Mediaeval Hymns and Sequences/Jucundare, plebs fidelis

by Adam of Saint Victor, translated by John Mason Neale

Jucundare, plebs fidelis.

We now come to Adam of S. Victor, the greatest of mediæval poets. He was born in Britannia: whether Major Britannia, (our island,) or Minor, (Bretagne,) cannot now be known. Of course an Englishman sees, in his celebration of S. Thomas of Canterbury, an argument for that which he wishes to believe.

The school of the Abbey of S. Victor at Paris, produced three of the greatest men of that marvellous twelfth century, Hugh, Adam, Richard.

Hi tres canonici, licet absint canonizati,
Mente piâ dici possunt tamen esse beati.

So says William of S. Lo.

It was probably in the year 1192 that Adam went, though not canonized, to the glory of the Saints.

Till within the last few years his Sequences were believed to be in number 37 or 38. M. Gautier, who, in 1858, published an edition of the whole poetical works of this marvellous poet, has given us more than a hundred; some^[1] of them published for the first time.

Nothing can be more striking, nothing can be more true, than Dean Trench's estimate of Adam: if it have a fault, I think that it hardly does this wonderful poet justice.

"His profound acquaintance with the whole circle of the theology of his time, and eminently with its exposition of Scripture,—the abundant and admirable use which he makes of it, delivering as he thus does his poems from the merely subjective cast of those, beautiful as they are, of S. Bernard,—the exquisite art and variety with which for the most part his verse is managed and his rhymes disposed—their rich melody multiplying and ever deepening at the close—the strength which often he concentrates into a single line—his skill in conducting a narration—and most of all, the evident nearness of the things which he celebrates to his own heart of hearts—all these, and other excellencies, render him, as far as my judgment goes, the foremost among the sacred Latin poets of the middle ages."

Children of a Heavenly Father,
Faithful people, joy, the rather
That the Prophet's lore ye gather,
From Ezekiel's Vision draw:
John that Prophet's witness sharing,
In the Apocalypse declaring,
"This I write, true record bearing
Of the things I truly saw."

Round the Throne, 'midst Angel natures^[2]
Stand four holy Living Creatures,
Whose diversity of features
Maketh good the Seer's plan:
This an Eagle's visage knoweth:
That a Lion's image showeth:
Scripture on the rest bestoweth
The twain forms of Ox and Man.

These are they, the symbols mystic
Of the forms Evangelistic,
Who the Church, with streams majestic,
Irrigate from sea to sea:
Matthew first, and Mark the second:
Luke with these is rightly reckoned:
And the loved Apostle, beckoned
From his nets and Zebedee.

Matthew's form the man supplieth,
For that thus he testifieth
Of the Lord, that none denieth
Him to spring from man He made;
Luke the ox, in form propitial,
As a creature sacrificial,
For that he the rites judicial
Of Mosaic law displayed.

Mark the wilds as lion shaketh,
And the desert hearing quaketh,
Preparation while he maketh
That the heart with God be right:
John, love's double^[3] wing devising,
Earth on eagle plumes despising,
To his God and Lord uprising
Soars away in purer light.

Symbols quadriform uniting
They of Christ are thus inditing;
Quadriform His acts, which writing
They produce before our eyes:
Man,—Whose birth man's law obeyeth:
Ox,—Whom victim's passion slayeth:
Lion,—when on death He preyeth:
Eagle,—soaring to the skies.

These the creature forms etherial
Bound the Majesty imperial
Seen by prophets; but material
Difference 'twixt the visions springs:
Wheels are rolling,—wings are flying,—^[4]
Scripture lore this signifying;—
Step with step, as wheels, complying,
Contemplation by the wings.

Paradise is satiated,^[5]
Blossoms, thrives, is fœcundated,
With the waters irrigated
From these rills that aye proceed:
Christ the fountain, they the river,
Christ the source, and they the giver
Of the streams that they deliver
To supply His people's need.

In these streams our souls bedewing,
That more fully we ensuing
Thirst of goodness and renewing,
Thirst more fully may allay:
We their holy doctrine follow
From the gulf that gapes to swallow,
And from pleasures vain and hollow
To the joys of heavenly Day.

 

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1. Some—but not so many as the editor thinks. For the sake of English hymnology, I am bound to claim the previous publication, either in the Hymni et Sequentiæ Medii Ævi, or in the Sequentiæ Ineditæ of the Ecclesiologist, of the following, of each of which M. Gautier simply says, Cette prose est inédite.

   Vol. I. p. 68.	Salve, dies dierum gloria.
   74.	Sextâ passus feria.
   101.	Postquam hostem et inferna.
   168.	Rex Salomon fecit templum.
   Vol. II. 105.	Lætabundi jubilemus.
   297.	Per unius casum grani.

   It was, of course, by the most pardonable fault, a fault rendered sometimes almost unavoidable through the international difficulties of obtaining books, that the Editor made the mistake which I have now pointed out.

2. The Evangelistic Symbols offered, as might be expected, a favourite theme to mediæval poets. Adam of S. Victor has himself another sequence on the same subject. It is no part of my design to dwell on the different adaptations of these symbols; how the lion is given to S. John, and S. Luke, and S. Matthew: the man and the eagle to S. Mark, &c. I quote some of the verses of the Christian poets on the subject.

   Juvencus,—if the lines are indeed his,—

   Matthew of virtue's path is wont to tell,
   And gives the just man laws for living well.
   Mark loves to hover twixt the earth and sky
   In vehement flight, as eagle from on high.
   The Lord's Blest Passion Luke more fully writes,
   And, named the ox, of priestly deeds indites.
   John, as a lion, furious for the strife,
   Thunders the mysteries of Eternal Life.

   S. Mark's flying between the earth and sky is explained by the gloss thus;—that he neither describes the temporal nativity of our Lord,—represented by earth,—nor His eternal generation, symbolized by heaven—but, so to speak, avoids both.

   Sedulius, a hundred years later, after speaking of our Lord's true manhood, says:

   This Matthew writes, and thence the human face:
   Mark roars a lion in a desert place;
   While priestly Luke the ox for symbol names,
   And John, who towers to heaven, the eagle claims.

   Later poets carried out, as we shall see that Adam does,—the symbolism still further, and made the Lord to be in Himself all that His servants were separately. Thus a mediæval epigram:

   Luke is the ox,—Mark lion, eagle John,—
   Matthew the man: but God is all in one.
   The Man in birth, the Ox in death, to rise
   The Lion,—and the Eagle seek the skies.

   Hildebert of Mans, after going through these symbols, adduces another:

   The fountain yet distils: increase thy store:
   Each righteous man contains these symbols four.
   For human sense he claims the human face:
   The ox in self-denial finds a place:
   Lion is he, as conqueror in hard straits:
   Eagle, for oft he seeks the heavenly gates.

3. That is, of love to God, and love to his neighbour.
4. The poet compares the visions of Ezekiel and S. John. The wheels of the Prophet, which roll along the earth, signify the account given by the Evangelists of the earthly Life of our Lord: the wings of the Apostles set forth their knowledge of His Eternal Deity. And again: as four wheels must necessarily keep time together, so there is the most perfect concord between the narrations of the Evangelists.
5. The river that was parted, and became into four heads, is explained of Christ, the various acts of Whose life on earth are divided between the four Evangelists. Mediæval symbolism represents S. Matthew by Gihon, S. Mark by Tigris, S. Luke by Euphrates, and S. John by Pison.