ADAM OF ST. VICTOR.
The school of St. Victor, in Paris, was founded by William of Champeaux,
the teacher and rival of Abelard, at the commencement of the twelfth
century. It is known to history as having been the abode of three
distinguished scholars, Hugo, Richard, and Adam. Hugo and Richard of St.
Victor were mystics, and Vaughan, in _Hours with the Mystics_, has set
them before us. From this and other sources, we grow more and more
amazed to find the immense influence of such a school. A century from
its foundation showed St. Victor to be the parent of thirty abbeys and
of more than eighty priories. Here in these cells, like bees in a hive,
the busy monks were laying up the only honey of the Dark
Ages—multiplying manuscripts, delving into remote philosophies, muddling
their brains over abstruse questions, but now and then leaving behind
them something to benefit mankind. Theology and dialectics were their
great and indeed their only pursuits. Like the swirls of a sluggish
stream beneath its banks, they occasionally caught and kept fresh some
broken flower from the shore. Thus, one may, for example’s sake, put a
certain pretty idea of Hugo of St. Victor into modern verse:
“Hugo, St. Victor’s prior—a man
Gentle and sweet, contemplative and wise,
Makes mention in his fine and mystic plan
Of three great steps by which our spirits rise:
First, _Cogitation_—when we turned our eyes;
Then, _Meditation_—when our minds began
With hovering wing the kindled thought to scan;
Last, _Contemplation_—which all doubt defies.
Yea, and he saith that, in the greenest wood
Of stubborn souls, this glory kindleth so
That the pure flame against the sap will glow
And be by nothing finally withstood—
The smoke itself be parted to and fro,
Until clear light shall shine in constant good.”
Richard was the disciple and successor of this gentle-spirited Hugo. In
1114 the priory became an abbacy, and when Richard was prior in 1162, he
had for abbot no very godly person, since under Ervisius all discipline
was relaxed, and scandal and sensuality began to rule. But Richard stood
out stoutly and with good judgment; and he lived to see the old harmony
and glory return again. In his day and in that of Adam, which was
contemporaneous with his, the school represented the dialectical and
theologic, rather than the spiritual and mystical side of religion; and
yet it did good work, as a peacemaker, for the truth. It gives us little
enough, however, with which to fall in love. Massive it may be, and
intricate in its curious ability respecting useless pieces of
chop-logic, but the profound piety which belongs to every age and clime
did not find much to comfort it at St. Victor. These men dug shafts and
tunnels, they did not open foundations and sink wells down to living
streams.
Adam of St. Victor, as I have said, lived in those days, and they
produced their natural effect upon his mind and upon his writings. He
died somewhere between 1172 and 1192; and while he was celebrated as the
expositor of St. Jerome’s prefaces to the books of the Bible, and was
known as the composer of “sequences, rhythms, and other writings,” his
fame rests upon his modern rediscovery by Monsieur Gautier. The history
of the preservation of his hymns is itself a suggestive commentary on
the difficulties of Latin hymnology, and so I give it entire.
Clichtove, a Flemish theologian of the period between 1500 and 1550,
undertook to help his brethren to comprehend the offices of the Church.
His _Elucidatorium Ecclesiasticum_ was first published in Paris in 1515,
and then at Basle in 1517 and 1519. There were four subsequent
editions—that of Paris (1556) being the best, and that of Cologne (1732)
being the latest. Now this book was the great mine for Latin hymns
before Daniel, Trench, Mone, Königsfeld, March, and others made them
accessible. And of Adam of St. Victor he gives thirty-six specimens,
which were supposed to be all that had remained, with one or two
possible exceptions.
In 1855 J. P. Migne published in his _Patrologiae Cursus_, in volume
196, these thirty-six hymns of Adam of St. Victor. Archbishop Trench,
who is such an admirer of our poet, has doubtless been indebted to the
many helpful Latin notes, with which the excellent editor of the
_Patrologia_ has enriched the obscurity of his author. At least so it
seems to a person who compares Trench’s own notes with that Latin.
Monsieur Gautier, however, determined to look further, the result being
that he published the _Oeuvres Poetiques d’ Adam de St. Victor_ in 1858
at Paris. This gives us one hundred and six hymns—of which Trench says
that some of them were well known but anonymous; and others are strictly
new, and fully equal to his best compositions. From this source, then,
the two great admirers of Adam of St. Victor—Archbishop Trench and Dr.
Neale—have drawn their originals.
I am not surprised that theologians should enjoy such a poet as Adam. He
is so terse, so dialectically subtle, so metaphysically accurate, so
allegorically copious. In a line he often makes a reference which his
editor struggles to catch in a foot-note a page long. And you must
comprehend the reference in order to comprehend the poem! As I read the
eulogy of Trench, I find him saying that when we remember Adam of St.
Victor’s theologic lore, his frequent and admirable use of Scripture,
his art and variety in versification, his “skill in conducting a story,”
and his own personal feeling which permeates his poems, we must put him
“foremost among the sacred Latin poets of the Middle Ages.” Dr. Neale,
too, calls him “the greatest of mediaeval poets.” And so, “what shall he
do that cometh after the King?” For, in spite of this mighty
commendation, and in spite of the praise which these didactic hymns have
obtained, _we cannot and do not sing any of them_. Even Dr. Neale cannot
make them singable, though he would probably do it if he could.
I must confess—and take the risk of being charged with stupidity and
ignorance—that I cannot place Adam of St. Victor where they have set
him. Southey’s ballads and poems are legion, as we know, and they are
learned beyond all cavilling; but they will not live like the two or
three little things of Motherwell. And Adam’s vast congeries of
sequences, composed for all the saints and festivals of the calendar,
cannot stand an instant against the sweetness of Bernard of Clairvaux,
or the grandeur of Peter Damiani’s judgment hymn. These others, it is
true, wrote less, but they wrote _subjectively_, and hence they appealed
to the heart of the Christian in every age. For _verse_ alone, however
skilful, is not _poetry_; and the celebration of saints and angels,
however beautifully accomplished, ministers nothing to “a mind
diseased.” We need to feel a genius which kindles its watch-fire in the
line of signal—as did Helena’s watchers between Jerusalem and
Constantinople. Then, as this flame flares up into the night, we know
that it speaks to us of the discovery of the true cross.
I am thus compelled to dissent from the _cultus_ which has grown up
about this brilliant, epigrammatic, and altogether admirable Adam. For
he attracts by his obscurity and he surprises by his intricacy; and the
interest excited is that of the scholar and of the translator, rather
than that of the popular approval of the Christians of to-day. And I am
glad to support this opinion, not merely by the rather caustic comment
of Professor March, but by the word of Mrs. Charles, where she speaks of
“his elaborate system of Scriptural types occasionally chilling the
genuine fire of his verse into a catalogue of images.” And I must add,
for my own justification, that this “fire” is the fire of the orator,
and not altogether that of the poet. It is objective and not subjective;
for though there be two kinds of poetry in the world, we cannot doubt
which kind it is that “permanently pleases and takes commonly with all
classes of men”—for this was Aristotle’s unequalled definition.
It is time that we should take a glance at this laureate of St. Victor,
whose monumental plate of copper remained, down to the date of the first
Revolution, near the door of the choir in that ancient cloister. The
epitaph upon it was mainly drawn from his own work. It breathes the same
contempt of earth and derision of its vanities, which we find so common
in that age.
_“Vana salus hominis, vanus decor, omnia vana;_
_Inter vana nihil vanius est homine.”_
“Vain is the welfare of man and his fashion, for all things are
vanity;
And, in the midst of vanity, nothing is vainer than man.”
It was a later hand than his own which, after selecting those ten lines
from Adam’s own writings, added four very inferior verses to complete
the inscription. These state that:
“I who lie here, the unfortunate and wretched (_miser et miserabilis_)
Adam, ask one prayer as my highest reward: I have sinned; I confess; I
seek pardon; spare the contrite. Spare me, father; spare me, brethren;
spare me, God.”
He was born in Brittany, to the best of our information. He studied in
Paris, and finally entered the walls of St. Victor, never to leave it.
It is a very brief record, but it illustrates the monotony and dead
sameness of that mediaeval monastic life. The Dark Ages were mud-flats,
from which the tide had gone out. And yet I think that Adam of St.
Victor had another side to him, which Trench and Neale might well have
developed—a power of livelier rhythm than is often suspected. The little
stranded fish perchance gambolled a trifle in its small sea-water pool.
The poem which I quote is found in Migne and Gautier. It differs from
another sequence upon a similar theme—one which Dr. Neale has
translated. It is “The Praise of the Cross.”
This poem, it will be seen, is abrupt, irregular, and altogether
inferior, in some features, to the usually finished and elegant diction
of its author. For this very reason I have selected it; it exhibits Adam
of St. Victor when he dashes off the stanzas without revision, fired by
the glow of his theme. Only on this account do I render it, trying
merely to carry its dash and spirit into the English version.
Salve, Crux, arbor
Vitae praeclara.
Vexillum Christi,
Thronus et ara.
O Crux, profanis
Terror et ruina,
Tu Christianis
Virtus es divina
Salus et victoria.
Tu properantis
Contra Maxentium
Tu praeliantis
Juxta Danubium
Constantini gloria.
Favens Heraclio
Perdis cum filio
Chosroe profanum.
In hoc salutari
Ligno gloriari
Decet Christianum.
Crucis longum, latum,
Sublimè, profundum,
Sanctis propalatum
Quadrum salvat mundum
Sub quadri figura
Medicina vera.
Christus in statera
Crucis est distractus,
Pretiumque factus,
Solvit mortis jura.
Crux est nostrae
Libra justitiae
Sceptrum regis,
Virga potentiae.
Crux, coelestis
Signum victoriae.
Belli robur
Et palma gloriae.
Tu scala, tu vatis
Tu crux desperatis
Tabula suprema.
Tu de membris Christi
Decorem traxisti
Regum diadema.
Ter te nobis Crux beata
Crux, cruore consecrata
Sempiterna gaudia
Det superna gratia.
Amen!
Hail, thou Cross, splendid
Tree, of life’s own place;
Christ’s very standard,
Altar and throne-place.
Thou to the heathen
Ruin and terror;
Thou to the Christian
Bringing joy nearer—
Health and success!
Thou when Maxentius
Swiftly defied—
Thou when the Danube
Flowed at his side—
Gavest to Constantine
Glory no less!
Yea, and Heraclius’
Fight thou hast won
When the proud Chosroes
Fell, with his son.
So should a Christian tongue
Boast of the worth
Of this most wonderful
Tree of the earth.
This the true medicine
Of the whole land
Four-square and perfect
As it shall stand;
Four-square in breadth and height,
Depth and length, ever;
Shown to the saints of God,
Cure for life’s fever.
Christ in such balances,
Poised on the cross,
Maketh death lightest,
Saveth from loss!
Yea, the cross truly—
Justest of scales!—
For a king’s sceptre
And priest’s rod avails.
Cross thou art surely
Our heavenly sign,
Strength of our battle
And guerdon divine.
Ladder and life-raft
And plank on the wave—
Those that are drowning,
O cross, thou canst save!
Thou that hast carried
The Saviour of men,
Hadst the best honor
Of royalty, then.
Blessed cross, may there be given,
Through that blood, our way to heaven—
Unto us eternal place
Unto us celestial grace!
Adam’s peculiarities are very marked in this production. He alludes, as
you perceive, to the Cross in the air which Constantine took as his sign
in which to conquer. He refers to Chosroes, King of Persia, who, after
great successes and the conquest of Jerusalem itself, was finally
overcome by Heraclius, the Eastern Emperor, about 622-29 A.D.; and he
also drags in a piece of mystical imagery about the “four-squareness” of
the earth, which is hard enough to understand without a key. The key is
one with many wards. It includes the “breadth, depth, length, and
height” of the love of Christ; it suggests the appearance of the
heavenly city of John’s vision; it reminds us of the temple in Ezekiel’s
prophecy, and of the account of the actual structure in 1 Kings; it
recalls the classical geographers’ notions about the shape of the earth
and about the “four quarters,” which we still call east, west, north,
south; it finally symbolizes all these things by the four arms of the
Cross! Is it any wonder that Adam of St. Victor is a difficult poet to
translate, and that his verses are not fitted to be sung?
Yet it must not be forgotten that the _Heri mundus exultavit_ (St.
Stephen’s Day) and the _Veni, Creator Spiritus, Spiritus Recreator_, are
both his. Nor must it escape notice that Dr. Neale’s _Mediaeval Hymns_
contains eleven versions of Adam of St. Victor; while Dr. Washburn,
Chancellor Benedict, and other translators have quite made the old
schoolman’s “sequences” and “proses” familiar to the most careless eye.
Recently also we have the three volumes of Mr. Digby S. Wrangham
(London, 1881) in which our poet is translated entire, the Latin and
English being placed upon opposite pages. He has attained such an
eminence as Drummond of Hawthornden, who has come back to us because he
knew Ben Jonson and had kept and stratified the spirit of his age.
To me the man is always fascinating, always suggestive. He appears to
challenge the best that we moderns can do. His very terseness is a
defiance. And here, in this strange symmetry, I fancy that I see the
alertness and skill of that wise insect which takes hold with her hands
in kings’ palaces. The web of this precise and unvarying artisan often
sparkles with the morning dew of a pure devotion. The lines and stays
and braces and fashioning of these illustrious verses are as accurate as
the spider’s spinning. I look up toward the light and, yonder, upon some
Corinthian capital of the song of songs—or over there in a corner of the
gate called Beautiful through which Ezekiel walks—or again, high amid
the wisdom of that Solomon’s Porch of the Apocalypse where stands the
serene John—there I see how Adam of St. Victor has stretched his web.
And if, now and then, some dead fly of an obscure allusion, or some
desiccated bit of monasticism, offends the sight, I strive to think only
of the art that has spread the fabric—and God’s glorious sunshine
brightens, upon His own temple, His little creature’s toil!
VERBUM DEI, DEO NATUM.
He, the Word of God, the fated
Son, unmade and uncreated
Came from heaven to be with men.
John beheld him, touched him truly,
Brought him in this gospel newly
Back to dwell with us again.
Where those early streams were flowing,
Purely from pure fountains going,
John breaks forth in fuller tides,
Pouring for the thirsty nations
Those life-giving, sweet libations
Which the throne of God provides.
Heaven he trod, wherein the golden
Sun of truth by him beholden
Filled his soul’s most secret space.
Dreaming, with his spirit lifted
To the seraphim, whose shifted
Wings revealed God’s very face.
There he heard in circle seated
Harpers harp their oft-repeated
Praise, with elders near the throne:
By the seal of Godhead placing
On our very speech the tracing
Of the thoughts of God alone.
As an eagle, unmolested
Where each seer and prophet rested,
Far he flies above them all:
Never yet was mortal smitten
By such secret truths unwritten,
Truths which never fail or fall.
There the King, in vesture splendid
Seen, but yet uncomprehended,
Passes to his palace gate;
To his bride, from his dominion,
He has sent on eagle’s pinion
Tidings of that mystic state.
Speak thou then her bridegroom’s splendor,
Tell of rest most deep and tender,
Bear thy message to the bride.
Tell what angels’ food resembles,
At what feasts all heaven assembles,
Where their King shall still abide.
Tell again what bread is given,
Purchased by that side once riven—
Christ’s own bread, himself alone.
How that company upraises
To the Lamb its lofty praises,
When we sing before the throne.
SIMPLEX IN ESSENTIA.
Single in essential place,
But of sevenfold power and grace,
May the Spirit shine on us:
May the light divinely shown
For all gloom of heart atone,
And temptations perilous.
Law in symbols went before us,
Dark with threats of judgment o’er us,
Ere we saw the gospel rays:
May the spirit of the sages
Hidden in their lettered pages
Venture forth in open ways!
Law, men heard from mountain peaks;
Unto few the New Grace speaks
Softly, in a room above:
Thus the spot itself is teaching
Which are best within our reaching—
Works of law or words of love.
Flame and trumpet sounding loud
Thunder through the smoky shroud:
Sudden-flashing lightnings—those
Strike a terror to the soul;
Nourishing no sweet control
Which the Spirit’s gift bestows.
Thus the sundered
Sinai thundered,
Fixing law and guilty man.
Law most fearful
And uncheerful,
Crushing sin by rigid plan.
But the fathers long selected,
And to power divine directed
How they loose the bonds of sin!
Words refreshing, threats astounding
Through new tongues in concord sounding
Thus their miracles begin.
Showing care for them that languish,
Sparing man they spare not anguish
In pursuit of evil things.
Smiting sinners, and reminding,
Only loosing, only binding
By the power which freedom brings.
Type of Jubilee returning
Is that day (if thou art learning
Mysteries of holy time)
On the which three thousand hearing,
Came in faith, no longer fearing,
And the Church sprang up sublime.
Jubilee, for so they knew it,
Who were changed and succored through it,
Since it freely called unto it
Debts and doubts, and set them right.
May the loving kindness spoken
Unto us distressed and broken,
Give release, and as a token
Make us worthy of the light.
ZYMA VETUS EXPURGETUR.
Purge away the ancient leaven,
Let a paschal joy be given,
For our Lord is risen again.
This the day of better vision,
This the day of vast decision,
By the Word of God to men.
This despoiled Egyptian spoilers,
This set free the Hebrew toilers
From the bonds in which they lay,
Where, in iron furnace fastened,
Tyrants all their labor hastened
In cement and straw and clay.
Now in praise of holy living,
Holy triumph, godlike giving,
Let the free voice sound its strain.
This the day the Lord created,
This our grief has terminated,
Comfort bringing to our pain.
Things to come let law betoken,
Christ shows promises unbroken,
Still appearing all in all.
Through his blood the sword though awful
Blunted droops—our way is lawful,
And the prohibitions fall.
He who gave us cause of laughter,
(Since the rescue followed after)
Glad of heart is Isaac still;
Joseph from the pit is lifted,
As from death our Lord, through rifted
Clouds that veiled the heavenly will.
Thus that serpent-rod, surprising
Malice in its worst devising,
Swallowed all the other rods.
Thus the brazen serpent vying
With the poison, when the dying
Trusted God instead of gods.
Through the jaw, with hook and cable
Christ to seize the foe is able;
On the cockatrice’s den
He, the weanèd child, is sitting,
While afar in fear is flitting
That old enemy of men.
They who laughed at good Elias
Feel the cursing of the pious
Struck by vengeance undeferred;
While King David feigning madness,
And the goat that bears our sadness
Flee as does the sacred bird.
Samson with a jawbone merely
Slays a thousand foes, and clearly
Spurns alliance to their name.
Samson breaking Gaza’s portal,
Bears it off, as life immortal
Bursts the gate of deathly shame.
Thus does Judah’s Lion ever
Burst the bonds that none may sever,
When the third day glimmers on;
At his Father’s voice awaking,
To the Church’s bosom taking
Many a dear and ransomed son.
Jonah stayed when he was flying—
This true Jonah signifying—
Marks a day when safe, through dying,
Christ from depth of earth arose.
Now the cypress blossom brightens,
Now the cluster spreads and heightens,
Now the churchly lily whitens,
Waving over Jewish foes.
Death and life together striving
Hinder not the Christ reviving,
And with him are saints deriving
Resurrection through his blood.
Morning new and full of gladness,
How it cheers our every sadness;
God hath conquered Satan’s madness
In this time of joy and good!
Jesus, victor, who hast given
Life; our Only Way to heaven;
Who by death our death hast shriven,
Bid us to thy feast, nay, even
Grant us faith with which to come.
Living bread, fount unabated,
Vine of truth, with fruit unsated,
Feed thou us thy new-created,
That from death reanimated
By thy grace we gain our home!
PLAUSU CHORUS LAETEBUNDE.
(Translated by Dr. A. R. Thompson.)
With abounding joy applauding,
Now, the men our songs are lauding,
Who rung out the gospel sound.
Like the sun’s outstreaming glory
Chasing night away, their story
Carries life the world around.
For his flock the Shepherd careth,
And his law for them prepareth,
In a fourfold gift of love.
All the world shall know the healing
Of his law of life, revealing
Strength and beauty from above.
Toward the truth, complete in splendor,
Each a service has to render,
Given to him specially.
This is shown from forms created,
As it were anticipated
In a vivid prophecy.
Piercing through the clouds low lying,
John, upon an eagle flying,
Looks the very sun upon.
Rising to the height of heaven,
In the Father’s bosom even,
He beholds the Eternal One.
Face and form of man betoken
Matthew, for by him are spoken
Words, which tell that to our race
God himself has now descended,
And the God and Man, now blended,
Takes in David’s line his place.
Ox with open mouth, assigns he
Unto Luke, by him designs he
Christ a Victim to display.
Cross for altar he receiveth,
There our peace his death achieveth,
Olden rites have passed away.
Face of rugged, roused up lion
Is for Mark—’tis his to cry on
With an all-pervading sound,
Of the Christ, raised up victorious
By the Father’s power all-glorious,
With immortal splendor crowned.
In this fourfold way of wonder
To the world God cometh; under
Vestments such the ark is borne.
Forth from paradise are flowing
These new streams of mercy, going
To refresh the world forlorn.
Never will the house fall, surely,
Built on fourfold wall securely,
Thus the house of God doth rest.
In this house, oh wondrous story!
Dwells the Blessed in his glory,
God with man in union blessed.