Page:The seven great hymns of the mediaeval church - 1902.djvu/25

 The Mater Specioa is not one of the Seven Great Hymns. It has been inerted here becaue it is cloely aociated with the other poem and in ome degree an expoition of it. Like the Stabat Mater, it has generally been acribed to Jacobus de Benedictus, and I have left his name as the reputed author. My own opinion, however, is that it was neither written by him nor before the Stabat Mater. Thee concluions ret on what we know of Jacobus and on the internal evidence of the two poems. 1. One of them is undiputably econdary—a companion-piece to the other. 2. The Stabat Mater is founded on the criptural basis of the text in John, "there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother," as the Dies Iræ is founded on the scriptural basis of the terrible text in Joel. This fact alone is uficient to be termed concluive; i. e., the poem prings from that text and not from another poem. Converely, the Mater Specioa prings from the other poem and not from a criptural image. The picture in John was the germ of both poems. 3. The Stabat Mater is the poem of the great tragedy of the world; the Mater Specioa runs upon