This fifth century also brings us the first woman among the Christian singers. Elpis, identified by a somewhat doubtful tradition with Helpes, the first wife of the pagan philosopher Boethius, has left a florid hymn in honor of the Apostles Peter and Paul, which holds its place in modified form in the Roman Breviary, and is divided into two hymns. She employs accentuated verse, while the verses in Boethius’s classic work, De Consolatione Philosophiae, conform to the quantitative prosody of classic poetry. Another hymn on the same Apostles, Felix per omnes festum mundi cardines, is ascribed to her and also to Paulinus of Nola. The Breviary hymn, Miris modis repente liber, is a recast of part of it.
There are several poems and chronicles which are ascribed to Prosper Tyro, whom some identify with Prosper of Aquitaine (403-65), the Gallic champion of strict Augustinian orthodoxy against the semi-Pelagian party in that province—John Cassian, Vincent of Lerins, etc. This is the more likely, as Prosper loved to “drop into poetry” even in his controversial treatises. George Cassander includes a hymn from Prosper Tyro’s works in his collection.
Many of the finest of Ambrosian hymns, which have taken rank among the favorites of Western Christendom, as sharing the noble spirit and the torrent-like power of utterance of the great Bishop of Milan, are credited by the hymnologists to the sixth century—the age of Benedict of Nursia, Caesarius of Arles, Belisarius, and Gregory the Great. We give Mr. Duffield’s translation of two of the finest, regretting that he did not live to translate others which he had marked with that view in his Index:
CHRISTE QUI LUX ET DIES.
Christ who art the light and day,
Drive the shades of night away,
Thou, who art the Light of light,
Make our pathway glad and bright.
Now we pray thee, holy Lord,
Keep us safely by thy word;