§ 116. THE LATIN POETS AND HYMNS. 593
AmLrose introduced also an improved mode of singing in Milan, making wise use of the Greek symphonies and antiphoiiies, and popular melodies. This Cantus Amlrosianus, or figural song, soon supplanted the former mode of reciting the Psalms and prayers in monotone with musical accent and little modulation of the voice, and spread into most of tli© Western churches as a congregational song. It afterwards degenerated, and was improved and sunplified by Gregory the Great, and gave place to the so-called Cantus Romanus^ or choralis.
Augustine, the greatest theologian among the church fathers (f 430), whose soul was filled with the genuine essence of poetry, is said to have composed the resurrection hymn : " Cum rex glorise Christus ; " the hymn on the glory of paradise : " Ad perennis vita3 fontem mens sitivit arida ; " and others. But he probably only furnished in the lofty poetical intuitions and thoughts which are scattered through his prose works, especially in the Confessions, the materia carminis for later poets, like Peter Daniiani, bishop of Ostia, in the eleventh century, who put into flowing verse Augustine's meditations on the blessedness of heaven.'
Ka,^' kKa.<TTi]v y\p.ipav fvAo-ynaai (re. Per singulos dies benedicimus te,
Kal alveaw rb ^vofxa. ffov els rhv aloiva Et laudamus nomen tuum in sfeculum
KaX ds rhv alwva rod aluvos. Et in saeculum sseculi.
Kara^looaoy, Kvpie, Kal tV r/juepai/ rauTTji' Dignare, Domine, die isto
'Avafj-apTi'^rovs (puXax^v^'^i- vl-'-^s- Sine peccato nos custodire.
Gorap. on this whole hymn the critical investigation of Daniel, 1. c. vol. ii. p. '289
Bcjq.
' This beautiful hymn, " De gloria et gaudiis Paradisi," is found in the appendix to the 6th volume of the Benedictine edition of the Opera Augustini, in DaniePa Thesaurus, torn. i. p. 116, and in Trench's Collection, p. 315 sqq., and elsewhere. Like all the new Jerusalem hymns it derives its inspiration from St. John's description in the concluding chapters of the Apocalypse. There is an excellent German translation of it by Konigsfeld and an English translation by Wackerbarth, given in part by Neale in his Mediaeval Hymns and Sequences, p. 59. The whole hynm is very fine, but not quite equal to the long poem of Bernard of Cluny (in the twelfth century), on the contempt of the world, which breathes the same sweet home-sickness to heaven, and which Neale (p. 58) justly regards as the most lovely, in the same wav that the Dies irce is the most sublime, and the Stabat Mater the most pathetic, of mediaeval hymns. The original has not less than 3,000 lines ; Nealo gives an admirable translation of the concluding part, commencing " Hie breve
i>y4 TUIKI) rKlilOD. A.D. 311-590.
Damabus, bishop of Rome (f 384), a friend of Jerome, Jikewise composed some few sacred songs, and is considered the author of the rhyme.'
CcELius Seuuuus, a native of Scotland or Irehmd, presbyter in tiie lirst half of the fifth century, composed the hymns: ** llerodcs, hostis impie," and " A solis ortus cardine," and some larger poems.
Maecus Aueelius Clemens Pkuden-iius (f 405), an advocate and imperial governor in Spain under Tlieodosi us, devoted the last years of his life to religious contemplation and the writing of sacred poetry, and stands at the head of the more tiery and impassioned Spanish school. Bently calls him the Horace and Virgil of Christians, Neale, '" the prince of primitive Christian poets." Prudentius is undoubtedly the most gifted and fruitful of the old Catholic poets. He was master of the classic measure, but admirably understood how to clothe the new ideas and feelings of Christianity in a new dress. His poems have been repeatedly edited." They are in some cases long didactic or epic productions in hexameters, of much historical value ; * in others, collections of epic poems, as tlie
vivitur," and a part of this translation : " To thee, 0 dear, dear Country " (p. 55), is well worthy of a place in our hymn books. From these and similar mediasval sources (as the "Urbs beata .Jerusalem," &c.) is derived in part the famous English hymn: "0 mother dear, Jerusalem!" (in 31 stanzas), which is often ascribed to David Dickson, a Scotch clerg}Tnan of the seventeenth century, and wldch has in turn become the mother of many English hymns on the new Jerusalem. (Comp. on it the monographs of H. Bonar, Edinb. 1852, and of W. C. Prime: "0 Mother dear, JenLsalem," New York, 18G5.) — To Augustine is also a.scribed the hymn: "0 gens beata coslitum," a picture of the blessedness of tiie inhabitants of heaven, and: " Quid, tyranne ! quid miraris ? " an antidote for the tyranny of sin.
' Jerome (De viris ill. c. 103) says of him : " Elegans in versibus componendia ingenium habet, multaque et brevia metro edidit." Neale omits Damasus altogether- Daniel, Thes. i. pp. 8 and 9, gives only two of his hymns, a Hyranus de S. Andrea, and a Hymnus de S. Agatha, the latter with regidar rhymes, commencing : " Martyris ecce dies Agathae Christus cam sibi qua sociat
Virginis emicat eximiae, Et diadcma duplex decorat."
■•' E. g., by Th. Obbarius, Tub. 1845; and by Alb. Dressel, Lips. 1860.
* The Apotheosis, a celebration of the divinity of Christ against its opponents (in 1,063 lines); the Harmaiigcnia, on the origin of sin (in 9G6 litie-s); the Psyc/iomachioj on the warfare of good and evil in the soul (915 lines); Contra Si/minachumon idolatry, &c.