Hymns of the Early Church

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John Brownlie. Hymns of the Early Church

Sundays and Week Days

SUNDAY MORNING. DIE, DIERUM PRINCIPE

O NATA LUX DE LUMINE

TU TRINITATIS UNITAS

SUNDAY EVENING. DEUS CREATOR OMNIUM

O DEUS, EGO AMO TE, NEC AMO TE, UT SALVES ME

LUCIS CREATOR OPTIME

MONDAY MORNING. AURORA JAM SPARGIT POLUM

MONDAY EVENING. JESU, DULCIS MEMORIA

TUESDAY MORNING. O DEUS, EGO AMO TE, NAM PRIOR TU AMASTI ME

TUESDAY EVENING. TE LUCIS ANTE TERMINUM

WEDNESDAY MORNING. JAM META NOCTIS TRANSIIT

WEDNESDAY EVENING. LABENTE JAM SOLIS ROTÂ

THURSDAY MORNING. SPLENDOR PATERNÆ GLORIÆ

THURSDAY EVENING. SALVATOR MUNDI, DOMINE

FRIDAY MORNING. CHRISTE, LUMEN PERPETUUM

FRIDAY EVENING. NOX ATRA RERUM CONTEGIT

SATURDAY MORNING. JAM LUCIS ORTO SIDERE

SATURDAY EVENING. JAM SOL RECEDIT IGNEUS

Advent

CHRISTE, PRECAMUR ANNUE

IN NOCTIS UMBRA DESIDES

VENI, VENI, EMMANUEL!

Christmas

NATO NOBIS SALVATORE

PUER NATUS IN BETHLEHEM

HEU! QUID JACES STABULO, OMNIUM CREATOR?

QUICUMQUE CHRISTUM QUÆRITIS

Epiphany

JESU, NOSTRA REDEMPTIO

EI CANAMUS GLORIAM

DEUS-HOMO, REX CŒLORUM

Passion Week

VEXILLA REGIS PRODEUNT

PANGE, LINGUA, GLORIOSI, PRŒLIUM CERTAMINIS

LUSTRA SEX QUI JAM PEREGIT

CRUX AVE BENEDICTA

HORÆ DE PASSIONE D. N. JESU CHRISTI

Easter

FINITA JAM SUNT PRÆLIA

PLAUDITE, CŒLI!

MORTIS PORTIS FRACTIS

ALLELUIA, DULCE CARMEN

Ascension

ÆTERNE REX ALTISSIME

POSTQUAM HOSTEM ET INFERNA

CŒLOS ASCENDIT HODIE

O CHRISTE, QUI NOSTER POLI

Whitsuntide

VENI, CREATOR SPIRITUS, MENTES TUORUM VISITA

VENI, SANCTE SPIRITUS ET EMITTE CŒLITUS

O FONS AMORIS, SPIRITUS

Trinity

TU TRINITATIS UNITAS

O PATER SANCTE, MITIS ATQUE PIE

ADESTO, SANCTA TRINITAS

All Saints

PUGNATE, CHRISTE MILITES

AUDI NOS, REX CHRISTE

Communion

EJA O DULCIS ANIMA

O ESCA VIATORUM

JESU, DULCEDO CORDIUM

VERBUM SUPERNUM PRODIENS

Death and Judgment

GRAVI ME TERRORE PULSAS

APPROPINQUAT ENIM DIES IN QUA JUSTES ERIT QUIES

Heaven

JERUSALEM LUMINOSA VERÆ PACIS VISIO

URBS BEATA HIERUSALEM

Отрывок из книги

The Latin poetry of the Christian Church presents a tempting field for the exercise of scholarship and research. The relation in which it stands on the one hand to the classic poetry of Greece and Italy, and on the other to the Liturgies of the Eastern Church, the placing of accent in the room of quantity, and the rise and growth of rhyme – these and such-like matters will always prove attractive to experts and specialists. They are, however, quite beyond the scope of this brief paper. Those who wish to make an exhaustive study of a subject which has many sides and a copious literature, would do well to betake themselves to such standard works as are noted below.1 The general reader may find something to profit and to interest him in the following general survey.

The title placed on our Saviour’s cross, setting forth His accusation – “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews,” was written in three languages – in Hebrew and in Greek and in Latin. That collocation of languages gives the order in which the hymnody of the Church developed.

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The use of hymns for purposes of private devotion preceded their insertion in the liturgical books of the pre-Reformation Church. Up to the seventh century the Breviaries which contained the prayers to be offered at the canonical hours had as matter to be sung only the words of Scripture. But the Spanish Council which met at Toledo in A.D. 633, laid down the general principle, that if in the worship of the sanctuary prayers may be offered in the words of uninspired men, so also may praise be sung. From that time the Churches of Western Christendom inserted hymns in their service-books, some of these compositions being of earlier date, but the larger number being of more recent times and of purely local interest. As every diocese and religious order claimed and exercised the right to construct its own ritual, Missal, and Breviary, there was endless variety of contents, considerable alterations of old compositions, and a general deterioration of quality. By the time Leo X. reached St. Peter’s chair the need for revision had become clamant. Under the direction of that Medicean Pope, the collection of hymns in use at Rome was recast; and ultimately the entire Breviary appeared in revised form, when Urban VIII. was Pope, in 1631. In this revised Roman Breviary, which is now in general use throughout the Papal communion, the hymns of earliest composers – say from Hilary to Gregory – are for the most part allowed to remain, although in some cases altered without real amendment; but in the case of those pieces which could not be conformed to the laws of correct Latinity there was an entire recasting. According to one authority, himself a revisionist, upwards of nine hundred alterations were made in the interests of metre, and the first lines of more than thirty hymns were altered. The Marquis of Bute executed a translation of the Roman Breviary in 1879, and then gave it as his deliberate judgment that the revisers, “with deplorable taste made a series of changes in the texts of the hymns which has been disastrous both to the literary merit and the historical interest of the poems.”

The Breviary of Paris has been subjected to revisions in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. The third and latest revision was intrusted to a commission of three ecclesiastics, one of whom belonged to the Jansenist party, while another was Charles Coffin, then Rector of the University of Paris, who did the greater part of the work of editing, altering, and tinkering. Under Coffin’s manipulation only twenty-one hymns of the earlier period were retained, and the number of those from the pens of comparatively modern French writers was largely increased.

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