Scott McGill has graciously continued including me during the editorial process of his work on the first English translation of Juvencus’ Four Books of the Gospels. I’ve mainly been able to help by catching additional scriptural intertexts.

In this regard, one set of lines that especially caught my attention was 2.124-126.

You’ll see the whole sky split apart and God’s
swift angels enter heaven and return
bearing a gleaming crown for the Son of Man.

In the immediate context of the poem, Juvencus is retelling John 1:43-51, and here in particular, John 1:51, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

But embedded within this retelling is a possible allusion to Isa 64:1 (“O that you would split the heavens and come down.”) and a probable one to Rev 6:2 or Rev 14:14 (in which Jesus is respectively described as being given and wearing a crown).

The allusions to epic poetry abound, but the more I read Juvencus, the more he impresses me as an adept intertextual interpreter of the sacred scripture.

– Mark G. Bilby