The Latin Hymn-writers and Their Hymns

by Samuel Willoughby Duffield

to the actual Mark Antony when we know it to have been written by William Henry Lytle, an American, born in 1829 and dying in 1863. Therefore, it is scarcely proper authoritatively to accredit these hymns to Xavier, or, indeed, to any other poet. The utmost that we can say for them is that no one can prove the converse of the proposition, and that their style and form are appropriate to the period at which he lived. He is not known to have written other verses. These may have been the only exudations of that bruised and wounded spirit which have hardened into amber and thus have become precious to us. And we would prefer to believe that he truly appears in these lines in such an exquisite mystic apotheosis rather than to intermeddle with lower questions, and so, perhaps, prevent any discussion of himself in these pages at all.

We have been prohibited by much the same destructive analysis from treating of Augustine, who never wrote a hymn, and to whom the Ad perennis vitae fontem has been wrongly ascribed, for we know it now to be the undoubted composition of St. Peter Damiani. In this and in other similar cases where there is any literary question concerned, it may be worth our while to investigate with great carefulness. As a rule, however, the internal evidence offered in the hymns themselves will set us on the true path. They range in structure from the lowest corundum up to the choicest diamond, and are as various as any gems in their prosodic form and spiritual color. Like these gems, also, they are notable for varieties of crystallization—the Dark Ages showing imperfect angles and crude attempts, and the Renaissance exhibiting again the old sharp-cut classicism of a time anterior even to Hilary and Ambrose.

From the higher critical standpoint, then, these hymns are not unacceptable as Xavier’s own work. They feel as if they belonged to his age and to his life. They are transfused and shot through by a personal sense of absorption into the divine love, which has fused and crystallized them in its fiercest heat. It is proper to inquire, moreover, if Xavier did not write them, who did? Their author must have been as much superior to his own circumstances and surroundings as Xavier was to his; and he must also have been as much possessed by this same holy zeal. It is absolutely incredible that, with these qualities given, he should not have been known to us in other relations, and, sooner or later, identified as the true source of their being. The sixteenth century was a time when literary knowledge was closer and keener than it had been in the twelfth, and a hymn of that period could not be attributed to Heloise without exposing its own fallacy; for in the Requiescat a labore we have such a comparatively modern lyric, which Daniel rightly tests and finds wanting. “It seems to me,” he says, “that this song is the production of a later age.” And he might well say it, for its crystallization, so to speak, is too accurate, too many-sided, for it to belong in the twelfth century and to the sad Abbess of the Paraclete.

One cannot, however, declare this so positively of Xavier’s two hymns. In style and composition the first is inferior to the second; but both have a simplicity and directness of utterance which may easily secure that pardon which their rhythm is faulty enough to require. If one were to assign any special date to them, it would naturally be in the neighborhood of that pathetic little petition which comes from the prayer-book of Mary Queen of Scots. The Domine Deus, speravi in Te is pitched in the same key with these. And as Mary lived from 1542 to 1587, and Xavier from 1506 to 1552, there is certainly room for these two compositions to have been prepared by another hand, in the days of enthusiasm over his triumphant successes and of sorrow over his early death.

With these arguments for and against the authenticity of the hymns, we must rest content. Bartoli and Maffei, in their Life of Xavier, are silent upon the subject; and the careful Königsfeld enters the better hymn in his collection as anonymous. If we retain the reputed authorship ourselves, it must be, therefore, rather as Christians than as scholars.

But, having done so, we are entitled to speak of Francis Xavier, and of his life and his work. The date of his birth is apparently fixed by a manuscript note in Spanish in a family record possessed by the Xaviers, which places it upon April 7th, 1506. His father was Don John Giasso, a man of legal acquirements and of good social position. He was at one time auditor of the royal council under King John III. For a wife he chose Donna Maria d’Azpilqueta y Xavier, and the child Francis was born at the castle of Xavier, a few miles distant from Pampeluna in Navarre, on the southern slope of the Pyrenees. He was the youngest of a large family, and the castle where he saw the light gave to him the patronymic by which he is always known. The family were originally called Asuarez, but altered their name to Xavier when King Theobald gave them this property. The mother’s title was thus perpetuated in one of her sons, but there seems to be some confusion still remaining, for a brother of the missionary was Captain John Azpilqueta, who also apparently had exchanged his father’s name of Giasso for one of the designations borne by his mother.

The biographies of Francis Xavier are naturally of a kind to excite the critical instincts of a scholar. They are, from the original life by Torsellini, to the latest Jesuit compilation, remarkable for their enthusiasm and unlimited credulity. It is only in such calmer treatises as those of Nicolini, Stephen, Venn, and others, that we get the more just conception of his character. But to be entirely fair to him we should take him from the picture painted by his co-religionists, refusing only those things which are manifestly incongruous or absurd. The work of Bartoli and Maffei may, for example, be regarded as entirely safe in its general statements.

From the portraits left to us and preserved in the pages of Nicolini and Mrs. Jameson, we derive a vivid impression of the man’s personal intensity. His eyes are deep and thoughtful; his nose strong, rather blunt, and withal sagacious; and his face is that of a mystic. He is usually represented as gazing upward in religious rapture and his lips are parted. His features are more rugged and forcible than refined. They indicate a rude strength of body and of will rather than a delicate and sensitive nature. Should we have met him personally, he would have given us the impression of an enthusiast, deeply affectionate and profoundly loyal to anything like a military organization. These opinions would have been approved by the fact.

We read that his parents desired to educate him as a cavalier, and that he was at first instructed at home in the usual topics. But as he showed zeal and intelligence he was sent, in his eighteenth year, to the College of Ste. Barbe at Paris. Here he completed the study of philosophy, received the degree of Master, and began to give instruction to others. His most intimate friend was Peter Faber, afterward to become one of the earliest adherents of Ignatius Loyola. And the biographers are unwearied in their eulogy of Xavier’s and Faber’s purity of life and morals in the midst of the great temptations of a corrupt city.

To these two young men, ardent of mind and eager in their ambition, now enters the influence which shapes their destiny. Faber was a Savoyard, poor and of humble birth, while Xavier was well-to-do and possessed the haughty spirit of a Spanish grandee. They were, however, kindling each other up to some scheme of future glory when Ignatius Loyola made his way to Paris. He had been converted a few years before this and had already begun to gather proselytes to his opinions. His purpose in visiting Paris was not merely to avail himself of better facilities for study, but also to secure more followers. It is not strange to us that Loyola, with his great sagacity, should have singled out the two companions and have set himself to win them. Faber’s allegiance, indeed, it was an easy matter to obtain. But Xavier did not so readily fall in with the wishes of the great general of the Jesuits.