I 94. CHURCH POETRY. 407
•
Pie died about 7GO and is commemorated on the 14th of October. The stichos prefixed to his life says :
" Where perfect sweetness dwells, is Cosmas gone ; But his sweet lays to cheer the church live on."1
The third rank is occupied by ST. THEOPHANES, surnamed the Branded? one of the most fruitful poets. He attended the second Council of Nicasa (787). During the reign of Leo the Arminian (813) he suffered imprisonment, banishment and mu tilation for his devotion to the Icons, and died about 820. His " Chronography" is one of the chief sources for the history of the image-controversy.3
i Gallandi, Bibl Patrurn, XIII. 234 sqq. ; Christ, XLIX sq., 161-164. Christ calls him " princeps melodorum grcccorum," and gives ten of his canons and several triodia ; Daniel (III. 55-79) twelve odes. Among the best are Eif TTJV rov Xpiarov yEvvqatv, Eff ra #fo0arfm, Eif rt/v irEVTT)K.oarf]v, Upoc Xpicrov, Eif r?/v vipuoiv rov aravpov, Elg TO fit) a aafifiarov. Neale has reproduced eight odes of Cosmas and a cento on the Transfiguration. The Nativity hymn begins (Christ,
p. 165) :
" ytvvarai' do^aaarf
£% ovpavciv cnravrfjaare? us Eirl yi/£- iipuSr/Tegears TCJ nvpiu Traaa ?/ yi}t K.al iv ewppoabvy
2 o Tpmrr6^, with reference to his sufferings.
3 According to Christ (Pro/. XLIV), he was after the restoration of the images in the churches of Constantinople, 842, elected metropolitan of Nicrca and died in peace. But according to the Bollandista and other authorities, he died much earlier in exile at Samothrace ahout 818 or 820, in consequence of his sufferings for the Icons. Neale reports that Theophanes was betrothed in childhood to a lady named Megalis, but persuaded her, on their wedding day, to retire to a convent. Christ gives several of his idiomela and stichera necrosiraa, p. 121-130. See also Daniel, III. 110-112, and Neale's translations of the idiomela on Friday of Cheese-Sunday (i. e. Quinquagcsima), and the stichera at the first vespers of Cheese-Sunday (90-95). The last is entitled by Neale : "Adam's Complaint," and he thinks that Milton, " as an universal scholar," must, in Eve's lamentation, have had in his eye the last stanza which we give in the text. But this is very doubtful. The Chronographia of Theophanes is published in the Bonn. ed. of the Byzantine historians, 1839, and in Migne's "Patrol. Grseca," Tom. 108 (1861). His biography see in the Acta Sanct. ed. Bolland. in XII. Martii.
408 FOUKTH PEKIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
The following specimen from Adam's lament of his fall is
interesting :
"Adain sat right against the Eastern gate, By many a storm of sad remembrance tost : O me ! so ruined by the serpent's hate ! O me I so glorious once, and now so lostl So mad that bitter lot to choose ! Beguil'd of all I had to lose ! Must I then, gladness of my eyes, — Must I then leave thee, Paradise, And as an exile go ? And must I never cease to grieve How once my God, at cool of eve, Came down to walk below ? O Merciful ! on Thee I call : O Pitiful ! forgive my fall I"
The other Byzantine hymnists who preceded or succeeded those three masters, are the following. Their chronology is mostly uncertain or disputed.
SERGIUS, patriarch of Constantinople in the reign of Heracleus (610—641), figures in the beginning of the Monotheletic con troversy, and probably suggested the union formula to that emperor. He is supposed by Christ to be the author of a famous and favorite hymn Akathistos, in praise of Mary as the deliverer of Constantinople from the siege of the Persians (630), but it is usually ascribed to Georgius Pisida.1
SOPHRONIUS, patriarch of Jerusalem (629), celebrated in Anacreontic metres the praises of Christ, the apostles, and martyrs, and wrote idiomela with music, for the church service.2
1 Christ (p. LII sq., p. 140-147) reasons chiefly from chronological consider ations. The poem is called a.Kd$LOTo<; (sc. fy/vof) r^ tfeorckou, because it was chanted while priest and people were standing. During the singing of other hymns they were seated; hence the latter are called nati-ia/Mra, (from Kadi&a&ac). See Christ, Prol. p. LXII and p. 54 sqq. Jacobi says of the Akathistos (1. c. p. 230) : " Was Enthusiasmus filr die heilige Jungfrau, was Kenntniss biblischerTypen, iiberhaupt religioser Gegenstande und Gedanken zu leisten vermochten, was Schmuck der Sprache, Gewandtheit des Ausdrucks, Kunst der Rhythmen und der Reime hinzufugen konnten, das ist hier in unubertroffenem Masse bewirkt"
2 Christ, XXVII, XXXV, LIII, 43-47 (avcutpeforiKa), and 96 (ldi6fuXa TUV GeoQavsiuv). Daniel, III. 20-46, gives thirteen pieces of Sophronius from Pet Metranga, SpicUegium Romanum, 1840, Tom. IV.