\ 93. THE SERMON. 401
Greek Testament and the Hebrew Scriptures was out of the question, and there was hardly a Western bishop or pope in the middle ages who was able to study the divine oracles in the original.
The best, therefore, that the priests and deacons, and even most of the bishops could do was to read the sermons of the fathers. Augustin had given this advice to those who were not skilled in composition. It became a recognized practice in France and England. Hence the collection of homilies, called Hwniiliaria, for the Gospels and Epistles of Sundays and holy days. They are mostly patristic compilations. Bede's collec tion, called Homilice de Tempore, contains thirty-three homilies for the summer, fifteen for the winter, twenty-two for Lent, besides sermons on saints7 days. Charlemagne commissioned Paulus Diaconus or Paul Warnefrid (a monk of Monte Cassiiio and one of his chaplains, the historian of the Lombards, and writer of poems on saints) to prepare a Homiliarium (or Omiliarius) about A. D. 780, and recommended it for adoption in the churches of France. It follows the order of Sundays and fes tivals, is based on the text of the Vulgate, and continued in use more or less for several centuries.1 Other collections were made in later times, and even the Reformed church of England under Edward VI. and Queen Elizabeth found it necessary to provide ignorant clergymen with two Books of Homilies adapted to the doctrines of the Reformation.
In this connection we must allude again to the poetic repro ductions of the Bible history, namely, the divine epos of Caedmon, the Northumbrian monk (680), the Saxon " Heliand " (Heiland, i. e. Saviour, about 880), and the " Christ " or Gospel Harmony of Otfrid (a pupil of Rabanus Maurus, about 870). These works were effective popular sermons on the history of
1 F. Dahn, DCS Paulus Diaconus Lebcn und Schriften, 1876; and Mon. Germ. Scripfores rerum Langobardicarum et Italicarum scec VI.-IX. 1878, p. 45-187, ed. by L. Bethraann and G. Waitz; Wattenbach, Deutschlands Geschichtsqudlen, 4th ed. 1877, I. 134-140.
402 FOURTH PERIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
redemption, and are at the same time the most valuable remains of the Anglo-Saxon and old high German dialects of the Teu tonic language.1
It was, however, not till the Reformation of the sixteenth century that the sermon and the didactic element were restored and fully recognized in their dignity and importance as regular and essential parts of public worship. I say, worship, for to ex pound the oracles of God, and devoutly to listen to such expo sition is or ought to be worship both on the part of the preacher and on the part of the hearer, as well as praying and singing.
§ 94. Church Poetry. Greek Hymns and Hymnists.
See the Lit. in vol. III. §113 (p. 575 sq.) and $ 114 (p. 578), and add the following :
Cardinal PITRA : Hymnographie de Vfylise grecque. Rome 1867. By the same : Analecta Sacra Spicilegio Solesmensi parata, T. I. Par. 1876.
WILHELM CHRIST et M. PARANIKAS: Anthologia Grceca carminum Christianorum. Lips. 1871. CXLIV and 268 pages. The Greek text with learned Prolegomena in Latin. Christ was aided by Paranikas, a member of the Greek church. Comp. CHRIST: Beitrdge zur kirchlichen Liter atur der Byzantiner. Miinchen 1870.
J. L. JACOBI (Prof, of Church Hist, in Halle) : Zur Geschichte des griechischen Kirchenliedes (a review of Pitra's Analecta}, in Brieger's " Zeitschrift fur Kirchengesch. ," vol. V. Heft 2, p. 177-250 (Gotha 1881).
For a small selection of Greek hymns in the original see the third volume of DANIEL'S Thesaurus Hymnologicus (1855), and BASSLER'S Auswahl altchristlicher Lieder (1858), p. 153-166.
For English versions see especially J. M. NEALE : Hymns of the Eastern Church (Lond. 1862, third ed. 1866, 159 pages; new ed. 1876, in larger print, 250 pages) ; also SCHAFF: Christ in Song (1869), which gives versions of 14 Greek (and 73 Latin) hymns. German translations in BASSLER, I c. p. 3-25.
[Syrian Hymnology. To the lit. mentioned vol. III. 580 add : GUST. BICKELL : S. Ephrcpmi Syri Carmina Nisibena, additis prolegomenis et supplemento lexicorum syriacorum edidit, vertit, explicavit. Lips.]
1 See above, p. 41, 105, 106. The paraphrase of Csedmon, the first Christian poet of England, is edited or discussed by Thorpe, Bouterweck, Grein, Wright, Ettmiiller, Sandrar, Morley, Ten Brink, etc. (see lit. in Schaff-Herzog sub Csedmon) ; the Saxon Heliand and Otfrid's Krist by Sievers, Rettberg, Vilmar, Lechler, Graff, Kelle, Michelsen, etc. (see Herzog2 IV. 428-435).