Anders Cullhed's study The Shadow of Creusa explores the early Christian confrontation with
pagan culture as a remote anticipation of many later clashes between religious orthodoxy and
literary fictionality. After a careful survey of Saint Augustine's critical attitudes to
ancient myth and poetry summarized as a long drawn-out farewell Cullhed examines other Late
Antique dismissals as well as appropriations of the classical heritage. Macrobius Martianus
Capella and Boethius figure among the Late Antique intellectuals who attempted to save or even
restore the old mythology by means of allegorical representation. On the other hand pious
poets such as Paulinus of Nola and Bible epic writers such as Iuvencus or Avitus of Vienne
turned against pagan lies and the mighty arch-bishop of Milan Saint Ambrose played off
unconditional Christian truth against the last Roman strongholds of cultural pluralism. Thus
The Shadow of Creusa elucidates a cultural conflict which was to leave traces all through the
Middle Ages and reach down to our present day.
