Of all the fascinating passages in The Life of St. Margaret, the passage that most gave me pause was Margaret’s interaction with Rufus (the “brother of the devil”) in the form of a dragon. As a student who has had relatively little interaction with hagiography, I had rarely encountered dragons in Christian texts; as such, I decided to dig a little deeper into the tradition of battling dragons within Christian…
While Andreas’ account of Jesus’ miracles in parts V, VI, and VII is certainly not the most gripping passage of the poem, it is indeed one of the most fascinating in terms of scriptural interpretation. In these scenes, Andreas is confronted by “The Lord of the angels, Saviour of Men” (engla þeoden, / neregend fira)1 in the form of a “Sentinel of the sea” (weges weard: the “ward of the journey/‘way’”),…
The extreme violence and war-like imagery of Prudentius’ Psychomachia can be quite startling—and even shocking—for many, especially for those who associate the Christian scripture on which this text is based with the loving and peaceful preaching of Jesus. However, quite a few aspects of the Psychomachia are directly reminiscent of Christian scripture—most closely, the Book of Revelation in the New Testament. Prudentius describes an epic battle between the forces of…
