Sera Sara

Caveat: blatant Latinglishing ahead.

What a preface. I was prepared for Faith-The-Abstract fighting on spiritual battlefields, but I was not prepared for Abram-The-Epic-War-Hero. The word play in the preface is really fantastic. We have Abram adorned with all the vocabulary of strategic maneuvering (esp. hostis terga euntis line 23) and practical technicalities like the weight of bounty. We even have to do some complicated math - I couldn't help but recall the Anabasis! Then there's that little issue where Abraham ipse ferum stringit instead of bargaining for the salvation of S&G, and then refusing to take any of their money.

Melchisedec is no less rich. Dei sacerdos, his origins are from a fonte inenarrabili. Only a few lines later, we have Christus, the sacerdos verus, born from parente inenarrabili. (And I didn't even use Tesserae.) Melchisedec the priest prefigures Christ the true priest. That makes sense, as Christ is often called after the order of Melchisedec. But the prefiguring is going to get stranger:

Sera Sara. Not only is there obvious word play, but the imposition of Christ material (lines 59-63) before the conclusion of Sara's story, and the explicit language that spiritus faciet animam fertilem, prefigures Mary in a way that I did not expect.  We already saw in line 9 nec prolem coniugalem Deo placentem - the sense isn't exactly the same, but I think the language sets us up for the stretch. Even perennio semine in line 66 smacks of immaculate conception. But then, maybe Prudentius is distancing Abram his identity as the Father of the Faith (in such a case as he is not actually a father). Prudentius does stubbornly stick to calling him Abram, even after he notes the name change in line 4. And maybe this is a move to set up the feminine flavor of the work. Abram has his piece, but Sara, like the rest of the female figures, abstracts, and ideals, takes the final bow.