The Saint-Sever Beatus (Part 6): St Jerome’s Commentary on Daniel

In the previous five parts of this series (part 1; part 2; part 3; part 4; part 5), we have seen images from an illuminated manuscript of the 11th century known as the Saint-Sever Beatus, produced at the abbey of Saint-Sever in southwestern France. The primary text which it illustrates, and for which it is named, is a commentary on the book of the Apocalypse written by St Beatus of Liébana, a monk who lived in northern Spain in the 8th century. Nearly thirty copies of this text survive, and the repertoire of images that accompany it are believed to have originated with Beatus himself. One line of the manuscript tradition was also expanded to include St Jerome’s commentary on the book of Daniel, which is illustrated by pictures in a similar vein to those in the Apocalypse commentary although simpler and fewer. As noted below in their respective places, two of these images are repeated on a folio within the Apocalypse commentary, but I have been unable to find any information about why was done.

The illustrations begin in chapter 2, with King Nebuchadnezzar dreaming of the great statue made of gold, silver, brass, iron and clay. 

This is followed on the very next page by the great mountain from which a great stone is plucked, (resulting in the gap on its side), which strikes the statue. In the lower part, after it has struck the statue, the stone grows into a mountain which fills the whole earth. To the left, one can see the outline where the artist intended to show the broken statue, but did not complete it. (The folio is damaged on the left.) 

As mentioned above, for some reason, a more complete version of the same story is given much earlier within the manuscript, within the first chapters of the Apocalypse commentary.

The episode of the golden statue in Daniel 3, with the adoration of the statue at top, and the king ordering the three children to be cast into the furnace below, as the angel appears to protect them. 

Chapter 5, the episode of the handwriting on the wall.

In the longer form of the book of Daniel which the Church’s tradition has always accepted, Daniel is thrown into a lions’ den twice: once in chapter 6, and again in the episode known as that of Bel and the Dragon, which forms chapter 14 in the Vulgate. In the latter, an angel picks the prophet Habakkuk up by the hair, and carries him to Babylon so he can bring Daniel his supper. In this manuscript, the two are artistically conflated, sincethe version in chapter 14 is depicted together with the commentary on chapter 6. ~ Lions went extinct in Europe in late antiquity, and medieval artists, having never seen one live, often depict them as we see here, like large but wholly unthreatening looking dogs with manes.

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A Boy-Bishop for the Feast of St Nicholas

Chavagnes International College is an English-language Catholic boarding school for boys located in Chavagnes-en-Paillers in western France (near Nantes), well known for cultivating a strong liturgical life. Each year on the feast of St Nicholas, in accordance with the old English tradition, a boy-bishop is appointed from among the students to preside over the celebration of Vespers, and at high table for the meal following. (See below for a bit more about this tradition.) These photos are reproduced with the College’s permission, and our thanks.

His Excellency comes into the church to be vested.

Procession to the sanctuary.

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Fra Angelico’s Altarpiece of St Nicolas

The Dominican Order has always had a strong devotion to St Nicholas, partly because in the high Middle Ages, everybody had a strong devotion to St Nicholas; as the late Fr Hunwicke put it so well, his portfolio of patronages was like that of a Renaissance cardinal. But the Dominicans also have a special attachment to him because one of their very first churches, in the city of Bologna, was originally dedicated to him, although it is now named for their founder, who died there, and whose tomb is in one of the church’s side-chapels.

Around the year 1438, the Dominican friar and painter Fra Angelico was commissioned by his order to make an altarpiece of St Nicholas for a chapel dedicated to him within their church in the Umbrian city of Perugia. Like countless other works of that era, it was dismantled, and the pieces dispersed, at the beginning of the 19th century, entailing also the loss of the original frame. In 1915, however, the panels was reassembled in a modern recreation of an appropriately Gothic frame, with copies of the first two sections of the predella, the originals of which are in the Vatican Museums. The altarpiece is now in the National Gallery of Umbria in Perugia, one of the best museums in all of Italy.

In the central section, a classic Angelico Madonna and Child with Angels. The Virgin is dressed with a blue garment over a red one, to symbolize the royal dignity which is added to her human nature by becoming the Mother of God. The angels surrounding them are holding red and white flowers, which are also seen in the vases at Her feet, white to symbolize purity, and red the Passion.

On the left, Saints Dominic and Nicholas; the three bags of money from the story of the dowries which made Nicholas into Santa Claus are at his feet on the right, but not very noticeable. Note the apparel on his alb, which was pretty much standard in that era; the border of his cope is decorated with the faces of angels. 

To the right of the central panel, Ss John the Baptist and Catherine of Alexandria; the latter, as a patron Saint of scholars and philosophers, is also a major patron of the Dominican Order. Her traditional legend says that she was of noble lineage, so, in contrast to the Virgin Mary, her blue garment is covered by a red one, to symbolize that her martyrdom is more important.  

The first predella panel shows three episodes from the life of St Nicholas: his birth; his conversion at hearing the preaching of a bishop; the episode of the dowry. (This panel and the following one are the ones in the Vatican Museums. In the picture of the complete altarpiece given above, you can see that they have been replaced with copies, which were deliberately made darker so that they would be recognized as such.)

In the second panel, St Nicholas multiplies a shipment of grain which had just come in to Myra in a period of scarcity; on the right, he saves a ship in danger of being wrecked in the middle of a storm. Both of these miracles, and the first episode of the next panel, are referred to in the antiphons of the proper Office of St Nicholas which is used by the Dominicans. 

In the third panel, on the left, Nicholas saves three men from being unjustly executed; on the right is shown his death and the ascent of his soul to heaven.

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The Conglorified Life-Maker

Lost in Translation #114

In the Niceno-Constantinople Creed, the Holy Spirit is identified in a somewhat curious manner:

Καὶ εἰς τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ Ἅγιον, τὸ Κύριον, τὸ ζῳοποιόν,

Which in Latin is:

Et in Spíritum Sanctum, Dóminum et vivificantem

And which I translate as :

And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Life-maker.

I translate vivificans as “Life-Maker” rather than the more common “Giver of Life” for two reasons. First, the verb vivifico etymologically means to make life: vivus+facio. Second, as we have seen before, making and being made are important themes in the Creed. The Father is the Maker of Heaven and earth, the Son is He through whom all things are made, and now we learn that the Holy Spirit is the Maker of life. Calling the Holy Spirit a Life-Maker is a way of affirming His full and equal divinity.

But the word would not have entered the Creed were it not for the vicissitudes of history. The Pneumatomachians” or “Spirit-fighters” (also known as the Macedonians) denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit, and since He was not God, He was not a Life-Maker but a life-needer, that is, a creature who needed life from a higher source. It was Saint Basil the Great who refuted this error. Lifting a rare Greek term from the pages of philosophy [1], Basil called the Holy Spirit a ζῳοποιόs or Life-Maker. The Latin vivificans is rarer still, appearing only in ecclesiastical Latin. [2]

We can also attribute another line of the Creed, simul adoratur et conglorificatur, to Basil’s fight with the Spirit-fighters. The latter somehow got it into their heads that no glory should not be attributed to the Holy Spirit. Basil easily refuted their argument by noting all the places in the Scriptures that even creatures are given glory and then asking them:

While so many are being glorified, do you wish the Spirit alone to be without glory? “The dispensation of the Spirit,” Scripture says, “comes in glory.” How, then, is He unworthy of being glorified? According to the Psalmist, great is the glory of the just, but according to you, the glory of the Spirit is nothing. How, then, is there not an evident danger that from such words they bring inevitable sins from themselves? If the man who is saved by works of righteousness glorifies even those who fear the Lord, he would not defraud the Spirit of the glory that is owed to Him. [3]

The Creed is one of the ways that we do not defraud the Spirit of the glory that is owed Him.

Basil the Great

The Basilian fingerprints on the Creed are an instructive reminder about how doctrine develops. It is tempting to think of dogmatic development as a strictly logical process that deductively moves from first principles to conclusions, or from what is implicitly held to what is explicitly stated. But the truth is a little more complicated than that. Mostly, dogma is defined in reaction to a doctrinal crisis, and doctrinal crises are specific. Had the Spirit-fighters attacked some other aspect of the Holy Spirit, we would probably be saying something different in the Creed. If, for example, they denied that the Holy Spirit is Love, we might be saying every Sunday, Et in Spiritum Sanctum, Dominum et Caritatem. Fundamentalists are wrong to think that the Truth descends from Heaven in a hermetically-sealed container, and modernists are wrong to think that truth is at best in a Heraclitan flux. Doctrinal development reminds us that Catholic dogma is both historically conditioned and absolutely true, and that sometimes, it is easier to understand those truths when one knows the history behind them.

Notes

[1] See Theophrastus, On the Causes of Plants 2.9.6; Proclus, Institutio Physica 145; Porphyry, acc. to Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel 3.11; Damascius, On First Principles 80.

[2] See Augustine, Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 2.10, 33; Prudentius, Apotheosis 234; Paulinus Nola, Hymn 26.207; Jerome, Epistle 108, 11.

[3] On the Holy Spirit, trans. Stephen Hildebrand (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2011), 24.55.

The Feast of St Sabbas

Today is the feast of one of the great Patriarchs of Eastern monasticism, Saint Sabbas (or ‘Saba’), who is usually given the epithet “the Sanctified” in the Byzantine Rite. Born in the year 439, he died at the age of 93 in 532 A.D. Having entered upon the monastic life as a child, he eventually founded the famous lavra named after him in the Kidron Valley, about 8 miles from Jerusalem, and an equal distance from Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. This lavra is the second oldest continually functioning monastery in the world, after that of St Catherine on Mount Sinai, and counts several famous Saints among its alumni, including St John Damascene, whose Byzantine feast day was yesterday. St Sabbas is named in the preparatory rites of the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom, and the Typikon which was used in the lavra, the book which regulates the order of services in the Byzantine Rite, became the basis for the modern Typikon still used to this day.

An aerial view of the lavra. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Andrew Shiva, CC BY-SA 4.0)

A small church dedicated to him is on the lower of the two peaks of the Aventine Hill in Rome. Traditionally, it was said to have been founded as a monastic oratory by St Gregory the Great, on a property once owned by his mother, St Silvia, and given to a colony of monks from the lavra in the Holy Land. It has subsequently passed through the hands of various other religious congregations, Cluniacs, Cistercians, and Canons Regular, and is now served by the Jesuits. Although heavily restored in 1932-3, the church preserves several fragments of the various phases of its earlier history.

As in many of Rome’s older churches, the colonnade of the nave is made of “spolia”, i.e., materials taken from various ruins; hence the complete lack of uniformity. The Annunciation above the apse was painted in the mid-15th century, when the monastery became the residence of Cardinal Francesco Piccolomini, a nephew of Pope Pius II, and the future Pius III, who reigned for 3 weeks in September and October of 1503.

The Crucifixion scene over the throne at the back is the only part of the apsidal decoration that has not been badly restored. Nevertheless, the effect of the painted apse as a whole remains impressive.

A relic of St Sabbas enclosed in the altar.

The 13th-century throne behind the main altar.

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The Feast of St Barbara

Today is the feast of St Barbara, who was in the later Middle Ages one of the most popular among the Virgin Martyrs. Fr Hunwicke’s clever description of St Nicholas might also be applied to her: “a saint with as large a portfolio of Patronages as a Renaissance cardinal.” She is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, invoked against lightning and fire, and patroness of gunners and military engineers, anything to do with mining and tunneling, and furthermore of architects, builders and masons, as well as mathematicians. Medieval Christians wisely dreaded the idea of dying suddenly and without the benefit of the Sacraments, and much of her popularity was owed also to her role as patroness of a holy and prepared death, a role which later passed to St Joseph.

An altarpiece painted for the church of St Barbara in Wrocław, Poland, by Wilhelm Kalteysen (1420-96), dated 1447, now in the National Museum in Warsaw. In the central panel, St Barbara is shown holding her tower, accompanied by Ss Felix and Adauctus. Upper left panel: her father discovers that Barbara has broken his idols; lower left: the torments of St Barbara; upper right, she flees from her father; lower right, she is stripped of her garments, but clothed by an angel. (Public domain image from Wikipedia.)

The basic outline of her story is fairly consistent in its various versions, although the specific manner of its telling is hardly the same in any two breviaries. Barbara’s father was a wealthy pagan named Dioscorus, who, before going on a long trip, had her enclosed in a tower to hide her extraordinary beauty from the eyes of strangers. Contemplating the splendor and harmony of the world, which she could observe from the tower’s two windows, she began to think about its Cause. In her longing to know the truth about the Creator, she determined to seek the knowledge of Him as the only good in this world, and thus made a vow of virginity. The pre-Tridentine Roman Breviary states that she received a vision in which the Incarnation and Passion of Christ were revealed to her first by angels, and then by Jesus Himself, but this seems to be a minority tradition. Renouncing the idols worshipped by her father, she became a Christian, and so had her father’s workmen open a third window in her tower, in honor of the Holy Trinity; hence her role as a patron of architecture and associated trades, and of mathematicians.

Dioscorus, learning upon his return of his daughter’s conversion and refusal to marry, flew into a rage, and attempted to strike her with a sword. In one version of the story, Barbara fled from her father, and as she ran up a hill, was temporarily hidden from him in a cave which miraculously opened on it, whence her patronage of miners. There follow various accounts of the torments to which she was then subjected, her trial before a judge, and her eventual beheading by her own father’s hand. As Dioscorus walked away from the site of the execution, “fire fallen from heaven, by the just vengeance of God, so consumed (him) that there remained of him not even a tiny bit of dust.” From this last detail comes St Barbara’s role as protectress against lightning and thunder, and her patronage of military gunners, etc.

St Barbara crushing her father, by Domenico Ghirlandaio, ca 1471, from the parish church of St Andrew in Cercina, Italy.

As noted above, St Barbara is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers or Auxiliary Saints, who are venerated for their intercession and protection especially against a number of maladies and dangers. Devotion to them as a group emerged and remained strongest in Germany; in a votive Mass in their honor included in various German missals, the Collect reads as follows:

“Almighty and merciful God, who didst adorn Thy Saints George, Blase, Erasmus, Pantaleon, Vitus, Christopher, Denys, Cyriacus, Acacius, Eustace, Giles, Margaret, Barbara and Catherine with special privileges above all others, so that all who in their necessities implore their help, according to the grace of Thy promise, may attain the salutary effect of their pleading: grant us, we beseech Thee, forgiveness of our sins, and with their merits interceding, deliver us from all adversities, and kindly hear our prayers.”

The words “according to the grace of Thy promise” refer to the tradition that during their passion, each of these Saints received a promise from God that their intercession would be exceptionally effective on behalf of those who honored them.

In the 1501 Breviary according to the Use of Bamberg, before St Barbara is killed, she prays, “Lord Jesus Christ, Whom all things obey, Whose will nothing resisteth: grant me this petition, that if anyone shall remember my name and honor the day of my passion, Thou remember not his sins on the day of judgment, and be merciful to those who love the memory of me, and do Thou set in peace the end of the life of those that love me.” To this, a voice from heaven replies, “Come, my dearest, rest in the chambers of My Father; and concerning that which thou hast asked, it is given to thee.” The proper Collect of her office and Mass also refers to this: “We ask, o Lord, our God, that the glorious intercession of the blessed Barbara, Thy Virgin and Martyr, may protect us from every adversity of mind and body; so that through her intervention, we may merit before departing from this life to receive with sincere faith and a pure confession the most glorious Sacrament of the all-holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The altarpiece of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, from the now-suppressed Heilbronn Abbey in the Baden-Württemberg region of Germany, 1498.

Scholars of hagiography have long recognized that the legend of St Barbara as passed down to us cannot be considered historically reliable. The version read in the Roman Breviary before the Tridentine reform says that she was born in the time of the persecutor Maximian, who reigned from 286-310, but makes her a student of “the most wise priest, Origen, who lived in Alexandria”, and who died over 30 years before Maximian’s accession to the imperial throne. It also transplants her native city of Nicomedia from its actual location near Constantinople to Egypt, identifies it with Heliopolis, and claims that it was the city to which the Holy Family fled from King Herod; other versions place her passion in Rome, somewhere in Tuscany, or Antioch in Syria. In the Breviary of St Pius V, her feast was reduced from an office of nine readings to a commemoration; it is also significant that in the Tridentine Rituale Romanum, promulgated by Pope Paul V in 1614, her name is not included in the shortened form of the Litany of the Saints said for the dying.

However, her feast continued to be kept on many locals calendars; for example, before the reform of 1911, it was included on the calendars of both Carmelite Orders, with the Collect given above. In the post-Conciliar reform, her feast is completely suppressed from the General Calendar, but she may still be celebrated where she is honored as a patron Saint. Some years ago, a friend of mine attended Mass on her feast day in her church in the town of Villasalto, Sardinia. As the preacher recounted the manner of the Saint’s death, killed by her own father, an elderly woman shouted out in Sardinian, “Indignu – disgraceful!”

Another Look Inside the Restored Notre-Dame de Paris

Following up on a post which I made last Friday about the restoration of Notre-Dame de Paris, the American news program 60 Minutes posted an interesting video on the same subject two days ago. I thought it would be worth sharing because it is longer than the French one in my other post, and shows not just the final results, but also tells us a good amount about the restoration process, including some views of murals in the side chapels (predominantly the work of the last great restoration, in the 19th century.) A good portion of it involves an interview with the French president Emmanuel Macron, who, from what I have seen, really deserves credit for pushing to make sure that the restoration would be faithful to the traditional architectural form and decorative style of building, within certain inevitable limits. (I have just read an article this morning that the French government is currently spiraling through a major political crisis; some of what Mr Macron says towards the end of this may seem rather self-serving, and should perhaps be considered in light of that fact. Politicus politicat...)

What ever else might be said about the role which the French government has had in this project, one can only thank God that most of it was not in the hands of the people who thought that these vessels

and this display for the relic of the Crown of Thorns

were good ideas. It really is time for the Sacred Congregation for Rites to issue a sternly worded decree that objects purchased in the kitchenware section of IKEA 30 years ago are not to be used in the rites of our holy mother the Church.

Speaking of relics, by the way, today, December 4th, is the day when the church of Paris originally celebrated a feast called “Susceptio Reliquiarum – the Receiving of the Relics”, instituted in 1194 to commemorate some of Notre-Dame’s most significant relics. As I have described in a previous article, this feast was later transformed into a general commemoration of all relics, and moved to the octave day of All Saints. The Crown of Thorns, however, was not among those that were originally celebrated by this feast, since it was acquired later, in the 13th century, by St Louis IX, and belonged not to Notre-Dame, but to the famously magnificent chapel which he built to house it, the Sainte-Chapelle.

St Louis IX receiving the relics of the Crown of Thorns, the Holy Lance, a part of the True Cross, and others from Constantinople, as depicted in a manuscript of the 14th century (1332-50), now in the British Library. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

The Saint-Sever Beatus: An Illustrated Commentary on the Apocalypse (Part 5)

This is the fifth part of our series on the Saint-Sever Beatus, an illuminated manuscript of the 11th century produced at the abbey of Saint-Sever in southwestern France. The primary text which it illustrates, and for which it is named, is a commentary on the book of the Apocalypse written by Saint Beatus of Liébana, a monk who lived in northern Spain in the 8th century; for further details, see part 1. This article completes the book with the illustrations from the last six chapters of the Apocalypse, 17 to 22. The sixth and final post will give the images from the second text in the book, St Jerome’s commentary on the prophet Daniel.

In the manuscript, this picture of the woman sitting on the scarlet beast (Apocalypse 17, 3) seems to have been displaced from its original location; it is placed between the opening chapter of the book and the letters to the churches in chapters 2-3. The artist has taken great liberty with the beast, whom St John says “seven heads and ten horns.”

Chapter 17, 12: “And the ten horns which thou sawest, are ten kings, who have not yet received a kingdom, but shall receive power as kings one hour after the beast.”

Chapter 17, 14: “These shall fight with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them, because he is Lord of lords, and King of kings...” In the middle band is the slaying of the false prophet, and in the lower band, of the beast, the devil and the dragon.

Chapter 18, 9-10: “And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication, and lived in delicacies with her, shall weep, and bewail themselves over (Babylon), when they shall see the smoke of her burning, standing afar off for fear of her torments, saying, ‘Alas! alas! that great city Babylon, that mighty city: for in one hour is thy judgment come.’ ”

Chapter 18, 21: “And a mighty angel took up a stone, as it were a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, ‘With such violence as this shall Babylon, that great city, be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.’ ”

Continue Reading this Article. . .

A Choral Concert Featuring Rediscovered Early Eastern and Western Polyphony

Princeton Theological Seminary Chapel, Princeton, New Jersey, December 5th, 8 pm: non-ticketed, entrance is free.

In what promises to be a wonderful concert, the choral group Demestvo will present “Lost Polyphonies,” a program showcasing the earliest traditions of vocal polyphony from Europe, performed alongside contemporary compositions that engage with these chant traditions. The concert will feature music from Russia, Georgia, Byzantium, France, and England, including world premieres of newly transcribed chants that have not been heard for over 300 years. Alongside these pieces, Demestvo and guest artists will perform new works by Princeton graduate composers Justin Wright, Lucy McKnight, and Caroline Shaw.

Named after a Slavic polyphonic chant tradition, Demestvo is a quartet founded by Princeton University musicology PhD student and soprano Anastasia Shmytova. Conceived as part of her dissertation research on medieval Slavic chant and early polyphony, Demestvo is committed to bringing the unique sound world of this unheard music to contemporary audiences. 

This event is co-sponsored by scalafoundation.org (for whom I am Artist-in-Residence). I hope to see you there!

Bernini and St Bibiana

Walking along the south side of Rome’s aggressively non-descript central train station, one eventually comes to a church, as one always does in Rome: a relief to see, perhaps, after the station, but in and of itself, not particularly interesting either. (Until about 160 years ago, the area was mostly gardens, and the walk would have been much more pleasant.) The inelegant façade is little more than a square with a pediment sticking out of it; if it were in the center of the city, near the Trevi fountain or the Piazza Navona, it would likely attract no notice at all. And yet, the interior houses a sculpture of the church’s patron Saint, the virgin and martyr Bibiana, whose feast is today, made by one of the greatest artists to grace the Eternal City with his talents, Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

Image from Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

An exterior view of the church as Bernini would have known it, in an engraving by Giovanni Battista Falda (1667-69). The façade of the church is in fact also by Bernini, and shows very well why he was better known as a sculptor than as an architect in his youth. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

This church is traditionally said to have been built by a Roman matron named Olympia, on the very site of the house where Bibiana was martyred in the reign of Julian the Apostate (361-63), together with her sister Demetria, preceded in the confession of the Faith by both of their parents. A more reliable source than the written passio of these martyrs, the Liber Pontificalis, states that it was built by Pope Simplicius in 467; Pope Honorius III restored it in 1224, but 400 years later, it was practically a ruin. The restoration of the church was undertaken by Pope Urban VIII, who held Bernini in the highest possible regard, and showered him with important commissions for both the Church and his family, despite the artist’s youth. In 1624, when the restoration of St Bibiana began, Bernini was only 26.

All sculptors in Rome in that era lived under the long shadow of Michelangelo, whose first work in the city, the Pietà, was completed when he was 24. St Bibiana was not Bernini’s first religious work by any means, but it was his first to be commissioned for a Roman church. He therefore devotes a great deal of attention to the folds of the Saint’s dress, since one of the things that had impressed people so much about the Pietà was the complicated folding of Mary’s robes.

At the same time, Bernini, supremely and justifiably confident of his talent, was not afraid to do things which Michelangelo did not. The latter was almost completely uninterested in any subject other than the human body: notice, therefore, how Bernini includes plants at the base of the sculpture, as well as the column to which Bibiana was tied when she was scourged during her martyrdom. In her hand, he places a palm branch made of gilded wood, the classic symbol of a martyr’s victory; Michelangelo, for whom the essence of sculpture was the liberation of a complete figure from the stone that imprisoned it, hated the very idea of this kind of composite.

Image from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY 3.0. (This was taken when the statue had been removed from the church for a museum show.)

The figure is extremely solid, representing the solidity and strength of the martyr in the midst of her torments. This is partly due to the fact that the statue had to stay within a niche. But from a technical point of view, it is far less daring than some of the things Bernini had previously done, such as the famous David now in the Borghese Gallery. The window above the niche represents heaven, towards which the Saint placidly looks in the midst of her sufferings, which are now irrelevant to her. In the following years, when Bernini was given much greater resources to work with, he was able to develop this concept into something far more dramatic, as in the church of Sant’ Andrea al Quirinale.

The interior of the church of St Bibiana. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY 3.0)

The interior of Sant’ Andrea al Quirinale, completed by Bernini in 1670, and, as recorded in the biography of him by his son Domenico, the work which he himself regarded as his greatest artistic achievement. Here, painting, sculpture and architecture are all brought together to represent the ascent of Saint Andrew through martyrdom to the glory of heaven. The darker, lower part represents earth, where the martyrdom, depicted in the painting over the altar by Guillaume Courtois, takes place; the white statue of the Apostle represents his soul, rising into the bright dome of heaven. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Rickcarmickle, CC BY-SA 4.0)

The Responsory Aspiciens a Longe

In the Roman Divine Office, the first responsory of Matins on the First Sunday of Advent, Aspiciens a longe, is one of longest of the entire year, and unique in its arrangement. The responsory proper is divided into four parts, where two is standard, and three is rare; the second, third and fourth part are repeated after three different psalm verses, followed by the doxology and then the repetition of the whole first section. The Roman breviary also gives it a special significance by using it only once, where normally the responsories of a Sunday are repeated during the week. (In some other Uses, e.g. those of the Dominicans and Cistercians, it is repeated during the week, but in a shortened form.)

℟. Aspiciens a longe, ecce vídeo Dei potentiam venientem, et nébulam totam terram tegentem: * ite obviam ei, et dícite: * Nuntia nobis, si tu es ipse, * qui regnatúrus es in pópulo Israël.
℣. Quique terrígenæ, et filii hóminum, simul in unum dives et pauper: ite obviam et, et dícite.
℣. Qui regis Israël, intende, qui dedúcis velut ovem Joseph: nuntia nobis, si tu es ipse.
℣. Tóllite portas, príncipes, vestras, et elevámini portæ æternáles, et introíbit Rex gloriæ, qui regnatúrus es in pópulo Israël.
Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto.
℟. Aspiciens a longe, ecce vídeo Dei potentiam venientem, et nébulam totam terram tegentem: ite obviam ei, et dícite: Nuntia nobis, si tu es ipse, qui regnatúrus es in pópulo Israël.

℟. Looking from afar, behold I see the power of God coming, and a cloud covering all the land: * go ye to meet him and say: * Tell us if thou art the one, * who art to rule in the people of Israel.
℣. All you that are earthborn, and you sons of men: both rich and poor together, go ye out to meet him and say.
℣. Give ear, O thou that rulest Israel: thou that leadest Joseph like a sheep; tell us if thou art the one.
℣. Lift up your gates, O ye princes, and be ye lifted up, O eternal gates: and the King of Glory shall enter in, who art to rule in the people of Israel.
Glory be unto the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.
Looking from afar, behold I see the power of God coming, and a cloud covering all the land: go ye to meet him and say: tell us if thou art the one, who art to rule in the people of Israel.

Today, I stumbled across this image from an antiphonary produced in central Italy (Umbria or Tuscany) in the first half of the forteenth century, with a particularly splendid initial A for the beginning of this text. (Public domain image from the website of the Cleveland Museum of Art; click to enlarge.)

Within the initial A, Christ descends from heaven (indicated by the mandorla around Him), surrounded by angels, with three more groups of them in the margin above to and to either side. Beneath Him within the A are twelve figures with halos, and twelve more in the margins to either side of the first bar of music, the twenty-four elders mentioned in the Apocalypse. Within the curlicues at the bottom of the A are Isaiah on the left, holding a scroll on which is written “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son” (7, 14); on the right, Zachariah, whose scroll reads “The Lord shall come with all his Saints.” (14, 5). Above the A is depicted the Annunciation, with the Angel Gabriel on the left, and the Virgin Mary on the right; at the bottom, angels announce the coming of Christ to the Fathers in the Limbo. In the bottom margin, a group of clerics, monks or friars (sadly rather damaged) stand singing at a lectern, our ancestors in the Faith with whom we pray these very same words.

The First Sunday of Advent 2024

Gregorius praesul, méritis et nómine dignus, unde genus ducit, summum conscendit honórem; renovávit monumenta patrum priórum, tunc compósuit hunc libellum músicae artis scholae cantórum anni círculi. Eia dic, domne, eia: Ad te levávi ánimam meam: Deus meus, in te confído, non erubescam: neque irrídeant me inimíci mei: étenim universi, qui te exspectant, non confundéntur. Ps. 24 Vias tuas, Dómine, demonstra mihi: et sémitas tuas édoce me. Gloria Patri. Sicut erat. Ad te levávi. (The introit of the First Sunday of Advent, with an introductory trope. The text of the trope sung in the video is slightly different from the one given here; explanation below.)

Gregory the bishop, worthy by his merits and the name from which his lineage came, ascended to the the highest honour; he renewed the monuments of earlier fathers, then he composed this little book of musical art for the school of singers for the cycle of the year. Come now, master, come and sing! To Thee I have lifted up my soul: my God, in Thee do I trust; let me not be put to shame; nor let my enemies deride me, for all they that await Thee shall not be put to shame. Ps. 24 Show me Thy ways, O Lord, and teach me Thy paths. Glory be. As it was. To Thee...

St Gregory dictating to a scribe, an illustration at the beginning of the winter volume of the Codex Hartker, one of the oldest surviving antiphonaries of the Divine Office, ca. 990-1000. (St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 390: https://www.e-codices.ch/en/list/one/csg/0390. CC BY-NC 4.0)

The Latin word “Eia” is an expression of joy, and like many exclamations, difficult to translate; it is sometime rendered “come” or “come on”, as an exhortation to join in something happy. “Domne” is a medieval variant of “Domine”, the vocative of “Dominus - Lord”, commonly used when speaking to a religious superior, as in “Jube, domne, benedicere - pray, lord, the blessing.” In this case, it represents the members of the schola urging the master of the choir to intone the Introit.

In the recording, the words at the end of the trope “Eia dic, domne, eia” are replaced with a variant text “Eia parabolista, dicunt psalmista.” This variant is recorded in the Analecta hymnica (XLIX, p. 20) in a footnote to this version of the trope Gregorius praesul, with “(!)”, incidating that the reading is surprising for being basically unintelligible. The word “parabolista” seems to be a variant of “paraphonista - chorister.”