Himself his own survivor found!”
The writings of Sedulius are more numerous than might be supposed. Those which have been preserved are nine, two in verse and the rest in prose. The most elaborate is a commentary on the four Gospels, dedicated to the abbot Macedonius and to which he prefixed his Carmen Paschale. He also wrote on the Pauline Epistles, as did his namesake of the ninth century. To Theodosius he addressed a book. He wrote treatises on the books of Priscian and Donatus, the grammarians. He also treated of the miracles of Christ in prose and sent out many “epistles of Sedulius Scotigena.” His poetry is comprised in the Alphabet Hymn; in the Carmen Paschale whence we get nothing for hymnology except the hexameter Salve Sancta Parens enixa (puerpera regem); and in the Elegy, from which comes the Cantemus socii.
The Carmen Paschale is an epic in the Virgilian style. The Elegy is an exhortation to the faithful. But the Alphabet Hymn has enriched the Church with two lyrics, one on the Nativity and one on the Slaughter of the Innocents. By placing the first stanza side by side with the first stanza of the famous Ambrosian hymn, it is easily seen that they are the same.
Ambrosian.
“A solis ortus cardine
Et usque terrae limitem
Christum canamus principem
Natum Mariae virginis.”
Sedulian.
“A solis ortus cardine