116. The Latin Poets and Hymns. (Chapter 8. Christian Art.) (History of the Christian Church) (Schaff, Philip)

The poets of this period, Prudentius excepted, are all clergymen, and the best are eminent theologians whose lives and labors have their more appropriate place in other parts of this work.

Hilary, bishop of Poitiers (hence Pictaviensis, 368), the Athanasius of the West in the Arian controversies, is, according to the testimony of Jerome,1 the first hymn writer of the Latin church. During his exile in Phrygia and in Constantinople, he became acquainted with the Arian hymns and was incited by them to compose, after his return, orthodox hymns for the use of the Western church. He thus laid the foundation of Latin hymnology. He composed the beautiful morning hymn: Lucis largitor splendide; the Pentecostal hymn: Beata nobis gaudia; and, perhaps, the Latin reproduction of the famous Gloria in excelsis. The authorship of many of the hymns ascribed to him is doubtful, especially those in which the regular rhyme already appears, as in the Epiphany hymn:

We give as a specimen a part of the first three stanzas of his morning hymn, which has been often translated into German and English:1

Ambrose, the illustrious bishop of Milan, though some-what younger ( 397), is still considered, on account of the number and value of his hymns, the proper father of Latin church song, and became the model for all successors. Such was his fame as a hymnographer that the words Ambrosianus and hymnus were at one time nearly synonymous. His genuine hymns are distinguished for strong faith, elevated but rude simplicity, noble dignity, deep unction, and a genuine churchly and liturgical spirit. The rhythm is still irregular, and of rhyme only imperfect beginnings appear; and in this respect they certainly fall far below the softer and richer melodies of the middle age, which are more engaging to ear and heart. They are an altar of unpolished and unhewn stone. They set forth the great objects of faith with apparent coldness that stands aloof from them in distant adoration; but the passion is there, though latent, and the fire of an austere enthusiasm burns beneath the surface. Many of them have, in addition to their poetical value, a historical and theological value as testimonies of orthodoxy against Arianism.

THE thirty to a hundred so-called Ambrosian hymns,1 however, only twelve, in the view of the Benedictine editors of his works, are genuine; the rest being more or less successful imitations by unknown authors. Neale reduces the number of the genuine Ambrosian hymns to ten, and excludes all which rhyme regularly, and those which are not metrical. Among the genuine are the morning hymn: Aeterne rerum conditor; the evening hymn: Deus creator omnium; and the Advent or Christmas hymn: Veni, Redemptor gentium. This last is justly considered his best. It has been frequently reproduced in modern languages,1 and we add this specimen of its matter and form with an English version:

By far the most celebrated hymn of the Milanese bishop, which alone would have made his name immortal, is the Ambrosian doxology, Te Deum laudamus. This, with the Gloria in excelsis, is, as already remarked, by far the most valuable legacy of the old Catholic church poetry; and will be prayed and sung with devotion in all parts of Christendom to the end of time. According to an old legend, Ambrose composed it on the baptism of St. Augustine, and conjointly with him; the two, without preconcert, as if from divine inspiration, alternately singing the words of it before the congregation. But his biographer Paulinus says nothing of this, and, according to later investigations, this sublime Christian psalm is, like the Gloria in excelsis, but a free reproduction and expansion of an older Greek hymn in prose, of which some constituents appear in the Apostolic Constitutions, and elsewhere.

Ambrose introduced also an improved mode of singing in Milan, making wise use of the Greek symphonies and antiphonies, and popular melodies. This Cantus Ambrosianus, or figural song, soon supplanted the former mode of reciting the Psalms and prayers in monotone with musical accent and little modulation of the voice, and spread into most of the Western churches as a congregational song. It afterwards degenerated, and was improved and simplified by Gregory the Great, and gave place to the so-called Cantus Romanus, or choralis.

Augustine, the greatest theologian among the church fathers ( 430), whose soul was filled with the genuine essence of poetry, is said to have composed the resurrection hymn: Cum rex gloriae Christus; the hymn on the glory of paradise: Ad perennis vitae fontem melis sitivit arida; and others. But he probably only furnished in the lofty poetical intuitions and thoughts which are scattered through his prose works, especially in the Confessions, the materia carminis for later poets, like Peter Damiani, bishop of Ostia, in the eleventh century, who put into flowing verse Augustine's meditations on the blessedness of heaven. Damasus, bishop of Rome ( 384), a friend of Jerome, likewise composed some few sacred songs, and is considered the author of the rhyme.

Coelius Sedulius, a native of Scotland or Ireland, presbyter in the first half of the fifth century, composed the hymns: Herodes, hostis impie, and A solis ortus cardine, and some larger poems.

Marcus Aurelius Clemens Prudentius ( 405), an advocate and imperial governor in Spain under Theodosius, devoted the last years of his life to religious contemplation and the writing of sacred poetry, and stands at the head of the more fiery and impassioned Spanish school. Bently calls him the Horace and Virgil of Christians, Neale, the prince of primitive Christian poets. Prudentius is undoubtedly the most gifted and fruitful of the old Catholic poets. He was master of the classic measure, but admirably understood how to clo the the new ideas and feelings of Christianity in a new dress. His poems have been repeatedly edited. They are in some cases long didactic or epic productions in hexameters, of much historical value;1 in others, collections of epic poems, as the Cathemerinon,1 and Peristephanon. Extracts from the latter have passed into public use. The best known hymns of Prudentius are: Salvete, flores martyrum, in memory of the massacred innocents at Bethlehem,1 and his grand burial hymn: Jam moesta quiesce querela, which brings before us the ancient worship in deserts and in catacombs, and of which Herder says that no one can read it without feeling his heart moved by its touching tones.

We must mention two more poets who form the transition from the ancient Catholic to mediaeval church poetry.

Venantius Fortunatus, an Italian by birth, a friend of queen Radegunde (who lived apart from her husband, and presided over a cloister), the fashionable poet of France, and at the time of his death (about 600), bishop of Poitiers, wrote eleven books of poems on various subjects, an epic on the life of St. Martin of Tours, and a theological work in vindication of the Augustinian doctrine of divine grace. He was the first to use the rhyme with a certain degree of mastery and regularity, although with considerable license still, so that many of his rhymes are mere alliterations of consonants or repetitions of vowels. He first mastered the trochaic tetrameter, a measure which, with various modifications, subsequently became the glory of the mediaeval hymn. Prudentius had already used it once or twice, but Fortunatus first grouped it into stanzas. His best known compositions are the passion hymns: Vexilla regis prodeunt, and Pange, lingua, gloriosi proelium (lauream) certaminis, which, though not without some alterations, have passed into the Roman Breviary. The Vexilla regis is sung on Good Friday during the procession in which the consecrated host is carried to the altar. Both are used on the festivals of the Invention and the Elevation of the Cross. The favorite Catholic hymn to Mary: Ave maris stella, is sometimes ascribed to him, but is of a much later date.

We give as specimens his two famous passion hymns, which were composed about 580.

"The Royal Banners forward go:

The Cross shines forth with mystic glow:

Where He in flesh, our flesh who made,

Our sentence bore, our ransom paid.

"Where deep for us the spear was dyed,

Life's torrent rushing from His side:

To wash us in the precious flood,

Where mingled water flowed, and blood.

"Fulfilled is all that David told

In true prophetic song of old:

Amidst the nations, God, says he,

Hath reigned and triumphed from the Tree.

"O Tree of Beauty! Tree of Light!

O Tree with royal purple dight!

Elect upon whose faithful breast

Those holy limbs should find their rest!

"On whose dear arms, so widely flung,

The weight of this world's ransom hung

The price of human kind to pay,

And spoil the spoiler of his prey!

Far less important as a poet is Gregory I. (590-604), the last of the fathers and the first of the mediaeval popes. Many hymns of doubtful origin have been ascribed to him and received into the Breviary. The best is his Sunday hymn: Primo dierum omnium.

The hymns are the fairest flowers of the poetry of the ancient church. But besides them many epic and didactic poems arose, especially in Gaul and Spain, which counteracted the invading flood of barbarism, and contributed to preserve a connection with the treasures of the classic culture. Juvencus, a Spanish presbyter under Constantine, composed the first Christian epic, a Gospel history in four books (3,226 lines), on the model of Virgil, but as to poetic merit never rising above mediocrity. Far superior to him is Prudentius ( 405); he wrote, besides the hymns already mentioned, several didactic, epic, and polemic poems. St. Pontius Paulinus, bishop of Nola ( 431), who was led by the poet Ausonius to the mysteries of the Muses,1 and a friend of Augustine and Jerome, is the author of some thirty poems full of devout spirit; the best are those on the festival of S. Felix, his patron. Prosper Aquitanus ( 460), layman, and friend of Augustine, wrote a didactic poem against the Pelagians, and several epigrams; Avitus, bishop of Vienne ( 523), an epic on the creation and the origin of evil; Arator, a court official under Justinian, afterwards a sub-deacon of the Roman church (about 544), a paraphrase, in heroic verse, of the Acts of the Apostles, in two books of about 1,800 lines. Claudianus Mamertus,1 Benedictus Paulinus, Elpidius, Orontius, and Draconti