Saturday, April 19, 2025

Crux fidelis

Sankt-Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, 391 (late 10th cent.), p. 62

". . . when Adam first offended, | Eating that forbidden fruit, | Not all hopes of glory ended | With the serpent at the root: | Broken nature would be mended | By a second tree and shoot."

     "Crux fidelis," current Roman missal, Friday of the Passion, as very loosely paraphrased by Michael Hodgetts and then appropriated by the ICEL (according to a number of pages on the Internet, most of whose commentators seem to be pretty unhappy with this "translation").  But "Crux fidelis" as reproduced in the Missale
  • [Stanza 8:]  Crux fidelis, inter omnes arbor una nobilis, Nulla talem silva profert, flore, fronde, germine! Dulce lignum dulci clavo dulce pondus sustinens!
  • [Stanza 1:]  Pange, lingua, gloriosi proelium certaminis, Et super crucis tropaeo dic triumphum nobilem, Qualiter Redemptor orbis immolatus vicerit.
  • [Stanza 2:]  De parentis protoplasti fraude factor condolens, Quando pomi noxialis morte morsu corruit, Ipse lignum tunc notavit, damna ligni ut solveret.
  • [Stanza 3:]  Hoc opus nostrae salutis ordo depoposcerat, Multiformis perditoris arte ut artem falleret, Et medelam ferret inde, hostis unde laeserat.
  • [Stanza 4:]  Quando venit ergo sacri plenitudo temporis, Missus est ab arce Patris Natus, orbis conditor, Atque ventre virginali carne factus prodiit.
  • [Stanza 5:]  Vagit infans inter arta conditus praesepia, Membra pannis involuta Virgo Mater alligat, Et manus pedesque et crura stricta cingit fascia.
  • [Stanza 6:]  Lustra sex qui iam peracta tempus implens corporis, se volente, natus ad hoc, passioni deditus, agnus in crucis levatur immolandus stipite.
  • [Stanza 7:]  En acetum, fel, arundo, sputa, clavi, lancea; Mite corpus perforatur, sanguis, unda profluit; Terra, pontus, astra, mundus quo lavantur flumine!
  • [Stanza 9:]  Flecte ramos, arbor alta, tensa laxa viscera, Et rigor lentescat ille, quem dedit nativitas, Ut superni membra Regis miti tendas stipite.
  • [Stanza 10:]  Sola digna tu fuisti ferre saecli pretium Atque portum praeparare nauta mundo naufrago, Quem sacer cruor perunxit fusus Agni corpore.
is basically Fortunatus' 6th-century "Pange, lingua, gloriosi proelium certaminis" only very slightly rearranged.  Though the last stanza in the Missale,
  • Aequa Patri Filioque, inclito Paraclito, Sempiterna sit beatae Trinitati gloria; cuius alma nos redemit atque servat gratia. Amen,
corresponds only very, very roughly to the various versions of Stanza 14 given at Analecta hymnica 50 (1907):  71-63 (no. 66)The edition ed. F. Leo at MGH Auct. Ant. 4.1 (1881), pp. 27-28 (no. II.3) offers only the first ten above.  I have not compared the rest of the Latin of the current Missale Romanum, taken from here, with that in the two critical editions just named.

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