Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 14.djvu/527

 TE DEUM

469

TE DEUM

as "Laudatio Dei" (MS. of eighth cent.), "Laus an- gehca" (twelfth cent.), "Laus angelorum" (twelfth cent.), "Hymnus matutinalis". . ."Hymnus die dominico", "Hymnum dominicale", etc. Other MSS. ascribe the hymn variousl}' to St. Nicetus, Vicetus (obviously a slip of the pen for Nicetus), Nicetius, Nicetes, Neceta (all of these being thought identical with Niceta or N'icetas, Bishop of Reme- siana, q. v.), to St. Hilarius, St. Abundius, St. Sise- butus, St. Ambrose, or St. .Augustine, (d) The im- portance of the occasion to which the legend assigns the composition of the hymn (the baptism Of St. Augustine) and the comparatively late appearance of the ascription to the two saints are additional argu- ments against the tradition. Merati thinks the legend miiy have been based on the words of a spurious ser- mon, given as no. 92 in an edition of the works of St. Ambrose (Paris, ir>i9), "De Augii.-^tini Baptismo": "In quo una vobiscum cum divino instim-tu Hymnum cantavimus de Christi fide". It may be added that the Maurists omitted the Te Deum from their edition of St. Ambrose; that Batiffol ("Hist, du Brev. ro- main", Paris, 1893, p. 98; authorized and corrected tr., London, 1898, p. 110) writes: "No one thinks now of attributing this cento either to St. Ambrose or to St. Augustine"; that Father Burton, in his "Life of St. Augustine, . . . An Historical Study" (Dublin, 3rd ed., 1897) does not even mention the legend about the dual authorship and the bapti.sm of St. Augu.stine; and finally that Portalie (see Augustixe of Hippo) remarks: "The tradition maintaining that the Te Deum w'as sung on that occasion by the bishop and the neophrte alternately is groundless".

The other names mentioned above not being fa- voured by scholars, the question of authorship re- mained open. In 1894 Dom Morin put forward Nicetas of Remesiana for the honotir of authorship. His suggestion has been adopted by Zahn, Katten- busch, Kirsch (in Germany); Frere, Burn (in Eng- land), while the Anglican Bishop of Salisbury con- siders Morin's conjecture "very plausible"; and in France, by Batiffol. The reasons for this view are:

(1) Ten ^ISS. (the earliest of the tenth century), mostly of Irish origin, name Nicetas (with variant epeUings and identifications, however) ; and Ireland, remote from the continent of Europe, could easily keep until the tenth century a tradition of the fifth.

(2) The probable date of composition of the hjTnn corresponiLs with that of the literary activity of Nicetas. (3) .St. Paulinus of Nola praises (Carmina, x\'ii, xxvii) the poetic and hjinnodal gifts of hia friend Nicetas. (1) Gennadius speaks of the neat and simple style of his prose, and Cassiodorus com- mends his conciseness. These critical appreciations are thought appUcable to the style of the Te Deum, which depends for its effect mostly on the nobility of the theme anrl the simplicity and directness of the expression. (.5) The authorship of the treatises "De psalinodi;e bono" and "De vigiliis servorum Dei" was formerly ascribed to Nicet.as of Trier, but is now attributed with greatest probability to Nicetas of Remesiana. Their "internal evidence . . . proves that Nicetas felt the need of such a hymn as the Te Deum, and, so to speak, lived in the same sphere of rehgious thought" (Bum, cii), while parallel passages from his writings (given by Bum, ciii-civ), although offering no direct quotation, cjdiibit similarity of thought and diction.

The authorship of St. Nicetas is questioned by some scholars (Cagin, P. Wagner, Agaesse, Koestlin, Blume). .\mong the passagfjs cited to indicate a much earlier origin perhaps the most notable one is that from the "De mortalitate" '^xxvi) of St. Cj'prian of Carthage, written during the plague in 2.52: "lUic apostolorum gloriosus chorus; illic prophet arum ex- sultantium numerus; ihic martjTum innumerabilia populus ob certaminis et passionis gloriam corona-

tus; triumphantes virgines, quse coneupiscentiam car- nis et corporis continentiie robore subegerunt; re- muncrati misericordes. . ." There is an obvious similarity between this and the verses of the Te Deum: "Te gloriosus apostolorum chorus; te prophet- arum laudabilis numerus; te martyrum candidatus laudat exercitus [verses 7-9]. . . ^Etema fac cum Sanctis tuis gloria munerari [verse 21] ". Perhaps the "remunerati" of St. Cyprian and the "munerari" of the oldest texts of the Te Deum are a mere coinci- dence; but the rest of the similar passages cannot be an accident. Which was the earlier — the Te Deum or the text of St. Cyprian? It is contended that, however well known and highly esteemed the works of the saint, there is little in this particular passage to strike the fancy of a hymn-writer, while it would be a very natural thing for a prose writer to borrow some expressions from such a widely-sung hjinn iis the Te Deum may have been. Moreover, if the hymn waa borrowed from St. Cj-prian, why did it not include the "virgines" insteadof stopping with "martyrum"? Additional argument for a verj' early origin of at least the first ten verses of the hymn is found in com- parisons between these and the texts and melody of the Prefaces, in the structure of the Gloria in excelsis, in the rhythmic and melodic character of the Te Deum, in the Greek translations.

This arch;enlogical argument cannot be stated in- teUigibly in a few words, but some of its bases may be mentioned: (a) If the Te Deum were composed in the latter years of the fourth centurj', it would be a unique exception to the hymnolog>- of that time, which was all fashioned in the regular stro])hic and metric man- ner introduced and [Xtpularized by St. Ambrose. (b) From the point of view of melody, the hjTnn has three divisions: verses 1-13, l-i-20, 21 to the end. The first melody (1-13) is apparently older than the others, (c) From the point of view of rhj'thm, there are also three divisions: verses 14-21 exhibit perfect conformity with the laws of the "cursus", or rhythmic closes, which date from the fourth centurj-, verses 1-10, however, have only five (4, 6 and 8-10) verses closed with the rhythmical cursus, and these five are supposed to be the result of accident; verses 22 to the end belong to a wholly different category, being taken mostly from the Psalms (xxvii, 9; cxliv, 2; cx.xii, 3; xx-xii, 22; xxx, 2). It is argued that, judged by mel- ody and rhythm, the first ten verses form a complete hymn (verses 11-13 having been added subsequently as a doxology) to God the Father, while verses 14-21 form a hynrm (added in the fourth century) to Christ. As noted above, the first ten versos offer (vv. 7-9) the parallelism with the woriLs of St. CjTirian, and are, for the various re:isons outlined, supposed to ante- date the year 2.52. Spectdation ascribes their author- ship to Pope St. Anicetus (d. about A. D. 168).

Three textual points may be noted here. " L'ni- genitum" in v. 12 is considered the original reading ("unicum" having supplanted it perhaps through the influence ol the Apostles' Creed, in which "unigeni- tum" was rare). In v. 21 nearly all MSS. read " mune- rari" {gloria munerari) instead of the present "nu- merari" {in gloria numerari) which Blume has found in a twelfth-century MS., and which perhaps was suggested by the words in the Canon of the Mass: "in electorum tuorum jubeas grege numerari". Verse 16, "Tu ad liberandum suscepturus hominem", etc., offers much opportunity for critical discussion. Most of the old MS."^. favour "suscepisti" (with "liberandum", followed sometimes by "mundum" — Tu ad librrandiim mundum xtiarcpisti hominem): but "suscepturus", contended for by .\bbo of Fleurv,Hinc- mar, and others, and quoted in a letter of CjTirian of Toulon (about .530), was probabh' the original word. The verse does not lend itself readily to translation. A fifteenth-century translation nms: "When thou shouldest take upon Thee mankind for the deliver-