Vertitur in carnem Verbum Patris, at șine damno,

Vertitur in matrem virgo, sed absque viro.
Lumine plena suo manet in nascente potestas,
Virgineum florens in pariente decus,
Sol tegitur nube, fœno flos, cortice granum,
Mel cerâ, sacco purpura, carne Deus.
Ætheris ac terræ sunt hæc quasi fibula, sancto
Fœderis amplexu dissona regna ligans.

Est rosa quæ dicit, Ego flos campi; rosa certe
Aurea, principii nescia, fine carens.

Floruit in cœlis, in mundo marcuit; illic
Semper olens, istic pallida facta parum.

Hunc florem Paradisus habet, Seraphim videt, orbis
Non capit, infernus nescit, adorat homo.

11. Lumine] Should we not read Numine?

10

15

ADAM OF ST VICTOR

XII. IN NATIVITATE DOMINI.

OTESTATE, non naturâ

POTEST

Fit Creator creatura,

Reportetur ut factura
Factoris in gloriâ.
Prædicatus per prophetas,
Quem non capit locus, ætas,
Nostræ sortis intrat metas,
Non relinquens propria.

Cœlum terris inclinatur,

Homo-Deus adunatur,
Adunato famulatur

Cœlestis familia.

Rex sacerdos consecratur

Generalis, quod monstratur

5

10

XII. Mone, Hymni Lat. Med. Ævi, vol. ii. p. 85 (but without ascription to the author); Gautier, Adam de S. Victor, vol. i. p. 10. Dr. Neale, who before Mone had printed this grand hymn from a MS. missal (Sequentiæ, p. 80), had rightly divined Adam of St Victor to be its author. It is certainly the richest and fullest of his Nativity hymns; although the Jubilemus Salvatori, first rescued by Gautier from oblivion (vol. i. p. 32), for which I have been unable to find room, does not fall very far behind it. 3. Reportetur] Mone reads Reparetur.

11, 12. Cf. Luke ii. 10, 13; Matt. iv. 11; Luke xxii. 43; Matt. xxviii. 2.

7. metas] So in the Greek theology, ¿ ¿xúpnτos xwpeîtαι.

Cum pax terris nuntiatur
Et in altis gloria.

Causam quæris, modum rei?
Causa prius omnes rei,
Modus justum velle Dei,
Sed conditum gratiâ.

O quam dulce condimentum,
Nobis mutans in pigmentum
Cum aceto fel cruentum,
Degustante Messiâ !

O salubre sacramentum,
Quod nos ponit in jumentum,
Plagis nostris dans unguentum,
Ille de Samariâ.

Ille alter Elisæus,
Reputatus homo reus,
Suscitavit homo-Deus

Sunamitis puerum.

23, 24. Cf. Matt. xxvii. 34; Ps. lxix. 21.

26-28. The poet claims here, as so many have done before him, the good Samaritan of the parable as the type of Christ. He does so more at length in a sequence on the Circumcision (Gautier, Adam de S. Victor, vol. i. p. 49):

Dum cadit secus Jericho vir Hierosolomita,
Samaritanus affuit, quo lapso datur vita.
Perduxit hunc in stabulum clementia divina,
Vinum permiscens oleo suävi medicinâ.
Curantis ægri vulnera sunt dulcia fomenta,

Dum cunctis pœnitentia fuit reis inventa.
Bini dati denarii sunt duo Testamenta,

Dum Christus, finis utriusque, complet sacramenta.

29-32. Cf. 2 Kin. iv. 7-37; and on Elisha as a type of Christ, Bernard, In Cant. Serm. 15, 16.

Hic est gigas currens fortis,
Qui, destructâ lege mortis,
Ad amœna primæ sortis
Ovem fert in humerum.

Vivit, regnat Deus-homo,
Trahens Orco lapsum pomo;

Cœlo tractus gaudet homo,

35

Denum complens numerum.

40

39, 40. An allusion to that interpretation of the parable of the ten pieces of silver (Luke xv. 8—10), which makes the nine pieces which were not lost to be the nine ranks of angels who stood in their first obedience, and the one lost to be the race of mankind.

MAUBURN.

OHN Mauburn was born at Brussels in 1460, and

JOHN

died abbot of the Cloister of Livry, not far from Paris, in 1502. He was the author of several ascetic treatises, among others the Rosetum Spirituale, from which the following hymn is derived.

XIII. DE NATIVITATE DOMINI.

HEU! quid jaces stabulo,

Omnium Creator,

Vagiens cunabulo,

Mundi reparator?

XIII. Mauburnus, Rosetum Spirituale, Duaci, 1620, p. 416; Corner, Prompt. Devot. p. 280; Daniel, Thes. Hymnol. vol. i. p. 335.-These three stanzas are taken from a longer poem, consisting of thirteen in all, which commences:

Eja, mea anima,

Bethlehem eamus.

I have not selected them, for they had long since been separated from the context, and constituted into a Christmas hymn-a great favourite in the early reformed Churches, so long as the practice of singing Latin compositions survived among them. It still occasionally retains a place in the German hymnals, but now in an old translation which commences thus:

Warum liegt im Krippelein

As this hymn sometimes appears with a text differing not a little