mother Church, to-day, The clemency of Christ, thy Lord." It found its way into the York Breviary. GODESCALCUS (GOTTSCHALK, d. about 950, not to be confounded with his predestinarian namesake, who lived in the ninth century), is next to Notker, the best writer of sequences or proses, as "Laus Tibi, Christe" ("Praise be to Thee, O Christ)," and Coeli enarrant ("The heavens declare the glory"), both translated by Neale. FULBERT OF CHARTRES (died about 1029) wrote a paschal hymn adopted in several Breviaries: "Chorus nova Jerusalem" ("Ye choirs of New Jerusalem "), translated by Neale. A few of the choicest hymns of our period, from the sixth to the twelfth century are anonymous. To these belong : 66 Hymnum dicat turba fratrum." A morning hymn mentioned by Bede as a fine specimen of the trochaic tetrameter. "Sancti venite." A communion hymn. "Urbs beata Jerusalem." It is from the eighth century, and one of those touching New Jerusalem hymns which take their inspiration from the last chapter of St. John's Apocalypse, and express the Christian's home-sickness after heaven. The following is the first stanza (with Neale's translation): "Urbs beata Jerusalem, Et angelis coronata Ut sponsata comite." "Blessed City, Heavenly Salem, Vision dear of Peace and Love, "Apparebit repentina." An alphabetic and acrostic poem on the Day of Judgment, based on Matt. 25: 31-36; from the seventh century; first mentioned by Bede, then long lost sight of; the forerunner of the Dies Ira, more narrative than lyrical, 1 See Daniel, Hymni adespotoi circa sec. VI-IX. conscripti, I. 191 sqq. Mone gives a larger number. 2 In the Roman Breviary: "Cœlestis urbs Jerusalem." Neale thinks that the changes in the revised Breviary of Urban VIII. have deprived "this grand hymn of half of its beauty." less sublime and terrific, but equally solemn. The following are the first lines in Neale's admirable translation:1 "That great Day of wrath and terror, Shall convoke the quick and dead: And the moon be red as blood, At the Judge's feet shall go: Earth and sea, and all abysses Shall His mighty sentence know." "Ave, Maris Stella." This is the favorite medieval Mary hymn, and perhaps the very best of the large number devoted to the worship of the "Queen of heaven," which entered so deeply into the piety and devotion of the Catholic church both in the East and the West. It is therefore given here in full with the version of Edward Caswall.2 1 See the original in Daniel, I. 194. Other English translations by Mrs. Charles, and E. C. Benedict. In German by Königsfeld: “Plötzlich wird der Tag erscheinen." 2 Daniel (I. 204) says of this hymn: "Hic hymnus Marianus, quem ecclesia Catholica semper ingenti cum favore prosecuta est, in omnibus breviarriis, quae inspiciendi unquam mihi occasio data est, ad honorem beatissimæ virginis cantandus præscribitur, inprimis in Annunciatione; apud permultos tamen aliis quoque diebus Festis Marianis adscriptus est. Quæ hymni reverentia ad recentiora usque tempora permansit." It is one of the few hymns which Urban VIII. did not alter in his revision of the Breviary. Mone (II. 216, 218, 220, 228) gives four variations of Ave Maris Stella, which is used as the text. "Ave, Maris Stella,1 Dei Mater alma Sumens illud Ave Solve vincla reis Monstra te esse matrem,3 per te precem, Virgo singularis, Vitam præsta puram Sit laus Deo Patri, Honor trinus et unus. "Hail, thou Star-of-Ocean, Portal of the sky, Of the Lord Most High! Oh, by Gabriel's Ave Show thyself a mother," Chaste and gentle make us. Help our weak endeavor, One same glory be. 1 This designation of Mary is supposed to be meant for a translation of the name; maria being taken for the plural of mare: see Gen. I: 10 (Vulgate) "congregationes aquarum appellavit maria. Et vidit Deus, quod esset bonum." (See the note in Daniel, I. 205). Surely a most extraordinary exposition, not to say imposition, yet not too far-fetched for the middle ages, when Greek and Hebrew were unknown, when the Scriptures were supposed to have four senses, and allegorical and mystical fancies took the place of grammatical and historical exegesis. 2 The comparison of Mary with Eve-the mother of obedience contrasted with the mother of disobedience, the first Eve bringing in guilt and ruin, the second, redemption and bliss-is as old as Irenæus (about 180) and is the fruitful germ of Mariolatry. The mystical change of Eva and Ave is mediæval-a sort of pious conundrum. The words of our Lord to John: "Behold thy mother" (John 19: 27), were supposed to be spoken to all Christians. The Latin hymnody was only for priests and monks, and those few who understood the Latin language. The people listened to it as they do to the mass, and responded with the Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, which passed from the Greek church into the Western litanies. As the modern languages of Europe developed themselves out of the Latin, and out of the Teutonic, a popular poetry arose during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and afterwards received a powerful impulse from the Reformation. Since that time the Protestant churches, especially in Germany and England, have produced the richest hymnody, which speaks to the heart of the people in their own familiar tongue, and is, next to the Psalter, the chief feeder of public and private devotion. In this body of evangelical hymns the choicest Greek and Latin hymns in various translations, reproductions, and transformations occupy an honored place and serve as connecting links between past and modern times in the worship of the same God and Saviour. $97. The Seven Sacraments. Medieval Christianity was intensely sacramental, sacerdotal and hierarchical. The ideas of priest, sacrifice, and altar are closely connected. The sacraments were regarded as the channels of all grace and the chief food of the soul. They accompanied human life from the cradle to the grave. The child was saluted into this world by the sacrament of baptism; the old man was provided with the viaticum on his journey to the other world. The chief sacraments were baptism and the eucharist. Baptism was regarded as the sacrament of the new birth which opens the door to the kingdom of heaven; the eucharist as the sacrament of sanctification which maintains and nourishes the new life. Beyond these two sacraments several other rites were dignified with that name, but there was no agreement as to the number before the scholastic period. The Latin sacramentum, like the Greek mystery (of which it is the translation in the Vulgate), was long used in a loose and indefinite way for sacred and mysterious doctrines and rites. Rabanus Maurus and Paschasius Radbertus count four sacraments, Dionysius Areopagita, six; Damiani, as many as twelve. By the authority chiefly of Peter the Lombard and Thomas Aquinas the sacred number seven was at last determined upon, and justified by various analogies with the number of virtues, and the number of sins, and the necessities of human life.1 But seven sacraments existed as sacred rites long before the church was agreed on the number. We find them with only slight variations independently among the Greeks under the name of "mysteries" as well as among the Latins. They are, besides baptism and the eucharist (which is a sacrifice as well as a sacrament): confirmation, penance (confession and absolution), marriage, ordination, and extreme unction. Confirmation was closely connected with baptism as a sort of supplement. It assumed a more independent character in the case of baptized infants and took place later. It may be performed in the Greek church by any priest, in the Latin only by the bishop.2 Penance was deemed necessary for sins after baptism.3 Ordination is the sacrament of the hierarchy and indispensable for the government of the church. 1 Otto, bishop of Bamberg (between 1139 and 1189), is usually reported to have introduced the seven sacraments among the Pomeranians whom he had converted to Christianity, but the discourse on which this tradition rests is of doubtful genuineness. The scholastic number seven was confirmed by the Council of Florence (the Greek delegates assenting), and by the Council of Trent which anathematizes all who teach more or less, Sess. VII. can. I. The Protestant churches admit only two sacraments, baptism and the Lord's Supper, because these alone are especially commanded by Christ to be observed. Yet ordination and marriage, and in some churches confirmation also, are retained as solemn religious ceremonies. 2 The Lutheran church retains confirmation by the minister, the Anglican church by the bishop. 3 See above, 87, p. 381 sqq. |