The Project Gutenberg eBook of Hymni ecclesiae
Title: Hymni ecclesiae
Author: John Henry Newman
Release date: December 23, 2010 [eBook #34733]
Most recently updated: December 31, 2020
Language: English, Latin
Credits: Produced by Steven Giacomelli, Stephen Hutcheson, and the
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HYMNI ECCLESIAE
PARS I
E BREVIARIO PARISIENSI
PARS II
E
BREVIARIIS
ROMANO, SARISBURIENSI, EBORACENSI
ET ALIUNDE
Londini
APUD
ALEXANDRUM MACMILLAN
1865
OXONII
EXCUDEBANT
T. COMBE, A. M., E.
PICKARD HALL, ET H. LATHAM, A. M.
ACADEMIAE TYPOGRAPHI.
HYMNI ECCLESIAE.
PARS I.
E
BREVIARIO PARISIENSI.
PREFACE.
Of the three kinds of poetical composition which, in accordance with the Apostle’s direction, have ever been in use in the Church, “Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs,” two are supplied by inspiration. We have no need, through God’s bounty, to turn our thoughts to the composition of Psalms or Songs; and, to judge from the attempts which have been made, doubtless we are unequal to it. And the unapproachable excellence of the two which have been supplied serves to suggest the difficulties which beset the composition of the third which has not been supplied. Indeed, it is hardly too strong to say that to write Hymns is as much beyond us as to originate Psalmody. The peculiarity of the Psalms is their coming nearer than any other kind of devotion to a converse with the powers of the unseen world. They are longer and freer than Prayers; and, as being so, are less a direct address to the Throne of Grace than a sort of intercourse, first with oneself, then with one’s brethren, then with Saints and Angels, nay, even the world and all creatures. They consist mainly of the praises of God; and the very nature of praise involves a certain abstinence from intimate approaches to Him, and the introduction of other beings into our thoughts, through whom our offering may come round to Him. For as He, and He only, is the direct object of prayer, so it is more becoming not to regard Him as directly addressed in praise, which would imply passing a judgment on Him who is above all scrutiny and all standards. The Seraphim cried one to another, “Holy, Holy, Holy,” veiling their faces, neither looking nor speaking to Him. The Psalms, then, as being praises and thanksgivings, are the language, the ordinary converse, as it may be called, of Saints and Angels in heaven; and, being such, could not be written except by men who had heard the “unspeakable things” which there are uttered. In this light they are more difficult than Prayers. Beggars can express their wants to a prince; they cannot converse like his courtiers.
Much the same remark may be made about the Songs or Canticles of the Church, which are also inspired, and are a kind of Psalms written for particular occasions, chiefly occasions of thanksgiving. Such are the two Songs of Moses, the Song of Hannah, those in Isaiah, the Song of Hezekiah, of Habakkuk, of the Three Children, of Zacharias, of the Blessed Virgin, and of Simeon, most of which are in the Breviary, and the last four are retained in our own Reformed Prayer Book.
Yet though Hymns, as being of a measured length, and restrained metrically, are so far safer to attempt than Psalms or Songs, they have their own peculiar difficulties. They are direct addresses to Almighty God, which ever must be most difficult to the serious mind, whatever be the difficulty of other devotions. This, in the instance of Prayers, has led to the use of Sentences, such as occur in our own Services; which, besides the advantage of extreme brevity, for the most part admit of being taken from Scripture. It has led also to the repetition of the Lord’s Prayer, and of the Kyrie Eleison; and, again, to the use of Collects, which lessen the difficulty of addressing God by subjecting it to fixed rules. Hence our best Family Prayers are what may be called a succession of Sentences strung together, the simple and concise expression of our humiliation, fear, hope, and desire, for ourselves and others. Long Public Prayers, to make a general assertion which of course admits of exceptions, are arrogant and irreverent; hence the Pharisees made them. Hence, too, the unchastised effusions which abound in the present day among those who have left the Church or lost her spirit. The great Eucharistic Prayer is nearly the only long prayer in the Catholic Church; and there is every reason to suppose that in its substance it proceeds from inspired authorities. In our own Service it has been separated by our Reformers into three distinct portions.
Hymns, however, being of the nature of praises, cannot be altogether brought down to that grave and severe character which, as being direct addresses to God, they seem to require; and this is their peculiar difficulty. To praise God specially for Redemption, to contemplate the mysteries of the Divine Nature, to enlarge upon the details of the Economy of Grace and yet not to offend, to invoke with awe, to express affection with a pure heart, to be subdued and sober while we rejoice, and to make professions without display, and all this not under the veil of figurative language, as in the Psalms, but plainly, and (as it were) abruptly, surely requires to have had one’s lips touched with a “coal from the Altar,” to have caught from heaven that “new song” “which no man could learn, but the hundred and forty and four thousand which were redeemed from the earth”—the virgin followers of the Lamb.
Our Church, with the remarkable caution which she displays so often, has not attempted it. She has received the Psalms and Songs from Scripture; and, rejecting the Roman Hymns, has substituted in their stead, not others, but a metrical version of the Psalms. This abstinence has led on the one hand to some of her members on their own responsibility supplying the deficiency, and has incurred the complaint of others, who argued that she ought to have taken on herself what, being right in itself, will certainly be done by private hands, if not by the fitting authority. But, in truth, when it was necessary for her to abandon those she had received, nothing was left to her but to wait till she should receive others, as in the course of ages she had already received, by little and little.
The Roman Hymns, whether good or bad, were the work of no one generation, much less the outpourings of one mind. They were not the contents of one collection, published all new in a day according to the will of man. They were the gradual accumulations of centuries, bearing in old and new upon one treasure-house. When there was a call to reject them, there was nothing to be done but begin again. We could not be young and old at once. It was a stern necessity alone which could compel us to change from what we were; but being changed, so far we were not what we were, and must be what the primitive Church was in these respects, poor and ill-furnished. We began the world again. This is the proper answer to inconsiderate complaints and impatient interference. There have before now been divines who could write a Liturgy in thirty-six hours. Such is not our Church’s way. She is not the empiric to make things to order, and to profess to anticipate the course of nature, which, under grace, as under Providence, is slow. She waits for that majestic course to perfect in its own good time, what she cannot extort from it; for the gradual drifting of precious things upon her shore, now one and now another, out of which she may complete her rosary and enrich her beads,—beads and rosary more pure and true than those which at the command of duty she flung away.
As far as we know, the public Hymns of the early Church were not much more than the following. First, starting from Scripture, she adopted the repetition of the Hallelujah, which is described by St. John, in the Revelations, to be the chant of the blessed inhabitants of heaven. Next may be mentioned the Gloria Patri, pretty much as we now use it. Thirdly, the Trisagion, or “Holy, Holy, Holy,” from Isaiah vi.; or, as it was also used, and now is, in the Roman Church, “Sanctus Deus, Sanctus Fortis, Sanctus Immortalis.” Besides these, there was the Morning or Angelic Hymn, beginning with the words used by the Angels at the nativity; and for the evening the Hymn beginning “Hail gladdening Light,” preserved by St. Basil. These are not metrical, as they were afterwards; nor are two others of a later date, which we still retain, the Te Deum and the Athanasian Creed. They are both of Gallican origin, though the former has been ascribed to St. Ambrose. Others, however, now extant, are certainly his; others are the compositions of St. Hilary, Prudentius, St. Gregory, and later saints. It is not too much to say then that, judging by what we know of the Hymns of the primitive Church, we should not be dissatisfied with the paucity of those which custom has, with a sort of tacit authority, introduced among us in the course of several centuries.
More, doubtless, might be selected from the writings of our sacred Poets; but since, from unhappy circumstances, such a work does not seem likely at the present day, thoughtful minds naturally revert to the discarded collections of the ante-reform era, discarded because of associations with which they were then viewed, and of the interpolations by which they were disfigured; but which, when purified from these, are far more profitable to the Christian than the light and wanton effusions which are their present substitute among us. Nay, even such as the Parisian, which are here first presented to the reader, which have no equal claims to antiquity, breathe an ancient spirit; and even where they are the work of one pen, are the joint and invisible contribution of many ancient minds. Moreover, the ancient language used has a tendency to throw the reader out of every-day thoughts and familiar associations, and to make him fervent without ceasing to be mortified. Many a man could bear to read the Canticles in a foreign language who is unequal to it in his own.
It only remains to say, that the following selection of Hymns, from the Paris Breviary, has been confined to such holy days and seasons as are recognized by our Church, or to special events or things recorded in Scripture; those Hymns, however, being omitted which contained invocations to the Saints of such a nature as to be, even in the largest judgment of charity, not mere apostrophes, but supplications.
J. H. N.
February 21, 1838.
- Hymni Ordinarii 1
- Hymni de Tempore 26
- Commune et Proprium de Festis 105
- Commune Sanctorum 167
- Doxologiae 211
HYMNI.
DOMINICA.
AD OFFICIUM NOCT.
Die dierum principe
Lux e tenebris eruta:
Christus sepulcri carcere,
Lux vera mundi, prodiit.
Et mors et horrendum chaos
Vocem jubentis audiunt:
Nos surdiores, o pudor!
Deo pigebit obsequi?
Umbris sepulta dum stupet
Natura, lucis filii
Surgamus, et noctem piis
Exerceamus canticis.
Legem, Prophetas, et sacro
Psalmos calentes lumine,
Profana dum silent loca,
Divina templa personent.
Coelestis haec vincat tuba
Cordis soporem languidi,
Novique mores exprimant
Vitam resurgentis novam.
Hoc consequemur, te duce,
Fons caritatis, o Deus,
Qui legis addis litterae
Vitae datorem Spiritum.
Sit laus Patri, laus Filio;
Par sit tibi laus, Spiritus,
Afflante quo mentes sacris
Lucent et ardent ignibus.
AD LAUDES.
Ad templa nos rursus vocat
Surgentis aurorae nitor,
Novasque pro laeto monet
Referre grates munere.
At victor auroram suo
Fulgore Christus obruit:
Huic, magna cujus pars sumus,
Juvat triumpho plaudere.
Quod evolutus fasciis
Repente mundus extitit,
Puro renidens lumine,
Virtutis hoc quantae fuit!
Quod traditum neci Pater,
Ut sontibus vitam daret,
Vitae redonat Filium,
Amoris hoc quanti fuit!
Aeternus ut rerum Sator
Aspexit orbem, protinus,
Colore depictum suo,
Probavit excellens opus.
At laetius quanto obtulit
Sese Patri spectaculum
Coelestis Agni candido
Ablutus orbis sanguine!
Cum luce nobis redditur
Mundi renascentis decor,
Occulta per quem Numinis
Mens surgit ad magnalia.
At splendor aeterni Patris,
Lumenque Christus cordium,
Deum dat in se, quantus est,
Sub nube carnis cernere.
Praesta, beata Trinitas,
Ut legis ad facem tuæ
Vitemus omne quod vetas,
Sectemur omne quod jubes.
Per Hebdomadam.
AD PRIMAM.
Jam lucis orto sidere
Deum precemur supplices,
Nostras ut ipse dirigat:
Lux increata, semitas.
Nil lingua, nil peccet manus,
Nil mens inane cogitet:
In ore simplex veritas,
In corde regnet caritas.
Incoepta dum fluet dies,
O Christe, custos pervigil,
Quas saevus hostis obsidet,
Portas tuere sensuum.
Praesta diurnus ut tuae
Subserviat laudi labor?
Auctore quae te coepimus,
Da te favente prosequi.
Superba ne nimis caro
Menti licenter imperet,
Carnis domet superbiam
Potus cibique parcitas.
Deo Patri sit gloria,
Ejusque soli Filio,
Sancto simul cum Spiritu,
Nunc, et per omne seculum.
Per Hebdomadam.
AD TERTIAM.
O fons amoris, Spiritus,
O sancte donorum parens,
Tuas refusus intimis
Accende flammas cordibus.
Qui caritatis vinculo
Cum Patre nectis Filium,
Et nos amoris mutui
Arctis coapta nexibus.
Deo Patri sit gloria,
Ejusque soli Filio,
Sancto simul cum Spiritu,
Nunc, et per omne seculum.
Per Hebdomadam.
AD SEXTAM.
Jam solis excelsum jubar
Toto coruscat lumine;
Sinusque pandens aureos,
Ignita vibrat spicula.
Tu, Christe, qui mundum nova,
Sol verus, accendis face,
Fac nostra plenam caritas
Crescendo surgat ad diem.
Deo Patri sit gloria,
Ejusque soli Filio,
Sancto simul cum Spiritu,
Nunc, et per omne seculum.
Per Hebdomadam.
AD NONAM.
Labente jam solis rota,
Inclinat in noctem dies;
Sic vita supremam cito
Festinat ad metam gradu.
O Christe, dum fixus cruci
Expandis orbi brachia,
Amare da crucem; tuo
Da nos in amplexu mori.
Deo Patri sit gloria,
Ejusque soli Filio,
Sancto simul cum Spiritu,
Nunc, et per omne seculum.
AD VESPERAS.
O Luce qui mortalibus
Lates inaccessa, Deus!
Praesente quo sancti tremunt
Nubuntque vultus Angeli:
Hic, ceu profunda conditi
Demergimur caligine:
Aeternus at noctem suo
Fulgore depellet dies.
Hunc nempe nobis praeparas
Nobis reservas hunc diem,
Quem vix adumbrat splendida
Flammantis astri claritas.
Moraris heu! nimis diu
Moraris, optatus dies:
Ut te fruamur, noxii
Linquenda moles corporis.
His cum soluta vinculis
Mens evolarit, o Deus;
Videre te, laudare te,
Amare te non desinet.
Ad omne nos apta bonum,
Foecunda donis Trinitas;
Fac lucis usurae brevi
Aeterna succedat dies.
Per Hebdomadam.
AD COMPLETORIUM.
Grates, peracto jam die,
Deus, tibi persolvimus,
Pronoque, dum nox incipit,
Prosternimus vultu preces.
Quod longa peccavit dies,
Amarus expiet dolor;
Somno gravatis ne nova
Infligat hostis vulnera.
Infestus usque circuit
Quaerens leo quem devoret:
Umbra sub alarum tuos
Defende filios, Pater.
O quando lucescet tuus
Qui nescit occasum, dies!
O quando sancta se dabit,
Quae nescit hostem, patria.
Deo Patri sit gloria,
Ejusque soli Filio,
Sancto simul cum Spiritu,
Nunc, et per omne seculum.
FERIA II.
AD OFFICIUM NOCT.
Dei canamus gloriam,
Coelum secundo qui die
Expandit, admirabile
Mortalibus spectaculum.
Poli stupemus alveo
Stagnare pensiles lacus:
Hinc imbre terras fertili
Coelestis irrorat Pater.
Quam praeparas nobis, Deus,
Est haec imago gratiae:
Haec rore stillans uberi
Cordis penetrat intima.
Hanc qui fideli combibunt
Aquam salubrem pectore,
In his ad aeternas domos
Miro resultat impetu.
Beata gens, quam prodiga
Ditare non cessas manu!
Amoris haec memor tui,
Amoris et reddat vices.
Deo Patri sit gloria,
Ejusque soli Filio,
Sancto simul cum Spiritu,
In sempiterna secula.
AD LAUDES.
Nil laudibus nostris eges,
Sed filios amas, Pater;
Multaque coelestem prece
Vis provocari gratiam.
Tui profunda consili
Noctis canat silentium:
Tuae jubar clementiae
Splendor diei praedicat.
Tantis minor miraculis
Mens obstupet, vox deficit:
Tacere sed totis nequit
Amor medullis aestuans.
Erumpat ergo: te memor
Clamet parentem, qui mala
Praesentis aevi mitigas,
Spondes futuri praemia.
Huc vota tendunt cordium;
Infirma sed tardat caro:
Quae ducit ad te, da sequi,
Dux ipse Jesu, semitam.
AD VESPERAS.
Jactamur heu quot fluctibus!
Spes una de coelis nitet:
Illuc et ora tollimus,
Et mittimus suspiria.
Tu vota praecurris, Pater,
Magnamque protendis manum:
Jam fulta tanto robore
Surgit potens infirmitas.
Quae saeva nos premunt mala
Vinces, malis potentior:
Te nostra durae sentiet
Mens servitutis vindicem.
Quin vile corpus, Filii
Fulgore donabis tui:
At illa venalis patet
Multo labore gloria.
Felix labor quem recreas
Tam splendida rerum vice!
Fletu quis aeternum brevi
Neget pacisci gaudium?
Sit laus Patri, laus Filio:
Utrumque qui nectis, Deus
Utrique compar, sit tibi
Laus sempiterna, Spiritus.
FERIA III.
AD OFFICIUM NOCT.
Jubes: et, in praeceps aquis
Repente confluentibus,
Prodit sub auras humidis
Exuta velis Arida.
Hanc tu colendam qui tuis,
Pater, dedisti filiis,
Quos orbis unus continet,
Fac una jungat caritas.
Nunc exulamus: sed tuam
Mox congregabis in domum
Te Patre dignos, qui pio
Amore fratres vixerint.
At, qui malignis artibus
Linguisque laedunt proximum,
A te repelles: hoc genus
Coelestis aula non capit.
En ipsa tellus improbos
Dudum laborans sustinet,
Ardetque non suae jugo
Corruptionis eximi.
Adoptionem nos quoque
Efflagitamus integram,
Cui nos sacrato Spiritus
Praedestinavit pignore.
Aeterna laus et gloria
Uni sit et trino Deo,
Diffusa per quem cordibus
Fraterna regnat caritas.
AD LAUDES.
Te principem summo, Deus,
Jubes amore diligi:
Tibi secundum protinus
Jubes amari proximum.
Amore fundatam tuo
Communionem respice,
Qua corpus unum plurimi,
Unum cor, una mens sumus.
Illam fides et veritas
Amabili stipant choro:
Obliquus hinc livor procul
Et litis ardor exulant.
Tu, pacis auctor, mutuos
Astringe nexus: da, Pater,
Gaudere fratrum gaudiis,
Da condolere fletibus.
Aeterna laus et gloria
Uni sit et trino Deo,
Qui moris unius sacra
Nos pacis in domo locat.
AD VESPERAS.
O quam juvat fratres, Deus,
Unum quibus Christus caput
Vitale robur sufficit,
Uno moveri spiritu!
Quam dulce laudes dicere
Una tibi cunctos domo,
Precumque ceu facta manu,
Inferre vim gratam tibi!
Hanc quisque diligat domum;
Hanc pace concors recreet:
Vae dira qui spargit malus
Dissensionum semina.
Sed damna cedunt in lucrum
Te, Christe, diligentibus;
Augent coronas praelia;
Prosuntque, dum nocent, mali.
Vox blanda saevit tristius,
Dum pectus incautum subit,
Lapsuque caeco dulcibus
Laudum venenis inficit.
Praesta, beata Trinitas,
Ut caritate mutua
Prosimus alter alteri,
Regnemus et polo simul.
FERIA IV.
AD OFFICIUM NOCT.
Miramur, o Deus, tuae
Recens opus potentiae,
Quae scripta scintillantibus
Refulget astrorum globis.
Ut sol diei, candida
Sic luna nocti praesidet;
Exercitu totum novo
Discriminant stellae polum.
At ipse, coelorum decus,
Sol novit occasus suos:
Sunt certa lunae tempora,
Statique lapsus siderum.
Jugi rotata turbine
Furantur et reddunt diem:
Tu semper idem, nescius
Mortalium spem fallere.
Turbata quid mens fluctuet?
Cura paterna nos regis:
Aeterna si cordi salus,
Aeterna nos salus manet.
Suprema laus et gloria
Uni sit et trino Deo,
Suo reponi qui jubet
Curas et angores sinu.
AD LAUDES.
Promittis, et servas datam
Immobilis fidem, Deus;
Hanc mane primo sedula
Reposcimus fidem prece.
Promittit atque decipit
Incertus et fallax homo;
Sic quassa, si incumbas super,
Arundo transfiget manum.
Beatus ergo, qui tuo
Se totus abdit in sinu:
Hac arce tutum turbinis
Vis nulla de statu quatit.
Ne cor vacillet, obligas
Temet sacramento, Deus:
Spes nixa tanto pignore,
Aeterna jam prensat bona.
Jam mente praesumens polum,
Secura sublimi throno
Assistit, et coelestium
Praelibat undas fluminum.
Fons o perennis gratiae,
Colenda semper Trinitas,
Te spem salutis unicam
Da mente tota quaerere.
AD VESPERAS.
Horres superbos, nec tuam
Das alteri laudem, Deus:
Humana nil isthinc sibi
Decerpat arrogantia.
Ingrata quippe mens tuae
Fluenta sistit gratiae;
Tristique marcescit statim,
Ceu gramen exustum siti.
Ut servus in manus heri
Intenta figit lumina;
Sic ora sacris montibus
Non dimovemus anxii.
Desideratam si dare
Opem moraris; spes tamen,
Tenacis instar ancorae,
Immota fundat pectora.
Sit summa Patri gloria:
Sit summa Nato, qui dedit
Nobis futurae Spiritum
Hereditatis obsidem.
FERIA V.
AD OFFICIUM NOCT.
Iisdem creati fluctibus
Pisces natant, volant aves:
Utrumque mortali genus
Paratur esca corpori.
Menti sed aeternae cibus
Debetur alter: haec Dei
Sermone vivit; hanc fovet
Coelestis et nutrit fides.
Quaesita Christi sanguine
Manavit in terras fides,
Et impiarum pectora
Victrix subegit gentium.
Fax illa puris cordibus
Monstrare coelos efficax,
Aeterna dignis incitat
Factis mereri praemia.
Sancti leonum, per fidem,
Mulsere rugitus: truces
Fregere regnantum minas;
Risere stridentes rogos.
Hac luce signatum, Deus,
Calcare dona tramitem,
Et caritatis uberes
Fructus eundo carpere.
Deo Patri sit gloria,
Ejusque soli Filio,
Sancto simul cum Spiritu,
Nunc, et per omne seculum.
AD LAUDES.
Dignas quis, O Deus, tibi
Laudes rependat, qui tuo
Pellis tenebras lumine,
Salutis et monstras viam?
Tu, quam jubes, donas fidem;
Haec cultui praeest tuo;
Haec mentis errores fugat;
Haec corda sursum dirigit.
Te destituta spiritu
Nil pompa sacrorum juvat:
Secreta puri blandius
Tibi litabunt pectoris.
Vox inde cordi consona
Vectigal exsolvet suum,
Et ad salutem libero
Prometur ore veritas.
O, qui superbos respuis,
Et simplices amas, Deus,
Ut crescat in nobis fides,
Cordis tumorem comprime.
Sit summa Patri gloria:
Sit summa Nato, qui fidem
Cruore fundavit suo:
Par sit tibi laus, Spiritus.
AD VESPERAS.
O fortis, O clemens Deus,
Salutis auctor, tu fidem
Nostris potenter insere,
Germen salutis, cordibus.
Hinc omne robur ducimus:
Haec arma nobis; hoc manus
Protecta scuto, flammea
Retundet hostis spicula.
Hinc fundimus preces tibi
Sacri sub umbra nominis;
Quo nititur spes omnium
Uno salutis pignore.
Placatus illo nomine,
Labantibus feres opem,
Dabisque, sanctam degener
Ne vita deturpet fidem.
Sit laus Patri, laus Filio:
Par sit tibi laus, Spiritus,
Infusa per quem cordibus
Relucet imis veritas.