Isidore of Seville, the greatest scholar of his age, compares Sedulius with his own great countryman, Juvencus, and recommends the study of their works in preference to those of the Gentile poets.[46]
Ildelfonsus describes him as the ‘excellent’ Sedulius, the poet of the Gospel, an eloquent orator, and truly Catholic writer; and another author declares that Sedulius left nothing unlearnt necessary to make him a perfect theologian, as well as a brilliant poet.[47] And in a somewhat similar strain Sedulius has been eulogised by all subsequent critics, from Bede to the present time.
Our remarks on the writings of Sedulius must necessarily be very brief, and for convenience sake we shall follow the order of the excellent edition by Arevalus as given in Migne’s Patrology.[48]
His great work was the Carmen Paschale, as he himself calls it, which is preceded by that dedicatory epistle to which we have already referred. It is accompanied with a prose version which he furnished at the special request of Macedonius, and which he calls the Opus Paschale. The prose only serves to make the poetry more intelligible for half-educated scholars, like the similar prose translations in the Delphin editions of the Latin poets. The style, too, of the explanation is wordy and laboured, quite unlike the limpid elegance of the poetry. The Carmen Paschale in the MSS. is divided into five books. The first treats of the creation and fall of man as well as of the principal miracles recorded in the Old Testament; the second gives a beautiful account of the incarnation and birth of our Lord and the wonders of the Holy Childhood; the third and fourth deal with the miracles and noteworthy events of our Saviour’s public mission; whilst the fifth details the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ. It is thus a poetic history of the wonders of the divine revelation as contained in the Old and New Testament. Each of the books contains from three to four hundred lines of heroic metre, in which the style and language of Virgil are as closely imitated as the nature of the subject will permit. The language is chaste, elegant, and harmonious; the verse is sweet and flowing, with scarcely a single rugged line, although sometimes one meets with a harsh or limping foot. The prosody, however, is on the whole wonderfully accurate, and the sentences are constructed with true Virgilian simplicity. The author had to deal with very many delicate topics, and he was of course greatly restricted in his choice of language by the necessities of the metre; yet in no single instance that we are aware of, has any fault been found with the poet on the score of any want of theological accuracy. The tone is generally elevated, imparting dignity by choice language even to commonplace topics, as Virgil does in the Georgics; but we cannot say that he often reaches the sublime. His muse takes few bold and daring flights, but, on the other hand, she never descends to what is mean or trivial. We would take the liberty of strongly recommending the careful perusal of this beautiful poem to priests who are anxious to read the great events of sacred history, clothed in elegant language and adorned with becoming imagery.
We have next the “Elegia,” containing 110 lines in elegiac metre, which form a collection of moral maxims and examples borrowed from the personages and facts of sacred history.[49] Every second line is made to begin and end with the same clause, but used in different senses. The reader will probably agree with us in thinking that this style of composition is more likely to develop ingenuity than inspiration.
After the “Elegia” is the truly beautiful hymn beginning with the words, “A solis ortus cardine,” some portions of which are familiar to most of our readers. It is an abecedarian poem, the first stanza commencing with the first letter of the alphabet, A, the second with B, and so on through the letters. It contains 92 lines, or 23 stanzas, and details the leading facts of the life of Christ in language that is very terse and striking. The first seven stanzas are read by the Church in the Lauds of her greatest festival on Christmas Day; and the next four at first Vespers of the Epiphany, but in the first line for the latter feast the words—
Hostis Herodes impie
Christum,
are changed into—
Crudelis Herodes Deum
Regem.
It is noteworthy, too, that the Introit of the Mass of the Blessed Virgin—“Salve Sancta Parens enixa puerpera Regem,” as well as several other expressions in the Divine Office, are borrowed from the Carmen Paschale of Sedulius.[50] At the end of his poems the author adds a short epigrammatic prayer, in which he asks that the doctrines of the life of Christ, which he has written, may remain engraven in his heart, and so by doing the divine will he may secure a share in the joys of heaven.[51]