a;
how, in the miracle plays, the Christmas story was represented by the
forms and voices of living men.

|29| |30| |31|

Part I--The Christian Feast

CHAPTER II

CHRISTMAS POETRY (I)[8]{1}

Ancient Latin Hymns, their Dogmatic, Theological
Character--Humanizing Influence of Franciscanism--Jacopone da Todi's
Vernacular Verse--German Catholic Poetry--Mediaeval English Carols.

[Illustration:

MADONNA ENTHRONED WITH SAINTS AND ANGELS.

PESELLINO

(_Empoli Gallery_)]

Christmas, as we have seen, had its beginning at the middle of the fourth
century in Rome. The new feast was not long in finding a hymn-writer to
embody in immortal Latin the emotions called forth by the memory of the
Nativity. "Veni, redemptor gentium" is one of the earliest of Latin
hymns--one of the few that have come down to us from the father of Church
song, Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan (d. 397). Great as theologian and
statesman, Ambrose was great also as a poet and systematizer of Church
music. "Veni, redemptor gentium" is above all things stately and severe,
in harmony with the austere character of the zealous foe of the Arian
heretics, the champion of monasticism. It is the theological aspect alone
of Christmas, the redemption of sinful man by the mystery of the
Incarnation and the miracle of the Virgin Birth, that we find in St.
Ambrose's terse and pregnant Latin; there is no feeling for the human
pathos and poetry of the scene at Bethlehem--

"Veni, redemptor gentium,
Ostende partum virginis;
Miretur omne saeculum:
Talis decet partus Deum. |32|
Non ex virili semine,
Sed mystico spiramine,
Verbum Dei factum caro,
Fructusque ventris floruit."[9]{2}

* * * * *

Another fine hymn often heard in English churches is of a slightly later
date. "Corde natus ex Parentis" ("Of the Father's love begotten") is a
cento from a larger hymn by the Spanish poet Prudentius (_c._ 348-413).
Prudentius did not write for liturgical purposes, and it was several
centuries before "Corde natus" was adopted into the cycle of Latin hymns.
Its elaborate rhetoric is very unlike the severity of "Veni, redemptor
gentium," but again the note is purely theological; the Incarnation as a
world-event is its theme. It sings the Birth of Him who is

"Corde natus ex Parentis
Ante mundi exordium,
Alpha et O cognominatus,
Ipse fons et clausula
Omnium quae s