Hercules as the Figure of Christ in Croatian Renaissance Literature

Hitherto, the fortune of the myth of Hercules in literary history was investigated by two French scholars: René Jung (1966) and Marcel Simon (1955) who did great work on the general plan of research. However, the close reading of the book by Marcel Simon reveals certain gaps in the work, of which the most conspicuous is the abrupt transition from Dante‚s Hercules in the Divina Commedia (1321) to Ronsard‚s Hercule chrestien (1555). It is difficult to conceive that the story of Hercules remained abandoned for more than two centuries, especially if we know that they cover the great period of Renaissance Humanism. It is equally difficult to conceive that it was only after the Reformers attacked Ronsard, that the impeachment of the comparison between Hercules and Christ started, particularly if we know that the most eminent among the Church Fathers had already warned against this practice. Therefore, the author believes that the key to the solution of this double riddle lies in the study of two works of Croatian Humanists, the epic De raptu Cerberi by Jakov Bunić (1490) and Marulić‚s Dialogus de laudibus Herculis (1524). The De raptu Cerberi, because in it Hercules was represented as the figure of Christ, in 1513 acquired the title of Sub figura Herculis Christi praeludium and served as an introduction to the most glorious Croatian Humanist poem dedicated to the life of Jesus, De vita et gestis Christi. On the other hand the Dialogus de laudibus Herculis, entirely dedicated to Herculean Labours, shows typical Christian “reluctance” toward any form of comparison between Christ and Hercules. Drawing on Origen‚s Contra Celsum, St Augustine‚s The City of God and particularly on Lactantius and his Divinae institutiones, Marulić stresses the weakness of Hercules and the superiority of Christian ideal. Such a severe judgement of the most glorious hero of classical antiquity is explained here by Marulić‚s addiction to the principles of modern devotion (Devotio moderna), vis-ible already in the De institutione from 1506, where the proposed “exempla” neglect, or even reject, great classical heroes like Socrates or Seneca. All of this shows that the Re-formers, in their polemics against Ronsard‚s Hercule chrestien, were neither the first nor unique in their time to reject the comparison between the exploits of Hercules and the life of Jesus