From dmdc@home.com Fri Oct 12 05:04:18 2001 Received: from mailscan4.cac.washington.edu (mailscan4.cac.washington.edu [140.142.33.15]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.11.6+UW01.08/8.11.6+UW01.08) with SMTP id f9CC4HN55868 for ; Fri, 12 Oct 2001 05:04:17 -0700 Received: FROM mxu4.u.washington.edu BY mailscan4.cac.washington.edu ; Fri Oct 12 05:02:15 2001 -0700 Received: from femail12.sdc1.sfba.home.com (femail12.sdc1.sfba.home.com [24.0.95.108]) by mxu4.u.washington.edu (8.11.6+UW01.08/8.11.6+UW01.08) with ESMTP id f9CC2FQ31975 for ; Fri, 12 Oct 2001 05:02:15 -0700 Received: from Desiree ([24.112.212.109]) by femail12.sdc1.sfba.home.com (InterMail vM.4.01.03.20 201-229-121-120-20010223) with SMTP id <20011012120211.THOA8878.femail12.sdc1.sfba.home.com@Desiree> for ; Fri, 12 Oct 2001 05:02:11 -0700 From: dmdc@home.com To: classics@u.washington.edu Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001 07:59:24 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/enriched; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Hymn. Ambr. Reply-to: dmdc@home.com In-reply-to: <002501c152a8$26091f80$464b5b93@sivonja> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.01d) Message-Id: <20011012120211.THOA8878.femail12.sdc1.sfba.home.com@Desiree> 7F00,0000,0000Times New Roman> Although with no great certainty, the Te Deum (or at least its final recension) has been ascribed to Nicetas of Remesiana. Since it is written in a sort of metrical prose, it is no 'ambrosianum'. > ArialAs a hymn it is not in style Ambrosian; but it is still refered to as an Times New RomanAmbrosian hymn, because it had been ascribed to Sts. Ambrose and Augustine. My point, which I failed to make clear, was not that it was Ambrosian in style nor that its author was Ambrose, but that people refer to it as "The Ambrosian Hymn". 7F00,0000,0000> The Rule of St Benedict prescribes chanting _an_ ambrosianum (not _the_ ambrosianum) on occasion: 9.4 inde sequatur ambrosianum, deinde sex psalmi cum antiphonas; 12.4 inde benedictiones et laudes, lectionem de apocalypse una ex corde, et responsorium, ambrosianum, versu, canticum de evangelia, litania, et completum est (see also 13.11, 17.8). Quite right; but on the OSB website their translation reads: 0100,0100,0100To it is added Psalm 3 and the "Glory be to the Father,"  and after that Psalm 94 to be chanted with an antiphon  or even chanted simply.  Let the Ambrosian hymn [Te Deum]{HYPERLINK "http://unidial.com/~martinus/thesaurus/Trinitas/TeDeum.html"} follow next,  and then six Psalms with antiphons.  When these are finished and the verse said,  let the Abbot give a blessing; (Chapter 9) This shows that the modern Benedictines refer to the Te Deum specifically, and also refer to it as "Ambrosian". It is not there in the original Latin text of the Rule where, as you point out, only "an Ambrosian hymn" is prescribed, but at some point it was inserted, rightly or wrongly. As for its being called "THE Ambrosian Hymn", the Catholic Encyclopaedia states: The hymn is also sometimes styled "Hymnus Ambrosianus", the "Ambrosian Hymn"; and in the Roman Breviary it is still entitled, at the end of Matins for Sunday, "Hymnus SS. Ambrosii et Augustini". It is interesting to note that the title has been changed to "Hymnus Ambrosianus" in the "Psalterium" of the new Roman Breviary of Pius X {HYPERLINK "http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12137a.htm"}. I have no expertise in the field, just a familiarity with the missal, breviary and psaltery. I know from experience that when one refers to The Ambrosian Hymn one means the Te Deum--unless of course it is in a specific contest, e.g. if my choir were practicing matins, and we were asked to turn to the Ambrosian hymn, it would be "Ante Rerum Conditor" to which we would refer. You obviously know more about the field than I, so I would be interested in knowing what you think about the theory that St. Cyprian of Carthage borrowed from the Te Deum in his "De Mortalitate", therefore placing the authorship of the hymn much earlier than St. Nicetas. Desideria Desjardins Ottawa 7F00,0000,0000Arial> > Vojin Nedeljkovic > > > > > VivaVoce - mp3 files of Latin poetry > http://dekart.f.bg.ac.yu/~vnedeljk/VV > Tolle, lege! - Easy Latin texts > http://dekart.f.bg.ac.yu/~vnedeljk/TL > > .