Fulgentius’ De aetatibus mundi: Cursus and Lipograms for a New Interpretation

Abstract Fulgentius’s De aetatibus mundi et hominis was considered a “monstrum” for its style, language and ideas, but recent scholarship has attempted to find a purpose in those flaws. This essay goes further to the point of seeing Fulgentian irregularities as “signs” whose interpretation can lead to a different understanding of the work. One of them is the cursus or the use of rhythmic prose which is pervasive to an unparalleled level. It fits the notion of “scanning historical time”. Another sign is provided by the letters of the alphabet whose importance is highlighted by the “lipogram” for which the work is known. The alphabet conveys the idea of “seriality”. A third sign is the use of numbers, a symbol of continuity and infinity but also of unity and fragment. The combination of these elements points to the notion of time, its finiteness, its series of events that make “history”. History will end, like the alphabet which is a finite totality. The alphabet is the symbol of God, who in the Apocalypses is “the Alpha and Omega” of all things. The combination of all these signs implies an apocalyptic vision of history, and even the fact that the work is not completed may be another sign of this vision: Fulgentius is writing within the “historical time” which has not yet reached its end.