The Re-creation of a Narrator: Nonnus of Panopolis’ Paraphrase of the Gospel of John 1:1–45

Abstract

This study considers the voice of the narrator in the Paraphrase of the Gospel of John, written by Nonnus of Panopolis in the fifth century, focusing on his self-presentation as both Johannine and Homeric narrator. The Paraphrase of the Gospel of John lacks explicit statements of poetic intent similar to the prefaces of other poetic paraphrases, such as Juvencus’ Evangeliorum libri quattuor and the Metaphrasis Psalmorum, but a close reading of Nonnus’ poetic version of the so-called “Hymn to the Logos” and the gospel original (Jo. 1:1–18) reveals similar strategies at work. The paraphrastic narrator incorporates to his reading of the gospel later exegesis, reserves John's characteristic repetition of vocabulary for significant terms, and signals his ambivalence towards Homer through his avoidance of Homeric vocabulary in the first lines of his poem.