Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/283

 rx] EARLY LATIN CHRISTIAN POETRY 266 are on firmer ground, as he wrote at least four of the hymns attributed to him.^ These noble and dogmatically careful hymns have an antique clarity of phrase; they probably reflect the exigencies under which they were composed, to hearten the souls of the orthodox and keep them in the true faith, under the perils of Arian conflicts. They were written to be sung by the congregation, and have continued in liturgical use. The metre is iambic dimeter, one of the simplest of the antique, and is correct throughout.* Each hymn consists of thirty-two lines divided into four-line strophes. Between the time of Ambrose and the tenth cen- tury, compositions in this most widely used hymn- form gradually changed from quantity to accent, and became rhymed. They afford a complete illustration duction, pp. xlvi et seq. The hymns contained in the manuscript discovered by Gamurrini at Arezzo in 1884 (S. Hilarii Tractatus de Mysteriis et Uymni, Rome, 1887), which some think to have been written by Hilary, were doctrinally correct and polemically pointed against the Arians. They are not metrical (see G^veert, La Milopie antique, etc., p. 64), and may be compared with Augustine's hymn, Contra Donatistos. This was alphabetical (as was the hymn attributed with greatest probability to Hilary) like an alphabetical psalm. It was written for the people, and is accentual and nut in metre, each line ending in e and each strophe opening with the same refrain. Text in Du Meril, Poesies Popxdairea Latines, I, p. 120. Neither this hymn, nor the one attributed to Hilary, has poetic merits. 1 To wit : Veni redemptor gentium, Aeterne rerum conditor^ Jam surgit hora tertia, and Deus Creator omnium. adopted the current melodies of Greek and Roman lyric song, and gradually modified or transformed them. On this subject, see G^Tsrt, Le* Origines, etc, pp. 2^-33, and ib., La M4lop4% antique.
 * As these ancient Latin hymns followed classic metre, they also