BYZANTINE
121
BYZANTINE
and the last part of the "History of Joseph", the
"Psalm on the Apostles", and the "Birth of .lesus".
Other pieces, like the hymn on the Last .Imminent,
are purely descriptive in character, though even in
them the rhetorical and dogmatic elements seriously
impair the artistic effect.
With regard to an aesthetic judgment of Romanos, it does not seem that the last, word has been said. Some, like Bouvy and Krumbacher, place him among the greatest hymn-writers of all times; others, like Cardinal Pitra, are more conservative. For a final judgment a complete edition of the hymns is needed. Even now, however, it is certain that Komanos is not to be placed on the same level with the great Latin church poets like Ambrose ami Prudentius. Two faults are especially obvious: his abundant use of rhetorical devices and his loudness for digressions into dogmatic theology. In both respects he is es- sentially Byzantine. He is fond of symbolic pictures and figures of speech, antitheses, assonances, es- pecially witty iiiix d'esprtt, which tire in strange contrast with his characteristic simplicity of diction and construction, and by their graceless embellish- ments destroy the smooth flow of his lines. Not only the form but also the sequence of thought in his hymns is often beclouded by the dragging in of dog- matic questions, e. g. in tin' celebrated Christmas hymn the question of the miraculous birth of Jesus is dis- cussed no less than four times, and that too with a comfortable amplitude which betrays the theologian and for the time thrusts the poet completely aside. The theologian is also too evident in his allusions to the Old Testament when dealing with New Testa- ment incidents; Mary at the birth of Jesus compares her destiny to that of Sarah, the Magi liken the star which guided them to the pillar of fire which went before the Israelites in the wilderness, and so on. The frequent citation of passages from the prophets also greatly weakens the poetic impression as well as the effect of the religious fervour of the poet, many passages seeming more like unimpassioned para- phrases than like inspired poetry. In fact Komanos does not control the abundant and highly-coloured imagery of the earliest Greek church poets, nor their fine grasp of nature. The reader also gathers the impression that the height of the poet's imagination is not in proportion with the depth of his piety; on the contrary, there often appears in him something naive, almost homely, as when Mary expresses her pleasure in the gifts of the Magi and calls attention to their utility for the impending Flight into Egypt. There are passages, however, in which devout fer- vour carries the imagination along with it and ele- vates the poetical tone, as in the jubilant invitation
to the dance (in the Easter-song), in which thoughts of spring and of the Resurrection arc harmoniously blended:
Why thus faint-hearted?
Why veil ye your faces?
Lift up your hearts!
Christ is arisen!
Join in the dances,
And w ilh US proclaim it:
The Lord is ascended,
( Steaming and glorified,
He who was born
Of the giver of light.
I lease then your mourning,
Rejoice in blessedness:
Springtime has come. So bloom now , ye lilies, Bloom and l«- fruitful!
Naught bringetb destruction.
' 'lap v ur hands
And shout : Risen is He Who helpeth the fallen ones To rise again.
Ecclesiastical poetry, like ecclcsiastico-historical
literature, did not long remain on the high level to
which Romanos had raised it. The "Hymnus Aca-
thistus" (of unknown authorship) of the seventh
century, a sort of Te Peum in praise of the Mother of
God, is the last, great monument of Greek church
poetry, comparable to the hymns of Romanos, which
it has even outlived in fame. It has had numerous
imitators and as late as the seventeenth century was
translated into Latin
As early as the seventh century, the period of Andrew of Crete, begins the rapid decline of Greek hymnology. The delicate flower of religious senti- ment was overgrown and choked by a classical for- malism which stifled all vitality, as had happened in tin' ease of contemporary secular poetry. The over- valuation of technique in details destroyed the sense of proportion in the whole. This seems to be the only explanation for the monstrosities called canones first found in the collection of Andrew of Crete. A cation is a combination of a number of hymns or chants (generally nine) of three or four strophes each. The "Great Canon" of Andrew actually numbers 250 strophes. Such length could only result in poverty of thought, as a "single idea is spun out into serpen- tine arabesques".
Pseudo-classical artificiality found an even more ad- vanced representative in John of Damascus, in the opinion of the Byzantines the foremost writer of canones, who took as a model Gregory of Nazianzus, even reintroducing the principle of quantity into ecclesiastical poetry. If it be true that the sublimity of religious poetry is in this way reduced to mere trifling, this is, strictly speaking, the case here. For in the eleventh century, which witnessed the decline of (inek hymnology and the revival of pagan hu- manism, are found for the first time the parodies of church hymns, afterwards so popular. Their au- thor was none other than Michael Psellus. Didactic poems took this form without being regarded as blasphemous. Another evidence of the few religious needs of the Byzantines is the absence of any re- ligious drama such as developed among the people of the West during the Middle Ages. The only example, the "Suffering of Christ" (Christus Patiens), written in the eleventh or twelfth century, and even now frequently valued too highly in theological circles, can hardly be called a religious drama; it is the off- spring of a pagan, rather than a Christian, spirit; of its 2,640 verses, about one-third are borrowed from ancient dramas, chiefly from those of Euripi- des, and Mars', the chief character, sometimes re- cites verses from the "Medea" of Euripides, again from the "Electra" of Sophocles, or the "Prome- theus of .Eschylus. In her action, also, Mary im- presses the reader as but feebly Christian. The com- position is evidently a poor production of a theologian trained in the classics, but without the slightest idea of dramatic art. It is made up chiefly of lamenta- tions and reports of messengers. Even the most ef- fective scenes, those which precede the Crucifixion, are described by messengers; almost two-thirds of the text are given to the descent from the Cross, tin- lament of Man - , and the apparition of Christ. (Cf. Van Cleef, "The Pseudo-Gregorian Drama Xpwrbs -rr&crxwv in its relation to the text of Euripides" in "Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences", VIII, 363-37S; Krumbacher, .'{12.)
Between ecclesiastical poetry and ecclesiastical prose stands the theologico-didactic poem, a fa- vourite species of ancient Christian literature. One of its best examples is the "Hexaemeron" of Georgius Pisides, a spirited hymn on the universe and its mar- vels, i. e. all living creatures. Taken as a whole, it is somewhat conventional; only in the description of the minor forms of life, especially of the animals, are
