Page:The seven great hymns of the mediaeval church - 1902.djvu/79

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The etablihed verion of the hymn is known as that of Paris. It differs in but one line from that of Rome, which has for the third line of the firt tanza, Crucis expandens vexilla.

There have been tanzas prefixed to the hymn and others added; but, in its great trength, it has haken off all uch purious additions. A marble lab in the Church of St. Francis, at Mantua, bore a copy of the hymn prefaced by five tanzas, which many cholars have thought, from the great age of the church, authentic. But the church is a century younger than the hymn, and thee tanzas condemn themelves:

The inverion of the Scriptural text, the poverty of the rhyme, and the weaknes of the thought, are not faults of the Its author undoubtedly took the quotation from Zephaniah as a text, and placed it at the head