A Sequence for the Dedication of a Church, by Adam of St Victor

Today is the feast of the dedication of the cathedral of Rome, formally known the Archbasilica of the Most Holy Savior, but often referred to by the nick-name St John in the Lateran. This dedication is celebrated by all dioceses and churches of the Roman Rite, in addition to their own local dedications, so here is a sequence for such feasts by one of the great masters of the genre, Adam of St Victor, who flourished in the first part of the 12th century. After serving as precentor of Notre-Dame de Paris, he entered the abbey of Augustinian Canons Regular dedicated to St Victor in Paris’ Rive Gauche, very close to the Sorbonne. This abbey was one of the major intellectual centers of the High Middle Ages, and literary works produced by its members were swiftly diffused throughout Europe.

Last year, I addressed the persistent misunderstanding that the liturgical reform of St Pius V removed the great majority of sequences from the Mass. The reality is that the Roman Missal had always had very few sequences, and as various churches and orders adopted it, they adopted its sparse repertoire of them along with it. The diocese of Paris, however, kept its own Missal, and traditionally used this sequence, but in the Neo-Gallican reform, it was shortened by the removal of several stanzas, while some others were rewritten. The reformed version is the one sung in the recording given below. The English translation is taken from The Liturgical Poetry of Adam of St Victor (vol. 1), by Digby Wrangham of St John’s College, Oxford. (Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., London, 1881.)

A page from a Missal according to the Use of Paris, written in the first quarter of the 14th century. The intonations of three different sequences (usually called “proses” in French liturgical books) are given in the lower part of the left column; the first, Rex Salomon fecit templum, is also by Adam of St Victor. At the time this Missal was produced, the Sequence might vary according to the choice of the choirmaster. Later editions of the Parisian Missal will specify that either Rex Salomon or Jerusalem et Sion be sung on the feast, and the others during the days within the octave of the dedication. 

Jerusalem et Sion filiae, Coetus omnis fidelis curiae, Melos pangas jugis laetitiae,    Alleluia Christus enim desponsat hodie Matrem nostram, norma justitiae, Quam de lacu traxit miseriae,    Ecclesiam.	Jerusalem and Sion’s daughters fair! And all the faithful crowd that worship there! / That ceaseless strain of tuneful joy prepare, / “Alleluia!” For Christ, Who doth all righteousness display, / to our Mother-Church espoused to-day, / That Church, whom He in love hath drawn away / From depths of woe.
In Spiritus Sancti clementia, Sponsa sponsi laetatur gratia: A reginis, laudum cum gloria,    Felix dicta. Dos ut datur, crescit laetitia: Quæ dos! quanta! triplex potentia, Tangens coelum, terram et stygia    Judicia.	Through the blest Spirit’s mercy from above / The Bride rejoices in the Bride- groom’s love. / Earth’s queens with glorious praises doth she move    To call her blest, Mid greater joy still is her dowry given: What! and how great! that threefold power, which heaven, / And earth below, and the dread judgments even    Of hell affects.
Mira loquar, sed sanum credere: Foederatam tarn largo munere, De proprio produxit latere    Deus-Homo. Formaretur ut sic Ecclesia Figuravit in pari gloria Adae costis formata femina,    Hostis Eva.	Belief is wise, though strange my tale: that bride, / by gifts of such vast magni- tude allied / to Him, was taken out of His own side / By the God-Man:  That thus the Church should form and shape receive / equal glory, we a type believe / was woman, formed—source of our sorrow, Eve! /  From Adam’s rib.
Eva fuit noverca posteris: Haec est mater electi generis, Vitae portus, asylum miseris    Et tutela. Pulchra, potens, partu mirabilis, Ut luna, sol, fulget spectabilis, Plus acie multo terribilis    Ordinata.	Eve a stepmother hath been to her seed; the Church to her elect a Mother indeed, Life’s haven, an asylum in their need,    And sure defense, She, beautiful and great, in birth divine, fair as the moon, clear as the sun doth shine / more terrible than armies’ serried line / With banners dight.
Multiplex est, singularis, una, Generalis et individua Omnis aevi, sexus, simul una    Parit turmas. Haec signata Jordanis fluctibus; Haec quae venit a terrae finibus, Scientiam audire cominus    Salomonis.	Multifold is she, yet but one alone has all together, and each singly, known of every age and sex, yet only one;    Troops she brings forth. Jordan! thy waves a type of her appear, and she, that from the ends of earth drew near, / that, face to face, she might the wisdom hear / Of Solomon.
Haec typicis descripta sensibus, Nuptiarum induta vestibus, Caeli praeest hodie civibus    Christo juncta. O solemnis festum laetitiae Quo unitur Christus Ecclesiae, In quo nostrae salutis nuptiae    Celebrantur	She, whom these types, when understood, portray, / Robed for her marriage-feast in bright array, / presides o’er all the hea- venly host to-day, / The bride of Christ. O holy joy’s bright feast-day in the skies, Which joins the Church with Christ in marriage-ties! / That marriage-day, whose rite mankind allies /    With saving health.
Coetus felix, dulce convivium, Lapsis ubi datur solatium, Desperatis offertur spatium    Respirandi! Justis inde solvuntur praemia, Angelorum novantur gaudia, Laeta nimis quod facit gratia    Charitatis.	O happy gathering! O sweet feast of heaven! / When consolation to the lapsed is given, / And to the sinner, to despair now driven, / A breathing-space! Here their rewards are to the righteous paid, / And angels’ joys, renewed again, displayed / Feast, by the grace of charity thus made / Too full of joy.
Ab aeterno fons sapientiae, Intuitu solius gratiae, Sic praevidit in rerum serie Haec futura. Christus ergo nos suis nuptiis, Recreatos veris deliciis, Interesse faciat gaudiis    Electorum! Amen	The fount of wisdom from the first hath known, / through the clear insight given by grace alone, / As the due course of things hath onward gone, / What is to be. Therefore may Christ, by these His marriage-rites, / take us, refreshed there- by with true delights, / partake those joys to which His love invites     All His elect! Amen.

From All Saints to Advent: the Dedication Feasts of November

In the Roman Breviary, the Matins lessons for the dedication feasts of the Lateran and Vatican basilicas state that Pope St Sylvester I (314-35) consecrated them on November 9th and 18th respectively. However, there is no contemporary or early historical source that attests to this. The Liber Pontificalis, which dedicates a considerable amount of space to Sylvester’s career, says nothing of it; neither do his contemporary Eusebius of Caesarea, the famous Church historian, or the acts of Sylvester mentioned in the Gelasian Decree (ca. 500 A.D.) as one of the reliable lives of the Saints to be read in the liturgy. The tradition of these dates seems to have been popularized by a much later sermon which was commonly read at Matins of a church dedication. [1]

The Consecration of the Lateran Basilica by Pope St Sylvester I; fresco in the transept of that basilica, by Giovan Battista Ricci (1597-1601). The decorations in this part of the church were commissioned by Clement VIII (1592-1605), the same Pope who issued the Roman Pontifical, the liturgical book which contains the rite of a church consecration. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY 3.0)

The earliest liturgical books of the Roman Rite do not have these feasts, nor indeed, any annual commemoration of a church’s dedication at all. Such feasts are one of the enrichments introduced into the liturgy in the Carolingian period, and these particular two examples are indisputably post-Carolingian. As I noted in an article last week, in the Middle Ages they were kept only in Rome itself, and did not begin to be celebrated by other churches until after the Tridentine reform, when those churches adopted the Breviary and Missal of St Pius V, and their calendar with them.

This means that they also post-date the institution of the feast of All Saints, and I here make bold to offer an explanation of why this may be relevant. It is impossible to say, and I certainly do not pretend to say, whether this was a deliberate choice of the unknown persons who instituted them, or another happy example of the mysterious providence by which God refines the liturgy towards ever great beauty and intricacy.

On October 31st, the Church militant upon the earth prepares itself for the great solemnity of All Saints with a day of fasting, as it does for all the greatest feasts. On November 1st, it celebrates all the Saints in the Church triumphant in heaven, and the following day, prays for all those in the Church suffering in Purgatory. Thus, the three liturgical days are dedicated to the three parts of Christ’s mystical body, on earth, in purgatory, and in heaven.

Speaking only of those feasts which are attested on calendars of the Roman Rite from the earliest times [2], November continues with at least one feast of each of the traditional classes of Saint: the Apostle Andrew on the 30th; a martyred bishop, Pope St Clement I, on the 23rd; a martyr, St Chrysogonus, on the 24th (plus the Eastern martyrs Theodore and Menna); a group of several martyrs, the Four Crowned Martyrs, on the 8th; a confessor, St Martin, on the 11th; a virgin and martyr, Cecilia, on the 22nd, and a matron, St Felicity, also on the 23rd. Thus the month itself becomes, so to speak, an icon of all the Saints.

The calendar page for November in a Gregorian sacramentary produced in the second half of the 9th century at the abbey of St-Amand-les-Eaux, about 130 miles north north-east of Paris. (Bibliothèque nationale de France. Département des Manuscrits. Latin 2290). All of the Saints named above are included except for the Egyptian martyr Menna, whose feast coincides with that of St Martin, kept in Gaul as a solemnity of the highest degree, and therefore without commemoration. 

With the exception of Martin, each of these Saints is also very Roman. St Andrew is the Apostle Peter’s brother, and has been the subject of great devotion in the Eternal City from earliest times. The rest are either Roman themselves or have important Roman connections. Clement, Chrysogonus, Cecilia and the Crowned Martyrs all have large and prominent basilicas in the city; Felicity had one near the catacomb where she was buried, and the feast of her seven sons on July 10th is in all Roman liturgical books, going back to the so-called Leonine Sacramentary.

Looking back to the earliest calendars, there is no other month which has such a variety of different kinds of Saints, and almost all of them Roman. Perhaps this was the inspiration for placing the annual commemoration of the dedication of Rome’s cathedral in November as well, once such a commemoration had been instituted as a regular feature of the liturgy. And when this was done, the logical thing would be to also add the commemoration of the dedications of the basilicas of Ss Peter and Paul, the Roman church’s two apostolic founders and principal patrons. This complex month-long celebration of the church of Rome and its Saints would then serve as the link between All Saints and the beginning of the new liturgical year in Advent, the season which draws our mind both to the first coming of Christ in the Incarnation, and His second coming in glory at the end of the world, when all the Saints shall be perfected in the fullness of His Redemption.

The placement of the two dedication feasts between All Saints and Advent thus also reminds us of the mediating role which the Church itself plays in bringing us to our own place in heaven among the angels and the saints. And perhaps it is not too extravagant to posit that there is some intentional symbolism in placing them at intervals of nine days, the number of the choirs of angels in heaven: the dedication of the Lateran is on the 9th, of Ss Peter and Paul on the 18th, and the earliest possible beginning of Advent on the 27th.

The interior of the dome of St Peter’s basilica, with Christ, the Virgin, the Baptist and the Twelve Apostles, and above them, the choirs of angels, with God the Father in the mosaic inside the lantern. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Gary Ullah, CC BY 2.0)

[1] The first part of this sermon, which opens with the words “Consecrationes altarium”, was read as the lessons of the first nocturn of a church dedication in the pre-Tridentine Roman breviary, and the Office of many other liturgical Uses. In the breviary of St Pius V, it is rewritten according to the general literary criteria of that reform, and read in part in the second nocturn of November 9, and in part on the 18th, with various other material added to it. The lessons for these two days were considerably expanded in later additions, in order to give more of the history of the three churches as they were rebuilt and renovated in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.

[2] All of these are in their places by the time the first version of the Gregorian Sacramentary was created towards the end of the 8th century.