Saturday, May 18, 2019

"Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night": Augustine or Pseudo-Augustine?

Koninlijk Bibliotheek,
76 F5 fol. 12v sc. 2B:
The temptation of Christ:
four angels minister to Christ
Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give thine angels charge over those who sleep.  Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for thy love’s sake.  Amen.

Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep.  Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love’s sake.  Amen.

     Book of common prayer (New York:  Church Publishing Inc., 1979), 71, 124, 134.  According to Hatchett, "Saint Augustine of Hippo is the source for [this,] which is also the first of the intercessions of Compline (p. 134)" (Commentary on the American prayer book (The Seabury Press, 1980), 143).  And that is who Fox attributes it to on p. 161 of her Chain of prayer across the ages (Toronto:  Bell and Cockburn, 1913- ), behind which I have yet to find it, though the phrase "wake, or watch, or weep" does occur here in 1906.  Fox:
Watch, Thou, dear Lord, with those who wake, or watch, or weep to-night, and give Thine angels charge over those who sleep.  Tend Thy sick ones, O Lord Christ.  Rest Thy weary ones.  Bless Thy dying ones.  Soothe Thy suffering ones.  Pity Thine afflicted ones.  Shield Thy joyous ones.  And all, for Thy Love’s sake.  Amen.
But:  I have yet to find it in St. Augustine, having searched both the 3rd (and therefore admittedly incomplete) edition of the Works of Saint Augustine (WSA) in Past Masters on those terms least likely to vary in translation (weep, angelssleep, sick, dying, suffering, afflicted, etc., and variants), and CAG (which should be complete), also in Past Masters, on angel* within 20 words of (dormi* (dormiunt, dormien*, etc.) OR quiesc*), and variants on that (Ps 90:11-12 Vulgate (though St. Augustine may have used the Old Latin), by the way:  "angelis suis mandabit de te ut custodiant te in omnibus viis tuis in manibus portabunt te ne forte offendat ad lapidem pes tuus"; so angelis tuis, angelos tuos, etc.).

     If memory serves, this is the first time I've ever encountered something iffy in Hatchett.

     In 1919 it appeared as an element in a Church of England (?) litany as follows:
     Watch, dear Lord, with those who watch, or wake, or weep this night, and give thine angels charge over those who sleep.  Tend the sick, rest the weary, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, bless the dying\
(The order of divine service for public worship: the administration of the sacraments and other rites and ceremonies and a selection from the daily offices compiled from ancient and modern devotions ; together with an abridged and revised Psalter and canticles pointed for chanting, ed. W. E. Orchard (London:  Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press, 1919), 54, whose "Sources and Acknowledgements" cites Fox (above), among others).