Carolingian age, and the first German who wrote Latin hymns. Some of them have passed into the
Breviary.^477
He is probably the author of the pentecostal Veni, Creator Spiritus.^478 It outweighs all his
other poems. It is one of the classical Latin hymns, and still used in the Catholic church on the most
solemn occasions, as the opening of Synods, the creating of popes and the crowning of kings. It
was invested with a superstitious charm. It is the only Breviary hymn which passed into the Anglican
liturgy as part of the office for ordaining priests and consecrating bishops.^479 The authorship has
been variously ascribed to Charlemagne,^480 to Gregory the Great,^481 also to Alcuin, and even to
Ambrose, without any good reason. It appears first in 898, is found in the MS. containing the Poems
of Rabanus Maurus, and in all the old German Breviaries; it was early and repeatedly translated
into German^482 and agrees very well in thought and expression with his treatise on the Holy Spirit.^483
We give the original with two translations.^484
Veni, Creator Spiritus,(^477) His carminawere edited from an old MS. found in the convent of Fulda by Christopher Brower, a Jesuit, in 1617 (as
an appendix to the poems of Venantius Fortunatus), and reprinted in Migne’sRab. MauriOpera(1852) Vol. VI. f. 1583-1682.
Comp. Kunstmann, Hrabamus Magnentius Maurus, Mainz 1841; Koch, I. 90-93; Ebert, II. 120-145; Hauck in Herzog 2 XII. 459-465.
Hauck refers to Dümmler on the MS. tradition of the poem, of R. M.
(^478) So Brower, and quite recently S. W. Duffield, in an article In Schaff’s "Rel. Encycl." III. 2608 sq. Also Clément, Carmina,
etc., p. 379.
(^4799)
In the abridged and not very happy translation of Bishop Cosin (only four stanzas), beginning:
"Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire,
And lighten with celestial fire.
Thou the anointing Spirit art,
Who dost thy sevenfold gift, impart. "
It was introduced into the Prayer Book after the Restoration, 1662. The alternate ordination hymn, "Come, Holy
Ghost, eternal God," appeared in 1549, and was altered in 1662.
(^480) By Tomasi (I. 375) and even Daniel (I. 213, sq.; IV. 125), apparently also by Trench (p. 167). Tomasi based his view
on an impossible tradition reported by the Bollandists (Acta SS. Apr. 1, 587), that Notker sent to Charlemagne (who died a
hundred years before) his sequence Sancti Spiritus adsit nobis gratia, and received in response the Veni, Creator Spiritus
from the emperor (whose Latin scholarship was not sufficient for poetic composition). The author of the article "Hymns" in
the 9th ed. of the "Encycl. Brit." revives the legend, but removes the anachronism by substituting for Charlemagne his nephew,
Charles the Bald (who was still less competent for the task).
(^481) By Mone (I. 242, note), Koch, Wackernagel. Mone’s reasons are "the classical metre with partial rhymes, and the
prayer-like treatment."
(^482) In the twelfth and thirteenth century (Komm, Schöpfer, heiliger Geist), as also by Luther (Komm, Gott Schöpfer,
heiliger Geist), by Königsfeld (Komm, Schöpfer, heil’ger Geist, erfreu), and others. The oldest German translator (as reported
by Daniel, I. 214), says that he who recites this hymn by day or by night, is secure against all enemies visible or invisible.
(^483) As contained in his work De Universo1. I. c.3 (in Migne’s edition of the Opera, V. 23-26). Here he calls the Holy Spirit
digitus Dei (as in the hymn), and teaches the double procession which had come to be the prevailing doctrine in the West
since the adoption of the Filioqueat the Synod of Aix in Creed. The scanning of Paraclêtus with a long penultimate differs
from that 809, though under protest of Leo III. against its insertion into the Nicene of other Latin poets (Paraecletos).
(^484) The Latin text is from Brower, as reprinted in Migne (VI. 1657), with the addition of the first doxology. The first
translation is by Robert Campbell, 1850, the second by Rev. S. W. Duffield, made for this work, Feb. 1884. Other English versions
by Wither (1623), Drummond (1616), Cosin (1627), Tate (1703), Dryden (1700), Isaac Williams (1839), Bishop Williams (1845),
Mant ("Come, Holy Ghost, Creator blest"), Benedict ("Spirit, heavenly life bestowing"), MacGill ("Creator Holy Spirit! come"),
Morgan ("Creator Spirit, come in love"), in the Marquess of Bute’s Breviary ("Come, Holy Ghost, Creator come"). See nine of
these translations in Odenheimer and Bird, Songs of the Spirit, N. Y. 1871, p. 167-180. German versions are almost as numerous.
Comp. Daniel, I. 213; IV. 124; Mone, I. 242; Koch, 1. 74 sq.