Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/282

 264 THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE [chaf. were many short and simple, yet doctrinally correct, devotional hymns, unlike any Greek compositions. Latin poetry has also lengthy compositions of a partly narrative and partly lyric character, presenting a gen- eral correspondence to the Greek hymns. But they were simpler in structure, and may be compared with the mediaeval and modern ballad and elegy of which they were the forerunners. Latin poetry contained also long didactic or apologetic or polemic poems, as well as long poetical paraphrases of the Gospel story or of parts of the Old Testament. The service of song and chant in Latin churches, as in the Greek, originated in Biblical phrases and translations. Some of the early Latin chants, how- ever, like the Gloria in excelsis, may have been taken from Greek Church adaptations,^ and not directly from the Scripture. There also existed in the fourth century translations of poetical passages from the Old Testament, into eleven-syllable phalaecian verse.^ Aside from these early adaptations, Latin hymn writ- ing begins apparently with St. Hilary of Poictiers, though the authenticity of the hymns attributed to him is not beyond dispute.^ With St. Ambrose, we "Anfang, etc., der lat. und griech. rhythmischen Dichtung," Abhand. Bayer. Akad. Philos.-Philol. Classe, Bd. XVII (1886), p. 357 et seq. ; Bouvy, Poetes et Mdodes, pp. 376-378 ; Christ, Anthol. Gr. Car. Chr., p. xxv; Krumbacher, Gesch. byzantin. Lit., p. 682 (2d ed., 1897). 1 I.e. from the u^vo? ayyekiKOi of the Greek liturgy. 2 E.g., of Ex. XV., Num. xxi., Deut. xxxiii., to be found in Pitra's Spicilegium Solesmensi, I, pp. 187, 243, 253. etc., Vol. I (2d ed.), pp. 142 note, and 172-173; St. Hilary of Poic- tiers, in the Library of Nicene Fathers, 2d series, Vol. IX, Intro-
 * Cf . U. Chevalier, Po^sie Liturgique, pp. 56-66; Ebert, Ges.,