are which, with various modifications, subsequently became the glory of the mediæval hymn. Prudentius had already used it once or twice, but Fortunatus first grouped it intc stanzas. His best known compositions are the passion hymns: "Vexilla regis prodeunt," and "Pange, lingua, gloriosi prœlium (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.

Vexilla Regis Prodeunt.*

"Vexilla regis prodeunt,
Fulget crucis mysterium,
Quo carne carnis conditor
Suspensus est patibulo.

"Quo vulneratus insuper
Mucrone diro lanceæ,
Ut nos lavaret crimine
Manavit unda et sanguine.

"Impleta sunt quæ concinit
David fideli carmine
Dicens: in nationibus

Regnavit a ligno Deus.

"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, saith he,
Hath reigned and triumphed from the
Tree.

'Daniel, Thes. i. p. 160 sqq., gives both forms: the original, and that of the Brev. Romanum.

* Trench has omitted both in his Collection, and admitted instead of them some less valuable poems of Fortunatus, De cruce Christi, and De passione Domini, in hexameters.

3 Daniel, i. p. 204.

The original text in Daniel, i. p. 160. The translation by Neale, from the Hymnal of the English Ecclesiological Society, and Neale's Medieval Hymns, p. 6 It omits the second stanza, as does the Roman Breviary.

The Roman Breviary substitutes for the last two lines:

44 Qua vita mortem pertulit

Et morte vitam protulit."

"Arbor decora et fulgida

Ornata regis purpura,
Electa digno stipite

Tam sancta membra tangere.

"Beata cuius brachiis
Pretium pependit sæculi,
Statera facta sæculi
Prædamque tulit tartaris.”1

"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 te pay,
And spoil the spoiler of his prey!"

Pange, Lingua, Gloriosi Prælium Certaminis.'

“Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle, with completed victory rife,
And above the Cross's trophy, tell the triumph of the strife;
How the world's Redeemer conquer'd, by surrendering of His life.
"God, his Maker, sorely grieving that the first-born Adam fell,
When he ate the noxious apple, whose reward was death and hell,
Noted then this wood, the ruin of the ancient wood to quell.

"For the work of our Salvation needs would have his order so,
And the multiform deceiver's art by art would overthrow;

And from thence would bring the medicine whence the venom of the fos. "Wherefore, when the sacred fulness of the appointed time was come, This world's Maker left His Father, left His bright and heavenly home, And proceeded, God Incarnate, of the Virgin's holy womb.

"Weeps the Infant in the manger that in Bethlehem's stable stands;
And His limbs the Virgin Mother doth compose in swaddling bands,
Meetly thus in linen folding of her God the feet and hands.

"Thirty years among us dwelling, His appointed time fulfilled,
Born for this, He meets His Passion, for that this He freely willed:
On the Cross the Lamb is lifted, where His life-blood shall be spilled.

"He endured the shame and spitting, vinegar, and nails, and reed;

As His blessed side is opened, water thence and blood proceed:
Earth, and sky, and stars, and occan, by that flood are cleansed indeed.

'Brev. Rom.: "Tulitque prædam tartari."

* See the original, which is not rhymed, in Daniel, i. p. 163 sqq., and in somewhat different form in the Roman Breviary. The masterly English translation in the metre of the original is Neale's, I. c. p. 237 sq., and in his Mediæval Hymns and Sequences, p. 1. Another excellent English version by E. Caswell commences:

"Sing, my tongue, the Saviour's glory; tell His triumph far and wide." 'Prælium certaminis, which the Roman Breviary spoiled by substituting law The poet describes the glory of the struggle itself rather than the glory of its termination, as is plain from the conclusion of the verse.

ream.

"Faithful Cross! above all other, one and only noble Tree!

None in foliage, none in blossom, none in fruit thy peers may be;
Sweetest wood and sweetest iron, sweetest weight is hung on thee !
"Bend thy boughs, O Tree of Glory! thy relaxing sinews bend;
For awhile the ancient rigor, that thy birth bestowed, suspend;
And the King of heavenly beauty on thy bosom gently tend.
"Thou alone wast counted worthy this world's ransom to uphold;

For a shipwreck'd race preparing harbor, like the Ark of old:
With the sacred blood anointed from the wounded Lamb that roll'd.

"Laud and honor to the Father, laud and honor to the Son,
Laud and honor to the Spirit, ever Three and ever Oue:
Consubstantial, co-eternal, while unending ages run.

Far less important as a poet is GREGORY I. (590-604), the last of the fathers and the first of the medieval 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. JuUVENCUS, 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, and a friend of Augustine and Jerome, is the

1 The Latin of this stanza is a jewel:

"Crux fidelis, inter omnes arbor una nobilis !
Nulla talem silva profert fronde, flore, germine:

Dulce lignum, dulci clavo, dulce pondus sustinens."

(In the Roman Breviary: "Dulce ferrum, dulce lignum, dulce pondus sustinent.") * See Daniel's Cod. i. p. 175 sqq. For an excellent English version of the hyns above alluded to, see Neale, 1. c. p. 233.

2018:

Ausonius yielded the palm to his pupil when he wrote of the verses of Pauli

"Cedimus ingenio, quantum præcedimus ævo:

Assurget Musa nostra camœna uæ.”

author of some thirty poems full of devout spirit; the best are those on the festival of S. Felix, his patron. PROSPER AQUI TANUS († 460), layman, and friend of Augustine, wrote a didao tic 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,' BENEDICTUS PAULINUS, ELPIDIUS, ORONTIUS, and DRACONTIUS are unimportant.

'Not to be confounded with Claudius Claudianus, of Alexandria, the most gifted Latin poet at the end of the fourth and beginning of the fifth century. The Christian Idyls, Epistles, and Epigrams ascribed to him, were probably the work of Claudianus Mamertus, of Vienne (comp. H. Thompson's Manual of Rom. Lit. p. 204, and J. J. Brunet's Manual du libraire, tom. iii. p. 1351 of the 5th ed. Par. 1862). For Claudius Claudianus was a heathen, according to the express testimony of Paulus Orosius and of Augustine (De civit. Dei, v. p. 26: "Poeta Claudianus, quamvis a Christi nomine alienus," &c.), and in one of his own epigrams, In Jaco ba, magistrum equitum, shows his contempt of the Christian religion.

CHAPTER IX.

THEOLOGICAL CONTROVERSIES, AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE
ECUMENICAL ORTHODOXY.

§ 117. General Observations. Doctrinal Importance of the Period. Influence of the Ancient Philosophy.

THE Nicene and Chalcedonian age is the period of the formation and ecclesiastical settlement of the ecumenical orthodoxy; that is, the doctrines of the holy trinity and of the incarnation and the divine-human person of Christ, in which the Greek, Latin, and evangelical churches to this day in their symbolical books agree, in opposition to the heresies of Arianism and Apollinarianism, Nestorianism and Eutychianism. Besides these trinitarian and christological doctrines, anthropology also, and soteriology, particularly the doctrines of sir and grace, in opposition to Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism, were developed and brought to a relative settlement; only, however, in the Latin church, for the Greek took very little part in the Pelagian controversy.

The fundamental nature of these doctrines, the greatness of the church fathers who were occupied with them, and the importance of the result, give this period the first place after the apostolic in the history of theology. In no period, excepting the Reformation of the sixteenth century, have there been so momentous and earnest controversies in doctrine, and so lively an interest in them. The church was now in possession of the ancient philosophy and learning of the Roman empire,