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This is the vulg. and most difficult, indeed hardly to be translated. But eight MSS, a c among them, read in line 3 uoti for uotis, and all becomes clear. We pay our thanks and prayers. . . that thou wouldest help us who are bound in our vow.' The phrase is taken from Verg. Aen. v 237, where Cloanthus addresses the sea-gods: taurum | constituam ante aras, uoti reus.

27 ne hostis inuidi dolo.

Here we have an unpleasant hiatus. Mone read nec for ne from a XV cent. MS at Freiburg, and it is also in our MSS a e, but not (as Dreves says, p. 141) in b.

VI Veni redemptor gentium [MSS abcdefghik + 39].

This well-known line is not the 1st but the 5th of the hymn. The 1st stanza runs thus: Intende qui regis Israhel, | super cherubin qui sedes, adpare Ephrem coram, excita | potentiam tuam et ueni. It is in all the Ambrosian MSS, in Trier 592-1578 ix, and in Munich clm 17027 x, xi; and it is taken almost as the words stand from psalm lxxix (lxxx) 1. The first words of the psalm in the old Gallican use and in others formed the antiphon for the 1st Sunday in Advent, for which excita quaesumus, Domine, potentiam tuam & ueni was (and in the Roman use still is) the collect, as it is for our 4th Sunday.

The stanza is an integral part of the hymn, Ambrose incorporating a passage of Scripture (as he also does in his hymn Amore Christi nobilis). In it he prays that Christ may come as the shepherd of Israel, in the 2nd stanza that He may come as redeemer of the Gentiles. The two ideas are often combined in the NT and even in the OT, cp. Ps. xcvii (xcviii) 2 f, Mt. x 5, xv 22, 24, Lk. i 32, Ac. xiii 46. Prud. Cath. xii 41f. hic ille rex est gentium | populique rex Iudaici is probably imitated from this passage. When elisions were disused the stanza would become hard to sing, and may have thus fallen out of use; or some copyist may have deliberately left it out, thinking Veni redemptor gentium to be a finer opening, as it no doubt is. Cp. Förster, Ambrosius p. 329.

29 praesepe iam fulget tuum

lumenque nox spirat nouum.

Our MS a, with three other good MSS, reads sperat, which Mone alone accepts. On such a point a is valueless, as like many other old MSS it writes e and i indiscriminately. Thus it has strinuus, mins, mystirium, and on the other hand crededit, tumescet.

VII Amore Christi nobilis [MSS bedeghik + 2].

7 turbante dum natat salo.

So all the MSS. Biraghi, however, followed by Dreves, conjectures nutat to match de uirginit. xx 131 hic ergo piscator dum ipse turbato

agitatur salo mobili mente statione nutantes fundauit in petra, Before changing we should make sure that the original reading there is nutantes. For natat is quite suitable here, being used both of physical and mental disturbance; cp. Ov. Met. v 72 oculis sub nocte natantibus atra | circumspexit; Hor. Sat. II vii 7 pars multa natat, modo recta capessens, | interdum prauis obnoxia.

14 mundi supernatans salum.

So the MSS, but the editors (except Daniel) read salo, and Ambr. uses it with the dat. elsewhere. But why not follow the MSS here? If superscandere takes an acc., why should not supernatare?

22 sed laude ipse resonet

is the reading of defgi, and must be corrupt. Biraghi corrects to sed ipse laude resonet, which is at least fairly metrical, with the exception of the long re- of resonet, though this may, I think, be justified by the fact that the original form of the prefix re was red, which explains such forms as red-do, red-eo, &c. But the sense is not easy to see. Two MSS bc [the hymn is not in a] for resonet have se sonet, but this again is hardly satisfactory.

VIII Inluminans altissimus [MSS abcdefgi + 19].

27 f quis haec1 uidens mirabitur

iuges meatus fontium?

Thus read about three-quarters of the MSS, and so most editors rightly, Mone, dismissing fontium as 'ohne Sinn', follows the other eight in reading faucium! So, too, Werner, who professes especially to follow his Rheinau MSS: the two that contain this hymn have faucium. That fontium is right is shewn by a parallel passage from Ambrose in Luc, vi 86: hoc quidem mirum, quidquid de fluminibus haurias, signo dispendii non notari, quidquid de fontibus haurias, usurario quodam reparari meatu. sed et fluminibus, si nihil decedere nihil tamen uideatur accedere, at uero hic panis, quem frangit Iesus, . . . dum diuiditur augetur.

IX Hic est dies uerus Dei [MSS a b c defk + 10].

7 quem non graui soluit metu

latronis absolutio?

So all the Ambrosian MSS, except a, which reads soluet, but is unreliable on such a point. However, Tomasi and Mone read soluet; -Tomasi because he found it in a, Mone because he thinks it should be in the same tense as mirabitur of viii 27. The present is as suitable as the future, and being much better supported should be read here:

VOL, IX.

1i. e. the miraculous feeding of the five thousand,
* See above on vi 29.

Ff

'Whom does not the pardoning of the robber free from grievous dread?' The variant soluat is not, as Mone suspects, a correction of Junius himself; it is found not only in Bodley Junius 25 ix init, but in Werner's two Rheinau MSS. Ambrose in another hymn uses the subjunctive in a similar question: hic quis requirat testium | uoces, ubi factum est fides?1

5 fidem refundens perditis | caecosque uisu inluminans.

This is the vulg., but Tomasi, Mone, and Werner are no doubt right in reading perfidis with a and three other MSS. perfidis is contrasted with fidem, as caecos with inluminans.

9 f qui praemium mutans cruce Iesum breui adquisit fide, iustosque praeuio gradu praeuenit in regnum Dei.3 opus stupent et angeli...

The variants here are many. In 10 a and two good MSS read 'adquisiuit, the Ambrosians, Junius 25 and Rheinau III quesiuit, the other 6 querit. Thus there is a decided balance in favour of the perfect. I read adquisît, because a copyist who found querit or quesiuit would be most unlikely to change it into the longer word, which would be awkward in singing when elision was no longer in use. Mone reads quaerit chiefly because mutans is present, as if the tense of the participle could affect the tense of the verb.

In 11 iustos praeuenit = 'preceded the righteous'. That the iusti of Lk xv 7 are meant is shewn by the mention of the angels in the next line, with a further reference probably to Mt. xxi 31. Mone explains 'iusti sind die Altväter in der Vorhölle, ehe Christus diese befreit hatte, war der Schächer schon im Paradiese'. This seems to me very far-fetched.

About half the MSS, a among them, have iustus. But a is most unreliable on this point also, writing e. g. in this hymn corpuris and hictu (= ictu).*

Two MSS have peruenit, which would naturally go with iustus taken as nom. sing.

a and Junius 25 have regno, which may be right.

1 Daniel xxxviii 13 f. He there reads dic quis. . ., the reading which he found

in Acta SS for June iii 842 from a Milan breviary of XVIth cent.

2

' a actually reads according to its wont perfides.

3

10 of the edd Tom. Wern. quaesiuit (which will not scan), Bir. Drev. quaesit Dan. acquirit (found in no old MS). The MSS which read adquisiuit are a, Rheinau 83, ', St Gallen 387 *. II Tom. Dan. Bir. Drev. iustus . . . peruenit.

Other exx. in a of confusion between o and u are infurmet (= informet), actos (= actus), subria (= sobria), apostule, manos. Cf. note on vi 29.

27 f moriatur uita omnium,

resurgat uita omnium.

So edd. (and MSS) except Mone, who rewrites 27 iam mortua est uita omnium, and Mone and Dan., who with a read resurgat ut uita omnium. If Ambrose is strict in metre1 he cannot have left 27 as it stands, with a spondee in the 2nd foot and a hiatus after a short unaccented syllable. Biraghi thinks that the semi-vowel u of uita would not lengthen the preceding -tur and -gat. But this is not the case: u before a vowel is a consonant, is often transliterated in Greek by B, and constantly in MSS confused with b. I believe that ut has fallen out in both verses, and would read moriatur ut uita omnium, resurgat ut uita omnium. The two verses are parallel, and if ut is inserted in the one, it must be inserted in the other.

X Aeterna Christi munera [MSS bcdefgi + 34].

This hymn, as Ambrose wrote it, was in honour of martyrs. Its subsequent adaptation to Apostles and the consequent breaking up into two hymns have introduced some perplexity into its text. says hymnum... ab ecclesia misere dilaceratum uidemus.

12 uitam beatam possident.

Daniel truly

So the vulg., but Tom., Biraghi, and Dreves rightly read lucem b. p. with bcgi, cap. Veron. XC ix Cas. 420 xi. uitam would come in from uitam beatam carpere line 16 of Hic est dies uerus Dei.

XI Agnes beatae uirginis [MSS bcdfgi + 3].

8 cedebat et fessus senex.

So all editors. But the codd. have effessus df' hi, or efessus f', Cap. Veron. XC or effessi Vat. 7172 xi, effessus is a rightly formed word meaning 'worn out' and should be read. Similar adjectives are edurus, efferus.

13 f prodire quis nuptam putet,

sic laeta uultu ducitur,

nouas uero ferens opes

dotata censu sanguinis.

So runs the stanza in Tomasi. nuptam 'a bride' makes good enough sense, but later editors rightly prefer nuptum (supine) of all the older MSS='going forth to her bridal'.

Mone remedied by reading uero nouas.

15 is unmetrical, which fault

But the true reading nouas

uiro (for her husband') is found in Veron. cap. XC is and Cas. 506 Qx.

1 Cf. notes on i 25, iv I.

25 f percussa quam pompam tulit!

nam ueste se totam tegit,
curam pudoris praestitit,

ne quis retectam cerneret.

In 25 Daniel reads percussam, without authority and against the metre. Mone conjectures qua for quam 'as the sense demands', which I do not understand.

In 26 the true reading tegens is preserved in bd. The present tegit between the two perfects would be very awkward.

A. S. WALPOLE.

THE CATACOMB OF PRISCILLA AND THE
PRIMITIVE MEMORIALS OF ST PETER.

Atti della R. Accademia dei Lincei, Serie V: Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità, 1906.

THIS Volume contains a brief summary (p. 304 ff) of the discoveries made during the year 1906 in the Catacombs. The chief interest of these lies in the fact that they contributed something to the solution of what is perhaps the most important question debated in recent years in this field of study. A tradition of great antiquity placed the scene of St Peter's administration of the rite of baptism in the region to the east and north-east of Rome bounded by the Via Nomentana and Via Salaria. The Basilica and Catacomb of St Agnes adjoin the first-named of these roads, while the Catacomb of Priscilla borders on the latter. In the later recension of the list of Christian cemeteries1 the coemeterium fontis (or ad nymphas) S. Petri takes its place between the coemeterium S. Agnetis and the coemeterium Priscillae; but this of course leaves its precise situation an open question. The Gesta Liberii, a document which Duchesne 2 considers to have been written not later than the beginning of the sixth century, carry us a step further. We are told by the author that Liberius, when ordered by Constantius to leave Rome, took up his residence ab urbe Roma milliario tertio quasi exul in cymiterio Novellae Via Salaria. All that we know concerning the Cemetery of Novella is contained in a passage of the Life of St Marcellus

1 De Rossi Roma Sotterranea i p. 159, from the Mirabilia Urbis Romae. 2 Liber Pontificalis i p. cxxii.

* Coustant Epp. Rom. pont. p. 90; Migne Patrol. Lat. viii 1391.

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