown, they neither simply duplicate, paraphrase, or adorn the biblical mottos. On the contrary, these classical quotes perform specific image-making tasks, enriching and complicating the relations between text and image relevant to the respective emblematic sermons. First, as is apparent from the examples circling around the metaphor of hunting, the original context of the classical mottos can provide elements featured in the pictura and, as such, they allow Engelgrave to develop imagery suited to the sermon’s occasio (occasion) and its moral lesson. Second, they create associations among the biblical quote, the respective feast day, and the pictura, apropos of the function of the sermon, and they thus contribute to the effect of thematic coherence characteristic of Engelgrave’s emblematic sermons. Third, classical quotes can operate as exegetical devices when they provide starting points for interpreting scriptural passages cited in the first motto. This is particularly evident in the sermons for Resurrection Sunday that share the same biblical quotation in the first motto. However, they stress very different aspects of the Resurrection of Christ and its relevance for believers.

1

Henricus Engelgrave: Lux evangelica sub velum sacrorum emblematum recondita, 2 vols. (Antwerp: Widow of Jan Cnobbaert, 1648; 1652). Hereafter, quotations from the second volume come from the Amsterdam edition of 1655, published by Jacob van Meurs. The other two sermon books are: Lucis evangelicae sub velum sacrorum emblematum reconditae pars tertia, hoc est caeleste pantheon, 2 vols. (Cologne: Johann Busaeus, 1657); and Caelum empyreum non vanis et fictis constellationum monstris belluatum, 2 vols. (Cologne: Johann Busaeus, 1668; 1670). On Engelgrave’s emblem books and his conception of the emblem, see Marc van Vaeck, “The Use of the Emblem as a Rhetorical Device in Engelgrave’s Emblematic Sermon Books,” in Emblemata sacra: Rhétorique et herméneutique du discours sacré dans la littérature en images, ed. Ralph Dekoninck and Agnès Guiderdoni-Bruslé (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), 535–51; Ralph Dekoninck, Ad imaginem: Statuts, fonctions et usages de l’image dans la littérature spirituelle jésuite du xviie siècle (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 2005), 324–25; Dekoninck, “The Emblematic Conversion of the Biblical Image in Jesuit Literature (Nadal 1595–Engelgrave 1648),” Emblematica 16 (2008): 299–319; Walter S. Melion and Ralph Dekoninck, “Jesuit Illustrated Books,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Jesuits, ed. Ines Županov (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 521–52, here 534; Dietmar Peil, “Heinrich Engelgrave: Lux evangelica,” in SinnBilderWelten: Emblematische Medien in der Frühen Neuzeit, ed. Wolfgang Harms, Gilbert Heß, and Dietmar Peil (Munich: Institut für Neuere Deutsche Literatur, 1999), 19; and Peter M. Daly and G. Richard Simler S.J., The Jesuit Emblem in the European Context (Philadelphia, PA: Saint Joseph’s University Press, 2016), 262–63.

2

Cf. Peter M. Daly – G. Richard Dimler S.J., eds., Corpus librorum emblematum: The Jesuit Series; Part Two (D-E) (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), 232–73. For an insight account of the reception of Engelgrave’s works, see Marc van Vaeck, “From Sermon Book to Emblem Book for Youth: The Re-Use of Engelgrave’s Emblem Material in the Dutch/French Miroir des Vertus & des Arts (Haerlem, 1706) and in Later Children’s Literature,” in Le livre demeure. Studies in Book History in Honour of Alison Saunders, ed. Alison Adams and Philip Ford (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 2011), 289–307. Also see Friedrich Ohly, “Halbbiblische und außerbiblische Typologie,” in Schriften zur mittelalterlichen Bedeutungsforschung, ed. Ohly (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1977), 361–400, here 385–87.

3

See Joris van Eijnatten, “Reaching Audiences: Sermons and Oratory in Europe,” in The Cambridge History of Christianity, Vol. vii: Enlightenment, Reawakening and Revolution 1660–1815, ed. Stewart J. Brown and Timothy Tackett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 128–46, here 140; and Éva Knapp and Gábor Tüskés, Emblematics in Hungary: A Study of the History of Symbolic Representation in Renaissance and Baroque Literature (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 2003), 168–70.

4

See, for example, Jesuit Image Theory, ed. Wietse de Boer, Karl A. E. Enenkel, and Walter Melion (Leiden: Brill, 2016).

5

See Dekoninck, “Emblematic Conversion,” 313.

6

My terminology derives from Dekoninck, “Emblematic Conversion,” 311, and Van Vaeck, “Use of the Emblem,” 538. Steffen Zierholz, “(Re-)Inventio und plurale Autorschaft in Heinrich Engelgraves Lux evangelica (1648),” in (RE-)Inventio: Die Neuauflage als kreative Praxis in der nordalpinen Druckgrafik der Frühen Neuzeit, ed. Mariam Hammami, Anna Pawlak, and Sophie Rüth (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2022), 31–55, refers not to two mottos but to a combination of inscriptio and subscriptio. In Guido Arbizzoni, “Imprese as Emblems: The European Reputation of an ‘Italian’ Genre,” in The Italian Emblem: A Collection of Essays, ed. Donato Mansueto (Glasgow: Glasgow Emblem Studies, 2007), 1–31, here 29, the first motto is called a “title.”

7

See Imago primi saeculi Societatis Iesu a provincia Flandro-Belgica eiusdem Societatis repraesentata (Antwerp: Balthasar Moretus, 1640). On the use of classical texts therein, see Michael C. Putnam, “The Latin Poems of the Imago primi saeculi,” in Art, Controversy and the Jesuits: The Imago primi saeculi (1640), ed. John W. O’Malley, S.J. (Philadelphia, PA: Saint Joseph’s University Press, 2015), 411–14.

8

See Zierholz, “(Re-)Inventio.”

9

Engelgrave, Caelum empyreum, 1:fol. **2r: “Ego, mi lector, et nova et vetera servavi tibi, invenies e veteris et novi testamenti tabulis, e priscis et recentioribus historiis, e moribus antiquis et modernis, e paupere ingenioli mei penu deprompta […]. Quare, inquit [St. Augustine, De trinitate, I, 3], expedit plures libros a pluribus fieri diverso stylo, non tamen diversa fide, ut ad plurimos res ipsa perveniat, ad alios sic, ad alios vero sic.” On Engelgrave’s conception of eloquence, see Dekoninck, “Emblematic Conversion,” 311–12.

10

See, for instance, Ohly, “Halbbiblische und außerbiblische Typologie,” 385; and Werner Telesko, In Bildern denken: Die Typologie in der bildenden Kunst der Vormoderne (Vienna: Böhlau, 2016), 89.

11

Translations quoted from the New International Version.

12

Engelgrave, Caelum empyreum, 2:425; 430.

13

Ovid, Metamorphoses, viii, 260–444.

14

Ovid, Metamorphoses, viii, 332. Translations quoted from Ovid, Metamorphoses, Volume i: Books 1–8, trans. Frank Justus Miller, rev. G. P. Goold (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1916).

15

Engelgrave, Caelum empyreum, 2:425.

16

Engelgrave, Caelum empyreum, 2:432–33.

17

Engelgrave, Lux evangelica, 2:766.

18

See Engelgrave, Lux evangelica, 2:766: “Divinus amor morbos, ceu molossos immittit, ut venetur animas, quin et doloris iaculo configit, ut ad se fontem vivum recurrant.”

19

For the episode and its impact, see Michael C. J. Putnam, “Silvia’s Stag and Virgilian Ekphrasis,” Materiali e discussioni per l’analisi dei testi classici 34 (1995): 107–33; and Krešimir Vuković, “Silvia’s Stag on the Tiber: The Setting of the Aeneid’s casus belli,” Mnemosyne 73 (2020): 46482.

20

Translation from Nicholas Horsfall, Virgil, Aeneid 7: A Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 2000).

21

Most commentators agree that in the Virgilian scene, “deus” (though of masculine gender) designates Alecto, one of the three furies, who seeks to fuel the conflict between the Trojans and the Latins; see Horsfall, Virgil, Aeneid 7, 333–34.

22

See Engelgrave, Lux evangelica, 2:766–74. In the motto, Engelgrave quotes the Versio Romana (“sicut cervus desiderat ad fontes aquarum”), not the Vulgata (“quemadmodum desiderat cervus ad fontes aquarum”).

23

See Engelgrave, Lux evangelica, 2:768–69.

24

Cf. Virgil, Aeneid, vii, 494–95 (“fluvio cum forte secundo/ deflueret”).

25

See Engelgrave, Lux evangelica, 1:74 (“Si vis,” Matthew 8:2) and 2:140 (“Domine, si vis, potes”). 1:218 and 2:368 (“Illas oportet me adducere,” John 10:16). 1:242 and 2:426 (“Si quid petieritis patrem in nomine meo, dabit vobis,” John 16:23). 1:367 (“A longe,” Luke 17:12) and 2:669 (“Steterunt a longe,” Luke 17:12).

26

Engelgrave, Lux evangelica, 1:202 and 2:342.

27

Engelgrave, Lux evangelica, 2:342: “Ut cum Christo resurgamus et in novitate vitae ambulemus, exuere oportet veterem hominem bombycen imitando, quem M. Basilius resurrectionis typum ostendit.” Cf. Romans 6 (see above) and Collossians 3:9–10: “nolite mentiri invicem expoliantes vos veterem hominem cum actibus eius et induentes novum.” The text of the Vulgata is quoted from Biblia sacra iuxta vulgatam versionem, ed. Robert Weber (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2007).

28

Cf. Romans 6:4: “consepulti enim sumus cum illo per baptismum in mortem ut quomodo surrexit Christus a mortuis per gloriam Patris ita et nos in novitate vitae ambulemus.”

29

Cf. Basil, Hexameron, viii, 8.

30

Maximilian Sandaeus, Theologia symbolica in qua origo symbolorum eorumque artificium ex sacra scriptura potissimum eruitur […] (Mainz: Theobald Schönwetter, 1626), 306. On Sandaeus, see e.g., Ralph Dekoninck, “The Jesuit Ars and Scientia Symbolica: From Richeome and Sandaeus to Masen and Ménestrier,” in Jesuit Image Theory, ed. de Boer, Enenkel, and Melion, 74–88; and Agnès Guiderdoni, “The Theory of Figurative Language in Maximilian van der Sandt’s Writings,” in Jesuit Image Theory, 89–101, with further literature.

31

Horace, Odes, ii, 20, 3–7: “neque in terris morabor/ longius, invidiaque maior/ urbis relinquam. non ego pauperum/ sanguis parentum, non ego quem vocas,/ dilecte Maecenas, obibo.” Translation quoted from Horace, Odes and Epodes, trans. Niall Rudd (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004), 138–39.

32

On the poem and the poet’s metamorphosis, see Douglas A. Kidd, “The Metamorphosis of Horace,” Journal of the Australasian Universities Language and Literature Association 35 (1971): 5–16; and Olivier Thévenaz, “Le cygne de Venouse: Horace et la métamorphose de l’Ode ii, 20,” Latomus 61, no. 4 (2002): 861–88. For an instructive overview of the motif in Roman and Greek literature, see Douglas J. Stewart, “The Poet as Bird in Aristophanes and Horace,” The Classical Journal 62, no. 8 (1967): 357–61.

33

See Zierholz, “(Re-)Inventio,” 32.

34

See Marc van Vaeck, Toon van Houdt, and Lien Roggen, “The Imago Primi Saeculi Societatis Jesu as Emblematic Self-Presentation and Commitment,” in Art, Controversy and the Jesuits, 127–410, here 149.

35

See Tibor Bartók, “Der General Aquaviva und die Herausforderungen der Jesuitenidentität,” Ignaziana 31 (2021): 33–35; and Bartók, “Louis Lallemant and His Doctrine spirituelle: Myths and Facts,” in A Companion to Jesuit Mysticism, ed. Robert Aleksander Maryks (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 112–38, here 122–25.

36

On the emblem in the Imago primi saeculi, see Lien Roggen, “Celebration Time: The Imago primi saeculi Societatis Iesu and its Dutch Adaptation as Part of the Festivities of 1640 Commemorating the Jesuit Order’s Centenary,” in The International Emblem: From Incunabula to the Internet, ed. Simon McKeown (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010), 170–200, here 182–83.

37

See Engelgrave, Lux evangelica, 2:350–51.

38

Cf. Sandaeus, Theologia symbolica, 306. Engelgrave, Lux evangelica, 2:343.

39

See Engelgrave, Lux evangelica, 1:203; and Arnaud de Bonneval, De cardinalibus operibus Christi, X (De resurrectione Christi): “Resurrexit et Lazarus, et alii nonnulli ad imperium Christi, et aliquo tempore beneficio vitae usi, iterum ad funera rediere.” Quoted from Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 189. Engelgrave attributes the quote to Cyprian of Carthage (third century) as De cardinalibus operibus usually circulated under his name. See e.g., Nicolas Rigault, ed., Sancti Caecilii Cypriani opera (Paris: Mathurin Dupuys, 1648).

40

See Engelgrave, Lux evangelica, 1:203.

41

See Engelgrave, Lux evangelica, 1:203: “Ita multi in Paschate: Deus meus crucifixus est, Iesus Deus cordis mei. At ubi rursus itur in antiquam sylvam, […] ebrius iterum: Deus meus Bacchus est. Iracundus: Deus meus Mars est. Fornicator et immundus: Deus mea Venus est etc.”

42

Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermones De tempore, In die sancto Paschae sermo, 16: “Sic amatores saeculi, inimici crucis Christi, cuius in vanum accepto nomine dicuntur Christiani, toto hoc tempore quadragesimali ad instantes inhiant dies Resurrectionis, heu! ut liberius indulgeant voluptati […]. Proh dolor! peccandi tempus, terminus recidendi facta est resurrectio Salvatoris! Ex hoc nempe concessationes et ebrietates redeunt, cubilia et impudicitiae repetuntur, et laxantur concupiscentiis frena: quasi vero ad hoc surrexerit Christus, et non magis propter iustificationem nostram.” Quoted from Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 183. Engelgrave, Lux evangelica, 1:203–4, quotes another version of the first sentence: “Amatores saeculi anhelant ad Pascha, ad diem resurrectionis, ut liberius se dent voluptati.” It is not clear which version or edition Engelgrave quotes or translates, as contemporary editions such as Sancti Bernardi Claraevallensis abbatis primi, religiosissimi ecclesiaeque doctoris […] opera omnia, ed. Jean Picard (Paris: Jean du Bray, 1640), here 168, use the same text as the PL. However, a number of religious writings of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries quote the passage from Engelgrave’s Lux evangelica rather than from editions of Bernard’s Sermones.

43

See Engelgrave, Lux evangelica, 1:204.

44

Cf. Virgil, Eclogue viii, 28. To adapt it to the notion of “recidiva,” Engelgrave adds “rursus” to the Virgilian quote.

45

Cf. Virgil, Eclogue viii, 17–63.

46

Cf. Virgil, Eclogue viii, 26–28: “Mopso Nysa datur:/ quid non speremus amantes?/ iungentur iam grypes equis, aevoque sequenti/ cum canibus timidi venient ad pocula dammae.” Text and translation quoted from Virgil, Eclogues. Georgics. Aeneid: Books 1–6, trans. H. Rushton Fairclough, rev. G. P. Goold (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1916), 74–77.

47

See Mathieu Minet, “L’unité des chants de Damon et Alphésibée (Virgile, huitième Bucolique): Première partie; L’épithalame de Damon et Alphésibée,” Études classiques 75, no. 4 (2007): 413–32.

48

Claude-François Ménestrier, Devises des princes, cavaliers, dames, scavans, et autres personnages illustres de l’Europe, ou la philosophie des images, tome second (Paris: Robert J. B. de la Caille, 1683), 496. On Ménestrier, see Dekoninck, “The Jesuit Ars and Scientia Symbolica,” with further literature.

49

Cf. Aelian, Variae historiae, xiv, 30. Engelgrave, Lux evangelica, 1:203, mistakenly refers to book iv.

50

See Engelgrave, Lux evangelica, 1:204. Cf. Hosea 9: 11; Isaiah 16:2.

51

This is also true of the third emblem for Resurrection Sunday in Engelgrave’s Caelum empyreum, 1:274. The first motto paraphrases John 3:13 (“et nemo ascendit in caelum nisi qui descendit de caelo”): “Quis est qui ascendit, nisi qui descendit.” The second motto originates from the katabasis of Aeneas in Virgil, Aeneid, vi, and describes the difficulties of returning from the underworld: “Revocare gradum, superasque evadere ad auras/ hoc opus hic labor est” (ll. 128–29). The pictura depicts a swan diving into a pond and then emerging. In the sermon, Engelgrave explains that this image prefigures the Harrowing of Hell, the swan symbolizing the souls of the just who descended into limbo and, after the crucifixion, were eventually raised to heaven. See Engelgrave, Coelum empyreum, 1:279–80.

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