Prudentius undoubtedly exhibits the early traces of observances which are peculiar to the Roman Catholic Church. In one of his hymns (the Cultor Dei memento) he advises that the sign of the cross be made upon the forehead and above the heart:
“Frontem locumque cordis
Crucis figura signet.”
But we have not the space, nor is this the proper occasion, to follow him through those matters which belong to the church historian more than to the hymnologist. We must leave him to end his days in undisturbed quiet, a good deal after the manner of Chaucer, as indeed we have already hinted. He is said to have died in the neighborhood of the year 405 in Spain. Our information is largely conjectural and affords us no certainty about his closing years.
That a poet who still dwelt amid the sculptured coldness of the pagan past should have written such hymns, is a proof of what Christianity was then achieving. She had banished from the chilly apartments of literature the ancient focus with its feeble charcoal and its mephitic smoke. Instead of this she had created the cheerful hearth, on which a pure fire of devotion was kindled and whose ascending flame swept off the immoral vapors of the time. Prudentius, in a word, made scholarship and religion companions instead of enemies; and brightened classic prosody by the presence of a living faith.
To Prudentius also more hymns have been ascribed than he ever wrote, but after these have been weeded out, there are left:
Ales diei nuntius, Nox et tenebrae et nubila, Sol ecce surgit igneus, Intende nostris sensibus, O crucifer bone, lucisator, Pastis visceribus, ciboque sumpto, Inventor rutili dux bone luminis, Ades pater supreme, Cultor Dei memento, O Nazarene lux Bethlem verbum Patris, In Ninivitas se coactus percito, Christe servorum regimen tuorum, Da puer plectrum, Corde natus ex parentis, Deus ignee fons animarum, Jam moesta quiesce querela, Quid est quod arctum circulum, Quicumque Christum quaeritis, O sola magnarum urbium, Audit tyrannus anxius, Salvete flores martyrum, Qui ter quaternus denique, Felix terra quae Fructuoso vestiris, Lux ecce surgit aurea, En martyris Laurentii, Beate martyr prospera, Noctis terrae primordia, Obsidionis obvias, Hymnum Mariae Virginis, Germine nobilis Eulalia, Scripta sunt coelo duorum, Innumeros cineres sanctorum.
CHAPTER VII.
ENNODIUS, BISHOP OF PAVIA.
Rambach says, in his Anthology, that none of the hymns of Ennodius have been adopted by the Church. “Nor have I,” adds Daniel, “found in any breviary a verse of Ennodius. Yet,” he continues, “since there are many of them in the collection of Thomasius, which have been taken from the Mozarabic Breviary, it seems to me certain that in some countries they were formerly employed by the Church.” Some corruption has also taken place in the text. And, in short, these hymns have never appeared either devout or original enough to secure the suffrages of the faithful.
The reason for their emptiness is not far to seek. Their author was a man of great celebrity but of little piety. His reputation, too, is that of an ardent ecclesiast, who managed to climb the heights of saintship by working in the interest of the Roman pontiff. He labored to maintain the supremacy of the Pope—upon whom, it is said, on good authority, that he was the first to bestow the world-wide appellation of Papa (Pope)—and to effect the union under this one religious head of both Greek and Roman churches. To this single cause, with its double aspect, Ennodius gave his talents and his zeal. He was so far successful that he gained honor and position for himself, however he was prospered in his other plans.