(4) Bacquez states that all the hymns do not join beauty of expression to the merit of the thought expressed, and that a certain number lack style and good prosody.
These opinions should not be extended to all, nor even to very many of the Breviary hymns. All serious critics agree about the beauty of such hymns as the Aeterne rerum Conditor, the Somno refectis artubus, Splendor Aeternae gloriae, Verbum supernum prodiens, and a good number of others.
The greater part of the Breviary Hymns are composed according to the rules of prosody, and their form is lyric, the popular form of Latin song, which preceded in Italy the prosodical system borrowed from the Greeks, and used by the classic pagan poets. The critics of the Renaissance period are very loud and very wrathful over the form of these hymns. Some of them accuse St. Ambrose, Prudentius and Gregory the Great of gross ignorance of the rules of Latin verse and, what to the critics was worse, ignorance of the ways of pagan classical models. But, was the rhymed, tonic accented lyric, which was to be sung by all sorts and conditions of men, in public, such an outrageous literary sin? Was it ignorance or prudence that guided the early hymn writers in their adoption of popular poetic form? It is not certain by any means that the early hymn writers wished to copy or adopt the classic forms of the Augustinian age. Nor is it clear that such men of genius as St. Ambrose, Prudentius, St. Gregory the Great, were ignorant of the rules and models of the best Latin poets. It seems that they did not wish to follow them. They wilfully and designedly adopted the popular lyric forms, so that they might give to their flocks in popular and easily remembered forms, prayers and formulas of faith.
Second Proposition:-The Breviary hymns have the principal elements of poetic beauty.
Briefly, these elements are sublimity of thought, beauty of sentiment, aptness of expression, unction of form. In these matters the Breviary hymns are not inferior to the classic poetry of paganism, nor to the much-belauded beauties of the Gallican Breviary hymns (vide Bacquez, Le Saint Office, notes vi. and viii. in finem).
The composition of the hymns is in perfect harmony with the end for which they are intended, that is, liturgical prayer, chanted prayer. Their phrases do not display the vain and superfluous literary glitter of the much-lauded Gallican hymns, but their accents go out from the sanctuary and live in the hearts of the people. Their language is, like the thought and expression of the psalms, the word of a soul praying to God and adoring Him in fervour, in simplicity, and in faith. Of the piety and expression of the French hymns, Foinard, an ardent apostle of the French liturgical novelties, wrote: "Il ne parait pas que ce soit l'onction qui domine dans les nouveaux Breviaries; on y a la verite, travaille beaucoup pour l'esprit; mais il semole qu' on n'y a pas travaille autant pour le coeur." Letourneux, the fierce Jansenist, wrote to the Breviary-poet, Santeuil, his co-worker: "Vous faites fumer l'encens; mais c'est un feu estranger qui brule dans l'ensenoir. La vanite fait en vous ce que la charite devrait faire." And the Catholic De Maistre, so famed for his fair-minded criticisms, wrote of the new hymn-makers' works: "They make a certain noise in the ear, but they never breathe prayer, because their writers were all alone (i.e., unaided by the grace and guidance of the Holy Spirit) when they composed them." Of the Roman Breviary hymns he wrote: "They always pray and excite the soul to prayer." "Train your hearts to attention, and hear all their prayers. You will in them see the true religion, as clearly as you see the sunbeams."
Fourth Proposition:—The characteristic of the Roman Breviary hymns is to express with lively sentiments and with unction the noble ideas and beautiful sentiments of the supernatural order, in a simple manner, without prosodical pretension, yet having ever a true rhythm which sometimes vies with better compositions.
The characteristic mentioned in this proposition, which comes as a corollary from the three preceding propositions, is one which is clearly noted in our Breviary hymns. For by their very position in the Breviary, side by side with the Psalms, Scripture extracts and words of the Fathers, the Church shows her esteem and her use of these lyrics of prayer and praise. Again, the Church's mind is shown by her retention of her hymns in her liturgy, notwithstanding the many efforts made to substitute a new hymnal. Up to the sixteenth century these Breviary hymns were universally esteemed. They were admired by St. Augustine. They are quoted and praised by St. Thomas in his Summa. Deays the Carthusian {1402-1471} wrote a beautiful commentary on them. Amongst all priests, secular and regular, the hymns were venerated and loved. Although there were many men of genius in every age and in every part of the Christian Church, the hymns escaped until the renaissance under Leo X. (1475-1521).
The lovers of everything classic and pagan were pained and exasperated at the venerable simplicity, the lack of prosody, the vagueness and crudity of the wording of the liturgical hymns. In 1531, Wimpheling, a priest of the diocese of Spire, produced a work, Himni de tempore et de sanctis … secundum legem carminis diligenter emendati. Leo X., yielding to his own taste and the wishes of the learned innovators who were ardent students of pagan antiquity, commissioned Ferreri to compose a new hymnal for liturgical use. His book was allowed for liturgical use, but was not prescribed. It omitted all the old hymns sanctioned by the Church for centuries, and sung with fervour by thousands down the ages. "There are found in the work of Ferreri," wrote Dom Gueranger, "all the images and all the allusions to pagan beliefs and usages which we find in Horace. Sometimes, it is only fair to say, his hymns are beautiful and simple … but they follow generally and too servilely the pagan models … but they are the work of strong and clear inspiration, which under the mask of classic diction shows itself in every part." (Inst. Liturg. t. I., p. 370.) During the reign of Pope Paul III. new hymnals were issued, but the Breviary hymns were not removed. St. Pius V. in his reform of the Breviary did not touch the Breviary hymns. Clement VIII. in his reform added new hymns but did not remove nor retouch the old ones. This work remained for Pope Urban VIII. (1623-1644).
Urban VIII., Maffeo Barberini, was a poet of no mean rank. Before his election to the papacy, he was a recognised lover of classical literature and an adept in following classic themes and classic forms. Our Breviaries contain some few of his compositions and they show correctness of form, poetic merit, and piety. They are the hymns, Martinae celebri, Tu natale solum (January 20); Nullis te genitor, Regali solio fortis (April 13). His great desire was the correction of the Breviary hymns. This work of correction was not beyond the personal power of the Pope himself, if we judge him by his hymns. His views are expressed in the Bull Divinam Psalmodiam, issued to promulgate the corrected hymns. It found a place in all copies of the Roman Breviary in the last century. To carry out the corrections outlined by the Pope, four Jesuits were appointed, and whether the result of the corrections is the Pope's or the Jesuits' is a highly and hotly disputed point. First of all, the task set to the Jesuits was a very difficult one, and one demanding much prudence as well as learning. It may seem to us that to begin the correction, mutilation and reconstruction of the works and words of men so great in church history and liturgy as Prudentius, Sedulius, St. Ambrose, St. Paulinus, was a work of rashness, a sort of sacrilege, attempting to remodel the glowing piety of their poems to the pattern of Horace's verse. But the Jesuits had got their commands and they were bound to obey. They were chosen on account of their classical scholarship, which was kept sharp by their daily teaching in college, and they were specially bound by a vow of loyal obedience to Papal orders. "It is only fair to give them the credit that out of respect for the wishes of Urban VIII, they treated these ancient compositions with extreme reserve and, while they made some impressions clearer, they maintained the primitive unction in a large number of passages" (Baudot, op. cit., p. 185).