The Latin Hymn-writers and Their Hymns

by Samuel Willoughby Duffield

For the most part it will be found that the Latin language contains the best of the Greek, and the inspiration of the majority of the first German hymns. In the dead ark of the Middle Ages was kept this rod that budded and this golden pot with its sacred heavenly food. It is amazing that this treasure has been so well preserved, but it is none the less certain that we now have it safely, never to be lost again.

There are no Latin hymns—let us here say—earlier than Hilary of Poitiers (died 366). His Hymnarium has perished, and all but one of the compositions attributed to himself are doubtful. The “evening-song” which he sent to his daughter Abra, while he was in exile among the followers of the Eastern Church, forms the connecting link between Greek and Latin hymnody. The true hymn—a different thing from the rhythmic but unmetrical sequence—here takes its rise. In this small, pure fountain-head reappear the percolating praises of the two previous centuries. The short lines drop with a gentle tinkling melody upon the ear. As yet there is no rhyme, although there is an occasional lightening of the lyric by some such verbal art.

But with Ambrose the full stream begins to sweep along. There can be no doubt that many ungathered and traditional stanzas were in his time discoverable in the Church—much as it can be observed that phrases in prayer or in exhortation are the inheritance of our own generation from days of struggle and of trial among our Christian ancestors. And what better could a beleaguered bishop do, when he was shut up in a church “for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ,” than to collate these old hymns? Twelve possibly—eight, or less, with moderate certainty—can be regarded as of his own composition. The rest of the ninety or a hundred are commonly received as “Ambrosian,” since they share his spirit and partake in some degree of his method. The rules of the Venerable Bede are not infallible, and modern criticism frequently rejects what the early collectors are disposed to assign to this single illustrious source.

Augustine wrote no actual hymns, but he was the cause of hymns in others—as, notably, in the case of Cardinal Peter Damiani. The Ambrosian music and the Augustinian theology served for inspiration to many later men. Yet the assignment of these Latin hymns to their proper authors is, at the best, a most precarious undertaking. A few, quoted or mentioned by competent witnesses—as when Augustine quotes Ambrose—seem duly authentic. This is, however, a rare occurrence. Generally we proceed upon the mere dictum of the first compilers—especially of Thomasius, George Fabricius, and Clichtove.

These early compilations are sufficiently scarce. Professor Dr. H. Ad. Daniel gives a list of some which, except for the books of “the venerable Thilo” in the Yale Library, are beyond the reach of American students. Dating from 1492 and running into the first decade of the sixteenth century there were many “Expositions” of hymns, of which the work of Clichtove (Basle, 1517) remains to us in the greatest number of editions. Up to the middle of the present century this book was practically indispensable to any correct knowledge of the original texts. Since that time it, as well as every similar work, has received attention, and its contents have been often reproduced.

Other and later laborers are such as Cardinal Thomasius (Rome, 1741), who follows upon the traces of George Cassander, the Liberal Catholic (Paris, 1616). We are possibly more indebted to Cassander than to Thomasius for the correct designation of a good deal of the authorship. Both of these editors collate the text with other versions, and thus prepare the way for later and more accurate work. Both depend to a notable degree upon the book of George Fabricius (Basle, 1564), which is quite rare; although Thomasius’ works are said by Daniel to be sufficiently uncommon in Germany, as they certainly are in America. The recent republication of the Mozarabic Breviary in J. P. Migne’s Patrologia brings this volume, however, within easy reach.

Thus we are naturally led to speak of the sources of the hymns themselves—sources from which these editors have secured them. As a part of religious worship they were incorporated into the various breviaries, of which hundreds must have been in use before the unification begun by the Church of Rome in the sixteenth century. Besides these church books, there were collections of hymns alone made by mediaeval schools, whose manuscripts still exist in European libraries.

The only method by which to ascertain the number and extent of these treasures was to gather and classify them. And strangely enough this labor has been performed by Protestants rather than by Catholics. Cassander’s book was forbidden at Rome, as he was what now would be called an Old Catholic; Luther, George Fabricius, and Hermann Bonn were in no better odor of sanctity; and for our own times the standard work is that of Herman Adelbert Daniel, who was a Lutheran professor at Halle, while close behind him come several others of the same religious belief.

The necessary and highly difficult task of getting the materials together has been exhaustively performed. Professor Daniel’s investigations extended to the original copies in monasteries and abbeys almost without number. But F. J. Mone enlarged even upon this. Daniel’s Thesaurus in five volumes was completed in 1856—having been several years in course of publication—and it stands as yet unrivalled. Mone’s Lateinische Hymnen des Mittelalters appeared in 1853-55, and was therefore available for the conclusion of Daniel’s great work. Its value consists in the fact that it is derived exclusively from manuscripts and from material hitherto untouched. The Germans, indeed, have made Latin hymnology a special branch of study, considering that it is profitable to them for its value religiously and historically. From old Flacius Illyricus’ appendix to the Catalogus Testium Veritatis has been recovered the original of Bernard of Cluny’s “Jerusalem the Golden”—a poem which would never have been known by us if this same Matthias Flacius had not preserved it as a testimony against the corrupt state of the Church.

We must then add the German names of Schlosser, and Simrock, and Fortlage, and Stadelmann, and Jacob Grimm, and Königsfeld, and Bässler, and Kayser, and Kehrein, and Morel. Wackernagel and Koch, the great historians of German hymnology, have also done admirable service in prefixing the Latin hymns to the earlier part of their collections and histories of German praise. There is a host of lesser names, and there have been some separate discoveries worthy of note. Thus the English ritualists, under the lead of Newman and Neale, unearthed some capital lyrics. The Hymni Ecclesiae of Cardinal J. H. Newman, being half derived from the Paris Breviary, contain hymns which are scarcely to be found elsewhere—many of them, as our Index will show, being accessible only in those pages. The Sequentiae Medii Aevii of Dr. John Mason Neale also bring to us texts which are extremely scarce. Archbishop Trench, in his collection of eighty hymns, has avoided anything like Romanism even to the occasional expurgation of a phrase; but he has given us a few hymns which are difficult to procure. Königsfeld’s selection of one hundred is admirable; and Bässler’s and Simrock’s little books have made a very good choice. More recently still Professor F. A. March, of Lafayette College, has prepared a selection of one hundred and fifty of these hymns for the use of institutions of learning; and this, for every purpose, is the finest and most satisfactory series of texts at our command. The ordinary student can learn much from this before he needs to attempt the larger and more expensive works.