The Divine Office by Edward J. Quigley (cool books to read .txt) 📕

Dom Baudot's The Roman Breviary gives in an appendix, pp. 239-252, "tables showing the date at which each saint was inserted in the Roman Breviary, the rank given to his festival, and the variations it has undergone. It is often difficult to give precise dates."

"Litanies were solemn supplications instituted to implore the blessing of Heaven on the fruits of the earth. It was customary to recite them in the spring, that is, the season of late frosts, so much dreaded by the cultivators of the soil…. The people marched in procession to the spot, chanting the while that dialogue prayer which we call a litany, elaborated, according to circumstances, into a long series of invocations, addressed to God and to angels and saints."

"The day set apart for this purpose at Rome was the 25th April, a traditional date, being that on which the ancient Romans celebrated the festival of the Robigalia….

"The most ancient authority for this ceremony is a formulary for convoking it, found in the Register of St. Gregory the Great, which must have been used in the first instance in the year 598" (Duchesne, Christian Worship, chap, viii., n. 9).

Ember days, a corruption from Latin Quatuor Tempora (four times). "The purpose of their introduction, besides the general one intended by all prayer and fasting, was to thank God for the gifts of nature, to teach men to make use of them in moderation, and to assist the needy. The immediate occasion was the practice of the heathens of Rome. The Romans were originally given to agriculture and their native god belonged to the same class. At the beginning of the time for seeding and harvesting religious ceremonies were performed to implore the help of their deities; in June for a bountiful harvest, in September for a rich vintage, and in December for the seeding…. The Church when converting heathen nations has always tried to sanctify any practice which could be utilised for a good purpose." The fasts were fixed by the Church before the time of Callixtus (217-222). The spread of the observance of Ember days was slow; but they were fixed definitely and the fast prescribed for the whole Church by Gregory VII. (1073-1085). (Cf. Catholic Encyclopedia, word, Ember Days; Duchesne Christian Worship, chap, viii.; Dom Morin Revue Benedictine, L'Origine des Quatre Temps, 1897, pp. 330-347.)

Of all the many and varied branches of Christian art, there is none which offers to the researches of criticism a field so extensive as does the hymnography of the Roman Breviary. No other source of liturgical study, if we except the antiphonarium, has received such attention from studious men. But never, in any age, did this study receive such careful treatment and give rise to such patient and laborious research as in our own. (Pimont, Les hymnes du Breviare Romain, Introduction.)

In this note, an attempt will be made to define a hymn, to tell of the introduction of hymns into the Roman Breviary, and to note briefly the character of these hymns.

St. Augustine, commenting on Psalm 122, defined a hymn as a song with praise of God, cantus est cum laude Dei. It may, however, be more strictly defined as a spiritual song, a religious lyric (v. Cath, Ency., art. "Hymn").

In the early Christian assemblies great use was made of the psalms and canticles in their congregational singing. St. Paul wrote: "Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual canticles, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord" (Ephes. v. 18) "…teaching and admonishing one another in psalms, hymns and spiritual canticles, singing in grace in your hearts to God" (Col. iii. 16). The Jesuit, Father Arevalo, in his Hymodia Hispanica, cites many witnesses, such as Clement of Alexandria, the Apostolic Constitutions, Pliny the younger, to prove that hymns were used in the first and second centuries. But a much-debated question is, whether those hymns were really made part of the Office, as hymns stand there to-day. Some scholars deny that they were; others assert that they were certainly part of the Church's Office. All agree that they were certainly in use formally and substantially in the Office in the third and fourth centuries in the Eastern and in the Western Church. The Council of Antioch (269-270) wrote to the Pope that Paul of Samosate had suppressed some canticles recently composed in honour of Jesus Christ. St. Dionysius of Alexandria composed some hymns, to win over an erring bishop. In the fourth century the Council of Laodicea spoke of the introduction of some hymns, which were not approved; and St. Basil tells us that hymns were in universal use in the Eastern Church.

In the Western Church, St. Hilary of Potiers (370) composed a hymn book for his church. Its existence is known from the words of St. Jerome. St. Augustine states that St. Ambrose (340-397), shut up with his people in the church in Milan by the persecutors, occupied his flock by their singing of hymns which he himself had composed, and some of which are in our Breviaries. The Church of Milan certainly had hymns in its Office and in its Office books then, for St. Paulinus in his life of St. Augustine wrote: "Hoc in tempore, primum antiphonae, hymni ac vigilae in Ecclesia Mediolanensi celebrari coeperunt; cujus celebritatis devotio usque in hodiernam diem, non solum, in Ecclesia Mediolanensi verum per omnes pene Occidentis provincias manet."

But the question arises, when did Rome introduce hymns into her liturgy? The learned Jesuit, Father Arevalo, held that the Roman Office had hymns as an integral part from the time of St. Ambrose, and he called the opinion of those who held that they were of later introduction an inveterate error, errorem inveteratum (Hymnodia Hispanica XVIII., n. 95). The introduction of antiphonal chanting was introduced into Rome at the time of St. Ambrose and liturgical hymn singing, too, was introduced about the same time. This we know from the Milanese priest Paulinus, St. Augustine, Pope Celestine I., and Faustus, Bishop of Riez. But formal, official and systematic hymnody was not introduced in Rome until centuries after the death of St. Ambrose. Mabillon (Suppl. ad IV. lib de div. off. Amalarii, t. 11) and Tomasi (In annot, ad Resp. et antip. Rom. Ecc.) place the date of the introduction of hymns into the Roman liturgy, in the eleventh or twelfth centuries. But scholars now agree that hymns were formally recognised in the liturgy of Rome in the latter half of the ninth century. "To judge of what Amalare of Metz says, there was no sign of it at the beginning of the ninth century, but from the middle of the same century onwards hymns must have been introduced into the Office used by the Churches of the Frankish empire, and shortly afterwards in Rome" (Baudot, op. cit., pp. 67-68). Wilfrid Strabo agrees with Amalare. Rabanus Maurus testifies that hymns were in general usage in the second part of the ninth century. (Migne, Pat. Lat. clx. 159, cxiv. 956). This is the opinion of Gueranger, Pimont, Blume and Baumer.

Dom Gueranger explains why Rome, the mother and mistress of all the churches, did not adopt the practice of hymn chanting in her liturgy for centuries; why she did not precede or quickly follow the Eastern and many parts of the Western Church in this matter of liturgical hymns. "The Church," he says, "did not wish to alter by religious songs the simplicity, or the meaning, of her great liturgical prayer. Nor did she wish to adopt quickly any innovation in her liturgy or discipline" (Inst. Liturg. I. 1, pp. 170-171).

No part of the Church's liturgy has met with such persistent, abusive, and often ignorant criticism as her hymns have received.

The renaissance clerics, the Gallicans, the Jansenists, and the Protestants poured forth volumes of hostile and unmerited criticism on the matter and form of Rome's sacred songs. Becichemus, rector of the Academy of Pavia in the sixteenth century, in his introduction to the work of Ferreri, wrote of the hymns: "sunt omnes fere mendosi, inepti, barbarie refecti, nulla pedum ratione nullo syllabarum mensu compositi…. Ut ad risum eruditos concinent, et ad contemptum ecclesiastici ritus vel literatos sacerdotes inducant…. Literatos dixi: nam ceteri qui sunt sacri patrimonii helluones, sine scientia, sine sapientia, satis habent, ut dracones stare juxta arcam Domini." The remarks of the rector recall the saying of Lactantius, "literati non habent fidem." Ferreri, who had been commissioned by Pope Clement to revise and correct the Breviary hymns, wrote in his dedication epistle: "I have given all my care to this collection of new hymns, because learned priests and friends of good Latinity who are now obliged to praise God in a barbarous style, are exposed to laugh and to despise holy things." Santeuil (1630-1697) characterised the Breviary hymns as the product of ignorance, the disgrace of the Latin language, the disreputable relics of the early ages, the result of lunacy.

Violent attack leads to violent defence. Both are generally born of ignorance, a partizan spirit, and exaggeration. Pious Catholic defenders write that the Roman Breviary has hymns far superior to the classic lyrics of ancient Rome; that they have an inimitable style; that they are far superior to Horatian poetry; that there is nothing to compare with their style and beauty in pagan classics, Indeed, zeal has led some holy men to censure Pope Leo X., Clement VII., and. Urban VIII. for their attempts to correct these compositions, which they hold to have been perfect.

Truth seems to hold the place of the golden mean between the bitter critics and the over zealous defenders of our Breviary hymns. The following propositions, drawn from Father Barnard's Cours De Liturgie Romaine, may be taken as a fair and accurate statement of the views of scholars, views which may be safely held by all students of this portion of liturgy.

First Proposition:—Many of the hymns of the Roman Breviary have not the elegance of the Odes of Horace, of the hymns of Santeuil and of Coffin.

Proof:-(1) The holy Fathers had outlined in a rough sketch rather than perfected their hymns (Pope Urban VIII., Bull Quamvis, 17th June, 1644).

(2) Speaking of the new Hymnal of Ferreri, Pope Clement VIII. says that the new work could only add to the splendour of worship and help to the common interest, implying that the new hymns helped religion by their accuracy and grace of correct poetic forms.

(3) Pimont, the author of a classic work on the Breviary Hymns, in a number of comments, notes the crudities of the Breviary hymns, even in their revised forms. Thus, in the hymn for Prime, he notes apparent ruggedness. He passes similar comments on the hymns assigned to the little hours.

(4) Bacquez states that all the hymns do not join beauty of expression to the merit of the thought expressed, and that a certain number lack style and good prosody.

These opinions should not be extended to all, nor even to very many of the Breviary hymns. All serious critics agree about the beauty of such hymns as the Aeterne rerum Conditor, the Somno refectis artubus, Splendor Aeternae gloriae, Verbum supernum prodiens, and a good number of others.

The greater part of the Breviary Hymns are composed according to the rules of prosody, and their form is lyric, the popular form of Latin song, which preceded in Italy the prosodical system borrowed from the Greeks, and used by the classic pagan poets. The critics of the Renaissance period are very loud and very wrathful over the form of these hymns. Some of them accuse St. Ambrose, Prudentius and Gregory the Great of gross ignorance of the rules of Latin verse and, what to the critics was worse, ignorance of the ways of pagan classical models. But, was the rhymed, tonic accented lyric, which was to be sung by all sorts and conditions of men, in public, such an outrageous literary sin? Was it ignorance or prudence that guided the early hymn writers in their adoption of popular poetic form? It is not certain by any means that the early hymn writers wished to copy or adopt the classic forms of the Augustinian age. Nor is it clear that such men of genius as St. Ambrose, Prudentius, St. Gregory the Great, were ignorant of the rules and models of the best Latin poets. It seems that they did not wish to follow them. They wilfully and designedly adopted the popular lyric forms, so that they might give to their flocks in popular