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great majority of these are fanciful and sentimental, and framed in strange varieties of metre, with acrostics, alliteration, or intricate rhyming schemes. A like development for the worse overtook the hymns to the saints; many are mere narratives of their lives and martyrdoms. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the effect of the revival of classical learning brought another influence to bear on the hymns, through the order of Pope Leo X, who commanded the revision of the hymns of the breviary, to meet the standard of classical writers and Ciceronian Latinity. This work was continued by order of Clement VII and Urban VIII, and to-day the noble hymns of Hilary and Ambrose stand in correct Latin, faultlessly cold, and often unrecognizable. The changes were so numerous that Wackernagel prints separately the breviary versions. The French and Spanish breviaries were similarly revised, and by 1736 the poems of contemporary writers - the Santeuils, Coffin, and others - were substituted in the Paris breviary, in many places, for the older work. At present the official hymnody of the Roman church is confined to the modernized hymns of the breviary, the five sequences of the missal, and a few hymns for the Benediction of the Sacrament.

The development of the Adamic sequence with its wealth of theological learning and recondite typology demanded some way of explanation for the intelligent understanding of the hymns. And from the fourteenth century numerous Expositiones Hymnorum et Sequentiarum were written, probably originally for use in schools for the training of the clergy. These expositions foreshadowed the great explanatory editions of the hymns by Daniel and Mone. Sometimes they were prose interlinear paraphrases of each line of the hymn; sometimes an analysis of the subject-matter with citations from the Bible. The Aurea Expositio Hymnorum by Hilary, edited at Paris in 1485, and the Elucidatorium Ecclesiasticum of Clichtoveus (1516) were the most famous.

The use of English translations of these Latin hymns in England and the United States is comparatively recent, and is one of the results of the Oxford movement led by Newman and Pusey. J. Chandler published a book of translations of "Hymns of the Primitive Church" in 1837, J. M. Neale his "Mediæval Hymns" in 1851, and R. Campbell his "Hymns and Anthems" in 1850. Caswell's "Lyra Catholica," 1849, contained one hundred and ninety-seven translations, and, during the latter half of the nineteenth century, several other collections of translations were published. In England many of these versions were included in a popular hymn-book called "Hymns, Ancient and Modern," and, as the hymnals of the various churches in this country were revised, the editors adopted the versions that had won acceptance in England. These translations are often the best commentary on the hymns; and, indeed, the ideal way to use these hymns is, first to read them aloud sympathetically in the Latin, secondly to sing them to the ancient melody, and thirdly to read the English metrical version with close comparison of the Latin.

The collections and sources of criticism to which reference is made in this book are the following:

1. "Lateinische Hymnen des Mittelalters." Freiburg, 1853-1855.

2.

Von F. J. Mone. 3 vols.

"Das deutsche Kirchenlied von der ältesten Zeit bis zu Anfang des siebzehnten Jahrhunderts." Von Philipp Wackernagel. Vol. 1. Leipzig, 1864.

3. "Thesaurus Hymnologicus sive hymnorum canticorum sequentiarum

4.

...

Herm.

circa annum MD usitatum collectio amplissima." Adalbert. Daniel. 5 vols. Halis-Lipsiæ, 1841-1856. "Sacred Latin Poetry," chiefly lyrical. Selected by Richard Chenevix Trench, D. D. Third ed. London, 1874.

5. "A Dictionary of Hymnology." By John Julian, M.A. New York,

1892.

6. "Beiträge zur Geschichte und Erklärung der ältesten Kirchenhymnen." Von Dr. Ioh. Kayser. 2 vols. Paderborn, 1881, 1886.

7. "Geschichte der Christliche-Lateinisches Poesie bis zur Mitte des achten Jahrhunderts." Von M. Manitius. Stuttgart, 1891. 8. "The Seven Great Hymns of the Mediæval Church." By Charles

Nott. New York, 1902.

9.

"Christ in Song," selected.

New York, 1895.

By Philip Schaff, D.D. 2 vols.

10. "Hymns, Ancient and Modern." New York, 1882.

11. "The Hymnal, Revised and Enlarged," as adopted by the Protestant

Episcopal Church. New York, 1889.

12. "Laudes Domini." New York, 1887.

13. "New Laudes Domini."

New York, 1892.

14. "In Excelsis." Hymns.

New York, 1897,

15. "Methodist Hymnal." New York, 1878.

16. "Baptist Praise Book." New York, 1871.

17.

"Great Hymns of the Church." Compiled by John Freeman Young,

S.T.D. New York, 1887.

A list of authorities in Latin hymnody, of editions of the hymns, and of collections of translations into English may be found in Julian's Dictionary, pp. 655-666.

LATIN HYMNS

HILARIUS

Hilary was made Bishop of Poictiers in 353 A.D., after having renounced paganism in 350; his zeal for orthodoxy won him the title Malleus Arianorum. His liber hymnorum has not survived, and the eight hymns attributed to him are of doubtful authenticity. Isidore of Seville says of him, “hymnorum carmine floruit primus" (Off. eccl. i 6). See Manitius 101; Kayser 52.

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Nostra patescunt corpora;

A morning hymn.

I

Tuoque plena spiritu,
Secum Deum gestantia,
Ne rapientis perfidi
Diris patescant fraudibus, 20
Ut inter actus saeculi
Vitae quos usus exigit,
Omni carentes crimine
Tuis vivamus legibus.

Probrosas mentis castitas 25
Carnis vincat libidines,
Sanctumque puri corporis
Delubrum servet Spiritus.

Haec spes precantis animae,
Haec sunt votiva munera,
Ut matutina nobis sit
Lux in noctis custodiam.

30

Metre: iambic dimeter, the most common verse scheme for these hymns. Note that there is no rhyme, and that the classical quantities are preserved. 5. Evang. S. Ioann. viii 12 ego sum lux mundi: qui sequitur me non ambulat in tenebris, sed habebit lumen vitae. 11. internă. 15. admotā gratia. 19. ne... patescant, sc. corpora. 21. saeculi, world. 27. S. Paul. I ad Corinth. v 19 quoniam membra vestra templa sunt spiritus sancti.

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