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Hymns
St Ambrose of Milan, tr. Copeland, 1848
d1
A few remarks are here prefixed to an index of names and dates, on a subject of great interest, but involved in great obscurity, the age and probable authors of the old Catholic Hymns.
A list prefixed to the “Hymni Ecclesiæ,” extracted from the Roman, Salisbury, and York Breviaries, and other sources, and published at Oxford in the year 1838, has the names of the reputed authors of some of the Hymns affixed to them.
Of these, thirty bear the name of St. Ambrose, five or six of them with a?;—eight, the name of Prudentius, to which three or four others might be added;—seven are connected with the name of St. Gregory the Great. The name of St. Hilary occurs once, of Sedulius once, of St. Bernard once, of Sylvius once. Two Hymns are attributed to Elpis, wife of Boethius, two to Fortunatus:—Paul the Deacon, so called, appears as the author of the Hymn for St. John the Baptist’s Day, St. Thomas Aquinas of those for the Feast of Corpus Christi; and one, “Pater superni luminis,” is by Bellarmine.
This list, from whatever source derived, agrees in the main with others which have been consulted; and the result of the investigation is this, that out of a collection of somewhat fewer than 150 Hymns, scarcely more than one third bear any name at all, nearly two thirds are wholly unauthenticated.
Most touchingly true then is it of “such as found out musical tunes, and recited verses in writing,” men famous in their generations, “some there are which have left a name behind them, and some have no memorial.”
But of those which have left a name, whose praise is greatest in the Church, St. Ambrose and St. Gregory the Great, there is a difficulty, amounting in the greater number of cases to an impossibility, in ascertaining, and even in conjecturing, what may be safely connected with their respective names. As we have in the terms “Ambrosian” and “Gregorian Chant” an indication of the “musical tunes,” which they respectively gave or preserved to us, so have we the term Ambrosian or Gregorian sometimes applied to Hymns also, “verses which they recited in writing.” Yet, as we know but imperfectly what they contributed to the music, so are we very imperfectly acquainted with what they contributed to the poetry of the Church.
And so doubtless, greatly as, under God, we are indebted to them, would these great Saints be content we should regard themselves, and the nameless authors who entered into their labours, as only so many single and hidden strings, which vibrated here and there through the unbroken Church, when the Sun of Righteousness awakened all its latent harmonies; when the fervour of primitive devotion found its vent and expression in the continual chanting of the Psalms, and undivided Catholic Christendom, in its unity and sanctity, reflected Christ’s image as the Light of the world, shining with His lustre, and throwing off as it were from the hearts and tongues of its Saints, its Hymns, and Collects, with the wholeness and brilliancy of sparks from a luminous body.
If St. Ambrose, as we know, was the father of this species of devotion, and the author of some of the earliest Hymns extant, no wonder that Hymn-writers should catch his spirit, and imitate his style, and be lost in the course of time in his greater name, and that Hymns, not known to be his, should go at length under the common term of Ambrosian. Such, in fact, is the case. And what is true of St. Ambrose, is true in a less degree of St. Gregory also. “Ambrosianus est,” “Gregorianus est,” is said of many an hymn, of which no more can be affirmed than that it is like St. Ambrose’s, or like St. Gregory’s.
The term “Ambrosian” is used by St. Benedict, in his “Rule,” (A.D. 540,) in which he directs “deinde sequatur Ambrosianum,” that the Ambrosian shall be sung or chanted at the several hours. To this word “Ambrosianum,” the commentators from the first, have supplied the word “carmen,” and have understood it to mean the Hymns, either composed by St. Ambrose himself, or by others in imitation of him.
The impossibility of distinguishing between these has led the Benedictine editors to adopt a very rigid and exclusive exactness in settling what are to be considered the genuine Hymns of St. Ambrose. Of upwards of thirty Hymns called Ambrosian, they admit only twelve.
1. Æterne rerum Conditor.
2. Deus Creator omnium.
3. Jam surgit hora tertia.
4. Veni, Redemptor gentium.
5. Illuminans Altissimus.
6. Orabo mente Dominum.
7. Splendor Paternæ gloriæ.
8. Æterna Christi munera.
9. Somno refectis artubus.
10. Consors Paterni luminis.
11. O Lux Beata Trinitas.
12. Fit porta Christi pervia.
Of these twelve six only, the 1st, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, are found in the present Roman Breviary. And it is observable that of these six, five are amongst the Hymns for the Days and Hours; whereas this severe and exact criticism separates off under the wider sense of the term “Ambrosian,” all the other Hymns for the Days and Hours, the Hymns, e. g. from Prime to Compline, which seem like the work of one and the same hand, and (what we should especially love to connect with the author of the Hexaemeron) the Vesper Hymns, on the Works of the Creation through the several days of the week.
With regard indeed to these last there is a difficulty, that whereas the Hymn “O Lux Beata Trinitas” for Saturday is an admitted Hymn of St. Ambrose, the Hymn for Sunday, “Lucis Creator Optime,” is generally assigned to St. Gregory. If it be rightly so assigned, it would seem to determine the other Vesper Hymns to Friday inclusive, to be rather Gregorian than Ambrosian, for it would be hard to conceive them to be from more than one hand. However, those who have not ventured amidst much doubt and diversity of judgment to attribute the Hymns called Ambrosian to St. Ambrose himself, have been led by their great simplicity and likeness of spirit to assign them to his age, at latest to the age next succeeding: and this perhaps is nearest to the truth. They are left in the list with his name. But if on comparing them with the Hymns which are marked in the list with an asterisk, and which are authenticated as his, they shall seem less severe and majestic, they are the works doubtless of one or more not without his simplicity and tenderness, not far removed from him either in age or spirit,—of more or less conscious disciples.
The Hymns attributed, but without remark or apparent investigation, by the Benedictine Editors to St. Gregory,—“Hymni a beato Gregorio conscripti,” (itself an equivocal term,) are eight in number.
1. Primo dierum omnium.
2. Nocte surgentes.
3. Ecce jam noctis.
4. Lucis Creator optime.
5. Clarum decus jejunii.
6. Audi benigne Conditor.
7. Magno salutis gaudio.
8. Rex Christe Factor omnium.
Of these the 7th seems an abridged imitation of a Greek Hymn, which is printed in Daniel’s Thesaurus Hymnologicus. (tom. iii. p. 32.) Εἰς τὴν βαϊηάντησιν τοῦ Κυρίου· and beginning, Ἁγίης πρὸ ἓξ ἑορτῆς.
It consists, as it occurs in the Benedictine edition of St. Gregory, of seven stanzas only. Daniel has given it (tom. i. p. 179) more at length: as he has, on the authority of Thomasius, the “Orabo mente Dominum,” (p. 23,) and the “Fit porta Christi pervia” (p. 21) of St. Ambrose, which the Benedictines do not seem to have known to be only extracts from two longer Hymns, “Bis ternas,” and “A solis ortûs.”
The remaining Hymns, thus authenticated, of St. Ambrose and St. Gregory, will be found translated in the appendix. Three of these, the “Deus Creator omnium,” and the “Veni Redemptor gentium” of St. Ambrose, and the “Clarum decus jejunii” of St. Gregory, are omitted in the Roman but found in the Sarum Breviary, the source of our own Prayer-book. They are the more gladly here inserted, together with four Compline Hymns from the same source, which there vary with the Seasons; the Hymns both for the Week and the Seasons being generally common to both.
Of the Hymns which bear the name of Prudentius no more need be said than that they are extracts from the longer Hymns generally known as his and printed in his works.
Of the other ancient authors and their works not enough is recorded to allow of much remark or conjecture here.
It only remains to state that the translation has been made from the Hymns as they at present stand revised, the translator having been unacquainted with the variations till lately. The hand of a reviser has, no doubt, assimilated Hymns in themselves widely differing: e. g. the Hymns for the Nativity, which, as they appear at present, might seem to be the work of the same hand. And what a reviser has assimilated, the translator is likely to assimilate still more. He cannot help seeing with his own eyes, and is unhappily apt to colour what he sees with hues from his own mind, and when he sees dimly and at a distance, confuses partly from the haze of the distance at which he sees them, and partly from the imperfection of his own vision, objects in themselves wholly distinct. This the present translator feels strongly may have been his own case: he may have connected first in thought and then in translation things widely different, and have involuntarily blended characteristics which others may detect and separate. It is but little he has done towards shewing either what the Hymns really are, or who might be their authors; he fears to think how he may have obscured both. He will be content should he have given any the slightest idea of them, to those to whom the originals are not accessible, and if he has not tainted and tarnished in touching them, is thankful for the relief the work has afforded amid many sorrows and anxieties.