A few weeks ago, I wrote about the one reference I am aware of to Catullus in the Table Talk, which comes from fairly late in his life. In this post, I look at another reference to Catullus, this time from one of his earliest works: the scholia to his 1515-16 Lectures on Romans.

In commenting on the phrase non in comessationibus (“not in revels,” Rom. 13:13), Luther comments that Paul is warning his hearers away from the vices of Rome.

Therefore, the apostle frightens believers, lest they yield to the extremely insane examples of impious Rome. For blessed Peter, too, was not silent about the riotous excess of the same city (1 Pet. 4), when he also called it not only riotous excess, but the confusion and dregs of riotous excess. Indeed, for this reason he does not hesitate to calle this city Babylon, because all things there had been thrown into confusion, as Catullus also testifies: “All things, lawful and unlawful alike, have been mixed together in evil insanity,” so that the city, already led to the extreme of excess’s madness, with a shout up to heaven seems to have called either for apostles–and those of the first rank–or for a penalty like that of Sodom and Gomorrah.^[1]

The translation is my own, but I am indebted to that of Jacob A.O. Preus in Luther’s Works for helping me to make sense of the final clause.

The quotation from Catullus comes from Carm. 64.405. Carm. 64 is Catullus’s epyllion (“little epic”) on the marriage of Theseus and Ariadne; what Luther cites occurs in the fourth line from the end of the poem.^[2]

You may be wondering, then, why Luther says it is about Rome. Is he just a bad or opportunistic reader? No, actually. The reason lies outside of what is quoted: The poem ends with an apocalyptic excoriation of the moral deterioration of Catullus’s own day (and Catullus lived in Rome).^[3] Here is the passage in its context:

But after Earth was stained with crime unspeakable
And all evicted Justice from their greedy thoughts,
Brothers poured the blood of brothers on their hands,
Sons no longer grieved when parents passed away,
Father prayed for death of son in his first youth
So as freely to possess the bloom of a new bride,
Mother, lying impiously with ignorant son,
Dared impiously to sin against divine Penates.
Our evil madness by confounding fair with foul^[4]
Has turned away from us the Gods’ justifying mind.^[5]
Wherefore they neither deign to visit such meetings 
Nor suffer themselves to be touched by light of day or eye.

(Trans. Guy Lee, modified)

I’ve written about this passage once before, and particularly about the oddity in classical Latin of the phrase “justifying mind” (iustificam mentem). There, I suggested that Catullus “is asking: How could the gods again come to have a ‘justifying mind’ toward creatures who are evil?” I then asked, “How did Catullus come so close to Luther’s central question, ‘Where can I find a gracious God?'”

Here, I would like to turn that query on its head: 1517, and Luther’s famous question about finding a gracious God, is right around the corner. Is it too much to suggest that Catullus helped Luther reach the formulation of that question, and its answer in the doctrine of justification? In Christ, the hidden God becomes visible and meets with man. Christ himself is man’s justice, offered to man as a free gift. Through him–through his condescending to us rather than our ascending to him by our own efforts–man and God are once again united and the reign of sin is overthrown.

Too much? Perhaps.

But, then again, perhaps not.