POPE DAMASUS AND THE BEGINNING OF RHYME.
Contemporary with Hilary of Poitiers, but probably a younger man, as he
survived him by seventeen years, was Damasus of Rome. Like many other
Romans of the imperial period, he was a Spaniard by birth; or, at least,
he was the son of a Spaniard who had removed to Rome and had become a
deacon or presbyter of the church dedicated to the memory of the Roman
martyr, St. Lawrence. Of his own earlier life we know very little. An
extant epitaph records the fact that he had a sister who became a nun
and died in her twentieth year. He himself served in the Church of St.
Lawrence until his sixtieth year, when he was chosen Bishop of Rome; and
in the accepted catalogue, which begins with the Apostle Peter, he ranks
as the thirty-sixth bishop of the see.
He was chosen bishop in A.D. 366, because of the position he had taken
with reference to the controversy which then agitated the diocese, and
because of the firmness and weight of character he had displayed in the
troubles of the years before his election. The great Christological
controversy was agitating the Church of both East and West. The West was
substantially in agreement with Athanasius, against both the Arians and
the semi-Arians, and would have been entirely so but for the influence
exerted by semi-Arian or Arian emperors and the courtly bishops of their
party. Constantius, the last surviving son of Constantine the Great, was
exceedingly zealous for the semi-Arian doctrine, which rejected the
statement of our Lord’s substantial identity with His Father, but was
willing to assert His substantial likeness. It was only the difference
of an iota in a Greek word—ὁµοουσιος or ὁµοιουσιος—but if there ever was
a case in which neither jot nor tittle must be allowed to pass away, it
was this.
Liberius, who was elected Bishop of Rome in 352, was the victim of
Constantius’s policy. In 353 the East and West were united under his
rule, and that year at Arles, as in 355 at Milan, councils were called,
in which the condemnation of Athanasius was procured by imperial
blandishments. In the former the presbyter sent by Liberius to represent
the Roman see subscribed with the majority. But in the second his three
representatives obeyed their instructions, and accepted disfavor and
exile rather than subscribe. Then Liberius himself was summoned to
Milan, and the weight of imperial threats and persuasions was brought to
bear upon him. He withstood both manfully, and demanded as a preliminary
to any discussion of the charges against Athanasius, that the Nicene
Creed should be subscribed by all parties, and the banished bishops
returned to their sees. When given his choice between submission and
exile, he chose the latter.
The Emperor now sought among the Roman clergy for a man to put into
Liberius’s place. In Rome, as in most of the cities of the West, Arians
were not to be found. But in the Deacon Felix the court party obtained a
candidate who, while himself a Trinitarian, was willing to hold
communion with the Arians, and presumably to condemn Athanasius. Of the
details of his election and ordination little is known, but we find him
installed in the Roman see with the vigorous support of the civil
authority, although not with the assent of the Roman people. The great
body of the Christians in Rome are said to have refused communion with
him because he was tainted by communion with heretics; and when
Constantius came to visit the city, he was besieged by the Christian
ladies of the city with appeals for the restoration of Liberius.
In the mean time three years of exile to Thrace, where he was thrown of
set purpose into constant association with bishops of the semi-Arian
party, and isolated from his friends, had broken the spirit of Liberius.
He was not a man of strong character, and, unfortunately for the theory
of papal infallibility, he yielded. He signed a creed compiled for the
occasion, which described Christ as of _like_ substance with the Father,
and condemned Athanasius.[1] He then was allowed to return to Rome,
although Felix II. was still the recognized bishop. Constantius seems to
have foreseen the difficulties which would attend the presence of the
two bishops in the city, and he consented to the return of Liberius
unwillingly. The body of the people and of the clergy at once rallied
around Liberius, and rejected Felix altogether; and of this party was
Damasus. But while they were willing to condone his weakness in the
matter of condemning Athanasius, there was a party of more determined
Athanasians who refused to do so, and the diocese now was divided
between the three factions. That of Felix disappeared with his own death
in 360 and the death of Constantius in 361. But the extreme Athanasians,
although they did not attempt to set up a rival bishop while Liberius
lived, perpetuated their party, and they probably received aid and
comfort from a similar party which had arisen in the East, in opposition
to the wiser and more charitable policy of Athanasius himself. This
party was called the Luciferians, from Lucifer, Bishop of Cagliari, in
Sardinia, who was in exile in the East at the time when this question
was raised there after the death of Constantius.
In 367 Liberius died, and the schism at once showed itself in Rome.
Damasus was chosen and ordained bishop in the regular form by the
friends of Liberius, who were the great majority. But the Deacon
Ursicinus was chosen by the Luciferian party, and ordained by bishops of
that party in the basilica of St. Sicinus. Unfortunately the prefect of
the city was a weak and ineffective man, who was quite unable to
preserve peace between the two factions. It soon came to blows between
them, and the pagan historian, Ammianus Marcellinus, tells us with what
result:
“Damasus and Ursinus being eager beyond measure to secure possession
of the bishop’s seat, carried on the conflict most bitterly and with
divisive partisanship, their supporters carrying their quarrels to the
point of inflicting death and wounds. As Juventius was unable either
to suppress or abate these evils, he yielded to the violence and
withdrew to the suburbs. And in the struggle Damasus overcame, as his
party was the more determined of the two. It is admitted that in the
basilica of Sicinus, which is a place of assemblage for Christian
worship, there were found in one day one hundred and thirty-seven
corpses of those who had been done to death; and also that the
excitement of the populace abated slowly and with difficulty after the
affair was over.”
“See how these Christians love one another!” was a comment made by
pagans on the spirit which had prevailed in the earlier Church. They now
might have said it ironically. It is impossible to acquit Damasus of all
responsibility in the matter, as he was a man of eminent ability and
influence, and might have put an end to these scenes of violence if he
had exerted his authority. It is equally impossible to believe that he
took any part in them. Then, as in the Reformation times, what John Knox
calls “the raskill multitude” greatly enjoyed an opportunity to show how
great their zeal for religion, in any other shape but that of obeying
its precepts. “Set Jehu to pulling down idols,” said an old Puritan,
“and see how zealous he can be.”
The schism did not end with the bloody struggle around the basilica of
St. Sicinus. It is true that the civil authority now interposed and
banished the bishop of the Luciferian party. But he afterward was
allowed to return, and again the troubles revived and ceased only with
his second banishment. Even when the Emperor Gratian gave Damasus the
entire jurisdiction over the bishops and priests involved in the schism,
with a view to the final suppression of these disputes, the extremists
lingered on. After Ursicinus there was yet another Luciferian bishop of
Rome; and by a curious freak of controversial zeal the memory of Felix
was consecrated as that of an opponent of Liberius, and a mythical
account of their relations was given currency, which has resulted in the
elevation of Felix to the rank of “pope and martyr,” on the ground that
Constantius had him beheaded for his loyalty to the Nicene faith![2]
Damasus made an excellent record in his see, after the abating of the
troubles which attended his accession to it. He left no room for doubt
as to his orthodoxy. For the first time since the great controversy
broke out in Alexandria, the whole weight and influence of the great
Roman see was thrown unreservedly and effectively on the Athanasian
side. The accession of Valentinian (364-75) to the imperial authority in
the West once more threw the weight of court influence on the other
side; but intolerance was not carried to the same extent as by
Constantius. At every stage of the discussion we find Damasus outspoken
on behalf of the Nicene faith, and in support of Athanasius. In 368 he
held a synod at Rome, in which the Illyrian bishops Ursacius and Valens,
who were trying to Arianize the West, were condemned as heretics; and in
370 another in which the same condemnation was meted out to Auxentius,
the Bishop of Milan. Before he died he saw the second General Council
meet at Constantinople and lay the ban of the Church on all the
compromises with Arianism.
The see of Rome already had become a place of great splendor and
influence. “Make me Bishop of Rome,” the pagan senator Praetextatus said
to him, “and I will be a Christian to-morrow.” Damasus seems to have
enjoyed the pomp and show and opportunities for outlay and for influence
which his position secured him. But there was much in his administration
of his diocese which commends him to our sympathies and even our
admiration. He seems to have been the first to have taken a genuine
interest in the Catacombs—the great underground burial-places which are
so rich in memorials of the Church’s primitive and martyr ages. He
fostered their use as places of pilgrimage and reunion for the people of
his own diocese and pilgrims from others. He constructed the staircases
which made them accessible, the well-lights for their illumination and
ventilation, and the chapels for collective worship. Here Christendom,
in the day of its triumph, gathered to commemorate those who had been
faithful when the Church was under the cross, and Prudentius in his
_Peristephanon_ has left us a lively picture of the eager multitudes who
resorted thither on the festival days, some from Rome itself, others
from the Etrurian and Sabine villages, thronging even the great roads to
the city to their utmost capacity: “From early morn they press thither
to greet the saints. The multitude comes and goes until evening. They
kiss the polished plates of silver which cover the grave of the martyr.
They offer incense, and tears of emotion stream from the eyes of all.”
When, after long centuries of forgetfulness, the Catacombs were reopened
in 1578 by Antonio Bosio, traces of these pilgrimages were found in the
_graffiti_ or rude chalk-inscriptions left on the walls of the passages
by the Italian peasants of the fourth and fifth centuries. There also
were found the inscriptions in verse, composed by Damasus, and cut in
stone by his friend, Furius Filocalus, who devised an ornamental
alphabet for the purpose. In one of these Filocalus describes himself as
one who “reverenced and loved Pope Damasus” (_Damasi papae cultor atque
amator_).
Another side of his activity has been brought into light by more recent
researches in Rome. Professor Lanciani says that to Damasus belongs also
the honor of having founded the first public library of Christendom:
“The finest libraries of the first centuries of Christendom were, of
course, in Rome.... Such was the importance attributed to books in those
early days of our faith that, in Christian basilicas, or places of
worship, they were kept in the place of honor—next to the episcopal
chair. Many of the basilicas which we discover from time to time,
especially in the Campagna, have the _apse trichora_—that is, divided
into three small hemicycles. The reason of this peculiar form was long
sought in vain; but a recent discovery made at Hispalis proves that of
the three hemicycles the central one contained the tribunal or episcopal
chair, the one on the right the sacred implements, the one on the left
the sacred books.
“The first building erected in Rome, under the Christian rule, for the
study and preservation of books and documents, was the _Archivum_
(Archives) of Pope Damasus. This just and enterprising pope, the last
representative of good old Roman traditions as regards the magnificence
and usefulness of his public structures, modelled his establishment on
the pattern of the typical library at Pergamos; of which the Palatine
Library in Rome had been the worthy rival. He began by raising in the
centre a hall of basilical type, which he dedicated to St. Lawrence,”
and which “was surrounded by a square portico, into which opened the
rooms or cells containing the various departments of the archives and of
the library.” A commemorative inscription, composed by Damasus himself,
in hexameters, seven in number, was set in front of the building above
the main entrance. The text has been discovered in a MS. formerly at
Heidelberg, now in the Vatican. The first four hexameters do not bring
out in a good light the poetical faculties of the worthy pontiff—in fact
their real meaning has not yet been ascertained; but the last three
verses are more intelligible:
‘Archibis, fateor, volui nova condere tecta;
Addere praeterea dextra laevaque columnas,
Quae Damasi teneant proprium per saecula nomen.’
“Around the apse of the inner hall there was another distich of about
the same poetical value, the text of which has been discovered in a MS.
at Verdun:
‘Haec Damasi tibi, Christe Deus, nova tecta levavi
Laurenti saeptus martyris auxilio.’
“Mention of Damasus’s Archives is frequently made in the documents of
the fourth and fifth centuries. Jerome calls them _chartarium ecclesiae
Romanae_.”[3]
But a still more lasting monument of his fame is the Latin Vulgate,
which he incited Jerome—as the English-speaking world calls Sophronius
Eusebius Hieronymus—to prepare for the Church of the West. From a very
early time Latin translations of the Scriptures from the Greek version
of the Old Testament and the Greek original of the New Testament had
been in existence. But although there were two well recognized types of
these early versions—the Italian and the African—there was so little
uniformity that there were “almost as many versions as copies.” Jerome
was a man of classical culture and a close student of the Scriptures,
which he could read in Hebrew as well as in Greek and Latin. He came to
Rome from Syria in 382, to ask the aid of Damasus in behalf of the
Luciferian schism at Antioch—a matter in which the Bishop of Rome hardly
could meddle. Even before his arrival he had been in correspondence with
Damasus and had written for him an exposition of the vision of the
Seraphim in Isaiah 6. Damasus called a synod in which the schism at
Antioch was discussed, but no result reached. It is said that in this
synod he exhorted Jerome to take up the work of giving the Church a good
Latin version of the Bible. A ninth-century writer says he put him in
charge of the _Archivum_, or public library, described by Professor
Lanciani. Later writers speak of him, without much warrant, as Damasus’s
secretary. It seems probable that Damasus regarded him as a desirable
man for the bishopric when his own death should leave it vacant. But
when his death came in 384, the Dalmatian scholar was passed over,
perhaps because he was not a Roman, and a much smaller man than either
Damasus or Jerome was chosen instead. So Jerome went back to the East
and established himself at Bethlehem. Between 382 and 404 he completed
his version of the Scriptures, which is of especial importance to the
student of Latin hymnology, as it stands in much the same relation to
the Latin hymns of the fifth and later centuries as does the English
Bible to the English hymn-writers. It controls their vocabulary and
explains their allusions.
As a poet Damasus does not take very high rank. We have seen Professor
Lanciani’s opinion of his inscriptions. Some forty poems are attributed
to him, but only a very few of these concern us here. In the Cottonian
MSS. there is a copy of rhymed “Verses of Damasus to his Friend”
(_Versus Damasi ad Amicum suum_), which would be interesting to us if we
were sure that Sir Alexander Croke is right in assuming that this is our
Damasus. But the name “Rainalde” in the first line would hardly occur in
a Latin poem by a Roman author of the fourth century.
There is no reason, however, to call in question the two hymns—one to
the Martyr Agatha and the other to the Apostle Andrew—which are ascribed
to him in the collections. And the former is especially remarkable as
being the oldest hymn in which rhyme is employed intentionally and
throughout. Of course if it were true that Hilary wrote the _Jesu
refulsit omnium_ or the _Jesu quadrigenariae_, which sometimes are
printed as his, we should be obliged to assign to him the honor thus
claimed for Damasus. But the preponderance of evidence and of
presumption is against ascribing these hymns to him. Koch assigns the
latter to the fifth century and not to the fourth. Mone ascribes the
former to one of the early Irish hymn-writers, whose name is lost to us.
He finds in it a tendency to alliterative construction, which indicates
either Celtic or Teutonic authorship; and he is decided for the former
by the mixture of Greek words, which was a favorite practice with the
Irish hymn writers. Also the metrical form is one affected by them. On
these grounds it is fair to claim that the hymn of Damasus marks the
introduction of end-rhymes into the Latin hymns.
Rhyme was by no means unknown in the poetry of the Greeks and the
Romans. But in languages which occupied that stage of grammatical
development in which the relations of words are expressed by
terminations, the resemblances in these were so numerous and so constant
that rhyme must have appeared rather a cheap form for poetry. So in this
stage we find the Southern Aryans of Europe employing the quantity of
syllables and those of Northern Europe the coincidences of initial
sounds (_stabreim_ or alliteration) and assonance in their verse. It was
when the development of languages substituted auxiliary and connecting
words for terminations that the coincidences of final sounds became so
much a source of pleasure to the ear as to justify their continuous
employment for that purpose.
But besides the occasional occurrence of rhyme in classic poetry—as in
Virgil’s famous _jeu d’ esprit_,
“Sic vos non vobis edificatis aves,” etc.—
there seems to have existed forms of popular Latin verse in which rhyme
and accent held the place which quantity held in classic poetry. It is
this popular form of verse which the Church’s hymns began to reproduce,
just as they also in many cases are written in that _lingua rustica_, or
countrified speech of the peasantry of Italy and France, which was to
become the basis of the Romance languages. It is a matter of dispute
whether the Saturnian verse-form, to whose early prevalence and
prolonged existence among the classes not pervaded by Greek culture
Horace alludes, was based on an accentual scansion or merely on a
numbering of syllables and a rude approach to quantity. The general
consensus of scholars is that the Saturnian metres were based on accent,
and that rhyme, which is the natural and invariable product of the
accentual scansion, was also in use.[4]
So this hidden current of rhymed and accented poetry of the common
people rose to light again after many ages in the hymns of the Western
Church. Thus Damasus brings us to the parting of the ways. In Hilary,
Ambrose and his school, Prudentius, Ennodius, Fortunatus, Elpis,
Gregory, and Bede we have the perpetuation of the classic tradition of
quantitative verse in the service of Christendom and for the ear of the
cultivated classes. And while that tradition expires in the Middle Ages,
we see it revive again in the sacred poets of the Renaissance—in
Zacharius Ferrari, George Fabricius, Marcus Antonius Muretus, Famiano
Strada and the other revisers of the Roman Breviary, the two Santeuls in
the Breviary of Clugny, and Charles Coffin in the Paris Breviary. But
Damasus stands at the head of a still more illustrious line. Catching,
perhaps, from the Etruscan and Sabine peasants, who thronged the
Catacombs on the day when the Martyr Agatha was commemorated, the
accents of the popular poetry, he became the founder of the tradition
which lives in the broader current of Latin sacred song. In this line of
succession we find already a few of the Ambrosian hymns, and then a long
series in which the two Bernards, Adam of St. Victor, Thomas of Celano,
Thomas Aquinas, and Bonaventura are the most illustrious names. And as
indeed the tradition of accent and rhyme seems to have made its way into
the literature of the modern world through the Latin hymns, Dante and
all the great poets who have illustrated its power to give pleasure
might be said to belong here.
The hymn in commemoration of the Martyr Agatha—whose story of suffering
and triumph had seized on the imagination of the people as did those of
the martyrs Cecilia and Sebastian—we give with the English version of
the Rev. J. Anketell, which he has kindly permitted us to use.
Martyris ecce dies Agathae
Virginis emicat eximiae,
Christus eam Sibi qua sociat,
Et diadema duplex decorat.
Stirpe decens, elegans specie,
Sed magis actibus atque fide:
Terrea prospera nil reputans
Jussa Dei sibi corde ligans.
Fortior haec trucibusque viris
Exposuit sua membra flagris,
Pectore quam fuerit valido
Torta mamilla docet patulo.
Deliciae cui carcer erat,
Pastor ovem Petrus hanc recreat,
Laetior inde magisque flagrans
Cuncta flagella cucurrit ovans.
Ethnica turba rogum fugiens,
Hujus et ipsa meretur opem:
Quos fidei titulus decorat,
His Venerem magis ipsa premat.
Jam renitens quasi sponsa polo,
Pro misero rogitet Damaso,
Sic sua festa coli faciat,
Se celebrantibus ut faveat.
Gloria cum Patre sit Genito,
Spirituique proinde sacro,
Qui Deus unus et omnipotens
Hanc nostri faciat memorem.
Fair as the morn in the deep blushing East,
Dawns the bright day of Saint Agatha’s feast;
Christ who has borne her from labor to rest,
Crowns her as Virgin and Martyr most blest.
Noble by birth and of beautiful face,
Richer by far in her deeds and her grace,
Earth’s fleeting honors and gains she despised,
God’s holy will and commandments she prized.
Braver and nobler than merciless foes,
Willing her limbs to the scourge to expose;
Weakly she sank not by anguish oppressed,
When cruel torture destroyed her fair breast.
Then her dark dungeon was filled with delight,
Peter the shepherd refreshed her by night;
Forth to her tortures rejoicing she went,
Thanking her God for the trials he sent.
Barbarous pagans, escaping their doom,
Honor her virtues that brighten their gloom;
They whom the title of faith hath adorned,
Like her, earth’s possessions and pleasures have scorned.
Radiant and glorious, a heavenly bride,
She to the Lord for the wretched hath cried;
So in her honor your praises employ,
That ye too may share in her triumph and joy.
Praise to the Father and praise to the Son,
Praise to the Spirit, the blest Three in One;
God of all might in Heaven’s glory arrayed,
Praise for thy grace in thy servant displayed.
It will be observed that Mr. Anketell, in the second line of the sixth
verse, follows the reading preferred by Daniel: _Pro miseris supplica
Domino_, which omits the Pope’s name. But it seems much more unlikely
that this line should be altered to the line as given above, than that
the contrary change should have been made. Emendators generally pass
from the concrete to the vague, from the specific to the general.